Free Republic

Friday is poll day in Israel, and the polls show that Israelis are siding with their Prime Minister, and spitting in the face of President Obama. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party reached the top spot in a Panels Research poll taken for The Jerusalem Post and its Hebrew sister newspaper, Ma’ariv Sof Hashavua, on Thursday for the first time since Labor and Hatnua joined forces on December 10 to create the Zionist Union. The poll found that the Likud would win 25 seats, the Zionist Union 24, Bayit Yehudi 14, the Joint Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 11,...

Fox News Channel is showing the huge rally in France. World leaders were shown boarding a bus to attend the rally. Apparently at least some of them will be giving speeches (hopefully, at least one of them will use the term RADICAL).

Over the past three weeks, we've heard several excuses for the denial of visas to the United States for Israelis. We've been told that visas were denied in order to remove Israel from the 'white list' of countries whose citizens qualify for longer-term visas. We've been told that the United States has been systematically denying visas to Shin Bet (General Security Service) and Mossad agents, to representatives of the IDF and to executives of companies in Israel's defense industry, and it was implied that was out of a fear of competition in the defense industry. And we've been told that...

Norwegian Cruise Line announced it was canceling all future calls to Tunisia on Tuesday, two days after the North African country refused entry to Israeli nationals who were passengers on the Norwegian Jade. “We want to send a strong message to Tunisia and ports around the world that we will not tolerate such random acts of discrimination against our guests,” Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Kevin Sheehan said in a strongly worded statement. “We are outraged by this act and the fact that we were not notified in advance of this practice. We apologize sincerely to our guests who were affected...

Hen Mazzig had been a member of Israel’s most left-wing party. But that didn’t prepare him for the sheer level of Israelaphobic craziness that he would encounter on campuses in the Pacific Northwest. This year, from January through May, I went to college campuses, high schools, and churches to tell people about the history of modern Israel, about my experience growing up in the Jewish state, and about my family. I also always spoke about my military service as an officer in an IDF COGAT unit that attends to the needs of Palestinian civilians who are not involved in the...

There were chaotic scenes in Haifa, where an estimated four thousand people lined up from 6am outside the city's sports arena which had been designated as a main regional distribution centre after riots had broken out at small collecting points the day before.

Thousands of Israelis are lining up for gas masks or ordering them by phone, spurred on by fears that any Western military response to last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria could ensnare their own country in war.

Saudi Arabian Airlines reportedly is discriminating against Israeli citizens by refusing to let them fly from U.S. airports. The New York Post reported that for customers booking on online, the airline’s website has no drop-down menu options for anyone holding an Israeli passport, even though, as the Post pointed out, there is a drop-down menu option for Antarctica citizens. The airline appears to prevent passengers simply looking to transfer in Saudi Arabia to another country, as well. “No city in the world has closer ties to Israel than we do, and yet Israeli citizens are being discriminated against right here...

Coiffed, groomed and impeccably suited, Mithal al-Alusi cuts an imposing figure at this trendy hotel. In the empty bar lounge, he makes himself at home to a breakfast of fresh fruit, strong coffee and a constant flow of cigarettes. The leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation is in town to promote his vision for a new Iraq and accept an accolade from an unlikely sponsor – the American Jewish Committee – who honored him with a Moral Courage award at their annual dinner last week. His act of courage was an attempt to break Iraq's long-standing taboo...

SNIPPET: "BERLIN – Bulgarian police officers last summer arrested a Canadian citizen linked to the Iranian government who engaged in surveillance of the local Chabad center in the capital of Sofia, a well-placed and reliable local source told The Jerusalem Post last week, on condition of anonymity due to security reasons. An Iranian-sponsored female agent in her 50s, holding a Canadian passport, traveled from Istanbul to Sofia several weeks after the bombing of the Israeli tour bus in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas in July 2012. She was arrested on her first day in Sofia after the Bulgarian...

On Thursday, President Barack Obama spoke in Jerusalem – a city he once promised would remain undivided – about all of the shortcomings of the state of Israel. Lecturing Israel about its democracy, economy, foreign policy, and basic humanity, Obama harangued the Jewish State while stumping for a “possible” two-state solution. Obama led off with the usual bevy of platitudes, plus a few cultural jokes. “This is a nation of museums and patents, timeless holy sites and ground-breaking innovation,” he gushed. “[A]ny drama between me and my friend Bibi over the years was just a plot to create material for...

