Free Republic

Randi Weingarten's American Federation of Teachers defends pro-Hamas campus occupations as 'peacefully demonstrating' The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply "peacefully demonstrating." The American Federation of Teachers led by Randi Weingarten claimed that anti-Israel protesters on college campuses were simply “peacefully demonstrating.” The Tuesday statement from the AFT came in response to a hearing last week from the House Education and the Workforce Committee where leaders of Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California, Los Angeles, were grilled regarding their response to campus anti-Israel encampments. ”AFT members...

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s brashness toward progressives has expanded beyond the topic of Israel. Fetterman was the topic of a lengthy feature article published by the New York Times on Saturday that highlighted how the senator, who had been on thin ice with progressives for his staunch and unconditional support for Israel in its war with Hamas, has shown that his willingness to make waves within his own party doesn’t stop at the Middle East. Fetterman was seen mocking environmentalist Stevie O’Hanlon, who was trying to speak to him about a Chester County pipeline, in a video that circulated online...

Former MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan slammed the Biden administration on Wednesday over the news that the $320 million pier the U.S. built to transport aid into Gaza had fallen apart after only a few days. "Let's be clear: if this had happened on Trump's watch, we would all be mocking and denouncing him," Hasan wrote on X. "It's super-embarrassing that it happened on Biden's watch and the fact that it did shouldn't prevent us from saying: what a bloody s--tshow."

Pro-Hamas protestors were at it again, this time setting fire to the Israeli embassy in Mexico City, with some reports of injuries, puzzling quite a few observers. According to the Jewish Chronicle:Rioters on Tuesday set fire to the Israeli Embassy in Mexico during a protest ostensibly against the Israeli military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.Masked protesters threw stones at security forces who had created a barricade preventing access to the diplomatic mission in the Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.Around 200 people participated in the “Urgent Action for Rafah” demonstration, dozens of whom attempted to break down...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overtook war cabinet minister Benny Gantz as the public’s preferred choice for premier in a television survey aired Wednesday, marking the first time in a year that the incumbent rated higher than his best-polling rival. The Channel 12 news poll also found Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party gaining on Gantz’s centrist National Union, while indicating that a potential all-star slate of Netanyahu’s former right-wing allies could win a double-digit number of parliamentary seats, mainly at the expense of National Union. If elections were held today, according to the poll, National Union would pick up 25 of the...

Nikki Haley, a former GOP presidential candidate and United Nations ambassador, wrote “Finish them” on an artillery shell while on a trip to Israel this week. Haley was photographed signing the shell Tuesday in a social media post by Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Israeli Parliament. The message on the shell read, “Finish them! America [heart] Israel always, Nikki Haley.” “This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Danon wrote in a post...

Map of combat position in an UNRWA school in Rafah, May 30, 2024. (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT) IDF troops operating in southern Gaza uncovered a store of weapons stored in a UNRWA school complex, which also included a mosque and a medical clinic, the IDF announced on Thursday. During searches, a hidden explosive in a shaft underneath a civilian clinic exploded on IDF troops. The hidden explosive device killed the three IDF soldiers, St.-Sgt. Amir Galilove, St.-Sgt. Uri Bar Or and St.-Sgt Ido Appel that the IDF confirmed on Wednesday. Many weapons were discovered during the operation, including firearms,...

An American professor and writer has said that Donald Trump’s “brain is rotting in front of us”, and claimed that to compare him to Joe Biden is “dangerous and wrong”. Sarah Churchwell, an American culture specialist and the author of a book examining division in the US, The Wrath to Come, was appearing on a panel at Hay Festival chaired by The Independent’s chief book critic Martin Chilton. They were joined by political podcaster David Runciman and We Need to Talk About Kevin author Lionel Shriver. Shriver claimed that, ahead of the US election on 5 November, she finds herself...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) argued that there’s never a wrong time to recognize a Palestinian state but Hamas shouldn’t be involved in it and while the ICC shouldn’t arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we should have something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Co-host John Berman asked, “Do you think this shows that terrorism pays?” Khanna answered, “No, it doesn’t. We should recognize a Palestinian state. That has been the United States’ policy, a two-state solution, 143 countries at the United Nations voted for it. Nelson Mandela called for...

The Australian Parliament rejected the Green Party's proposal to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. The Green Party's proposal was rejected by a large majority of 80 members of parliament who opposed it, as opposed to only 5 members who supported it.. Adam Bandt, leader of the Green Party, claimed that recognizing a Palestinian state would be "a concrete step towards peace." "It's not just a symbolic move, it's a critical step towards peace and towards ending the slaughter we're seeing with the invasion of Gaza at the moment," he told parliament. ....

