Free Republic

Summary. While Israel has historically been regarded as a close ally of the United States—sharing democratic values, intelligence cooperation, and defense partnerships—certain individuals of Arab "Palestinian" origin or ideological affiliation have been involved in acts of violence against Americans. This article provides a factual overview of documented incidents that have shaped this complex relationship. 1. Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)Background: Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a Palestinian IslamoChristian born in Jerusalem in 1944, moved with his family to the United States in 1956.[1]Defense : The ex Grand Mufti of Jerusalem dispatched two Arab lawyers to defend Sirhan....

The recent verbal attacks by the Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump and his supporters on President Barack Obama for avoiding the phrase "radical Islam" in his public pronouncements are simplistic, racially inflammatory — and flatly misinformed. Settling upon accurate and strategically nuanced terms to describe the post-9/11 enemy is not the product of "political correctness" (contra Trump) or a failure to understand the enemy (contra a much-discussed Atlantic cover story). Nor are objections to using overly broad terms like "Islamic radicalism" limited to Democrats. The Bush administration understood the power of words, too. It concluded that distinctions that may seem...