Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came under thick verbal fire when he delivered the Abdullah II Leadership Lecture at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Friday. Many of the people in the hall had apparently come there with the intent of interrupting Olmert's speech, and did so by getting up, one after the other, and hurling epithets like “murderer” and “war criminal” at him. When one of the Arabs asked “how many children have to die?”, Olmert answered with a steady voice: “This is a question that many Israelis have been asking for the past eight...

Local police are investigating a shooting incident, shots fired at the vehicle of Israel’s ambassador to Chile. Ambassador David Dadon and a security agent were heading to the vehicle on Tuesday, in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Damage was reported to a window and splash guard behind one vehicle tire. Police were summoned immediately, and the determination was made that the damage was caused by gunfire. There were no eyewitnesses and people interviewed by police insist they did not see anything out of the ordinary. Police are investigating two possible angles, a terror incident or a stray bullet. Gabriel Zaliasnik,...

In the recent dialogue between David Frum and David Horowitz about the place of Glenn Beck and other bold talkers in the Conservative Movement Frum shot out a claim which threw Horowitz off guard: Third – how do we define “our side”? Horowitz harshly condemns Obama appointee Van Jones. Van Jones was eventually forced to resign not because of any of the allegations Glenn Beck hurled at him, but because the Gateway Pundit blog unearthed evidence that Van Jones had consorted with 9/11 denialists. So that’s the other side, right? Except… the American politician who most closely associates with 9/11...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told visiting Democratic majority leader Rep. Steny Hoyer and 28 other party Congressmen on Monday that the PA is burying plans for peace. The Democratic delegation arrived in Israel on the heels of a visit by Republicans last week. The American Israel Education Committee, affiliated with American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is sponsoring the trips. Foreign Minister Lieberman greeted the Democrats with a stinging condemnation of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah convention, which is to conclude Monday in Bethlehem. The Arabs “are effectively burying the possibility of reaching an agreement in the coming years,”...

Following the contested Iranian election, the green armbands of the opposition and pictures of bloodied and dying Iranian protesters were being held aloft by Iranians from Los Angeles to Paris. Noticeably absent from the international scene were Westerners, particularly students. The reaction to events in Iran has shown once again the double standards and hypocrisy of those in Europe and the West who jump at the slightest opportunity to protest Israel but remain stoic in the face of events in Iran. While many have compared the outpouring of anger in Iran to what presaged the 1979 revolution, there is one...

Generally, liberals are not big fans of Israel or Judaism. Especially when you look at the liberal websites. Israel used to be the darling of the liberal, an underdog nation fighting against a bunch of ruthless dictators, the Kibbutznick working as part of a collective economy...it was the liberal ideal. Two things happened to change that "love affair" the first happened forty years ago, when Israel crushed its Arab neighbors in the six-day war. That's when Israel began to lose its underdog status. It was however, still liberally acceptable to support Israel. The second blow to Israel-Liberal relations happened in...

The shooting by James Van Brunn at the Holocaust museum for most people, was simply the act of a deranged anti-Semitic lunatic who, like most hate mongers spent his life blaming others for his own shortcoming and inadequacies. But what could be a bigger problem for President Obama is having to deal with the fact that the day before the shooting, similar lunatic rantings were made by the man who Obama said was like a member of his own family, the man who introduced him to his wife, the man who baptized his children and the man in whose church...

The international Religious Left has very little interest in human rights or religious liberty in the world, outside territories occupied by or supposedly victimized by Israel. Never critical of radical Islam or Arab regimes, groups like the World Council of Churches (WCC) have an obsessive interest in the plight of Palestinians, whose plight would otherwise bore the WCC, if Israel, and by extension, the U.S., could not be blamed. Last month, the WCC dispatched a "Living Letters" team to Israel and "Palestine," purportedly to show solidarity with Palestinian Christians. But the attitude of Hamas and other Islamists towards the dwindling...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a major departure from previous policy, the United States will join direct talks between U.N. and European powers and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, the State Department announced Wednesday. The Obama administration has asked the European Union's international policy chief, Javier Solana, to invite Iran to new talks with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. Washington, which does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, has stayed out of those talks to date. "If Iran accepts, we hope this will be an occasion to seriously engage Iran...