Reports that the Venezuelan intelligence agency is targeting and spying on the Venezuelan Jewish community as well as on Venezuelan companies and organizations with ties to Israel is deeply troubling, asserted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). “We are deeply troubled by a recent news report alleging that the Venezuelan Intelligence Service (SEBIN) is spying on the Venezuelan Jewish community,” said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman. “Venezuela under the regime of Hugo Chavez has a history of harassing the Jewish community in that country,” he said. “It is chilling to read reports that the SEBIN received instructions to carry out clandestine...

German neo-Nazis helped Palestinian terrorists kill 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, newly released intelligence files reveal. Abu Daoud, who is believed to the mastermind of the atrocity, met fascist Willi Pohl in Dortmund, according to a city police dossier kept secret for 40 years. But despite the file being passed on to the German federal intelligence agency, Verfassungsschutz, there is no evidence that they acted upon the 2,000-page report. And this lack of action allowed Daoud, who is named in the police report as his alias Saad Walli, to travel the country to meet fellow terrorists...

The non-governmental group B’Tselem released footage Sunday of a seemingly deadly stand-off that occurred Saturday between Israeli settlers and Palestinian men near the settlement of Yitzhar and the town of Asira al-Qibliya. In the video, a group of presumed Palestinians is throwing rocks at what appear to be the settlers, who are armed with rifles. Less than a minute into the video, a man named as 24-year-old Fathi Asayira is seemingly shot in retaliation by a settler armed with a rifle. As the man who was allegedly shot is carried away by his companions, the settlers and what appears to...

WASHINGTON — Passover and Easter — intrinsically linked in the Jewish and Christian traditions — are being celebrated this weekend. For observant Jews, Passover commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from slavery under Egypt's Pharaoh. For faithful Christians, Easter is a celebration of Jesus' resurrection from the grave and the fulfillment of a new covenant between God and man. Biblical passages in Exodus 12, Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20 describe these historical events and the reasons for festivities among people of faith. But this year, these holidays are a time of extraordinary anxiety for Christians and Jews...

CBS News) Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said President Obama's comments about having more "flexibility" should be a sign of concern for allies, including Israel. "People have to worry about when a president who has already proven he is a radical says to a Russian president, 'Give me some space so I can get re-elected because then I'll have real flexibility' - you have to wonder," Gingrich said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." Gingrich told host Bob Schieffer that "you also have to ask yourself how many foreign leaders has he said that to without an open mic. How...

I’m quite sure Brzezinski and Obama’s views on Israel are in complete alignment. (Salon) — Zbigniew Brzezinski’s new book, “Strategic Vision,” imagines a world without American power. He envisions profound instability, faltering international cooperation and weak states falling prey to their more dominant neighbors. Describing the dystopia that would emerge if America goes under is a trick British historian Niall Ferguson pioneered. Unlike the jingoistic Ferguson, however, Brzezinski is able to envision China replacing America as the stabilizing force in world affairs. “I don’t think liberal states are more restrained or stabilizing,” he says. “The United States’ actions in the...

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has offered the Palestinians a powerful tool of propaganda: the comparison with Jesus’ passion. “We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort”, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said during his Christmas Mass sermon at Westminster Cathedral. “A shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight … We pray for them tonight”. It would have been more in keeping with Nicholas’ mission to mention hundreds of Christians losing their lives to Islamic terrorism and oppressed by Palestinian Muslim...

Sunday In Israeli Knesset's legislative committee they postponed a vote on the outposts. This Sunday is when you can make a difference. Read on. The battle for the rights of the 7000 young Israelis living in so-called outposts (young communities in Judea and Samaria which lack formal government approval for political reasons) is fierce in Israel. European funded leftwing pro-Palestinian groups are doing their best to have these communities both delegitimized and decimated. The Israeli public generally sympathizes with the communities, among other reasons due to the fact that deceased Israeli war heroes, known to every Israeli family, lived in...

Chawn Kweli, spokesman for the New Black Panther Party, appeared on Larry O'Connor's show on Breitbart.tv and revealed the organization's position on the state of Israel.