Free Republic

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) stated that President Joe Biden “has been ironclad” in his support of Israel but “what I think we have here is a problem of imprecision in the communication from the President.” And that the Biden administration should raise its concerns with Israel privately “because it leaves room for misunderstandings. And look, leaving the impression of possible daylight emboldens Hamas, risks emboldening Hamas, risks the possibility or even likelihood of it being less likely that we can get our hostages home, particularly our American hostages.”

Hamas should accept an “extraordinarily generous” proposal to release Israeli hostages it is holding in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a temporary cease-fire, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Hamas is expected to respond to the U.S.-led proposal Monday in discussions with Egyptian and Qatari officials in Cairo. “Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel,” Blinken said during a panel discussion at the WEF. “And in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and...

WASHINGTON – Few people are entirely neutral in their assessment of the work and influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Whether revered, feared or reviled, AIPAC is seen by some as an icon of pro-Israel advocacy – or the bogeyman symbolizing everything that's wrong with America's political lobbying and fundraising scene. But no matter how it's characterized, AIPAC's political evolution over the past three years has been one of the defining stories of U.S. politics.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce sanctions against the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion in the next few days, according to three American sources. The sanctions are a result of human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. This will be the first time that the United States government has imposed sanctions on an Israeli military unit for its activities in the West Bank. The sources stated that the American sanctions will prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, will prevent its soldiers and officers from taking part in training with...

Activists from the Im Tirtzu movement filed a complaint with the police on Wednesday against Dr. Anat Matar, after she praised convicted terrorist Walid Daka, who died in prison on Sunday. Daka, a convicted terrorist, was imprisoned following his role in the kidnap, torture, mutilation, and subsequent murder of IDF soldier Moshe Tamam in 1986. In May of 2023, there was a renewed attempt to have Daka released from prison as he was ill with terminal brain cancer, but the motion did not pass and he was not released. Dr. Matar, a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, eulogized...

The open letter denounced those who wrote in objection to director Jonathan Glazer's moral equivalence between the Jewish State and Hamas Actors Joaquin Phoenix, Debra Winger, Chloe Fineman and nearly 150 other Jewish Hollywood creatives signed a letter Friday defending filmmaker Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech last month that critics saw as equating Israel with the Nazis and Hamas. The open letter accused Glazer’s critics of suppressing speech within Hollywood, stating, "The attacks on Glazer also have a silencing effect on our industry, contributing to a broader climate of suppression of free speech and dissent, the very qualities our field...

NBC’s late-night host Seth Meyers is panicking over the prospect of a Trump victory in November, saying that President Joe Biden’s failure to make good on his promise of a ceasefire in Gaza is alienating Democrats in key swing states. Seth Meyers noted that Biden made that very promise during an appearance on Late Night in February — and that there’s still no ceasefire. [Voters] are understandably upset Biden keeps claiming he’s frustrated with Netanyahu’s handling of the war, while simultaneously sending more weapons to support that war against the wishes of a majority of Americans,” Meyers said on Wednesday’s...

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff angrily condemned former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, calling him 'anti-Semitic' for claiming that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel.' Trump criticized the Biden administration and Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer during an interview with former White House advisor and now-radio host Sebastian Gorka. 'I really believe they hate Israel,' the former president said about the Democrats. Emhoff addressed Trump's comments during a campaign visit to Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday. 'This is a disgusting, toxic, antisemitic thing to say by anyone, let alone a former president of the United States,' said Emhoff about Trump's...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday denounced recent remarks by former President Trump about Jewish Americans who vote Democratic as “reprehensible and dangerous,” and argued they are a clear example of “unadulterated antisemitism.” Trump said in an interview that aired Monday that Democrats “hate Israel” and that Jewish voters who support Democrats hate their religion. The comments came in response to Schumer’s call late last week for new elections in Israel and heightened criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history, responded in kind on Tuesday.

