Free Republic

It was more an embarrassment than a ship. Nearly 20 years old, its single tall funnel poked out above dilapidated decks and scarred paintwork. It was heading for the breaker’s yard until the Haganah, the Jewish underground, bought it. Now, loaded with more than 4,500 Jewish refugees, many of them Holocaust survivors, it was approaching the Palestinian port of Haifa and its moment of destiny. Its commander that July day in 1947 was Yossi Harel, who has died at 90. The ship was the USS President Warfield but Harel had renamed it Exodus 1947. Nearing Haifa it was pursued by...

On a pleasant Thursday in December 1948, Emilio Traubner, a correspondent for The Palestine Post, found himself near Abu Kabir, not far from Jaffa. Trenches and expended cartridges were strewn about, reminders of the fighting between units of the Irgun and local Arab forces that had taken place there seven months previously. There was a large Arab villa from where Traubner recovered a diary. It turned out to be the daily record of Yusuf Begovic of Pale, a town near Sarajevo in modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. In it Begovic had described his activities as a cook for the "Arab Army of Liberation."...

Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West. During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as...

Having just taught a course on the Cultural Geography of the Middle East at a community college in Florida for “seniors” (over 55 years of age), I again encountered a unanimous belief among my students in what I would call the Most Widely Believed Myth of the political and military conflict between Israel and the Arabs. This universal belief, never challenged by the media, is that the United States was wholly or largely responsible for fully supporting Israel on the ground from the very beginning of its independence in May, 1948. The world has been inundated with a tsunami of...

    But we were told that the Arabs hate us because of supposedly being biased against Arab "Palestinians"...Nov/2007 REMEMBER? Wild Arabist writers/"activists" have been flooding us for years with brainwashing nonsense as if the Arab Muslim world is "enraged" mainly by the "Palestinian" Israeli conflict.If only... -- this is what they have been selling us for so many years -- if only we'd be on the side of the "palestinian" Arabs, all would be singing kumbaya, the "peace loving" Arab world would just come rushing to embrace us. LIARS! Never mind the blatant daring hypocrisy of that Arab world,...

ISRAEL - PEACE - SURVIVAL, NOT GENOCIDE! In the beginning...Israel has always faced genocide, from the moment the Islamo Arab fascist leader, the infamous [later on exposed as Hitler's buddy] Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini has called, incited, led to "kill the Jews" in the 1920s. The Mufti, that prior to inciting to "kill the Yahud [Jews]" & leading massacres such as Hebron 1929 and the Farhud in 1941, has participated in the massacres and genocide of Christians, the Armenian Genocide that is [http://Armenian-Genocide.org], where 1.5 Million Christians were brutally murdered. An ally of the Nazi "Fuhrer": Adolph Hitler,...

HISTORY - Time line [some] Important dates in radical ISLAM VS WORLD 1263 - 1328 The 'Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism' Who is the True Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism? His name is Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, and he lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam. This individual could be considered as the real godfather of fundamentalism. Maududi borrowed extensively from Taymiyyah's writings. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/index.php? id=1194248__________________1347 [The Bahmani sultans & genocide on Indians]The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death....

Did - Yasser Arafat - the Palestinians murder Rachel Corrie?With all the revelations of Arab Muslim Palestinians killing their own (Rafah cave, Muhammad al dura, frequent sending kids as human bombs knowingly or unknowingly, Gaza beach 2006), it's not too fetched to believe that he murderd an American for that "high" goal of racist campaign to demonize Israel. If they kill their own for that purpose, Why wouldn't these Islamofascist Arab racists kill an infidel white American? Their highest goal is that dreadful "victimhood" side by side with demonization-of-Israel, they'd stop at nothing. After all, it's Arafat's guys that were...

Hamas' victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections is already being sanitized by the politically correct, despite the terrorist group's bloody track record and its fallacious and dubious historical claims to the land of Israel. Thankfully, some Western leaders are condemning the selection of murderers by Palestinians for their government. At the top of a BBC article yesterday regarding the Hamas terrorist group winning Palestinian elections: The win poses problems for efforts to restart peace talks with Israel, say analysts. Israel insists it will not deal with an authority including Hamas. So this is all just Israel's problem/fault because the majority of...

Response to "Bush should support genocide pact" by Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, 9-26-2005 by Dennis Fishel If anyone ever asks me to run for president, I'm not going to know whether to laugh or cry. Not that I have much to worry about, you understand; retired mailmen-turned-novelists aren't normally on the candidate short list. Still, given that the media voodoo dolls of George W. Bush look like pin cushions these days, it can't hurt for any of us to have an escape plan should our friends and cohorts unaccountably decide we might look good in Oval. When the dogs at...

