Free Republic

A realistic look at our world is enough to generate much anxiety. The widespread wickedness, violence, government corruption, and continual rumors of WWIII and/or terrorist attacks often set off alarms concerning our future well-being. I write as one who is not immune to the panic that comes from living amid the multiple threats to our livelihood and safety. Where do we go when the perils of this life spark anger within us or cause us to retreat within ourselves in fear of what might happen next? The most popular response today is to fall for the illusion that all will...

For then I will make the peoples pure of speech, So that they all invoke Hashem by name And serve Him with one accord. ZEPHANIAH 3:9 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE) World leaders, ambassadors, diplomats, entrepreneurs, lawmakers, academics, and clergy from over thirty countries converged on Rome this week for the First Annual Abraham Accords Global Leadership Summit, an exclusive invitation-only event focused on new ways to increase peace and tolerance in the spirit of the Abraham Accords. Attendees included Houda Nonoo, Former Bahraini Ambassador to the United States, Danny Danon, Israel’s former UN Ambassador, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi, Vice President of The...

Israeli author and university professor Yuval Noah Harari said that most Israelis have moved on from the two-state solution in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. Harari, who is best known for his best-selling books Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, said that "a lot of the Israeli public has gradually switched from the belief in the two-state-solution to an implicit belief in the 'three-classes-solution.'" Harari also lectures at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has given interviews with media outlets abroad and on American late-night talk shows, largely due to the worldwide success and appeal...

Pastor J.D. sorts through a busy week of prophetic developments. [[Daniel 8:25 25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.]]

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry excoriated the Israeli right, claiming that support for settlement construction stems from a desire to subvert Israeli-Palestinian peace, during a speech before the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum on Sunday afternoon. A subdued Kerry, wearing reading glasses and referring to extensive notes, notably refrained from committing to veto any UN resolution intended to establish a Palestinian state, only promising a veto “if it is a biased, unfair resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel.” US officials last week indicated that US President Barack Obama had nearly ruled out any major last-ditch effort to put pressure on...

snip In other words, no one in the West Bank knows how the next leader will emerge — “and Israeli intelligence officials, whose entire job is to predict such things, have no idea either,” says Gal Berger, Israel Radio’s indispensable Palestinian affairs correspondent. When the time comes, the Fatah men who in the last few weeks started jockeying for position will duke it out for real. Such chaotic political fighting often leads to violence. Once that violence ebbs, a new strongman will emerge. But not a peaceful, democratic state of Palestine. This week, the UN’s Ban Ki-moon said Palestinian terrorism...

JERUSALEM (AP) — In recent months, many in the Middle East had assumed — some in hope, others with concern — that once the Iranian nuclear issue was resolved, the United States would make another push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But the opposite seems more likely. After a drawn-out confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iranian nuclear deal, the White House seems to have little appetite for what would almost certainly be a new round of tensions with the Israeli leader over the terms of Palestinian statehood. With the odds of success slim and U.S....

Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinians to hold elections to end the de facto division of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Islamist-run Gaza Strip. He was speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the Palestinian political capital Ramallah in the West Bank. "We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank," said Carter, a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders. No election has been held in the occupied territories...

The Arab League will on Monday propose a new resolution calling for bringing an end to “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories”, the Turkish Anadolu news agency reported Sunday. The Arab League said it plans present the resolution to the United Nations Security Council later, according to the report. “Just and comprehensive peace is a strategic option,” the League wrote in the draft resolution, describing Arab-Israeli peace as an “indivisible” and “comprehensive endeavor.” It added that peace would not be achieved without full Israeli withdrawal from all “occupied Palestinian and Arab territories”, including the Golan Heights, according to Anadolu. …

If you can’t convince them, bribe them? As the peace talks crumble due to unilateral Palestinian Authority (PA) moves Tuesday breaching the talk conditions, and the US admits it can’t save the situation, one committed leftist group has decided to step in—by directly bribing Israelis to support “peace.” The group, Kol Echad (“One Voice”), announced that on Friday it will send dozens of activists to hand out checks for $1,175 to Israelis. The money for “peace” will apparently be passed out on Tel Aviv’s Nahalat Binyamin pedestrian mall on Friday between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. It is not known...

Peace is not possible so long as there is even one terrorist prisoner still in an Israeli prison, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on Tuesday night. According to Kol Yisrael radio, Abbas made the comments in a welcoming ceremony for 21 Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists who had been released from Israeli jails as a gesture to Abbas. Abbas added, the report said, that the PA would continue its efforts to ensure that all terrorists serving time in Israeli jails are freed. "All 104 prisoners [that Israel has agreed to release] will be released, but the real joy will only...

