Free Republic

Mideast: Iran tests an advanced warhead design as it gets caught shipping weapons to Hezbollah. Syria is reported to give the group operational control over Scud missiles. It's five minutes to midnight. Tyranny abhors a vacuum. While the U.S. and the West dither in Hamlet-like fashion over whatever we shall do in places such as Afghanistan and Iran, the Axis of Evil is in full swing in its plans to destroy Israel and threaten Europe and America. Israel last week seized what it said was the largest arms cache ever intercepted in the region. Israeli navy commandos boarded the Francop,...

Arab media in the Persian Gulf have been reporting that Syria, apparently on the orders of Iran, has turned over about 300 long range ballistic missiles to Hezbollah control. The missiles have apparently not left Syria (they would be hard to miss, being driven around southern Lebanon). The reports add that Hezbollah personnel are being trained to operate the missiles. Syria has underground storage and launch facilities for its arsenal of over a thousand SCUD missiles. Armed with half ton high explosive and cluster bomb warheads, the missiles have ranges of 500-700 kilometers. Syria also has some 90 older Russian...

(IsraelNN.com) Muslim terrorists' newest nightmare? Steadicopter, an Israeli company, has developed an unmanned helicopter using patented technology that enables the chopper to stay stable while airborne. The new technology was on display at ISDEF 3 – the third annual Israel defense show, currently being held at Tel Aviv's fairgrounds. The developers said that the unmanned helicopter can be used wherever manned helicopters are currently used, for a smaller price and with no danger to human life, and also in place of unmanned fixed wing aircraft.

The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week. The congressmen even hinted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been personally involved. The source, who met in Washington with administration officials and members of Congress, told Haaretz he was stunned by the level of anger there over attempts to portray Obama to the American public as an enemy of Israel because of his efforts to restart peace talks and freeze settlement construction. "There are people here who are playing...

In answer to one journalist who asked whether he might not be lending credibility to Ahmadenijad by addressing his denial of the Holocaust, Netanyahu chose to focus on a prescient experience he had with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, 25 years ago.

(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz (Likud) noted that the Saudis rejected that Israel be given air rights.

JERUSALEM – Archaeologists digging in Jerusalem have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wall that is the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday. The 26-foot-high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage built by ancient Canaanites from a hilltop fortress to a nearby spring that was the city's only water source and vulnerable to marauders. The discovery marks the first time archaeologists have found such massive construction from before the time of Herod, the ruler behind numerous monumental projects in the city 2,000 years ago, and shows that Jerusalem...

The United States has harshly criticized new Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations 'unacceptable'. A report on the restrictions appeared in Haaretz last week. Earlier this week, a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv met with the head of the Foreign Ministry's consular division, Yigal Tzarfati, for clarifications on the new procedure, by which passports are stamped at the bridge with a directive limiting the bearer to areas of the Palestinian Authority only

Romanian authorities arrested two Israeli fertility doctors under investigation in Bucharest, Israeli Consul in Romania Lili Ben Harush announced on Tuesday evening. It was not immediately known why Prof. Nathan Levitt and Dr. Genya Ziskind were arrested, but it was assumed to be after an alleged attempt to escape the country and obstruct the local investigation into the suspected illegal activities of the Sabyc fertility clinic. Levitt and Ziskind were among the 30 people arrested in Bucharest last Monday on suspicion of paying Romanian women for donating their eggs to the Israel-owned Sabyc fertility clinic, some of whom, according to...

July 27, 2009 Your nuclear pursuit is futile, Hillary Clinton tells Iran Tim Reid in Washington, Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem Hillary Clinton's comments came as US officials arrived in Israel for peace talks Hillary Clinton sought to calm Israeli fears about a nuclear-armed Iran yesterday after she appeared to suggest last week that the Obama Administration was resigned to Tehran getting the bomb. Israeli officials expressed concern after the US Secretary of State said in Thailand that a nuclear-armed Iran could be contained by a US “defence umbrella”. Her words went beyond the Obama Administration’s publicly stated Iran policy, which...

The ongoing tension between the Israeli delegation to the United Nations and the Al Jazeera bureau at the international organization headquarters has reached new heights recently. The Arab network's chief UN correspondent, Khaled Dawoud, has accused the Israeli delegation of discriminatory policies and harassment. The Israeli diplomats, for their part, have accused Dawoud of disruptive behavior and of exploiting press conferences and events with Israeli officials as a podium to bash Israel.

Israeli Border Police films itself humiliating Arabs The video isn't long, only 43 seconds in length and was most probably filmed with a mobile phone. Watch it and you'll see a scared Palestinian youth slapping himself - a sad and humiliated look in his eyes - while cameramen chuckle in the background and order him to continue slapping himself.