SNIP Everyone (including this reporter) asks Foxman if he is surprised by the torrent of antisemitism that has seemingly engulfed the globe since thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border with Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 253 more to the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians. But Foxman differentiates between “surprised” and “shocked.” “After 50 years of dealing with this subject, the answer is no, I’m not surprised — because those of us dealing with the subject professionally understood a long time ago that antisemitism is a disease without an antidote and without a vaccine. We...

Stacey Zolt Hara was in her office in downtown San Francisco when a text from her 16-year-old daughter arrived: “I’m scared,” she wrote. Her classmates at Berkeley High School were preparing to leave their desks and file into the halls, part of a planned “walkout” to protest Israel. Like many Jewish students, she didn’t want to participate. It was October 18, 11 days after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel. Zolt Hara told her daughter to wait in her classroom. She was trying to project calm. A public-relations executive, Zolt Hara had moved her family from Chicago to Berkeley six...

Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel—and the very first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language Israeli television. Born and raised in a small Jewish town in Israel’s Negev desert, as one of the only Arab Muslim families, she has a unique lens through which to view the divisions in Israeli society, the complexity of the country’s national identity, and the Middle East more generally. Lucy has long been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is equally critical of her fellow Arab Israelis, particularly of Arab violence and the Arab leadership...

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly voted against impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, the Jewish homeland security secretary, after a process that a number of Jewish groups and the White House said was marred by antisemitism.The vote Tuesday evening was 216 against to 214 for impeachment, a stunning loss for House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican. Four Republicans voted against impeachment in the narrowly-split chamber. Johnson had championed the impeachment even in the face of evidence that it might not pass. Right-wing Republicans have been agitating for a year to impeach Mayorkas, who they say is neglecting the migrant influx at...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Wednesday why the world was pressuring the victim of terror, Israel, instead of pressuring the terrorist “aggressor,” Hamas, whose surrender would end the war in Gaza and save the lives of many Palestinian civilians. Blinken was answering questions from reporters in a year-end press conference when he delivered this response on the Gaza war:

CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviews a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces about the deadly airstrike that the IDF says targeted a top Hamas commander in Gaza's largest refugee camp.

Progressive Jews who have spent years supporting racial equity, gay and transgender rights, abortion rights and other causes on the American left — including opposing Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — are suddenly feeling abandoned by those who they long thought of as allies. This wartime shift represents a fundamental break within a liberal coalition that has long powered the Democratic Party. In Los Angeles, Rabbi Sharon Brous, a well-known progressive activist who regularly criticizes the Israeli government, described from the pulpit her horror and feelings of “existential loneliness,” her voice breaking. “The clear message...

Outgoing United States Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, says he regrets a recent tweet in which he equated the murder of Israeli civilians by Arab terrorists to deaths caused in IDF anti-terror operations. "I screwed up," Nides told Israel Hayom's Ariel Kahana in an interview which will be published on Friday. "I had just returned from Los Angeles when I got word of the attack. I was shown a draft of a tweet, and I signed off on it. But it was a stupid thing to do," he recounted. .....

s right-wing protestors descend upon Drag Story Hour events across New York, they have frequently been met by a loosely connected movement of counter protestors that includes many progressive Jewish groups. Since September, right-wing activists have routinely protested Drag Story Hour events, where a person dressed in drag reads to children. The aim of these story times, according to the founder of the Drag Story Hour New York chapter, is to promote literacy while giving children positive queer role models. At the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights on Dec. 29, at least five members of the Proud Boys, a...

Who is Sam Bankman-Fried, AKA SBF? Bankman-Fried hails from an upper-middle-class family of Jewish academics and grew up steeped in higher education. Starting out his career at Jane Street, SBF opened up the Alameda Research trading firm and soon got into the cryptocurrency game. By late 2018, Bankman-Fried opened up the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Based in the Bahamas, FTX achieved renown as one of the most stable and reliable players in the crypto field.

Former president Donald Trump chided Jewish American Democrats who oppose him despite his support for Israel, and hailed the Jewish state as a “modern-day miracle.” Speaking at the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) 2022 Gala in New York City, Trump said, “The United States and Israel are not just allies on a military basis, but economically and politically; we’re allies morally, culturally and spiritually and we always will be — at least if I have anything to do about it.”