Pope Francis shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) during a private audience in the pontiff library at the Vatican, October 17, 2013. Abbas on Thursday invited Pope Francis to visit the Holy Land, matching an invitation from Israel. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano October 17, 2013. (Romereports.com) Surrounded by Swiss Guards, the president of the State of Palestine, walked inside the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. The cameras started flickering away when Mahmoud Abbas walked in. With the help of a translator, he introduced himself to Pope Francis.   MAHMOUD ABBASPresident, State of Palestine“I'm very happy to meet you for the very first time...

Delaying the so-called “two-state solution” is an historical mistake, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni claimed on Monday. Livni, who is in charge of the peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, spoke at the American Jewish Committee 2013 Global Forum in Washington, D.C. She warned in her speech of “devastating consequences” for Israel in case U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest attempt to renew peace talks fails. “Time is working against those who believe that two states is the only Zionist way to maintain our identity,” Livni said. “There are those who want to postpone this decision, but it would be...

WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday thanked the emir of Qatar for the "excellent relationship" between the two countries with respect to security and trade. "Qatar has been a center of innovation," Obama said after their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office. "We've seen enormous progress within the country on everything ranging from education to health care. And I think His Highness has shown extraordinary leadership over the last many years in helping to guide this country. "Obviously, Qatar is also an important country in the region, and has an influence that extends beyond its relatively...

President Shimon Peres said on Monday that he does not regret the Oslo Accords, despite the fact that their signing brought about hundreds of Israeli victims who were killed in terror attacks.Speaking in an interview with the Walla website, on the occasion of Israel’s 65th Independence Day, Peres said that terrorist attacks against Jews had taken place long before the signing of the Oslo Accords. “There were terror victims before the Oslo Accords. Before the Accords there was only one Palestinian camp and that camp supported terrorism. Now we have two camps, and one camp is against terrorism and in...

One hundred Russian Jewish notables urged Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore recent pleas by American Jews calling on the Israeli prime minister to cede land for peace. In an open letter from Russia published Tuesday, the Russian Jews wrote that their message was a reaction to the April 3 letter initiated by the dovish Israel Policy Forum by 100 American Jews, including philanthropists Charles Bronfman, Danny Abraham, Lester Crown and Stanley Gold, and former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim. Among the signers of the Russian letter were the president of the Russian Jewish Congress, Yuri Kanner, and businessman Mikhail Fridman,...

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas welcomed President Barack Obama’s speech in Jerusalem on Thursday, while Hamas condemned Obama for “adopting Israel’s position”. "President Abbas welcomed President Obama's speech in Jerusalem saying that achieving peace and the option of two states on the 1967 borders are the way to bring security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples," the PA’s peace negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP. Gaza’s Hamas terrorist leaders, meanwhile, criticized Obama and condemned Abbas’s Palestinian Authority for cooperating with the U.S. government. Referring to comments made by Obama during a joint press conference with Abbas in Ramallah, Hamas spokesman Sami...

The Obama administration has released details of a plan to infuse another $300 million into West Bank and Gaza construction projects, spending it deems critical toward attaining the “success of a future Palestinian state.” Despite combined U.S. and international donor-community efforts, a significant portion of the public infrastructure currently under Palestinian Authority control remains in need of expansion or repair, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the USAID. Obama, through USAID, is stepping in to meet the need as a successful Palestinian state “depends upon an infrastructure system capable of providing basic services to a growing population,” the...

To the catalog of missed opportunities for peace in the Middle East, we can add a tantalizing if also depressing chapter: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's secret offer in 2008 to create a Palestinian state that would feature international control of holy sites in a divided Jerusalem — a concession many Israelis have said was impossible. Condoleezza Rice discusses the Olmert proposal in her new memoir, "No Higher Honor." She writes that as she listened to Olmert's plan during a May 2008 visit to Israel, she asked herself (and the emphatic italics are hers in the text): "Am I really...

Last month, the Palestinian Authority asked the UN Security Council for recognition as an independent state. With no decision yet made, President Mahmoud Abbas is now applying to more world bodies for full membership, as he sidesteps peace negotiations with Israel. The latest move: an application for membership to UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Last Wednesday, the Palestinians cleared their first hurdle as UNESCO’s executive board agreed to allow a vote on their request. The Palestinians are also trying to enter the World Trade Organization and last week succeeded in obtaining partnership status in the Council of...