Free Republic

As they prepare to welcome two newly-elected Muslim women into the 116th Congress, Democrats have proposed a clarification to a 181-year-old rule banning representatives from wearing hats on the House floor. If approved, the new rules would allow lawmakers to wear religious headwear, like hijabs and kippahs, once Democrats take control of the chamber in January. Representative-elect Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, wears a headscarf. She was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a refugee.

Jamal Khashoggi, serviced Muslim Brotherhood. Mulla / IG reps that now lamment J Cas absence. A Persian, Salman is the man.

So back to the tragic murder of Jamal Khashoggi. My intelligence sources tell me he had worked as an intelligence agent for the Saudi intelligence service, GID, for around 20 years. At one point he was sent by GID to Sudan to meet Osama bin Laden and to try to lure him away from terrorism. He failed. Khashoggi had always been close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the people who took over Egypt under Morsi following the so-called Arab Spring. The Muslim Brotherhood is a hard-line Islamist organisation dedicated to the introduction of Sharia and the creation of an Islamic caliphate....

It’s an old joke: How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving. It seems that may be the case for the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. An analyst at the Gatestone Institute presented evidence that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan lied to voters. The charge comes from Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the institute, who who wrote that most of the media coverage since their election Nov. 6 “has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.” “Less known is that both...

Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She's telegenic, ideologically progressive, widely celebrated by a media that's obsessed with identity politics. She's the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their "evil." It's not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement. In a statement to the website Muslim Girl, someone on Omar's staff...

Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon told Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will not accept Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett serving as defense minister, following the resignation of current defense minister, Avigdor Liberman. On Wednesday, Bennett issued an ultimatum to the Prime Minister, saying his Jewish Home faction will quit the coalition if he is not appointed defense minister. If Bennett's ultimatum holds, Kahlon's veto likely signals that early elections are on the way. "Bennett doesn't have it coming to get the Defense Ministry portfolio. I'm opposed to it," Kahlon told Netanyahu. Bennett told confidants in response that he will not...

A previously unknown 1,500-year-old painting of Christ’s face has been uncovered at a Byzantine church in Israel’s Negev desert. The discovery in the ancient Byzantine village of Shivta has thrilled archaeologists. Although the painting is fragmented, experts from Israel’s University of Haifa were able to make out the facial outline. Their research was published recently in the journal Antiquity. he painting, which is believed to date from the sixth century, depicts Jesus as a short-haired youth. “Christ’s face in this painting is an important discovery in itself,” they explained in their paper. “It belongs to the iconographic scheme of a...

Before I had even arrived, I was attacked as a racist, sexist and bigot. AddThis Sharing Buttons Author's note: On October 23, I spoke at Dartmouth, at the invitation of College Republicans and Students Supporting Israel. Before I had even arrived, I was attacked as a racist, a sexist and a bigot, and one professor sent out a tweet urging students to disrupt my talk. In fact, nearly 100 Dartmouth radicals had already met and laid out an elaborate plan of disruption and attack, which in the event was made possible but the Dartmouth administrators in charge of “Security and...

France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has called for Europe to become an “empire” to compete with the United States after the country’s President Emmanuel Macron called for an EU army to defend against the NATO ally. “It’s about Europe having to become a kind of empire, as China is. And how the U.S. is,” Mr Le Maire told Germany’s Handelsblatt. Adding that it would be a “peaceful empire,” the economics and finance minister touted the progressive government’s green credentials, saying that the European empire should “rel[y] on green growth. Neither China nor the U.S., who are leaving the Paris...

Upon landing in France over the weekend, Trump called Macron’s remarks about defending against America “insulting.” The President tweeted that instead of figuring out a way to fight the U.S., the Europeans should pay their share of NATO’s budget, which the U.S. has been underwriting. Macron’s anti-Americanism isn’t only fueled by domestic political concerns. He has two other – perhaps even more significant – causes for his hostility. First, and most fundamentally, Macron rightly views Trump’s presidency and his nationalist vision of America as an existential threat to the European Union. As political philosopher Yoram Hazony explains in his vital...

