Free Republic

An American citizen was reportedly killed fighting for Hamas in the recent conflict with Israel. Joe Truzman, a contributor to Foundation for Defense of Democracies Long War Journal (FDD), wrote on Saturday that “an American citizen known as Osama al-Zebda was fighting with the Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades during the recent conflict. The report notes that al-Zebda was on a US terrorist watch list. His son was featured in videos with Hamas commander Yahya Sinwar on Monday, in which the Hamas commander puts a rifle in the toddler’s hand. His death and the death of his father, a well-known...

One of the holy grails of the Palestinian movement is the "right of return," and it is one that always haunts any peace agreement. Alongside it is one of the most vilified pieces of Israeli legislation, the Absentee Property Law, which has provided more grist for the academic mill of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than anything else. Even after 60 years of conflict, there is very little understanding by Palestinians or others of either the concept of "return" or that of absentee property - which together represent an idea and the thing to which people might return. It is important to...