Free Republic

As a consequence of October 7, Israel is a traumatized but still resilient country. Until the joint American-Israeli anti-missile response to the Iranian assault on April 14, Israel felt isolated, as its primary ally in the world appeared to be turning its back because of its actions in Gaza as it fought an existential battle against Hamas, Hezbollah, and their patron, Iran. Will the alliance remain strong after Israel responded to the Iranian attack? President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “take the win” and not counterattack the Islamic Republic of Iran. Or will the relationship return to...

Direct hits and multiple fires near Highway 90 and Kiryat Shmona following 35 rocket launches from Lebanon; 10 firefighting teams on site; IDF responds with extensive strikes in southern Lebanon, multiple destroying Hezbollah sites About 35 rockets were fired at the northern city of Kiryat Shmona in a series of barrages from Lebanon Friday evening, causing extensive brushfires. The city reported significant damage to property and infrastructure, with dozens of homes and vehicles affected. Ten firefighting teams from the Galil-Golan station, assisted by crews from other stations in the northern district, are working to extinguish two major fires in open...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that student protesters didn’t “know very much” about the Middle East. When asked about the protests at college campuses across the country, Clinton said, “First of all, I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now. You are right. They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East, or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country. With respect to the Middle East, they don’t...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said the ongoing pro-Palestinian college protests are “working against peace in the Middle East.” Fetterman has been outspoken about his support for Israel, saying recently that the pro-Palestinian encampments on college campuses were “pup tents” for militant group Hamas. Host Margaret Brennan asked Fetterman on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about the protests on Sunday, asking him whether he considers flying the Palestinian flag during the demonstrations to be antisemitic.

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Dick Van Dyke slams cable networks for not reporting on Trump’s clear path back to the White House due to presidential immunity

US. President Joe Biden is being accused of responding to a reporter on Monday in a manner that recalls former president Donald Trump’s saying that there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. “Do you condemn the antisemetic protesters,” Biden was asked on Monday. “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that,” Biden said, per the pool report. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” “President Biden says there are good people on both sides of Oct....

Israel came under attack from Hezbollah on Wednesday when dozens of rockets were fired at the Galilee. Israel responded by attacking targets in South Lebanon. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who was visiting the IDF Northern Command and meeting with its senior officers, said that half of the commanders of Hezbollah's forces have been killed and the rest were in hiding. "From the military operational perspective this is a critical time," he said. In a statement, the military said IDF fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets in the area of Ayta ash Shab in southern Lebanon, including...

WITH a controversial Israeli attack in the news, I have thought back to another controversial Israeli attack, one that took place 29 years ago today: the strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq. The daring, risky bombing dealt a fatal blow to Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. I was then President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, after having been his chief foreign policy adviser for several years. Sunday afternoon, I was on my back porch in Arlington, Va., wading through...my perpetually mounting paperwork. My progress was interrupted..the duty officer was requesting that I go to...

This is the most dangerous moment that we have seen in the Middle East in modern times. As you will see below, Israel has decided to hit Iran. There is still debate about whether it should be a devastating blow or a more limited strike. But in either case, the Iranians are pledging to retaliate. In fact, the Iranians are promising to respond to any attack with overwhelming force. Needless to say, that would certainly provoke another response from Israel. The cycle would continue until someone finally decides that enough is enough. But what if neither side backs down and...

Numerous foreign policy experts are urging Israel to deliver a “disproportionate” military response to Iran’s attacks over the weekend and are warning that time is winding down to deal with the Islamic Republic before it becomes a nuclear state. Part of what is driving the concern from foreign policy and military experts is that Iran has strengthened its relationship with Russia and may soon acquire more advanced military hardware from the Russians that will make it much harder for the U.S., Israel, and Arab allies in the region to counter Iranian threats. The Washington Post reported on Monday night that...