"From the point of view of international law these settlers are as legal as any resident of Manhattan or Shreveport, Louisianna." "On The Rights of Settlers" written by Shmuel Katz is an excellent article that refutes the lies of "illegal" Israeli settlements constantly peddled by Islamists and leftist Dhimmis alike.

(IsraelNN.com) Iranian anti-regime activists are hoping for an Israeli technological hand to help them fight the Islamic Republic. As of now, hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime, which is evidently using Arabic-speaking armed thugs from Hizbullah to help perpetrate the violence. "Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful

Dr. Suheir Assady was recently appointed as the new Head of the Nephrology Department at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, a statement by the facility said Tuesday. To date, Dr. Assady is the first Israeli Muslim woman directing a large medical department in an Israeli hospital. There are only a few women holding similar positions in the entire Middle East.

It sounds like your bubbie's egg noodle casserole, but Koogle - a clever combination of Google and kugel - could play a large part in integrating Orthodox Jews into cyberspace. And it could provide a model of how religious groups from all backgrounds, and secular people looking for a cleaner version of the Internet, could one day view web sites without worrying about R-rated, or even PG-13 material. Koogle, (koogle.co.il) the brainchild of Israeli Yossi Altman, aims to give religious Jews a chance to surf the Internet. Altman estimates that about 10-to-15 percent of Israelis are strictly observant Jews who,...

US President Barack Obama has drawn a line on Israeli settlement expansion before he meets with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of his urgent quest to revive peace talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Obama made it clear, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited here last week, that he wants "no natural growth exceptions" to his call for a settlement freeze.

JERUSALEM – Israel's defense minister said Saturday he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will endorse the creation of a Palestinian state during his upcoming meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington. It would be a significant shift for the Israeli leader, who has made clear in the past that he does not think the Palestinians are ready to rule themselves. But that position has put him at odds with long-standing U.S. policy that supports Palestinian statehood as the cornerstone of Mideast peace efforts. "I think and believe that Netanyahu will tell Obama this government is prepared to go for a...

In a speech to a convention in Washington, DC, the US Vice President Joe Biden said Israel must stop building in Judea and Samaria and in fact should dismantle existing outposts in the West Bank allowing for freedom of movement for the Palestinian people. These remarks from Vice President Biden drew a response from a member of the Israeli Knesset, Ketzaleh Katz, that the vice president should be a bit more careful when giving instructions to a sovereign democratic state and should have more respect for the Bible, the people of the Bible and the land of the Bible.

Equating Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad with Adolf Hitler, top Israeli leaders have said they will not allow Holocaust deniers to repeat a genocide against Jews. "It is hard to fathom why despots such as Hitler - the Nazi, Stalin - the Bolshevik, and Ahmadinejad - the Persian, chose the Jews as the main target for their hatred, their madness and their violence," president Shimon Peres said in a speech at a ceremony to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. Peres, who was speaking at Holocaust Museum 'Yad Vashem', vowed to prevent genocide against the Jews and denounced Ahmedinejad for his strong rhetoric...

Commander confirms Netanyahu war plans The last claimed the lives of at least 1,350 Palestinians. Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims. Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for "all possible scenarios", indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon. The confirmation comes as US President Barack Obama seeks "new beginnings" with its arch-rival Iran. The US offer has been met with...

Israeli officials have described as "tasteless" and inconsistent with army values a popular military past-time of printing violent cartoons on T-shirts. An investigation in Haaretz daily saya the customised shirts are often ordered when troops finish training courses. One example shows a pregnant Arab women in the cross-hairs of a sniper's sight with the legend "1 shot 2 kills". Another design shows a child being similarly targeted with the slogan "the smaller they, are the harder it is". In both images the people being targeted appear to be carrying weapons. A third T-shirt design shows a dead Palestinian baby and...

Video at link (with additional link to transcript).Hat Tip to George76.Interviewer: Egyptian lawyer Nagla Al-Imam has proposed that young Arab men should sexually harass Israeli girls wherever they may be and using any possible method, as a new means in the resistance against Israel. [...] leave the land so we won't rape you.

A female Egyptian lawyer has very publicly recommended that Palestinian and Israeli Arab men begin sexually harassing Israeli Jewish women as a means of pressuring them to leave the region and thereby bringing about the demise of the Jewish state. In an interview on the pan-Arab Al Arabiyah television network late last month, Nagla Al-Imam said that Israeli women “are fair game for all Arabs, and there is nothing wrong with this…this is a new form of resistance.”

Dozens of residents of Arab countries appeal to Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in search of 'smart and beautiful' women "I'm asking for your help. I would like to meet an Israeli woman for marriage purposes," Abdullah, a resident of Saudi Arabia, said in a recent letter to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. "I have heard that the Israeli women are very smart and beautiful," he added. "I'm ready to pay a dowry of camels, herds or even money. Please help me." Dozens of such appeals are received every year by the Foreign Ministry's department for Arab media. Emails have been...

