Free Republic

A thousand years ago, the Iberian Peninsula was under the thumb of the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, an offshoot of the Umayyad Caliphate. While responsible for cultural and economic developments, the Cordoba Caliphate was also particularly hard on what they called “infidels,” and everyone else called “Christians and Jews.” The Caliphate’s method of dealing with Christians and Jews was to tax the living infidelity out of them. For those who couldn’t pay there were routinely fatal consequences. Religious sensitivity was decidedly NOT a part of the Cordoba Caliphate’s social programs. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan visited Germany for the G-7...

In the hubbub surrounding the “battle of the flotilla,” Netanyahu’s quick reversal of his decision to remain in the United States has been largely ignored. It turns out that Obama told him to leave because he didn’t want Netanyahu to use the White House as a stage on which to present Israel’s side of the story. The flotilla violence caught Netanyahu in the midst of a diplomatic trip to North America. He was in the Canadian capital of Ottawa at the time, about to leave for Washington for a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. The meeting was to have...