The attack of Iran on Israel on April 13, 2024 was unprecedented. We know that Iran has sponsored terrorism for a long time, working with proxy groups like the Houthis, Hezbollah, and, of course, Hamas on that horrific attack on the Jewish homeland on October 7th—where 1,200 people were butchered and murdered. It is unbelievable. And there are still so many being held as hostages. But when Iran directly attacked Israel, that is literally without precedent and it has Bible prophecy significance. Now, we had this solar eclipse recently and some people thought that that was a sign of the...

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his War Cabinet are leaning towards ordering the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to launch a retaliatory strike against Iran in the coming days, according to Israel’s Channel 12 news. A final decision has apparently not been made. The War Cabinet is expected to convene again tomorrow. But as war clouds form over the region, the stakes could not be higher. This is a big deal. I think that the War Cabinet is signaling that they will probably order a strike on Iran, but leaking word of their deliberations so the Israeli...

Just hours after the unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack against Israel, top Iranian military leaders threatened to launch even larger attacks if the Jewish state decides to launch a counterstrike. “Our response will be much larger than tonight’s military action if Israel retaliates against Iran,” the head of the Iranian military, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Bagheri warned. The Israeli Air Force (IAF), the United States and other allies successfully neutralized about 99% of the 300 missiles and drones Tehran fired toward Israel in the early morning hours on Sunday Bagheri further warned the U.S. that Iran would attack U.S. military bases...

I have been sitting here trying to figure out what to write about what we just witnessed. Just like October 7th, the shocking attack on Israel that just took place altered the course of history. This was the first time that Iran ever attacked Israel directly, and I was flooded with emails by readers that were concerned about World War III. So now that the Iranian attack is over, what will Israel do now? That is the big question. If Israel directly attacks Iran, the Iranians will inevitably respond and the conflict could spiral out of control. But if the...

On September 29, 1938, Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons to challenge the mood of celebration that followed Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler at Munich. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s proclamation that he had secured “peace in our time,” Churchill warned Chamberlain, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” In the aftermath of Iran’s recent assault on Israel, the Biden administration has embraced this pathos, urging Israel to celebrate the lack of casualties beyond a Bedouin girl, an approach encapsulated by Joe Biden’s reported words to Bibi Netanyahu:...

AFP — President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that France would help do everything to avoid an escalation in the Middle East after an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel. Iran launched its first-ever direct assault on Israeli territory late Saturday in retaliation for a deadly April 1 air strike on Tehran’s consulate building in Syria’s capital Damascus that was widely blamed on Israel. “We will do everything to avoid a conflagration — that is to say an escalation,” Macron told the BFMTV news channel.

Hundreds of people gathered in Tehran's Palestine Square, waving Iranian and Palestinian national flags and shouting anti-Israel slogans on Sunday. Some demonstrators said the attack on the IRGC military facility in Damascus, Syria was a violation of Iran's national sovereignty. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released statements claiming it had launched "tens of missile and drones" and "successfully hit and destroyed" important Israeli military targets. The IRGC said the launches came in response to "numerous Israeli crimes." It also warned that any threat by the United States and Israel, or from any other country, would receive a "reciprocal and...

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that former President Donald Trump did not have any idea what to do in the Middle East. Anchor Jake Tapper said, “Former President Trump last night at a rally in Pennsylvania, Shanksville, said that none of this would have happened if he had been president. Take a listen to what he said.”

Joe Biden will return to the White House Saturday afternoon, interrupting a weekend vacation at the beach in Delaware, the Biden press office announced: “The President is returning to the White House this afternoon to consult with his national security team about events in the Middle East.” Biden took off for his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home Friday night with plans to not return until Sunday night, even as he told reporters earlier Friday that he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner rather than later”:

Roosevelt, argues Arnold Beichman, misread Stalin—and proved naive about communism itself.... Professor Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who has argued that the 1989 counter-revolution in Central Europe vindicates President Roosevelt’s wartime diplomacy,... However, I argue that, from the time he took office in 1933, FDR ignored informed assessments from within the State Department of the nature of Soviet diplomacy and that, consequently, the peoples of Central Europe for some four decades paid the price.... In the early years after the Bolshevik revolution, some U.S. diplomats who had begun to specialize in Soviet affairs believed that we should have as few dealings with...