BREAKING: It is 10:40am here in Israel and more than 400 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the last few hours — more than on any other single day in history. The IDF is retaliating. Children and their parents have had to sleep in bomb shelters all night. More rockets are coming in as I write this. High risk of even further escalation. Please pray for calm to be restored. Pray, too, for all who are being traumatized on both sides to experience the supernatural comfort of the Lord.

It seemed like things were going to quiet down in Gaza last week with the delivery of 15 million dollars in cash from Qatar in multiple suitcases. The "payoff" money was designed to pacify Gaza and help calm things down between Israel and the militant group Hamas which has maintained steady pressure on Israel with everything from occasional rocket barrages to constant incendiary kites to mass protests at the border fences forcing Israeli snipers to open fire. But suddenly on Sunday night all hell broke loose. IDF soliders were operating inside Gaza using civilian vehicles backed by air support, tanks...

One hope for Yemenis is that the international fallout from the death of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, which has damaged Prince Mohammed’s international standing, might force him to relent in his unyielding prosecution of the war. Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, said that was unlikely. “I think the Saudis have learned what they can get away with in Yemen — that western tolerance for pretty bad behavior is quite high,” he said. “If the Khashoggi murder tells us anything, it’s just how reluctant people are to rein the Saudis in.”

Major Quake Likely in Middle East, Survey Finds Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News July 26, 2007 In A.D. 551, a massive earthquake devastated the coast of Phoenicia, now Lebanon. The disaster is well-documented, but scientists had struggled over the years to locate the earthquake fault. Now a new underwater survey has uncovered the fault and shown that it moves approximately every 1,500 years—which means a disaster is due any day now. "It is just a matter of time before a destructive tsunami hits this region again," said Iain Stewart, an earthquake expert at the University of Plymouth in the...

The island country of Cape Verde announced on Wednesday that it will no longer be voting against Israel in the United Nations. The decision came following a meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Cape Verde’s President Jorge Carlos Fonseca, who then instructed his envoy at the UN that the island in West Africa would no longer be voting against Israel. Netanyahu welcomed the decision on Wednesday evening. …

An Israeli air strike destroyed Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV building in the Gaza Strip on Monday after a series of warning shots, AFP journalists reported, drawing threats of a harsh response from Palestinian militants. The strike came as violence again flared between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza. Hamas confirmed that the building in Gaza City was destroyed, while Islamic Jihad vowed to respond to Israel's action.

A barrage of about 200 rockets were launched from Gaza towards Israel on Monday, the Israeli army said, hours after a botched Israeli operation in Gaza left a Hamas commander and an Israeli soldier dead. Eleven people in Israel were injured by the rocket fire, prompting retaliatory ground and airstrikes by the Israeli military that left at least three Palestinians in Gaza dead, the Palestinian health ministry said. The Israeli army said that about 60 rockets were intercepted by the Israel Defense Force's (IDF) Iron Dome aerial defense system, with many other rockets falling on open ground. Sirens continued to...

On Nov. 6, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara posted a notice that “The Department [of State] has authorized rewards for information leading to the identification or location of the senior Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members: Murat Karayilan (up to USD $5 million), Cemil Bayik (up to USD $4 million), and Duran Kalkan (up to USD $3 million).” Such bounties are not uncommon when it comes to master terrorists. In years past, the U.S. government, for example, issued bounties for Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Boko Haram head Abubakar Shekau.But the three men...

The paychecks of the Hamas members, which were being paid through financial aid by Qatar, were passed on in suitcases in a heavily guarded vehicle. Palestinian protesters pelted the convoy of Qatar’s ambassador to the Palestinians, Mohammed Al-Emadi, with stones Friday as he came to observe the weekly demonstrations along Gaza’s border fence with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv. Gazan media reported that those leading the attack against Al-Emadi were from the Palestinian faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. PFLP members had earlier refused to take part in the meeting with the...

An Arab newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel and Qatar are hammering out a deal that would allow Hamas to operate a sea crossing between Gaza and Cyprus. According to the Lebanese Al Akhbar, the prospective seaport is part of a wider Egyptian-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. While Hamas demands that the crossing be monitored through video cameras, Israel wants both Israeli forces and international elements to monitor the seaport to prevent weapons smuggling. The report comes as a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas appears to be gaining traction. A central part of the deal has been Qatar's...