Aztlan -- have you ever heard of it? You know, the nation that encompasses what used to be all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado as well as most of Northern Mexico. There is no such nation you say? Well, a University of New Mexico Chicano Studies professor named Charles Truxillo says that it is “an inevitability.” The influx of illegal aliens, especially from Mexico, that come and settle in that general area is seen as a precursor for the formation of this new nation. By establishing themselves in overwhelming numbers they intend to create such a...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - With sirens and rallies, Palestinians on Sunday mournfully commemorated the anniversary of what they call "Al Nakba," or "the catastrophe" — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of their people with the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. While Israelis held barbecues, concerts and launched fireworks to celebrate the 57th anniversary of their independence Thursday — according to the date on the Hebrew calendar — Palestinians see the day very differently. "Our people will never forget and the generations will never forget," Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech aired on Palestine TV. "On...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

Rozan Khouri performs at the fifth annual Aravision festival of Israeli Arab singers on Saturday night. Last Wednesday, the competition to choose the song that would represent Israel at this year's Eurovision song contest, screened live on Channel 1, topped the day's TV ratings, and instantly electrified the career of winning singer Shiri Maimon. On Saturday night, 10 Israeli Arab performers competed in the fifth annual Aravision festival of Israeli Arab singers at Neveh Ilan outside Jerusalem, with Rozan Khouri, a 23-year-old cellist and singer from Ma'alot Tarshiha, near Nahariya, emerging victorious with a love song called "Not You" –...

What Really Happened in 1948 By Sarah El Shazly FrontPageMagazine.com | December 28, 2004 Ever since I was a child, I've heard a range of accounts of what happened to the Palestinians and Palestine. Everyone knows the Jewish version and the Arab version. But there is a third side, that of those who lived there and still do -- the Israeli Arabs. Some Jews want us out of Israel, and some Arabs believe that we are an extension of the Zionists. Yet we Israeli Arabs keep our culture and traditions. Mahshy, or stuffed grape leaves, remains our favorite meal. We...

Ever since I was a child, I've heard a range of accounts of what happened to the Palestinians and Palestine. Everyone knows the Jewish version and the Arab version. But there is a third side, that of those who lived there and still do -- the Israeli Arabs. Some Jews want us out of Israel, and some Arabs believe that we are an extension of the Zionists. Yet we Israeli Arabs keep our culture and traditions. Mahshy, or stuffed grape leaves, remains our favorite meal. We love Arabic music; we sing old folk songs, including "Wein aa Ramallah" about a...

County unveils possible new logo that some see as homage to president By Jennifer Barrios AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Wednesday, January 5, 2005 GEORGETOWN -- "W" or "Dubya"? Williamson officials unveiled what might be the county's new logo on Tuesday, and it's a giant "W." "We felt it represents the county well," spokeswoman Connie Watson said. But some observers see a connection in the choice of the letter for a county rife with "W" bumper stickers and Republican voters dedicated to President Bush. "Oh, yeah, it was the first thing that crossed my mind: Dubya," Precinct 2 Commissioner Greg Boatright said of...

Ever since I was a child, I've heard a range of accounts of what happened to the Palestinians and Palestine.  Everyone knows the Jewish version and the Arab version.  But there is a third side, that of those who lived there and still do -- the Israeli Arabs. Some Jews want us out of Israel, and some Arabs believe that we are an extension of the Zionists.  Yet we Israeli Arabs keep our culture and traditions.  Mahshy, or stuffed grape leaves, remains our favorite meal. We love Arabic music; we sing old folk songs, including "Wein aa Ramallah" about a...

Alfred C. Kinsey is the left’s secular saint -- a revered figure who, they are convinced, came into a benighted world and (armed with reams of scientific research) heroically banished ignorance and sexual repression, and ushered in a new age of liberation, enlightenment and pleasure. In reality, the zoologist turned sex researcher was a sick pervert (more at home in a trench coat than a lab smock) who doctored evidence, abetted child molestation and helped to launch a revolution that has resulted in untold human suffering. But, try telling that to one who worships at the altar of good sex....

There's an odd, poetic justice in Trent Lott's downfall over his incautiously fond reminiscences about Strom Thurmond's 1948 Dixiecrat revolt against Harry Truman's Democratic re-election campaign. Thurmond had an opponent in that race whom almost no one has mentioned, because he and his followers were swept immediately into history's dustbin after that election. Now is the time for that untold half of the story. Everyone knows by now that Thurmond's States' Rights Party meant to thwart Truman's unprecedentedly strong commitment to civil rights. The segregationist apostates didn't expect Thurmond to win the election (he carried only four Southern states); they...

The Democrats' Last Chance by the Editors Only at TNR Online Post date: 07.24.04 [ By 1948, the Democratic coalition built by FDR had begun to fray beyond repair--or so thought The New Republic's editors when they penned this piece prior to the party's convention that summer. They were right, of course, that things looked bad. Liberal Democratic voters would abandon the Democrats in droves to support the left-wing Progressive Party of Henry Wallace, FDR's former vice president. And conservative southern Democrats would storm out of the convention and nominate Strom Thurmond to head a "Dixiecrat" ticket. So TNR's editors...

