Free Republic

Mitt Romney played the “Israeli card” in a Republican foreign policy debate and promised Israel would be the first country he will visit if elected. "We have a president who pursued an agenda of saying we're going to be friendly to our foes and we're going to be disrespectful to our friends," Romney said in a CNN debate Tuesday night featuring GOP presidential hopefuls. President Barack Obama visited Israel during his election campaign, including a trip to the Western Wall, which in his view is not a legitimate part of Israel's soversignty. He is expected to visit Israel next year...

Iran, worried by possible sabotage or an attack at the hands of Israel, has raised to five years the jail term for the crime of visiting Israel. State television reported on Monday that the parliament approved an amendment that ups the jail term to 2-5 years from the current three months. The original ban on traveling to the Jewish state, usually referred to by Iran as the "Zionist regime,” was inaugurated by the Shah in 1972, who did not want Iranians to visit communist countries. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime has arrested a number of Iranians, executing some of them,...