Saudi Arabia accused Israel on Wednesday of committing “continuous genocidal massacres” against Palestinians, casting the Biden administration’s efforts to broker a “normalization” deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia in doubt. In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry — which has taken a tougher line toward Israel than Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — accused Israel of deliberately targeting the tents of Palestinians in Gaza. #Statement | Saudi Arabia condemns and denounces in the strongest terms the continuous genocidal massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people without deterrence by continuing to target the tents of defenseless...

British rock guitar legend Eric Clapton moved one step closer to Roger Waters territory last week, telling an interviewer that “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show.” The 79-year-old musician, who has recently performed playing a guitar painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, was interviewed on May 22 by David Spuria, an American Youtuber who hosts the popular Real Music Observer show. alking about the recent campus protests in the US against Israel, Clapton criticized the Senate hearings in which university presidents were asked about antisemitism on campus. “I was so enthused about what was...

"Squad" member Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Sunday blasted President Biden’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, deriding him as an "enabler" of genocide while speaking at an event attended by at least one member of a designated terrorist organization and funded by an asset of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The event, the People’s Conference for Palestine was held over the weekend in Detroit, and featured, among other speakers, Wisam Rafeedie, an activist with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization. The conference was organized...

White House spokesman John Kirby defended Israel amid international outrage after an airstrike reportedly killed dozens of civilians in the Gaza Strip — saying the US military “did the same thing.” “We have conducted airstrikes in places like Iraq and Afghanistan where, tragically, we caused civilian casualties,” he said — adding that the US responded the same way as Israel in the aftermath. “We owned up to it, we investigated it, and we tried to learn from it to make changes,” Kirby said at Tuesday’s regular White House briefing. He noted that Israel said it used precision bombs and that...

A U.S. military-built pier off Gaza’s coast is being temporarily removed after a part of the structure broke off, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in the latest blow to efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians. The pier was announced by U.S. President Joe Biden in March and involved the military assembling the floating structure off the coast. Estimated to cost $320 million for the first 90 days and involve about 1,000 U.S. service members, it went into operation two weeks ago.

Breaking with the stance of other Western countries, Israel decided on Monday not to express an official opinion on the issue of Catalan independence in the meantime, NRG reported. According to the report, Spain asked Israel over the weekend to publicly declare that it does not support Catalan independence, as part of Spain’s efforts to garner international consensus on the matter. Israel’s ambivalence is a departure from the opposition to Catalan independence declared by the EU and US. On Friday, US State Dept. spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that “Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the...

Television host Piers Morgan backed a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war Monday morning, saying in a string of social media posts that a recent Israeli strike in a Rafah “safe zone” that killed more than 40 people was too far. “The scenes from Rafah overnight are horrific,” Morgan wrote on the social platform X. “I’ve defended Israel’s right to defend itself after Oct 7, but slaughtering so many innocent people as they cower in a refugee camp is indefensible.”

An unusual exchange of fire occured this morning (Monday) between IDF forces and soldiers of the Egyptian army in the Rafah Crossing area. During the incident, an Egyptian soldier was killed and several others were injured. There were no casualties among the IDF forces. Israeli officials stated that the incident began when an Egyptian soldier opened fire at IDF troops, who then returned fire. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit stated, "A few hours ago (Monday), a shooting incident occurred on the Egyptian border. The incident is under review and discussions are being held with the Egyptians." .....

An Egyptian soldier was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers near the Rafah Border Crossing in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, the countries’ militaries said, in an incident that threatened the already strained ties between the nations. The circumstances of the cross-border shooting were not immediately clear, and it was unknown which side opened fire first. There were no casualties among Israeli forces. The Israel Defense Forces described the incident as “a shooting incident” on the border. “There was a shooting incident on the Egyptian border; the [incident] is under investigation, [and] dialogue is taking place with the...

Pressure is building between Israel and Egypt over Palestinian refugees as Israel prepares its offensive on Rafah, where Hamas is hiding out and using human shields. According to an Atlantic Council report:Relations between Egypt and Israel have soured in recent weeks as Israel prepares to launch a full-scale ground offensive into Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip—a move that Cairo has warned would put its peace treaty with Israel at risk and destabilize the region.Egypt fears a sweeping assault on Rafah—where more than one million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from Israel’s incessant bombardment of the northern and central Gaza...