Free Republic

Epstein was supposedly advising Arab countries on how to deal with America, had an audience scheduled with a Qatari prince, and close to Trump’s future ambassador to Turkey.

Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defense minister said on Friday. The world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar. Last week, Reuters reported a draft readied by Washington for such a force that would authorize it to “use all necessary measures” to demilitarize Gaza, secure its borders, protect civilians and aid delivery, and support a...

“Can I ask a question? How many of you are visiting Israel for the first time? How many have been here before? Wow, two.Well, welcome to all of you. It’s very good to see you here with Foreign Minister Saar and Deputy Minister Sharren Haskel and our Ambassador to Washington, Yechiel. Stand up. Look at this man. Look at this man. Look at him. He, Yechiel, represents the greatest military comeback in recent history.On October 7th, we were attacked with no provocation by the Hamas monsters. They murdered 1,200 of our citizens. They burnt babies alive. They raped and then...

“Following the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race, Qatari journalists and media figures commented on their X accounts, celebrating his win and attributing it to the impact of the "Al-Aqsa Flood", i.e., Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. These figures wrote that Mamdani's victory reflects a major perceptual shift in the U.S. and the world and the decline in Israel's international standing.”

The Qatari regime is due to soon fall apart, even as its influence reaches far abroad, including to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Qatari dissident Khalid al-Hail told Maariv in an interview published on Saturday. The "regime in Doha is on the verge of collapse and won't last many more years," he told the Israeli outlet. Hail is a human rights activist and has previously been imprisoned in Qatar. When asked to elaborate on his belief that the Qatari government would collapse, Hail said, “It won’t hold for many more years. There will certainly be a fundamental change; not only do...

Just two months after October 7, international organizations were already discussing how to apply the term “famine” to the situation in Gaza. This was revealed by World Health Organization representative to Israel, Dr. Michel Thieren, on the Mosaïque podcast last week. The podcast was created by Akadem and the French Institute of Israel, and former journalist Antoine Mercier hosted the episode. Thieren attended a multilateral governance meeting about Gaza in Geneva in December 2023. During the meeting, Thieren said organizations discussed how important it would be to scientifically demonstrate the occurrence of a famine in Gaza, and how to use...

A shocking poll shows that two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre that murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, a majority of Palestinians still say the terror group was right to launch the attack — and, equally disturbing, an overwhelming 86 percent deny that Hamas committed the well-documented atrocities against civilians. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), 53 percent of Palestinians say Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 assault was correct; support is strongest in the West Bank at 59 percent, while 44 percent in the Gaza Strip back the attack — a...

Tucker Carlson’s shift from provocative media personality to a figure openly giving platforms to Holocaust revisionism and coded antisemitic tropes shows a disturbing trajectory. His kind of criticisms of Israel, invocation of classic antisemitic cliches (such as Jewish conspiracies and collective guilt), and lack of theological credibility undermine any claim to being a genuine Christian defender of Judeo-Christian values. Most Christians support Israel, and many conservative thinkers have long resisted Carlson’s frameworks of victim-blaming, replacement theory, and false equivalencies. His recent actions show how hidden antisemitism can suddenly reveal itself -- and with influential amplifiers. [SNIP] On October 13, 2025,...

EXCLUSIVE: Hamas 'have kneecapped 500 opponents in Gaza' claims Palestinian lawyer. Brave human rights lawyer speaks to Mirror on whatsapp call from inside Gaza and descibes how Hamas gunmen are attacking Palestinians who oppose them.. Hamas gunmen have brutally kneecapped up to 500 Palestinians inside Gaza, it has been claimed. Human rights lawyer Moumen Al-Natour bravely spoke to the Mirror on a WhatsApp call to describe horrendous scenes. And he revealed the gunmen were targeting any sort of opposition killing some and shooting hundreds of others in their legs.

President Donald Trump met with Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani aboard Air Force One Saturday at Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar during refueling on Trump’s voyage to Asia. Trump called the Emir “one of the great rulers of the world” and “beloved and respected by his country.” He called the prime minister his friend and lauded the leaders for being “a very big factor” in the Middle East peace deal he brokered several weeks ago. In fact, Al Thani signed the agreement in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt,...

