Free Republic

When we talk about the Iranian-backed ring of fire that surrounds Israel on all sides, we focus oftentimes on Gaza and Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Lebanon is frequently discussed, which is Hezbollah’s main power base that is exchanging daily fire, even deadly fire, with Israel. We also have the Houthis in Yemen, harassing shipping in the Red Sea, and very active Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq causing havoc, in particular, against US targets. But many times, it seems that Syria is left out of the equation in the larger conversation. Well, folks, let me tell you, Syria remains a...

He doesn’t do, he dithersWhat do you think of the apothegm “Better late than never?” I think it is often dubious. For confirmation, I adduce the airstrike the Biden administration just conducted against eighty-five targets in Iraq and Syria. The attacks, against infrastructure associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, are billed as the opening salvo in response to last week’s drone attack by Iranian assets in Jordan that left three Americans dead and more than forty injured. Taking a page from an earlier, square-jawed time, officials from the administration tersely commented that America’s “multi-tiered” response would continue at a “time and...

Russia condemns US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and the situation needs to be considered by the UN Security Council, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.

... The US military said the air strikes hit more than 85 targets inside Iraq and Syria targeting both the elite Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and affiliated militia groups. The US strikes in the west of Iraq killed at least 16 people, including civilians, Iraqi government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi said on Saturday. "The security of Iraq and the region will find itself on the brink of an abyss" because of the strikes, Awadi said in a statement, and denied "false allegations" that there had been "prior coordination" with Washington over the strikes. The US strikes overnight in eastern...

Greg Price of the Media Research Center highlights a GMA video of Biden speaking to the parents of a soldier who was killed in Syria.Biden repeats the lie that his son was killed in Iraq. https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1753077595380597246?s=20

Over 40 people were killed and dozens injured in airstrikes overnight near Aleppo, in northwestern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the alleged Israeli attack hit at least one weapons warehouse belonging to Hezbollah near the Aleppo International Airport in the early hours of Friday morning. The UK-based monitor further said strikes also targeted Syrian air defense installations in nearby Al-Saferah and that explosions were heard in the Kafr Joum area, in western Aleppo. Footage from the moment of the attack shows huge explosions and mushrooms of dust rising from the area. Two unnamed security sources...

The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning in eastern Syria, targeting Iranian assets and operatives involved in a recent plot to smuggle advanced arms to West Bank terrorists, The Times of Israel has learned. More than 15 people were reportedly killed in the strikes in the Deir Ezzor and al-Bukamal areas, close to Syria’s border with Iraq. The strikes targeted assets belonging to Iran’s Unit 4000, the Special Operations Division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Intelligence Organization, and the special operations unit of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria, known as Unit...

Tareq Al-Suwaidan: "There are no civilians in Israel. Neither men nor women – there are no civilians. According to the Israeli military system, they are all soldiers, who take an 11-month break every year, in order to work. They return [to the army] when they are summoned. We are talking about soldiers here, not about innocent people. "Should women be taken captive? Yes, of course. If God forbid, Oman is attacked by women, would you not take women captive? What kind of mentality is this? "We draw a distinction between innocent people and criminals, and between combatants and civilians. The...

Joe Biden turning against Israel puts Scott “in mind of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac.” That was the time when Hitler’s National Socialist regime was allied with Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They signed their Pact on August 23, 1939, and Stalin began handing Jews directly to the Gestapo. In September, 1939, both powers invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II.In November, 1939, Stalin invaded Finland and in April of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The genocidal maniac then turned his...

Now it's time for our new feature, Loathe Island. It's a bit like Love Island except it's for people we hate and basically what you're going to do is banish them to an island where they all have to slither around together until they all die.