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has issued a warning to employees in Gaza who belong to Fatah, Hamas and other terrorist groups, according to Haaretz. Employees' open political affiliation with terrorist groups is “worrisome” and must stop, said UNRWA's Gaza director, John Ging.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The State Department says the United States will seek election to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Obama administration's latest reversal of President George W. Bush's foreign policies. The department says the Obama administration wants to participate in the council's activities as part of a new era of U.S. engagement with the world.

Friends of a Bay Area activist who was critically injured while demonstrating in a village on Palestine's West Bank have organized their own demonstration in downtown San Francisco today as a show of solidarity. Friends of Tristan Anderson, a former tree-sitter at the UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium oak grove, and supporters of Palestine will gather at 4 p.m. Monday outside the Israeli Consulate at 456 Montgomery St. in San Francisco, said Kate Raphael, a fellow activist and friend of Anderson's. "Our intent is to give people a chance to talk about Tristan, to focus on the people who have been...

I don't know if Newsweek is as eager to be rid of Israel as "The State of Islam" is these days or not, but on its interactive online map of the mid east, the news mag is featuring a map of Israel labeled as "Palestinian Territory." Once you click over to the Newsweek map, holding the mouse over the tiny red shape north of Egypt will bring up a popup map showing Israel clearly labeled as "PalestinianTerritory." Here is a screen shot of the current map on Newsweek's site:

Introduction: ...At the outset of a book chapter describing the 2001 analysis from this project (Paterson, 2005), I asked if media convergence and the migration of news consumers to the Internet democratise information flow - as conventional wisdom suggests - or simply disguise a steady reduction in information diversity. Here I seek to approach the problem more definitively. The hypothesis of reduction of information diversity saw preliminary support from my 1999 and 2001 data, and other academic and industry reports. And so I pose the following hypothesis for testing through longitudinal analysis: In the last five years, international news flow...

Salinas-area activists going to Gaza February 23, 2009 A group of Monterey County peace activists will be traveling to the Gaza Strip in early March to provide humanitarian and emotional support to children, women and women's organizations. Led by Monterey CodePink founder Hanan Sharwar, approximately 25 activists will fly to Cairo and tour the Gaza Strip with former Army colonel and peace activist Ann Wright.

BBC staff protest failure to air pro-Palestinian video Many have wondered if the BBC had a pro-Palestinian bias in their reporting. This has now been confirmed. Over 400 of their staff have signed a protest petition because they failed to air a video that the corporation deemed to be too biased in favor of Palestinians. That must have been one very biased news video. Hat tip to Axis of Right.

The notion that truth is the first casualty of war finds expression in the fog of the current Gaza conflict - a truth masked by oft-repeated cliches such as "cycle of violence" or unconscionable allegations of "genocide." If we want to prevent further tragedies in this conflict - let alone frame the basis for its resolution - then we have to go behind the daily headlines that cloud understanding and probe the real basis of the Israeli-Hamas conflict. The proximate trigger for the present hostilities was the deliberate and consistent attack on Israeli citizens by Hamas. Over 6,000 rockets and...

Violence in Gaza prompted local activists Tuesday to don white masks and march on the Madison offices of U.S. legislators to deliver letters demanding an end to U.S. support of Israel. "We're very concerned about U.S. policies all over the world," organizer Joy First told a staffer at the office of U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin -- where another local activist, Allen Ruff, condemned Baldwin's failure to speak out against U.S. military aggression as "contemptible and out of character." Ruff left behind a pair of shoes, a symbol of contempt in the Arab world and reminiscent of the incident last month...

The Palestinian terrorists in Gaza are expert at manipulating the news media to their point of view. Already, the top media outlets have filled television screens with human interest stories of Palestinian women and children being blown to bits by the overpowering and relentless Israeli Defense Forces. Story after story appears with frantic Palestinian women crying out that their lives are disrupted by these terrible bombing raids, that there is no food to feed their families, that their husbands are missing. And while they are talking, there is chaos in the background of bombed out buildings and B-roll of children...

Fighting intensified on the northern outskirts of Gaza City yesterday as a Hamas leader warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault. “They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine,” Mahmoud Zahar said in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. “They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.” Mr Zahar made his first appearance since Israel launched its offensive. Dressed in a dark suit, he declared: “Victory is coming, God willing.” As night...