Palestinian militants launched a rocket and a mortar shell into Israel on Sunday, causing no injuries. Rocket fire by Gaza militants and Israeli retaliatory airstrikes have become nearly daily occurrences.

The squad was targeted as it fired rockets toward Israel, according to Hassanain and Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed. The Israeli military said at least five rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel on Saturday, causing no injuries or damage.

MARAJ, Lebanon — For 25 years, Ali al-Jarrah managed to live on both sides of the bitterest divide running through this region. To friends and neighbors, he was an earnest supporter of the Palestinian cause, an affable, white-haired family man who worked as an administrator at a nearby school. To Israel, he appears to have been a valued spy, sending reports and taking clandestine photographs of Palestinian groups and Hezbollah since 1983.

(IsraelNN.com) US President Barack Obama may pressure Kadima prime ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni to enter into a coalition with Likud's Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu if Netanyahu is asked to head the government. Obama's only hope of forcing Israel back to the negotiating table with the Palestinian Authority is through a 'national unity government' comprising Likud and Kadima, according to a report in Britain's The Daily Telegraph. According to sources in Washington, Obama is ready to manipulate Israeli politics behind the scenes in order to make that happen, as Israeli president Shimon Peres determines who he will ask to head up Israel's...

Palestinian militants fired a long-range rocket from Gaza into southwestern Israel on Tuesday morning. It was the first such attack into the city of Ashkelon since the two sides declared a cease-fire, the Israeli military said. The missile fired from a Grad rocket launcher did not cause any injuries or damage in the coastal city, said a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces.

Alon Pinkas is a member of our Israel Factor panel, and just a week or so ago was answering the question: Can Obama and Bibi get along? But Pinkas is also the man behind the US-Israel Institute at the Rabin Center, and today he has published a new public opinion poll asking a set of questions somewhat-similar to the ones we asked our panel. It is interesting to compare: a clear majority of the Israeli public expects a confrontation between the next Israeli government and the Obama administration on the issue of settlements (and don't say I didn't warn you):

An Israeli company has made an offer to buy the kosher meat producer Agriprocessors. The company, Soglowek Nahariya, made the offer in a filing Sunday with an Iowa bankruptcy court, the Des Moines Register reported. Agriprocessors, once the country's largest producer of kosher meat, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November. The company had been on a steady downward spiral since May, when federal agents descended on the company's Postville slaughterhouse and arrested more than one-third of its workforce in what was at the time the largest single-site immigration raid in American history. Joseph Sarachek, a bankruptcy trustee who...

A Muslim cafe owner in New Zealand evicted two customers because they were Israeli. Mustafa Tekinkaya, a Muslim from Turkey, heard Natalie Bennie and Tamara Shefa speaking Hebrew at his cafe in Invercargill on the South Island earlier this week and ordered them out. “He heard us speaking Hebrew and he asked us where we were from,” Mrs Bennie told the local newspaper. “I said Israel and he said ‘get out, I am not serving you’. It was shocking.” Tekinkaya said he was protesting Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip. “I have decided as a protest not to serve Israelis...

GAZA CITY, Gaza – Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rockets resumed after a brief pause Wednesday to allow food and fuel to reach Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where an Israeli warplane dropped leaflets urging some residents to flee because of imminent attacks. Even as the Israeli government tentatively welcomed a cease-fire proposal from Egypt and France, its military was instructed to continue its assault on Hamas.

GAZA CITY (AFP) – One Palestinian gunman was killed and three people were wounded by an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday as rocket and mortar fire from the territory hit southern Israel. The raid came amid international calls for calm one day after Hamas ended a six-month truce and with growing internal pressure on the Israeli government to take tough action in Gaza. The raid took place near the northern town of Jabaliya when warplanes fired three missiles at militants preparing to launch rockets. Ali Hijazi, 24, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant...

(IsraelNN.com) The President of the UN General Assembly attempted to prevent Israeli ambassador Gavriela Shalev from addressing a plenary session on Wednesday marking sixty years since the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann tried to cancel speeches to be given by representatives of a “Western Europe and others” group, which is chaired by Israel’s ambassador. In response to the European representatives’ voiced outrage, Brockmann announced that he would add an Arab representative to the list of speakers.

Indian security forces have begun an attack on a Jewish centre in Mumbai where an unknown number of people are being held hostage by gunmen. TV footage showed troops abseiling from a helicopter into the centre, and soldiers on the ground closing in. (video at link) Commandos are also clearing the last gunmen from two luxury hotels, more than a day after a series of attacks that killed 119 people and injured 300. Indian PM Manmohan Singh has vowed to track down the perpetrators. Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades targeted at least seven sites in Mumbai late on...

