Free Republic

The Israel Defense Forces are so much more than the picture of raw power perceived in news stories and war-centered history books. The IDF functions on a daily basis employing stealth and deception in the battle against Israel's unremitting enemies. Pre-1967, the state and military were perceived as underdogs fighting the good fight against all odds. The devastating effectiveness and efficiency with which the IDF knocked out and embarrassed Arab armies changed the perception of the IDF and the Jewish people into a conquering military machine. The success was so decisive that it altered the mindset of the Jewish people...

Russian officials said Syria's outdated S-200 systems weren't sophisticated enough to identify the Russian plane as a friendly one. Monday's statement from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia will send the newer S-300 missile defense systems to Syria within the next two weeks. Earlier in the war, Russia suspended a supply of S-300, which Israel feared Syria could use against it. Shoigu said Russia is now going to go ahead with the shipment because "the situation has changed, and it's not our fault." The supply of S-300s to Syria will "calm down some hotheads" whose actions "pose a threat...

"We have made it very clear, we are not going to pay for reconstruction of Syria as long as there is Iranian influence there," Haley said. "We're not going to pay as long as ISIS has not been defeated, which we're almost there. We're not going to pay for reconstruction to help Russia out when this is their problem." Haley added how Russia took responsibility for what is happening in Syria and are now have their hands out asking for money. "What we're saying is there are a lot of things that have to happen before reconstruction is even talked...

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi authorities have deprived Turkish soldiers, deployed in northern Iraq to combat Kurdish militias, from visas to return to their bases as means to cut down the number of troops which Baghdad had repeatedly demanded to pull out. Watheq al-Hashemi, director of al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, an Iraqi government-affiliated think tank, told Almaalomah website that the Iraqi government has unilaterally decided not to grant Turkish soldiers on leave at their homeland visas to return to the Turkish military base in Bashiqa region, north of Iraq. According to Hashemi, the measure, adopted over the past months, has helped...

With rising unilateralism challenging its very existence, the United Nations convenes its annual meeting of world leaders Monday and will try once more to tackle problems together as a community of nations, addressing threats ranging from Mideast conflicts to the effects of global warming — and also encouraging the glimmer of hope over the nuclear standoff in North Korea. This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session, a significant increase from last year’s 114. Secretary-General António Guterres called the expected large turnout “eloquent proof of the confidence of the international community in the United...

U.S. President Donald Trump will fail in his confrontation with Iran, just like Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on Saturday, referring to the war between the two Middle Eastern powers and vowing that Tehran will not abandon its missiles. Tensions have ramped up between Iran and the United States after Trump withdrew from a landmark multilateral nuclear deal in May and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic last month.

History is recorded daily, whether we like it or not. History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. Iran is deteriorating faster than we thought, almost to the point of no return. The Iranian people are aware that after 40 years of complete devastation by the rulers of the Islamic regime, they no longer want the Islamic Republic. In an interview with the Associated Press, Reza Pahlavi remarked, "We all know that regime change is the ultimate formula." Mr. Pahlavi is a harsh critic of the clerical rulers who have dominated Iran...

An Israeli veteran of the 1948 War for Independence dissects the revisionist myth of Palestinian innocence To back up its demands for full repatriation to Israel of Arab refugees and their descendants, the Palestinian leadership has—for over fifty years—busily spun the story of their "Naqba," their catastrophic flight from Palestine during 1947-48, in all the media available to them. This version of events—replete with Jewish brutality and Arab victimization—is a lie whose time has come, one now almost universally believed by Gentile and Jew alike. It has become the latest Blood Libel against the People of the Book; and like...

The trilateral summit in Tehran between the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia was one of the most unusual parades of international diplomacy yet. It was televised live. Let’s remember the scenes: All who watched it saw how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blundered and how Russian President Vladimir Putin ridiculed him. Then it was a rare — if not unique — case of international diplomacy where a trilateral partnership considered detrimental to the interests of the West displayed signs of failure on a burning international issue.What has had the West — the transatlantic security system — worried for some time is NATO-member Turkey’s partnership...

All of this diplomatic traffic is about the impending Syrian military operation into the Idlib province of Syria where around three million are living. The Syrian army, backed by Russia, is aiming to eliminate the jihadist terrorists, which have been controlling the province since early 2017. Turkey has 12 military outposts around Idlib, as part of a three-way agreement with Russia and Iran. Turkey has three main concerns: First, a large-scale operation without distinguishing civilians from terrorists can create a huge catastrophe. Second, it can kick another influx from Syria towards Turkey, complicating the already difficult refugee problem in the...

A group of pro-Erdoğan Turkish lawyers has applied to the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for the arrest of members of the US military at İncirlik Airbase in Adana for their alleged cooperation with the Gülen movement, according to a report by the Cumhuriyet daily on Friday. According to the report, lawyers working for the the Association for Social Justice and Aid (Toplumsal Adalet ve Yardımlaşma Derneği in Turkish, or TAY-DER), a front NGO that was set up on June 15, 2016 and formally registered a month later with the support of senior government officials, including some in the judiciary...