Antisemitism in European cities is reaching 1930s levels and London is the worst of them all, an Israeli government minister says, warning of mass migration, radicalisation, and the hard left coming together and “serious consequences” for inaction. The growth of antisemitism in Britain is “terrifying”, says Israeli government figure Amichai Chikli, who warns freedom of speech is being extinguished in the old “beacon of light and democracy”. “Wokeism”-infected London is now the “most antisemitic place in the West”, the Diaspora and Antisemitism Minister said, counselling the United Kingdom and other Western nations to take another look at their open borders...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the Turkish President, and the rude-and-crude master of all he surveys from the 1,100 room “White Palace” that he had the government build for him in Istanbul, at a cost to the Turkish taxpayers of $615 million. But when a man like Erdogan comes along only once a millennium, why should the national exchequer skimp? In Istanbul, having announced to the world that he will not be running for office again (the hundreds of journalists he has imprisoned in Turkish jails must now be breathing proleptic sighs of relief), just to make sure we do not...

Shortly before South Africa accused Israel in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in its post-Oct. 7 counteroffensive against Hamas, the South African ruling party, the African National Congress, suddenly resolved its longstanding and crippling debt issues. The court action in December – committing tens of millions of dollars to accuse a nation thousands of miles from South Africa’s borders – appeared less an act of probity than one of cynical collaboration with one of Israel’s fiercest enemies: Iran. Israel has forcefully denied the South African allegations, asserting that it is acting to defend itself and is “fighting...

A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal. Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post. In a subsequent sworn interview, Ebbadi said he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served...

WASHINGTON — The White House is considering options for how to respond if Israel defies President Joe Biden’s repeated warnings against launching a military invasion of Rafah without a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians, according to one former and three current U.S. officials. The discussions are taking place amid growing concern in the administration and frustration among congressional Democrats that the president’s pleas will simply be ignored. Israel this week inched closer to initiating an incursion into the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip. The Biden administration set a March 24 deadline for Israel to provide written assurance, followed...

The parallels between the rise of Nazism and the current global unrest and demonization of the Jewish people is largely incontestable. On the off chance you hadn’t noticed, the world appears to be at an especially precarious moment presently. Obviously, war continues to rage in Ukraine and Gaza, with no end in sight to either conflict. Great Britain and Japan are currently in recession. Canada’s economy is an absolute disaster, with almost no hope of near-term recovery. Much of continental Europe and China are struggling economically, if not officially contracting. Some experts believe that the global economy more generally is...

I have long been wondering about Qatar's willingness to host Hamas' leadership post-10/7. As non-Western as Qatar is, the Emirate has been working assiduously to court Western approval and is hardly a radical Islamist state. This is not to suggest the regime is liberal or Liberal, but rather that they aren't exactly Iranian-style fanatics. The state is pretty much what you would expect in a country that is in a dangerous region filled with radicals but with an elite who are Western-educated and resolutely capitalist. I had long suspected that Western governments had given implicit approval for Qatar's hosting of...

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a speech on "a pathway to peace and achieving a two-state solution" today (Thursday). In his remarks Schumer called for the holding of new elections in Israel, saying that "Netanyahu has lost his way". He further called the Israeli Prime Minister an "obstacle to peace." According to Schumer, Netanyahu is one of four obstacles to peace, among others being Hamas, "radical Israelis", and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Schumer's criticism of Netanyahu centered on the prime minister's "outright" rejection of the idea of creation of a Palestinian state in the aftermath of October...

But even the Israelis have yet to absorb the full scope and magnitude of Biden’s accommodation of Iran. The problem is not that Sullivan and Blinken are failing to restrain Malley, but that they are marching in lockstep with him. A consensus reigns inside the administration, not just on the JCPOA but on every big question of Middle East strategy: Everyone from the president on down agrees about the need to complete what Obama started—which means that the worst is yet to come. If the control that Obama’s project exercises over every mind in the Biden administration is not already...

Forty-four percent of Israelis would rather see former US president Donald Trump return to the White House in 2025, compared to 30% who would prefer US President Joe Biden be elected for a second term, according to a poll published by Channel 12 on Tuesday evening. An additional 26% said they didn’t know which of the two men they would rather see elected. Among respondents who voted for parties in the current government coalition, 72% said they preferred Trump while 8% said they preferred Biden. When asked the same question, 55% of respondents who voted for parties sitting in the...