Free Republic

On Sunday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) took to X to announce that a senior Hezbollah commander, one Ali Mussa Daqduq, has had his birth certificate permanently revoked. The planet is now a safer, cleaner place without this guy walking around. The post reads: ELIMINATED: Ali Musa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah commander who held a series of 5 senior positions within Hezbollah. Daqduq played a central role in advancing terrorist attacks and combat operations against Israel and IDF soldiers. In 2007, he orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of 5 American soldiers.

A glance at her bio shows that Dem Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania is the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. CNN: "You are the daughter of Holocaust survivors... do you support him as a candidate?" HOULAHAN: " I don’t make that choice for the people of Maine; I am hopeful that his candidacy is successful"

Israel conducted airstrikes Tuesday across southern Lebanon, despite a warning from Iran that further attacks could lead to a devastating reciprocal response. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the city of Tyre, on Lebanon’s southwestern coast, before launching a wave of airstrikes in the surrounding area. Tyre is one of southern Lebanon’s largest cities, with nearly 175,000 people in the city and its metropolitan area. Notably, Israel’s latest evacuation order for the city included Tyre’s Christian sector, which had previously been excluded from airstrikes. Israel asserts that Iran-backed Hezbollah militants are hiding within the city but has not provided...

The Israeli Air Force has begun striking targets throughout Iran, according to Channel 14.

Since 2013, Rubenstein, 72, who co-founded the private equity giant the Carlyle Group, has given millions to entities that repair and upgrade historical monuments and landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument as well as Monticello and Montpelier, the homes of US presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But some say the restoration at the presidential homes has recast the presidents as sinister racists while downplaying their accomplishments... But a quick dive into Rubenstein’s backstory shows he’s not so pure himself. He made his initial fortune in the 1980s by exploiting a tax loophole in Alaska allowing him...

A pro-Palestinian Texas businessman has been bankrolling an anti-Israel super PAC that’s now backing a a trio of insurgent far-left New York congressional candidates, records show. Hussein “Sam” Mahrouq — the owner of Enterprises International, which runs AutoMax and Dollar Rent-A-Car — donated $400,000 to the American Priorities PAC, which was formed earlier this year as a counter to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The organization said Tuesday it would drop $2 million on TV, streaming and digital ads to boost House candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez and Brad Lander, who have all been endorsed by Mayor Zohran...

The world's diplomatic attention is fixed on Pakistan, on ceasefire memoranda, on whether Mojtaba Khamenei will emerge from hiding long enough to initial a document. In that distraction, Israel has done something strategically significant in Lebanon that has received almost no serious analysis (but was highlighted on Arutz Sheva). It has crossed the Litani River. Israeli forces have advanced beyond the Litani, a line that for decades functioned as an unofficial boundary in southern Lebanon. Troops are now pushing northward toward the Zahrani River, roughly ten kilometers away. The IDF has declared the entire area between the two rivers an...

A senior Hamas official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hamas had sent messages to the mediating countries complaining about Israel’s alleged violations of the ceasefire agreement, while reaffirming its commitment to negotiations and efforts to reach a breakthrough in talks on Gaza. The official claimed that the assassination of Hamas military wing commander Izz ad-Din Haddad disrupted the negotiations, and called on the mediators to pressure Israel to halt what Hamas described as daily ceasefire violations. Hamas expressed hope that consultations with the mediators would help formulate a path forward in the talks, which have been postponed until after Eid al-Adha....

The Vatican newspaper has denounced what it called a decision by the IDF to deny emergency help to disaster victims in Sri Lanka. Calling for "a radical and dramatic change of perspective" among people "too often preoccupied with making war," L'Osservatore Romano singled out Israeli military leaders for declining a request for emergency medical help. Contrary to the Vatican report, an Israeli plane carrying 80 tons of food and medical supplies worth $100,000 was set to depart for Sri Lanka Wednesday morning. At the request of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, a team of some 150 Israeli medical and security...

