Free Republic

No previous American president has had so strained a relationship with Israel as Barack Obama. As Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in 2010, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions.” Author and scholar Dennis Prager concurred, “Most observers, right or left, pro-Israel or anti-Israel, would agree that Israeli-American relations are the worst they have been in memory.” In the spring of 2011, David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said: “There's a traditional, special relationship between America and Israel that Obama is basically throwing out the window...

Israel is being criticized today in the world press for playing hardball with five of the 12 non-aligned nations that had hoped to gather in Ramallah to formally back the Palestinian Authority’s latest attempt to get the United Nations to back their bid for statehood. The delegations from Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia and Malaysia who sought to enter the territories while sticking to their non-recognition of the Jewish state were not allowed in, effectively spiking the entire event. The collapse of what the PA had hoped would be a “Ramallah Declaration” was just the latest indication that the Palestinians’ latest...

Since experienced military officers have been removed from the procurement system, the only people who now judge whether or not a weapon or a piece of equipment is ready to go into service are the Pentagon's lawyers, accountants and political appointees. The power of lobbyists also grows directly out of the system's lack of direct military involvement. It is time to scrap the whole procurement system and return control of the purchase of weapons to the uniformed military. The US military is facing potentially catastrophic funding cuts due to last year's so-called "sequestration" deal between the President and the Republicans...

Those of us who have been reporting on and discussing politics for the past few decades have come to expect rough-and-tumble campaigns. As Chicago writer Finley Peter Dunne once observed: “Politics ain’t beanbag.”But the nature of the 2012 presidential campaign so far raises questions about how, or even whether, the eventual winner will be able to govern. The past two years could seem like a period of bipartisanship compared with the next two.It’s only July, but the two presidential campaigns are already calling each other names. President Barack Obama’s campaign has suggested that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney is a...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Dozens of Gaza Christians staged a rare public protest Monday, claiming two congregants were forcibly converted to Islam and were being held against their will. The small but noisy demonstration showed the increasingly desperate situation facing the tiny minority. Protesters banged on a church bell and chanted, "With our spirit, with our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Jesus." Gaza police say the two are staying with a Muslim religious official at their request, because they fear retribution from their families converting to Islam. Two mediators said the two — a 25-year-old man...

By a 3-2 majority, the highest military appeals court has upheld Army Ranger 1st  Lt. Michael Behenna's conviction for the unpremediated murder of a detainee and al-Qaeda-operative in Iraq named Ali Mansur. While Michael still could receive clemency, his legal appeals are now officially exhausted. Barring clemency, Michael will remain at Leavenworth military prison until 2024. What a blow. What a disgrace.I just finished reading the majority opinion. It is a chilling document. It contains analysis of whether Michael had "the right to act in self-defense" when the detainee he was questioning about IED attacks that had recently killed two...

Northcom says Russian nuclear bombers violated U.S. airspace during arctic war games The U.S. Northern Command and joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said two Russian bombers violated U.S. airspace near Alaska during recent arctic war games.Disclosure by the command in charge of U.S. homeland defense followed a report in the Free Beacon quoting U.S. officials who said the Russian aircraft had threatened U.S. air space but did not cross into it and were met over the Pacific by U.S. F-15 interceptor jets. “There was a single out-of-area patrol by two Russian
long range bombers which entered the Alaska...

If the Administration had wanted to make the point the Israel is a valued partner in counterterrorism activities, it could have insisted that Israel be there or else moved the meeting. In light of increased sensitivity to intelligence leaks, it seemed innocuous – or even admirable – when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) asked the Senate to remove a few words from the US-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act: the "sense of the Senate" part of the bill included the sentence, "Expand already close intelligence cooperation, including satellite intelligence, with the Government of Israel;" ODNI wanted the...

Sunday marks 35 years since 66 Vietnamese refugees, fleeing the communist takeover of their homeland on a small, leaky boat, found deliverance. They were without food and water, and ships from Panama, Norway and Japan had ignored their distress signals (violating the most basic rule of the sea). They despaired of rescue.Captain Meir Tadmor of the Israeli cargo ship Yuvali was on his way to Japan when he saw them on 10 June 1977. The Yuvali’s Chief Engineer wrote the following late last year: I was there. In South China Sea, close to Vietnamese coast, we met small fishing boat,...

Occasional contributor Joel Mowbray (jdmowbra@erols.com) has filed a report on the Democratic primary contest this coming Tuesday in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. The contest pits two incumbent Democrats against each other. Based on support in the contest for the 2008 presidential nomination, President Obama supports Steve Rothman. Rothman opponent Bill Pascrell supported Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton is in turn supporting Pascrell. Giving the story a local angle, Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison makes a cameo appearance on behalf of Pascrell in Joel’s story. Joel reports: Because of redistricting, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D, NJ) is running for re-election this...