All are muslim protestors, and this is only a sampling of the crazed protests that are going on in every continent, all over the world. The ones above are from India and the Phillipines, but these last two are from Chicago and NYC. I wonder what percentage voted for Obama... 99.8% or 99.9%?

Joining a growing number of demonstrations worldwide, protesters marched today in President-elect Barack Obama's South Side neighborhood to voice their opposition to Israel's strikes against Gaza. Nearly three dozen demonstrators walked in front of police barricades a few blocks from Obama's Kenwood home, waving a Palestinian flag and chanting anti-war slogans that chastised the United States for manufacturing the bombs and warplanes used by Israel. At one point during the protest, they screamed and fell to the ground in a theatrical gesture meant to symbolize an airstrike.

This video (thanks to M.B.) depicts Dutch parliamentarian Harry van Bommel of the Socialist Party and other Leftist useful idiots calling for intifada against Israel during a Jew-hate, pro-jihad terror rally in Amsterdam yesterday -- while the crowd behind them (at 1:05) chants "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas."

LET GAZA LIVE! Stop the U.S./Israeli War Against the Palestinian People National March on Washington Saturday, January 10 Assemble at the White House (north side) at 1:00 PM Tens of thousands have marched across the country. Above: Chicago, January 2 Sponsoring organizations: ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, American Muslim Task Force, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awda - International Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and hundreds of others Flyer for the DC demonstration (click on the link to view a PDF that you can print and reproduce) There will be coinciding West Coast demonstrations in San...

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, December 30, 2008 “I have not seen such hatred in this country since Selma. That was when I really just shuddered and thought–they (the pro-Hamas-niks) are taking away our country.” (See below for her report, just in). FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA. December 30, 2008 “This is not Gaza, or London, or Paris, or even Detroit. This is downtown Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.” Tom Trento is describing the intense demonstration against Israel that just took place. He made the video by quietly and bravely circulating among the pro-Palestine demonstrators so that we can easily hear their chants. At red-hot levels...

DEARBORN, Dec. 30--In one of the largest demonstrations in Dearborn in recent years, organizers estimated that some 5,000 people formed a human chain along Warren avenue in Dearborn, the heart of the Arab-American community in metropolitan Detroit, to express solidarity with the plight of the Palestinians now under siege in Gaza by the Israeli military. Chanting slogans such as "Free, Free Palestine", the crowd flew Palestinian flags on the street along Warren avenue as well as from automobiles driving up and down the streets surrounding the demonstration. Although most of the demonstrators were of Palestinian and Arab heritage, there were...

Last week I was in Gaza. While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police officers who were undergoing a course in conflict management. They were eager to know whether foreigners felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government? Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18 months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings. They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye. Less than a week later all of these men were dead, killed by an Israeli rocket at...

In a worrying sign of how much anti-Semitism is creeping back into mainstream American culture, students at a suburban St. Louis middle school last week held what they called “Hit a Jew Day.” At least 10 of the school’s 35 Jewish students were publicly struck by classmates. The racially motivated incident was a perversion of an unofficial “Hug a Friend Day” held earlier in the month. The students involved in the incident are expected to be suspended and forced to attend counseling. The Associated Press reported that Jewish leaders are concerned that the incident is indicative of a rebirth of...

Turns out the actual communists who vote in this country deny that Barak Obama really does represent their views, but they still argue that he's the best candidate for their cause based on Marxist teachings. Then whoever wrote this (quite oddly) claimed they aren't Marxists ....sounds like Obama fits right in with this crowd. And, since this appears on Obama's official website, I take it he is quite comfortable publicly courting the commie vote. Barack Obama is the single most liberal person to have ever received the nomination of the Democrat Party, and if voters don't quickly realize just how...

Heads up everyone. The left is starting to push out a new smear against Palin. I just got an email in a 'dummy' account that I use to troll talking points from leftwing groups. They are using the photo below to pose as Conservatives on forums and blogs and say that Palin refuses to wear an 'American Flag' that it is an Israli flag. The truth is, this is a "Blue Star Family" pin honoring a son in service. Apparently the left has no idea what this pin is or they hope enough gullible people don't look into it.