Iran's Supreme Leader has issued a directive that the country's near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening Tehran's stance on one of the main U.S. demands at peace talks.Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's order could further frustrate U.S. President Donald Trump and complicate talks on ending the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli officials have told Reuters that Trump has assured Israel that Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium, needed to make an atomic weapon, will be sent out of Iran and that any peace deal must include a clause on this. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

LMFAO!! Trump just went off on a reporter! "You're a STUPID person, and you happen to be!" REPORTER: "You promised to bring inflation down. It's now at its highest level in three years. Are your policies not working? What's happening?" TRUMP: "If you go back to just before the war, for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%. Now, we had a choice. Let these LUNATICS have a nuclear weapon. If you want to do that, then you're a STUPID person, and you happen to be!"

Israel on Monday said it had uncovered an ‌Iranian network that had planned to attack a pipeline carrying crude oil from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean as well as Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan. In a joint statement, the Mossad and ‌Shin Bet intelligence agencies said a plan by ​Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to attack the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline through Georgia to Turkey several weeks ⁠ago had been thwarted. The cell had also planned attacks ​on Jewish and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan including the Israeli ⁠embassy and a synagogue in Baku, as well as leaders of the Jewish community in...

Mossad head David Barnea addressed the campaign against Iran, intelligence operations in the heart of Tehran, and the continuation of activities in Iran. Barnea delivered his remarks at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, warning that threats to the existence of the Jewish people are not a thing of the past. He opened with a stark warning against international complacency: “The naïve are mistaken in thinking the Holocaust is a thing of the past-that in today’s reality genocide cannot occur, that calls for destruction cannot exist, and that hatred threatening a people’s existence cannot arise. The Iranian threat has steadily intensified...

Roaring Lion Shows Israel’s Moral Compass in War. Gaza and Iran Alike—Israel’s War Is With Terror, Not Civilians. Israel’s Precision Strikes Prove It Never Targets Civilians. Israel’s conduct during Operation Roaring Lion underscores a consistent principle: it does not target civilians as a matter of policy. Even in Iran—where Israel has no obligation to minimize harm toward a hostile regime—civilian casualties were unintended and limited. This is significant because it demonstrates that Israel’s military doctrine prioritizes precision and restraint even when facing adversaries. If Israel were indifferent to civilian life, operations in Iran would likely look very different. Instead, the...

Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture. “The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.” One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission,...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appeared to confirm Thursday that the Trump administration is contemplating asking Congress to approve $200 billion in supplemental defense funding amid the war in Iran.On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had asked the White House to make the $200 billion request to lawmakers in order to replenish America’s munitions stockpile, though it was not clear when or whether the Trump administration would decide to do so. “As far as the $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously,” Hegseth told reporters. “It takes money to kill bad guys. So we’re going...

“I personally think we should have crushed their ballistic & nuke capes (capabilities) , but Trump has a plan, he has definitely earned the confidence of any clear eyed observer,” Joe Kent wrote in 2020.“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as director of the National Counterrorism Center,” Joe Kent, a former registered Democrat who had once voted for Bernie Sanders, announced on Tuesday. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” which “posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from...

President Donald Trump’s opposition in the media and political class are celebrating Joe Kent’s resignation as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the war in Iran.Kent announced his resignation in a post on X on Tuesday morning, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran” and claiming that pressure from Israel started the war.Never Trumper Tim Miller, who was Jeb Bush’s communications director in 2016 and hosts the Bulwark Podcast, praised Kent for resigning in the middle of the war.“Have talked a lot of shit about Joe Kent over the years (deserved) and can’t...

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that “it’s a good thing” that Joe Kent has resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center and that Kent was “very weak on security.”Trump’s comments came during a bilateral meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Oval Office when a reporter asked him for his reaction to Kent’s resignation. Kent notably said that “Iran posed no imminent threat” in his letter to the president.“I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn’t know him well,”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent said in a statement posted on social media, making claims President Donald Trump has denied. Kent, a former political candidate with connections to right-wing extremists, was confirmed to his post last July...