Free Republic

The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers. Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van. “We were at a village that Israeli settlers...

American Jews view New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani more favorably than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed on Tuesday. The survey, carried out on 1,022 Jewish adults nationwide between June 11 and June 17, found that 44% of American Jews view Mamdani either very favorably or somewhat favorably, whereas just 32% of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Netanyahu.Thirty-nine percent of US Jews viewed Mamdani unfavorably, and 59% viewed Netanyahu unfavorably. A strong majority of US Jews viewed US President Donald Trump unfavorably (70%), whereas only...

The deadly US strike on a girls school in the Iranian coastal city of Minab happened due to gaps in the Pentagon’s system for analyzing potential targets, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.The bombing, in which more than 120 students aged between 6 and 13 were killed in addition to 26 teachers, happened on February 28, the opening day of the American-Israeli military campaign against Iran.The investigation into the incident, ordered by the chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM) Brad Cooper, was completed in April, but its results haven’t yet been made public, Bloomberg said in an...

"You Can't Be A Slave To A Foreign Power— STOP!"TRANSCRIPT SUMMARYThe speakers argue that President Trump recognized the risks of escalating conflict with Iran but responded with public threats rather than a clear military strategy. They claim this made him appear weak, comparing his behavior to someone who boasts instead of acting decisively. Tucker Carlson is quoted criticizing Trump for being overly influenced by others, particularly Israel, and expressing regret for previously promoting Trump based on expectations he now believes were incorrect.The discussion praises Tucker Carlson as an influential commentator and argues that some of his remarks have been taken...

Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister 'all the Jews are sick of you' during a shouting match regarding peace in the Middle East, according to a new book about the President's second term. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's 'Regime Change' details Trump's attempt to broker a Gaza peace deal between Israel and Hamas in September of 2025. The President was on the call with Netanyahu, son in law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff when they became frustrated with the prime minister following an Israeli strike on Qatar. That's when Trump unleashed, the book claims. 'Everybody's sick of you, Bibi....

Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week tore off the mask: He’s going full-on antisemite. At last Thursday’s rally for his slate of extremist House candidates — Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez — Mamdani railed that we’re now living in a “time of monsters.” Who are these monsters? Though they “take many forms,” it’s … AIPAC. Yep: Per Mamdani, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is the heart of all evil; the only thing it fears more than democracy “is an end to genocide.” Reality check: AIPAC is an entirely legal political outfit that operates like dozens of other...

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Tuesday that a single Israeli strike in Lebanon would constitute a violation of the latest Iran deal and bring the entire thing crashing down.Israel has signaled in recent days that it will not withdraw troops from its security zones in Lebanon and will continue taking whatever actions it deems necessary to protect its interests, despite pressure from President Trump. The stance comes amid reports that the Trump administration denied Israel's request to review the recently negotiated Iran deal.NEW: Israel asked the United States to share the contents of the U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding, but...

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the war he had hoped would secure his legacy — Israel and the United States together attacking Iran — may be ending in a way that could sully it. The framework agreement to end the war in Iran, which was announced on Sunday, omits some of the most important things Israel wanted. The full text of the deal has not yet been released and Israel was not directly involved in the negotiations. Initial details suggest that the agreement does nothing to curb Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, or its funding of regional proxies like...

@GenFlynn This was no mistake. The crew of the USS Liberty. @RepThomasMassie thank you for keeping this story alive.

The U.S. military will attack Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” and will soon take over the country’s “oil infrastructure points,” President Donald Trump said Thursday. An operation to “assume total control” of Iran’s oil and gas markets and infrastructure, including taking Kharg Island, will occur “at some point in the not too distant future,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

President Donald Trump called into Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Thursday morning and told the hosts that he has always wanted to invade Iran’s Kharg Island, one of the country’s key energy infrastructure sites. Trump ranted at the media coverage of the war in Iran and fumed, “The Wall Street Journal, they did an editorial today about we’re not hitting them hard enough.” “I mean, it is just, ‘not hitting them hard enough.’ We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy. And they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military said Tuesday that it carried out strikes on Iran following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic.U.S. Central Command said on social media that the strikes would be "a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression." Iranian state media reported that explosions were heard on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that Iran has effectively closed during the war, before saying that the wave of American attacks in the south has "subsided."Trump said earlier...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.That’s...

JD Vance suggested Israel may not be on board with a US-Iran peace deal as he was grilled over bombshell intelligence reports claiming Benjamin Netanyahu's spy agencies have been eavesdropping on American negotiators. US intelligence officials are alarmed by Israel's eavesdropping on American diplomats negotiating with Iran. The Pentagon now ranks Israel as a bigger counterintelligence threat than some of America's enemies, according to The New York Times.The report details concerns that Israel has been spying on senior Trump officials, including the President's top negotiator Steve Witkoff and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, along with other American military and government...

Recent U.S. intelligence reports raised alarms about Israel spying on American officials to gain insight into the Trump administration’s approach to the Iran War, according to separate reports from the New York Times and NBC News. The Times reported Saturday that U.S. intelligence offices discern an elevated threat of Israeli espionage operations targeting Steve Witkoff, the top American negotiator with Iran, Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, and Michael DiMino, one of Colby’s top deputies. Colby and DiMino are widely perceived to be part of an America First faction that is skeptical of military intervention in...

Most voters think President Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, leaving the Republican Party on rocky political footing heading into the midterm elections as his approval rating sinks and economic concerns rise.Majorities of voters said that the war was not worth the costs and held deeply pessimistic views about the economy.Mr. Trump’s approval rating — a key historical predictor of how a president’s party will fare in an election — has sunk to a second-term low in Times/Siena polls of 37 percent amid the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict....

Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft and key radar, communications and air defense equipment, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. government or previously reported. The threat of air attacks rendered some of the U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, and commanders moved most of the personnel from these sites...

Turkey’s president has threatened to invade Israel over its continued bombardment of Lebanon.Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, of being “blinded by blood and hate” and said there was “no reason” not to attack.The speech came after Turkish prosecutors filed indictments against 35 top Israeli officials, including Mr Netanyahu, seeking a total of more than 4,500 years in prison.

Americans have increasingly negative views of Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. * 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year. * 59% have little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs – up from 52% last year. * In both political parties, majorities of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively. The survey was conducted March 23-29 among 3,507 U.S. adults. It was fielded about a month into the U.S.- and Israeli-led...

...It is worth recalling St. Paul’s words that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Thus, the Church is truly universal and eternal and favors no state or nation over another out of principle... I recall visiting Rome’s Great Synagogue... The synagogue’s museum exhibit details the two-thousand-year history of the Eternal City’s Jewish community; we learn, for instance, that it was not Hitler nor Mussolini but Pope Paul IV who established Rome’s first ghetto. Yet the exhibit features...