Free Republic

Israel takes down Syrian plane For the second day in a row, sirens sound in Israel's north. Israel fires interceptor missiles towards Syrian plane in Israeli airspace. Sirens sounded Tuesday afternoon in regional councils in the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley, as well as in the northern city of Katzrin. Residents of northern Israel reported that two interceptor missiles were fired from the Tzfat region. The IDF confirmed that two Patriot missiles had been fired at a Syrian Sukhoi plane. The plane was being tracked, and when it reached two kilometers (1.24 miles) into Israel, it was shot down....

yrian and Russian forces have launched a large-scale attack on a Palestinian refugee camp under the control of Islamic State, as the regime closed in on the last rebel-held territory in the Syrian capital. Pro-government troops fired a barrage of air strikes and surface-to-surface missiles into Yarmouk camp in southeast Damascus on Wednesday morning, as they looked to rid the areas of holdout jihadists. Rebels with the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) agreed to an evacuation deal after the government launched its offensive on April 19, however Isil militants refused to give up their fight. Air strikes have levelled...

Op-Ed: Why Trump? Because he’s American This week was the anniversary of JFK's murder. Would JFK have ignored an American's murder overseas until prodded? Published: Monday, November 23, 2015 11:13 PM Jack Engelhard A glorious American Ezra Schwartz is murdered in Israel at the hands of Islamic terrorists and no word of condemnation from the White House. Repeat – an American! Monday Night Football, in the game between Buffalo and New England, has set aside a moment’s silence in reverence for Ezra Schwartz – thanks to the valiant owner of the Patriots, Robert Kraft. But from the government, near silence....

'Kerry's mental age doesn't exceed that of a 12-year-old,' Netanyahu's new media czar wrote The appointment of Ran Baratz as Netanyahu's new media adviser has drawn scrutiny and criticism from the Israeli press. Ran Baratz, the man who has been appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his top media adviser, once referred to US Secretary of State John Kerry as someone "whose mental age doesn't exceed 12." In a column that he wrote for an online media magazine last year, Baratz offered a scathing critique of Kerry's suggestion that the emergence of Islamic radicalism in the Middle East could...

(CNN)—Iran has successfully test-fired a new long-range surface-to-surface missile, state-run IRNA reported on Sunday. The Emad (Pillar) missile, designed and built by Iranian experts, is the country's first long-range missile that can be precision-guided until it reaches its target, said Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan, Iran's defense minister. "To follow our defense programs, we don't ask permission from anyone," he said, according to IRNA. The new rocket is "capable of scrutinizing the targets and destroying them completely," IRNA reported. Improved accuracy Anthony Cordesman, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in October last year that the Emad...

<p>JERUSALEM - Despite Israeli casualties and world criticism, a near-consensus in Israel supports the government's conduct of the Gaza war, views Hamas as the aggressor and considers outsiders' moralizing as hypocritical, ignorant or both.</p>

Three crises, one president, many bewildered friends. The first crisis, barely noticed here, is Ukraine’s sudden turn away from Europe and back to the Russian embrace. After years of negotiations for a major trading agreement with the European Union, Ukraine succumbed to characteristically blunt and brutal economic threats from Russia and abruptly walked away. Ukraine is instead considering joining the Moscow-centered Customs Union with Russia’s fellow dictatorships Belarus and Kazakhstan. This is no trivial matter. Ukraine is not just the largest country in Europe, it’s the linchpin for Vladimir Putin’s dream of a renewed imperial Russia, hegemonic in its neighborhood...

Negotiations in Geneva with Iran may have failed to produce an interim deal over the weekend, but Israel and Gulf countries are still alarmed about the potential for a nuclear deal with Tehran, finding themselves in the unusual position of being partners in angst. The US Secretary of State John Kerry has just returned home from a 10-day trip to the Arab world and Israel with an unexpected escapade to Geneva for negotiations with Iran. At every stop before and after the Geneva talks, Iran dominated the agenda. Saudi Arabia has long been worried about a deal between its traditional...