Every day in the United States, professional cyber-spies are stealing tremendous amounts of information. Mainly from Russia and China, these spies target computer networks and increasingly seek entryways through mobile phones. Modern mobile phones -- Smartphones -- are powerful, networked computers, but they lack the firewalls and safeguards typically installed on PCs. What protection is commercially available is weak and unsatisfactory. America's cyber-systems are under attack because what they hold is extremely valuable. Everything from the design of a stealth fighter-bomber to the investment portfolio of a powerful entrepreneur is open to professional cyber-spies and, thus, to the governments that...

In early 2011, President Obama announced that the United States would sign the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Now the U.N. wants us to give Mt. Rushmore to the Indians.  James Anaya, U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, spent twelve days in the U.S. meeting with representatives of Native Americans.  Returning to Geneva, he urged the government to turn over control of lands considered sacred to the tribes, including the Mt. Rushmore site. It was bound to happen.With typical overstatement, the president said as he announced U.S. participation in the Declaration, "The aspiration it...

We've had some unusual Cabinet secretaries in past administrations ...but never anything quite like the present bunch. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has overseen some $5 trillion in new debt. To help pay for it, he wants the rich — the top 1% already contributes more in income taxes than does the bottom 90% — to pay more for what he calls "the privilege of being an American." Geithner, whose department oversees the IRS, should have taken his own advice: As a rich American one-percenter, he once failed to pay his own self-employment taxes, and improperly claimed his children's camp costs...

I shall be sorry to see Sarkozy go. His defeat, if it truly comes to that in two weeks’ time – and nobody should entirely discount his dogged tenacity and sheer bloody-mindedness in the face of adversity – will have been a fiasco of style over substance. Sarko campaigned five years ago by telling the French to their faces that he would not cosset them. Their standard of living would rise, he said, if they worked harder. Even before the financial crisis changed everything in 2008, you should have heard the screams and guffaws of the people who, early on,...

The weekend report of a German-owned, Ukrainian-chartered ship carrying weapons to Syria should raise questions and alarm bells.  Der Spiegel reported that the Atlantic Cruiser, owned by the German company Bockstiegel, had been chartered by the Ukrainian White Whale company to pick up Iranian-origin cargo in Djibouti.  White Whale said the cargo was "mainly pumps and similar things," according to the German shipping agent.  However, the ship was refused entry for refueling at the port of Limassol, Cyprus after the crew told the Cypriots that the cargo was "weapons and munitions."  The Cruiser tried then to sail for Tartus, Syria,...

Bret Baier has Paul Ryan respond to Obama criticisms of Ryan's budget. Paul Ryan defends budget plan

Why are Israel's limited choices for alliances ridiculed, while the administration insists that Hamid Karzai – and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin, for that matter – are legitimate rulers because the President wants to work with them? "The [administration's] aims are… to make it more difficult for… the IDF to carry out a strike, and… to erode the IDF's capacity to launch such a strike with minimal casualties."  When President Obama wants to impress Jewish audiences, such as AIPAC, he frequently casts U.S.-Israel relations in a military context. How much military aid Israel receives (although he had nothing...

The sound bite went viral -- the president of the United States asking the Russian president to carry a message to Putin for "space" in dealing with contentious missile defense issues until after the election so the American president would have "more flexibility."  The photos went viral as well: President Obama's hand on Medvedev's knee, the smiling president with his arm around Medvedev's shoulder, the two of them sipping tea.It is bad, of course, on many levels, but historically consistent.  The president is notoriously hostile to missile defense, as are the Russians.  The Russians are particularly hostile to U.S. missile...

When the President of the United States repeatedly says he’s got your back, and in precisely those words, what more can you ask for? Yet as I read Obama’s interview with Jeff Goldberg in The Atlantic, then his speech to the AIPAC convention, and finally reports of his meeting with Netanyahu, I felt increasingly uneasy. True, Obama went farther than he ever has in reassuring Israel of his commitment to stopping a nuclear Iran. He explicitly mentioned the military option. He upheld Israel’s right to defend itself. He articulated the reasons why a nuclear Iran would be disastrous—from an accelerated...

"We do not 'go' to war; war comes to us." "Mr. President, you live in a big country: wide and long with friendly neighbors and oceans. The distance of your journey from Honolulu to Washington, DC is 4,835 miles – 25% farther than the distance from Tel Aviv to Tehran. Even from Los Angeles to Washington is 2,308 miles. From our southern tip in Eilat to Metullah in the north is 298 miles – just about Washington, DC to New York. Jerusalem to Tel Aviv is 37 miles – although it feels longer in traffic. From Gaza City to Sderot...