Free Republic

The family of Tariq Abu Khdeir, the 15-year-old Tampa boy whose brutal beating at the hands of Israeli police has made global headlines, was relieved to learn Sunday that he was released from jail. Tariq was sentenced to nine days of home detention while police investigate his involvement in violent protests that started after his cousin, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, was abducted and burned alive last week in Jerusalem. Tariq’s aunt, Sanah Abu Khdeir, of Tampa, said Sunday she hopes that the boy and his parents will be home by July 16. Tariq is an American citizen of Palestinian descent....

Palestinians at Nativity Church Demand Meeting With ArafatBy T. CHRISTIAN MILLER, Times Staff Writer BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Negotiations toward a peaceful end to the three-week siege at the Church of the Nativity hit a stumbling block late Thursday as encircled Palestinians demanded a meeting with their equally besieged leader, Yasser Arafat. It was unclear whether the Israelis would permit such a meeting. However, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon indicated that he might loosen restrictions on the Palestinian leader, who is trapped by Israeli forces in his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "We hope we will get a...

George W. Bush knows that Islam is a religion of peace because Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi said so. Two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the President told the United Nations that Tantawi, "the Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, the world's oldest Islamic institution of higher learning, declared that terrorism is a disease, and that Islam prohibits killing innocent civilians." Yet unfortunately for Bush and others who trumpeted Tantawi's words around the globe last winter, this sheikh whom the BBC called "the highest spiritual authority for nearly a billion Sunni Muslims" has now changed his tune. As liberals say...