We previously reported that a My.Barackobama.com moderator or administrator, i.e. an official staff member who exercises editorial control over the Obama campaign site’s online discussion board, sanctioned the use of the phrase “Israel Lobby”–possibly as code for “Jewish Lobby.” (http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/caitlinharvey/gGBxhk/commentary) Obama’s moderators sanctioned and tolerated the following entry, which has been online for more than four months. Burn something else besides oil By Abdul from Beverly Hills, CA Mar 31st 2008 at 6:23 pm EDT Start with zionists. The following was eventually thrown under the bus, but not until it remained online for six weeks in full view of the...

This blood libel of Israel, Jews, and John McCain’s father is sanctioned by Barack Obama’s official campaign It has been established [http://husaria.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/obama-campaign-sanctioned-anti-semitic-and-other-hate-speech/] that Barack Obama’s official campaign site exercises editorial control over the content of my.barackobama.com, and is capable of finding and removing “offensive” and “disrespectful” material within two days. The following has been online for almost three weeks. It accuses Israel of deliberatly murdering the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty, American Jews with divided loyalties of complicity, and John McCain’s father of complicity in a cover up. The following entry is sanctioned (tolerated) by Barack Obama’s official campaign... Now,...

AL DURA UPDATE: "Israel Radio's Paris correspondent Gil Michaeli has just reported that the French Court of Appeals has overturned the libel judgment against Phillipe Karsenty and has determined that Karsenty did not libel France 2 correspondent Charles Enderlin when he reported that the 'death' of 12-year old Mohamed Al-Dura at Netzarim in the Gaza Strip in September 2000 may have been staged, and that it was unlikely that the death was caused by IDF soldiers." Perhaps the Israeli military should start filing foreign libel suits against media outfits that collaborate in fake reporting. There's likely enough to keep quite...

BALTIMORE - A federal judge in Baltimore ordered Westboro Baptist Church members to post their church building and nearly $500,000 more in cash and property while appealing a judgment for protesting a Marine’s funeral. The Kansas church members had hoped to avoid posting a bond while delaying payments in the $5 million judgment a jury awarded Albert Snyder, the father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who died in Iraq. Westboro church members preach that God kills American soldiers as punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality. They protested Matthew Snyder’s Westminster funeral in March 2006 by waving signs...

GENEVA - The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it. The European Union said the text was one-sided because it primarily focused on Islam. The U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Arab and other Muslim countries, adopted the resolution on a 21-10 vote over the opposition of Europe and Canada. EU countries, including France, Germany and Britain, voted against. Previously EU diplomats had said they wanted to stop the growing worldwide trend of using religious anti-defamation...

A Jewish Defector Warns America Introductory Note: Benjamin H. Freedman was one of the most intriguing and amazing individuals of the 20th century. Born in 1890, he was a successful Jewish businessman of New York City at one time principal owner of the Woodbury Soap Company. He broke with organized Jewry after the Judeo-Communist victory of 1945, and spent the remainder of his life and the great preponderance of his considerable fortune, at least 2.5 million dollars, exposing the Jewish tyranny which has enveloped the United States. Mr. Freedman knew what he was talking about because he had been an...

In the stuffy world of politics, the Ron Paul campaign has earned the reputation of being something like a raucous, freedom-loving party. A raucous, freedom-loving party with lots of paranoid bigots. So it would probably be more surprising if the band reportedly headlining RonPaulapalooza didn't have a few teeny-tiny problems with the Jews, who they feel are trying to destroy everybody. The band Poker Face enjoys churning out a hard-chargin' "freedom rock" that they developed under the influence of Boston, the Beatles, and Frank Zappa, as well as a firm conviction that the Holocaust did not happen and that the...

Yearlong investigation culminates in indictment of five soldiers accused of beating 13 Palestinian prisoners under their charge, forcing them to eat Israeli snacks Hanan Greenberg Published: 12.20.07, 21:02 / Israel News At the conclusion of an investigation lasting more than a year, the Military Advocate General has charged five soldiers from the Nahshon Battalion with three counts of aggravated assault. Three of the soldiers have already been discharged from the army and one was transferred to another unit. Only one soldier remains in active duty in the battalion. According to the indictment, the soldiers were responsible for transferring 13 Palestinian...

Santa Ana, Calif. (AP) -- Two men accused of plotting attacks on military sites and other targets in Southern California in 2005 were expected to plead guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges Friday, prosecutors said. Kevin James and Levar Haley Washington were set to enter the pleas in federal court in Santa Ana, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement. Both were indicted two years ago on federal charges, including conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism. Authorities claim James, Washington and two others were a cell of a California prison gang of radical Muslims that was...

