Free Republic

TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that President Barack Obama may have more surprises in store for Israel following the U.S.’s “shameful” abstention at the United Nations. {..snip..}

Friday 23rd December, 2016, will go down in history as a day of infamy for the United States. America, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have finally, and irrevocably, betrayed Israel. Choosing to abstain from a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel, which declares all settlements outside the 1967 borders as illegal, Obama has effectively offered up Israel on a plate to her enemies at the United Nations. How cruel, how tyrannical, that this lame duck president chooses to use his few remaining days in office to curse Israel. In defiance of all diplomatic protocol, Obama is hoping to...

A "shameful" abstention by the U.S. in a United Nations Security Council vote Friday allowed passage of a resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. The resolution was put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal after Egypt withdrew it Thursday under pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. It was adopted with 14 votes in favor, to a round of applause, after U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power abstained. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. Reaction from U.S. Republicans and Jewish leaders around...

JERUSALEM--U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are behind a "shameful" draft anti-settlement resolution at the U.N. Security Council, a senior Israeli government official said on Friday. It was one of the harshest personal attacks by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Obama, coming in the final days of his presidency. The two leaders have had an acrimonious relationship. "President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN," said the official, who asked not to be identified. "The U.S. administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli...

UNSC voting on anti-Israel settlement resolution. Israel claims Obama "cooked up" the resolution with the Palestinians!

Trump’s involvement in seeking changes early to U.S. policy could be seen in the dramatic and rapid-fire developments at the United Nations Thursday regarding a controversial resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Reuters reported the Israeli government asked Trump to apply pressure on the Obama administration and the United Nations to prevent a Security Council vote for the measure, after failing to persuade the Obama administration to veto. Trump put out a statement Thursday morning condemning the resolution. He later reportedly spoke to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi – who abruptly postponed the planned...

The U.N. was expected to vote today on a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, and reports indicate that Obama was ready to allow the resolution to pass until Egypt put off the vote. President-elect Donald Trump put pressure on Egypt not to go forward with the resolution, and it seems to have had an effect. Charles Krauthammer said that the resolution could have done serious damage to Israel, making Trump’s involvement daring and effective: More than a slap on the wrist, I think it would have done permanent damage to Israel, which is why even Obama himself...

WikiLeaks released Monday more than half a million U.S. diplomatic cables from the year 1979. “If any year could be said to be the ‘year zero’ of our modern era, 1979 is it,” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a press release. “In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship

“The number of Christian emigrants comprised six million people in the past 100 years,” Suheil Farah, Lebanese university professor and a member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS), was quoted by the IOPS press service as saying. According to his information, the number of Christians on the territory of the Arab world ranges between 12 million and 15 million. Most of them live in Egypt, Sudan and Lebanon (9-12 million). There are 900,000 Christians in Syria, 350,000 in Iraq, between 140,000 and 165,000 in Jordan, 50,000 in Palestine and 120,000 in Israel. “Christians now account for 3.4% of the...

Rubio spox: Senator looks forward to helping Trump shred Iran deal Senior Obama administration officials in their final days in office are seeking to cover up key details of the Iran nuclear deal from Congress, according to documents and sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about continued efforts by the White House to block formal investigations into secret diplomacy with Tehran that resulted in a $1.7 billion cash payment by the United States. As leading members of Congress petition the Obama administration for answers about what many describe as a $1.7 billion “ransom” payment to Iran, Obama administration...

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) to serve as the next CIA director is garnering early praise from senior congressional insiders and foreign policy experts, who told the Washington Free Beacon on Friday that the lawmaker has won plaudits for taking a tough line on Iranian intransigence and investigating the Obama administration’s secret negotiations with Tehran. Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, earned a reputation among his Republican colleagues for his aggressive investigations into Obama administration secrecy surrounding last year’s nuclear agreement with Iran, multiple sources confirmed.Multiple investigations by the lawmaker unearthed documents showing...

The House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to extend an Iran sanctions law for another 10 years...

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry has hinted that he may be involved in one final push on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, amid growing speculation – and concern among Israel supporters – that President Obama may use the period between next week’s election and the end of his administration to break the deadlock. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that according to administration sources, “the White House has asked the State Department to develop an options menu for the president’s final weeks.” It said the possibilities could include supporting – or not vetoing – a U.N. Security Council resolution...

The three Army Special Forces soldiers killed at a Jordanian military base this month were working for a CIA program to train moderate Syrian fighters when they were shot at a checkpoint under still-unclear circumstances, U.S. officials said. The Nov. 4 slayings of the three soldiers is believed to be the deadliest single incident involving a CIA team since December 2009, when seven officers and contractors were killed in a suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan. The Fort Campbell, Ky.-based soldiers — all members of the 5th Special Forces Group — were killed by a Jordanian soldier at an entry control...

Much has been written about the cold war between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Though this deadly strategic competition has not caused the sweeping disorder in which the Middle East finds itself, it has widened and deepened it.Whether in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Lebanon or elsewhere, the feud between Riyadh and Tehran has heightened societal divides and inflamed sectarian tensions, harming any efforts to defeat the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), end the civil war in Syria, stabilize Iraq, stop the fighting in Yemen, and solve the political crisis in Lebanon.While both countries have always preferred...

Everyone is waiting for a way out of Aleppo, says 28-year-old Monther Etaky, a graphic designer who lives there. "The city is now a ghost city," the father of a two-month-old boy tells CNN. "There are only ambulances and fire trucks around and over the past three days the shelling has been horrible. "Usually I get used to the barrel bombs and I could sleep normally -- but now I can't -- the new missiles are so loud and horrifying."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations urged world powers on Sunday to work harder to end Syria's civil war. The conflict has taken half a million lives and created an international refugee problem since it started in March of 2011. Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council, Ban asked, "What excuse is there for anything less than determined action to stop the mayhem? How much longer will all those with influence allow such cruelty to continue? I urge all involved to work harder...

Photos appearing to show the leader of Iran's powerful Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, liaising with Iraqi authorities near Baghdad have prompted speculation — and concern — over the role Iran and its proxies intend to play in driving ISIS out of Mosul and Fallujah. Soleimani's presence in Iraq amid two major counter-ISIS offensives — in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, and in Mosul, further north — has unnerved those familiar with Iran's campaign to cultivate influence in the region through Shiite proxy militias, whose presence in Sunni-majority areas could provoke sectarian violence. Iraqi officials deny that the PMU is...

<p>Donald Trump vowed Friday that if Iran inappropriately approached U.S. ships, they would be "shot out of the water."</p> <p>"And by the way, with Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures that our people -- that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water," he said at a rally here.</p>

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, other military equipment and training, the most of any U.S. administration in the 71-year U.S.-Saudi alliance, a report seen by Reuters has found. The report, authored by William Hartung of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, said the offers were made in 42 separate deals, and the majority of the equipment has yet to be delivered. Hartung told Reuters the report would be made available publicly on Sept. 8. The report said U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia since Obama took office in January 2009...