An Israeli veteran of the 1948 War for Independence dissects the revisionist myth of Palestinian innocence To back up its demands for full repatriation to Israel of Arab refugees and their descendants, the Palestinian leadership has—for over fifty years—busily spun the story of their "Naqba," their catastrophic flight from Palestine during 1947-48, in all the media available to them. This version of events—replete with Jewish brutality and Arab victimization—is a lie whose time has come, one now almost universally believed by Gentile and Jew alike. It has become the latest Blood Libel against the People of the Book; and like...

"Fifty years ago people were living peacefully in Haifa and Jaffa, then came the British and Israeli occupation," Hamas chief Khaled Mashal told the BBC Monday. Speaking on Tim Sebastian's Hardtalk program, Mashal was asked if, in his opinion, Israel had a right to exist and live in peace. Mashal would not answer the question directly, insisting only on saying, "the longest occupation does not become legitimate. The duration of the occupation does not make it legitimate." Mashal came to Beirut from Damascus for the interview with the BBC. "The problem was born fifty years ago," he told the BBC....

- WASHINGTON -- The United States government is not a speed reader, but after 37 years of reading U.N. Resolution 242, on Wednesday the government finally read it accurately. The government saw what is not there -- the missing definite article, ``the.'' Passed after the 1967 Six Day War, 242 mandated the withdrawal of Israel ``from territories occupied in the recent conflict.'' Not from ``the territories.'' Israel insisted on deletion of the ``the'' because it implied, as Arab and other powers acknowledged by their vehement opposition to the deletion -- withdrawal from all territories. This was strategic ambiguity. On Wednesday,...

  What happened to Jewish Holy Sites and places of worship in lands controlled by the Arabs? On May 28, 1948 the Arab Legion completed the capture of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the site of numerous ancient synagogues and the Western Wall of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 AD. These were and remain the holiest sites in the Jewish religion.After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries...

President Bush's decision to invoke the Sept. 11 attacks in a campaign commercial has Democrats livid. But when it comes to politicizing America's wars, Bush has nothing on Democratic icon Harry Truman, who actually demonized his opponent by comparing him to Adolf Hitler in campaign speeches. The New York Times chronicled some of Truman's incendiary rhetoric in its Oct. 26, 1948 edition, in a report on a Truman campaign speech in Chicago against New York Republican Thomas Dewey. "President Likens Dewey to Hitler as Facists' Tool," read the Times headline, followed by the subhead, "Dictatorship Stressed." The Times headline writer...

Congratulations to Prof. Benny Morris for having the courage to publicly reconsider some of his earlier conclusions and for acknowledging that Israel did what it had to do in 1948. (The Jerusalem Post, February 10). Apart from a few points with which one might take issue, Morris's article offers a balanced summary of the conflict, in marked contrast to his earlier writings, which emphasized Israel's alleged wrongdoings. Morris complains that as a new historian he has been accused of seeking to shatter the founding myths of the Israeli state and of lending moral weight to the Palestinian cause. The problem...

In his recent endorsement of Dean, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa compared Howard Dean to Harry Truman. Many others have made the same comparison, especially with regard to Truman's angry 1948 election campaign. In liberal terms, this is supposed to be a complement. But what worries me about the Truman legacy, is that so many decent, respectable, intelligent, educated, patriotic, and reasonable conservative Republicans, happen to be great admirers of Harry Truman. I have never been able to understand it. How could so many good people have a distorted view of history? In his first term, Truman handed over half...

I have just posted the first complete draft of a study and analysis of the recent Lott smear, in the context of established Leftist tactics and how to answer them. As always, comments are invited. There may not be time to specifically answer them, but they will be considered when I revise the post into its final form. The essay may be pulled up at Trent Lott Affair--The Anatomy & Context Of A Smear. William Flax

StopDemocrats.com is asking for Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) to Step Aside. The petition reads: Recent comments by Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) involving Senator Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy supporting segregation have created a controversy that may force the Senator to step aside as leader of the Senate Republicans. This petition asks that the same standards be applied to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) ,who is the current President pro tempore of the US Senate, and demands that he resign from any leadership post in the 108th Congress for saying the following racist comments on National television 21 months ago. "My old...

Attempted Genocide From the Start Louis Rene Beres 11 August 2002 Email this story Print this story To fully understand current conflicts in the Middle East, history must be recalled. Acknowledged by the United Nations and the civilized community of nations, Israel became a recognized and sovereign state on May 14, 1948. Immediately, the five armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan (which was renamed Jordan one year later, in 1949), Lebanon and Iraq invaded the fledgling country. Their combined intention, celebrated enthusiastically all over the Arab world, was expressed plainly and publicly by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: "This...