PLO official urges global probe into Arafat "killing" (Perfect timing for release as PLO-Israeli talks stalling?) A PLO official on Thursday called for an international inquiry into "the killing" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a day after Swiss scientists said he probably died from polonium poisoning. RAMALLAH: A PLO official on Thursday called for an international inquiry into "the killing" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a day after Swiss scientists said he probably died from polonium poisoning. "The (test) results proved Arafat was poisoned by polonium, and this substance is owned by states, not people, meaning that the crime was...

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will provide an additional $75 million (£46 million) in aid to create Palestinian jobs and help them improve roads, schools and other infrastructure. US officials say the aid is designed to boost Palestinian public support for faltering peace talks with Israel by showing them tangible benefits from the process. Kerry announced the aid in Bethlehem, where he is meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry earlier met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The new aid brings the US contribution to a Palestinian infrastructure programme to $100 million (£62...

Kuwait-based Al Jarida quotes Israeli security official as saying that Israel is mulling destroying remainder of cache in Beka'a Valley; report could not be confirmed by any other source. Lebanon Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper reported Wednesday that Israeli warplanes attacked a convoy carrying missiles along Lebanon's border with Syria two days earlier. Quoting Israeli sources, the newspaper said that the missiles were intended for delivery to Hezbollah, to bolster their cache of advanced weapons. The report did not specify whether the alleged attack was carried out on Lebanese or Syrian territory. The newspaper sources an Israeli security official, described as an...

<p>A MEMBER of the family of the first Arab honoured by Israel for risking his life to save Jews during the Holocaust says the family isn't interested in the recognition. The Egyptian doctor Mohamed Helmy was honoured posthumously last month by Israel's Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the Nazis' genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn't accept the award, one of Israel's most prestigious.</p>

As Geneva talks set to begin, 'Wall Street Journal' reports that Obama administration weighing compromise by which Iran would maintain some enrichment facilities for civilian purposes; Israel, Saudis oppose move. US President Barack Obama is considering the possibility of allowing Iran to keep uranium enrichment facilities on its soil, presumably for peaceful purposes, as part of a deal with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The report came as talks between Iran and world powers on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program were set to resume in Geneva on Tuesday morning. Both Israel and...

The US secretary of state has said that President Bashar al-Assad has one week to hand over his entire stock of chemical weapons to avoid a military attack, but said he had no expectation that the Syrian leader would comply. John Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad himself, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence commnity was united in believing Assad was...

Israel announces successful joint missile test with US in Med, after Russia detects launch By YAAKOV LAPPIN Announcement by Israeli Defense Ministry comes short time after Russia said it had detected a ballistic missile launch in the same area of the Mediterranean Sea; defense source says test part of presceheduled program. The Ministry of Defense and the US Missile Defense Agency successfully held a missile drill on Tuesday morning in the Mediterranean Sea and in a testing area at an Israel Air Force base in central Israel, and confirmed doing so shortly after Russia said it detected missile launches at...

Resetting US foreign policy Jerusalem Post ^ | 08/22/2013 | CAROLINE GLICK Never since America’s establishment has the US appeared so untrustworthy, destructive, irrelevant and impotent. Aside from the carnage in Benghazi, the most enduring image from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as US secretary of state was the fake remote control she brought with her to Moscow in 2009 with the word “Reset” in misspelled Russian embossed on it. Clinton’s gimmick was meant to show that under President Barack Obama, American foreign policy would be fundamentally transformed. Since Obama and Clinton blamed much of the world’s troubles on the misdeeds of...

Psych: Army Wikileaker had gender ID issuesBy Michael Fink The soldier who leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents, may have done so because of a gender-identity crisis. That's what a psychologist said at private Bradley Manning's sentencing hearing. Manning apologized, saying he was dealing with a lot of issues when he leaked the material to Wikileaks. He faces 90 years for what's called the largest leak of classified material in U.S. history.

Air strike kills Egypt militants targeting Israel: security CAIRO — Several Egyptian militants were killed in an air strike in Sinai on Friday as they prepared to launch a rocket into Israel, security sources and witnesses said. The source of the strike was not immediately clear. Some sources spoke of an Israeli air strike conducted from Israeli air space and others credited the Egyptian military. Witnesses said at least five members of a cell led by local Islamist militants were killed in the raid. Egypt's army said two explosions were heard at around 4:15 pm (1415 GMT) in the Al-Ojra...