Hamas terrorists released under the Gaza peace deal are staying in a five-star hotel alongside unsuspecting Western tourists. Experts warned of a radical new threat to global security after the Daily Mail tracked down more than 150 of the highly dangerous extremists to a luxury hotel in Cairo. Israel was forced to empty its prisons of nearly all its most feared jihadists held on life sentences as part of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan. Some 154 of the 250 fanatics who were freed are currently staying in the Marriott’s five-star Renaissance Cairo Mirage City Hotel in the Egyptian capital, a...

Late-night host Bill Maher is questioning where all the college anti-Israel protesters went as the terror group Hamas continues its wave of violence, turning weapons against Palestinians in Gaza. On Friday’s episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," the comedian asked his guest, billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, where "keffiyeh-wearing college kids" went now that Hamas is "shooting everybody." "Where are the protesters?" Maher asked Cuban. "Suddenly, the keffiyeh-wearing college kids are very quiet," the HBO host noted. "Shooting everybody," Cuban answered and Maher repeated the sentiment. His comments come after months of student-led anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses across the country....

President Trump succeeded in getting phase one of his peace plan enacted. That meant a ceasefire in which all of the 20 living Israeli hostages were returned to Israel in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a partial withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. (Hamas was supposed to return the deceased hostages as well but it seems that is going to take a bit longer to accomplish.) But the big question has been whether or not Trump's team could move on from a successful phase one of the plan to phase two, which everyone agrees is the tougher part....

To recap the past week: Hamas films themselves executing over 100 Palestinians. The media is silent. Hamas launches RPGs at Israeli troops, murdering two. The media is silent. Israel responds by striking a Hamas commander. The media says Israel violated the ceasefire.

The US has been secretly holding talks with Hamas for months Buzzfeed reported Thursday, despite its official stance that it would (not?) negotiate with the terrorist organization. “Our administration needed to hear from them that this unity government would move toward democratic elections, and toward a more peaceful resolution with the entire region,” a US official stated to the “social news” site, on condition of anonymity. “It was important to have that line of communication.” US officials have publicly denied the charges, however, leading to confusion over the report’s veracity. …

The United States has informed the guarantor nations of the Gaza peace agreement of credible reports indicating an imminent ceasefire violation by Hamas against the people of Gaza. This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts. The guarantors demand Hamas uphold its obligations under the ceasefire terms. Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire. The United States and the other guarantors remain resolute in our commitment...

Ghassan Duhine, the deputy of an anti-Hamas resistance group in the Gaza Strip issued a Rosh Hashanah statement on social media. The deputy head of the Abu Shabab militia in the Gaza Strip, wished the Jewish people a happy New Year in a social media post on Sunday. The post included a handwritten note in Hebrew seen by The Jerusalem Post. Duhine extended "sincere congratulations to our Arab Jews, especially, to the Jewish people in general, and all those who celebrate this holiday around the world." Several Hamas supporters took to social media to express disapproval of Duhine's statement. They...

Hamas appeared to renege on key demands of President Trump’s cease-fire deal just hours after the world celebrated the end of the Gaza war — with a top official saying the terror group will not give up its arms or control over the Gaza Strip. Spokesman Hazem Qassem claimed Monday that Hamas has no need to abide by every word of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, including calls for the terror group to lay down its arms. “We do not need to limit ourselves to the Israeli terms and definitions related to weapons,” Qassem told the Al-Arabiya news channel. “We will...

Antony Blinken, Joe Biden’s former Secretary of State, tried to claim that the Biden administration deserved credit for the Israel-Hamas peace agreement, arguing that Donald Trump’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the groundwork that Biden’s team supposedly laid. That’s pure fantasy. Hamas surrendered because Trump backed it into a corner with decisive pressure, not because Biden’s diplomats pulled off some behind-the-scenes miracle.Hamas surrendered its last living hostages, giving up the only leverage it had left in this mess they started two years ago. This wasn't some breakthrough negotiation. It was a complete capitulation, and Hamas knew it was their...

The Washington Post revealed on Saturday that, despite fierce public condemnation of Israel by Arab governments during the Gaza war, several of those same countries secretly maintained close military and intelligence cooperation with Jerusalem. According to leaked U.S. documents obtained by the newspaper and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), at least six Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar — took part in a classified regional defense framework known as the “Regional Security Construct.” Kuwait and Oman were listed as potential future partners.The mechanism, established under the coordination of U.S. Central...