A Turkish court ordered on Wednesday U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who is being tried on terrorism and spying charges, to remain in detention, rejecting his lawyer's plea for release. The judge said the next hearing in the trial would be on October 12. Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina who has lived in Turkey for more than two decades, was indicted on charges of helping the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which Ankara blames for the failed 2016 coup, as well as supporting the PKK terrorists organization. Speaking to reporters in western Izmir province after the ruling, U.S. Charge d'Affaires...

It’s never a good idea to negotiate with a hostage-taker, but when it’s a NATO ally, there isn’t much choice. The Trump administration has been trying to get back a Christian pastor detained in Turkey since October 2016, and when a possible deal at the sidelines of the NATO summit fell through, it decided to drop the hammer. A couple of weeks ago, the administration sanctioned Turkey’s justice and interior ministers — remember, these are top officials of a fellow NATO country. The action hit the Turkish currency and stock market hard. Then President Donald Trump intervened in his inimitable...

Medeni Duran wrote that his imprisoned brother Metin "cannot walk, speak, or eat and does not recognize anyone anymore. He can only breathe." Mistreatment and even torture of journalists and media employees, along with arbitrary arrests, are getting alarmingly commonplace in Turkey. At least 183 journalists and media workers in Turkey in are being held, either in pretrial detention or serving a prison sentence, according to the Platform for Independent Journalism. Dissident journalists and writers in Turkey increasingly face government threats and arbitrary arrests for their work and opinions, but for Metin Duran, the punishments have been even more...

According to an Independent Communication Network (BÄ°A) report, 315 media employees in Turkey, including reporters, columnists, executives and illustrators, face 47 aggravated life sentences, one life sentence, 3,034 years of imprisonment and TL 4.040.000 ($840,000) in damages. The report stated that in 33 trials in April, May and June, the courts handed down two aggravated life sentences without the chance of parole and 137 years, two months and 19 days in prison to journalists on charges of supporting a failed coup in 2016, disseminating terrorist propaganda, membership in a terrorist organization, defying state institutions or insulting the president. In that...

Veteran journalist Lale Kemal, a columnist for the Zaman newspaper, at one time Turkey’s most highly circulated newspaper before the Turkish government’s unlawful takeover and closure of it in 2016, said at her last court hearing on Thursday, “I was put in prison without a single piece of evidence.”Kemal was arrested with former Zaman columnists Ali Bulaç, Ahmet Turan Alkan, Nuriye Akman, Mustafa Ünal and Şahin Alpay on July 30, 2017 after a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 and released pending trial under judicial probation after months of pretrial detention. The journalist presented her last defence before...

Turkish prosecutors are investigating the leader of the main opposition party to decide whether to charge him with insulting the president for sharing a cartoon showing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a variety of animals in solidarity with students arrested for putting the image on a banner at their graduation, secularist newspaper Sözcü said. Thirteen years ago, a court dismissed charges that the cartoon, entitled “The World of Tayyips”, insulted Erdoğan by depicting the then-prime minister as a number of animals. The cartoon was drawn in response to Erdoğan suing another cartoonist who depicted him as a cat getting caught...

SULAIMANI — Turkey’s main opposition leader was fined on Wednesday (July 18) for defaming President Tayyip Erdogan and his family over claims about international money transfers, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.Erdogan has dismissed the allegations by Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, saying in November last year that his family “haven’t sent a dime abroad”.Officials at the presidency could not immediately be reached for comment.The president, who was re-elected three weeks ago and assumed sweeping new executive powers, had vowed to take Kilicdaroglu to court, saying he would “pay the price”.Kilicdaroglu has since been ordered to pay Erdogan...

In a telegram earlier Monday, Putin had "stressed that the results of the vote fully speak of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's great political authority..." © Provided by AFP In a telegram earlier Monday, Putin had "stressed that the results of the vote fully speak of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's great political authority..." Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his re-election triumph in a phone call, after saying the result showed the Turkish leader's "great political authority" and mass support. On the call Putin and Erdogan confirmed their interest in "deepening partnership ties between the two...

Turkey has submitted close to a thousand requests to Germany for search and arrest warrants. Andrej Hunko from Die Linke said Turkey is abusing the Interpol. Germany’s Ministry of Justice responded to a written inquiry by Die Linke (The Left) and said since the coup attempt in 2016, Turkey has submitted large numbers of requests to the German Police for search and arrest warrants. Turkey has submitted a total of 848 requests for search and arrest warrants through the Interpol. QUESTION NOT RESPONDED TO Germany’s Ministry of Justice didn’t provide information on what percentage of Turkish requests had been met,...