Christian kids are typically sent to Sunday school for lessons on the Bible and morals. For nonbelievers, there's atheist Sunday school. With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief. Bri Kneisley sent her 10-year-old son, Damian, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer after a neighbor had shown him the Bible. "Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," said Kneisley, who...

Published: 11/15/07, 10:04 PM Ron Paul Should be the Zionist Choice for US President by Shmuel Ben-Gad He opposes US foreign aid to Israel. Since the Six Day War, US presidents and presidential candidates have tended to speak of the US and Israel as great friends and allies. They have also tended to favor the shrinking of Israel's borders. This has reached a low point under the Bush administration, The US alliance with Israel has been a decidedly mixed blessing. which is the first one to explicitly make its policy the establishment of an Arab state in Judea, Samaria and...

As preparations for the American peace conference continue, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority have announced their demands for a future Palestinian state with an area of 6205 square kilometers. This would include the Gaza strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, the message they have conveyed to their people for years, and continue to convey on the eve of the conference, is that "Palestine" exists and it replaces all of Israel. A clip broadcast by Fatah-controlled Palestinian television this week shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned...

For many in Washington, the biggest unanswered question from Army. Gen. David Petraeus’ high-profile, low-satisfaction testimony last week was not about military strategy but about political tactics. Why has the anti-war movement been unable to translate the clear public mandate they claim into any clear change in our government’s Iraq policy? To most war opponents, the blame increasingly lies with the Democratic leadership in Congress, for not taking a hard enough line with President Bush and not fighting to cut off war funding. And their frustration is visibly bubbling over — the provocative group Code Pink, for example, has actually...

ADL Responds To Open Letter From CAIR; Releases Photo Of Group's Leader Speaking Next To Hezbollah Flag http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Teror_92/5122_92.htm ADL Responds To Open Letter From CAIR; Releases Photo Of Group's Leader Speaking Next To Hezbollah Flag New York, NY, August 30, 2007 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in response to an "open letter" from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) suggesting that their organization has "acted numerous times … to condemn terrorism," today released a photograph of CAIR's executive director speaking at a podium next to a known anti-Semite and the flag of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Glen S. Lewy, ADL...

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has played down the row surrounding a Swedish newspaper’s recent publication of a picture depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog. A spokeswoman for Foreign Mininster Carl Bildt told the newspaper ”Dagens Nyheter” that the Swedish government does not get involved in what newspapers write. The Foreign Ministry says it now considers the incident closed. The drawing, by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, appeared in a local newspaper in the city of Örebro, on August 19. Vilks originally produced three drawings depicting Mohammed as a roundabout, or traffic circle, dog. Iran lodged an official complaint with Sweden...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that "Zionists" were behind a cartoon in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which depicted the head of the Prophet Mohammed on a dog's body. The drawing sparked an official protest by Tehran to Stockholm. "They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war," he said.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Computer hackers posted an anti-war message on the U.N.'s official Web site, claiming that U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East were taking innocent lives, the United Nations said. The first attack on a U.N. Web page reserved for statements from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon occurred at about 9 a.m. Sunday morning, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said. The Web site of the U.N. Department of Public Information was then attacked as was the U.N. Cyberschoolbus site for teachers and students and the U.N. Economic and Social Council's site. ''We are very concerned that this happened,''...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has quietly granted the Waqf – the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount – permission to dig unsupervised on the sacred site, WND has learned. The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs. The last time the Waqf conducted an unsupervised excavation on the Temple Mount, in 1997, the Muslim custodians ultimately were caught by Israeli authorities disposing truckloads of Mount dirt that contained Jewish Temple artifacts. Most Palestinian leaders routinely deny well-documented Jewish ties to...

That Hamas and the BBC have close relations isn’t exactly a revelation. See here and here, for example. But finally the BBC, the world’s biggest broadcaster, has itself admitted to being in touch with Hamas – the group that unlike other Islamic terror groups, has made a habit of deliberately targeting children (in school buses, bat mitzvah birthday parties, pizzerias filled with kids and so on). A senior BBC executive has confirmed that the BBC held private meetings with Hamas – whose gunmen usually wear ski masks to hide their identity – in the days leading up to the release...