Free Republic

Observing the riots in the suburbs of Paris, an American is tempted to rejoice. Are not the French getting their just desserts for their arrogance, opposition and condescension toward the United States and for their observation that the predominantly poor victims of Hurricane Katrina revealed an ugly underside of America that they happily condemned?

LE BLANC-MESNIL, France, Nov. 5 -- Mohammed Rezzoug, caretaker of the municipal gymnasium and soccer field, knows far more about the youths hurling firebombs and torching cars on the streets of this Paris suburb than do the police officers and French intelligence agents struggling to nail the culprits. He can identify most of the perpetrators. So can almost everyone else in the neighborhoods that have been attacked. "They're my kids," said Rezzoug, a garrulous 45-year-old with thinning black hair and skin the color of a walnut. While French politicians say the violence now circling and even entering the capital of...

Since Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians have basically been left to their own devices. The world has gotten an eyeful of just what a much-anticipated Palestinian state might look like, and it's not a pretty picture. The dust hadn't even settled after the last of the Jews had been removed from Gaza when Palestinians resorted to form. Looting and demolishing buildings they might otherwise have been able to reside in, the Palestinians displayed the sort of destructive and dysfunctional behavior they've become known for. They soon graduated to burning down synagogues, a time-honored tradition from the...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian woman has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, local media reported on Saturday, although Tehran maintains it no longer executes women in this way. The woman, named only as Soghra, was found guilty of having an affair with her husband's friend, the Etemad daily reported. She was also given a separate 15-year jail sentence for helping her lover kill her husband. Iran has met international criticism for handing out stoning sentences for adultery. The penalty involves victims being buried up to their midriffs and then pelted to death with stones that are not...