Free Republic

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left no doubt in a statement on Wednesday, regarding what his Jewish country might do should current tensions with Iran escalate further. "Israel will do whatever it needs to defend itself," Netanyahu said in a statement. The comment came after separate meetings with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Israel on Wednesday, where the ministers discussed actions Israel could pursue to retaliate for Iran’s unprecedented, direct attack on Israel over the weekend. "They have all sorts of suggestions and advice. I appreciate that. But I want to be clear:...

In December, the Biden administration blocked a shipment of M4 rifles to Israel. The rifles were meant to be used by local community self-defense units of the kind that had served as the front line of defense against the Hamas attack on Oct 7. However the Biden administration claimed that it was concerned that the self-defense units might be Jewish “right-wing extremists”.The Islamic terrorists attacking them however had no trouble finding M4 rifles. They just expected theirs to come by a more complicated road from Afghanistan, by way of Iran’s terror operatives, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan via a drug smuggling route,...

How is Israeli public opinion on the war shifting? For the first three months or so of the war, Israelis, specifically Jewish Israelis, strongly supported the war and the government’s declared goal of defeating and dismantling Hamas. That consensus and unity are rapidly fraying. Netanyahu says continuing the war is the best way to release the hostages, but more and more Israelis, including the families of the hostages, are arguing that with every passing day that the war continues, the lives of the hostages are in greater danger. There’s also growing doubts about whether Israel can actually decisively defeat and...

Israeli forces pounded areas in northern and southern Gaza on Wednesday after the Palestinian militant group Hamas said it had received and was studying a new proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza. The proposal, presented by mediators after talks with Israel, appeared to be the most serious peace initiative for months in the Israel-Hamas war. The ceasefire proposal followed talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the United States and Egypt, with the prime minister of Qatar. In a mark of the seriousness of the negotiations, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said he was going to...

Rep. George Santos, the Long Island Republican whose history of lies about his past included that he was a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, seemed to praise Hitler and joke about killing Jews in a newly unearthed, years-old Facebook post. In a comment Santos reportedly left under a friend’s post in 2011, the future congressman wrote “hight hitler lolololololololololololol” and “sombody [sic] kill her!! The jews and black mostly lolllolol!!!” A former friend of Santos sent screenshots of the since-deleted comment to Patch Glen Cove. The site confirmed its veracity with the congressman’s former roommate, who also said that Santos...