(IsraelNN.com) Some 15 to 25 Israeli hostages were still being held incommunicado as the siege by Al Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists entered its twenty-first hour. A 45-minute exchange of intense gunfire between India government forces and terrorists at the Oberoi Trident Hotel located near Mumbai's Chabad House has led to the rescue of at least a dozen tourists who were trapped in the upper floors of the luxury hotel Thursday evening. There were no Israelis among the rescued. Five terrorists holed up in Mumbai's Nariman House building housing the city's Chabad House offered to negotiate with India's government for the lives...

Mumbai: In one of the most violent terror attacks on Indian soil, Mumbai came under an unprecedented night attack as terrorists used heavy machine guns, including AK-47s, and grenades to strike at the city's most high-profile targets -- the hyper-busy CST (formerly VT) rail terminus; the landmark Taj Hotel at the Gateway and the luxury Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point; the domestic airport at Santa Cruz; the Cama and GT hospitals near CST; the Metro Adlabs multiplex and Mazgaon Dockyard -- killing at least 80 and sending more than 900 to hospital, according to latest reports. ( Watch )

Surgeons of the future may have to learn welding rather than sewing, now that a team of applied physicists at Tel Aviv University have developed an efficient and safe way to close incisions in the skin that they say could also be used on cuts inside the body. Dr. David Simhon performs the experimental 'welding' procedure. Photo: Courtesy of Tel Aviv Universtiy The team was led by Prof. Abraham Katzir, who found a way to maintain laser heat at the correct temperature so that the incision is sealed to minimize the risk of infection and scars and speed healing. Katzir...

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres dissolved the Knesset Monday evening, a necessary step before holding new national elections. The announcement came at the beginning of the Knesset's winter session. The possibility of early elections arose when acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stepped down as head of the Kadima party and was replaced by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Livni then became Prime Minister-designate, and was charged with creating a coalition. Livni failed to create a coalition, and on Saturday night announced that she would recommend to President Peres to call for new national elections instead of attempting to create a government. On...

(IsraelNN.com) A Nigerian group threatened to break off negotiations for the release of kidnapped Israeli businessman on Thursday night, using the excuse that Israel National News had referred to its members as "terrorists" in a story published earlier Thursday. The group, the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" (MEND), denied responsibility for kidnapping the 60-year-old Israeli businessman who was working in Nigeria but offered assistance in negotiations for his release. According to a report in Reuters, MEND, which is comprised of indigenous gunmen, said Thursday evening that the Israeli hostage "has been located and seems to be a...

(IsraelNN.com) A lifeguard diving at the Yavne-Yam antiquities site next to Palmachim beach, south of Tel-Aviv, unearthed a rare marble discus that was used 2,500 years ago to protect sea-going vessels from the evil eye. To date, only four such items have been found in the world – two of them here in Israel, one recovered from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast at Carmel in addition to the one at Yavne-Yam. The ancient white marble discus, which dates back to 400-500 BCE, was discovered by David Shalom, who handed it over to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Dror Planer, of...

(IsraelNN.com) An Israeli graduate student who received a two-year research scholarship to the prestigious University of Oxford has decided to give up his scholarship for the upcoming second year due to anti-Israel attitudes and anti-Semitism he was exposed to on the campus, according to The Jewish Chronicle. The student studied in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies within the university. The student, a graduate of one of Israel’s finest universities, suffered from daily anti-Israel remarks, harassment and an “unbearable atmosphere." Those of his fellow students aware of his military service also used this in their attacks against him. The student...

(IsraelNN.com) Writing in the May 8th edition of Newsweek, Benny Morris - long known as a Revisionist, even anti-Israel, historian - says Arab-Muslim hatred of Israel continues to preclude peace. Though his article contains many anti-Israel jabs, the thrust is that there is nothing Israel can do to overcome Islamic national-religious hatred of Israel and the Jews in the Land of Israel. [Arab] rejection of any compromise, whether a partition of Palestine or the creation of a binational state, was deep-seated, consensual and consistent. "Myself and several other young Israeli historians were dubbed revisionists and commonly assumed to be doves,"...

Ben Ami Kadish,an engineer formerly employed by the US Army has been charged with spying for Israel in the 1980s. The government had long suspected the existence of someone besides Pollard,and had (possibly) used NSA to tap the phone of Pollard's alleged Israeli contact. There is a report (NY Sun) indicating Mr. Kadish has made a full confession.

JERUSALEM - A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive "Road Coloring Problem." The conjecture essentially assumed it's possible to create a "universal map" that can direct people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts say the proposition could have real-life...

(IsraelNN.com) The initial findings of a study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem show that a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, marijuana, may hold out hope for slowing down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The research, still at an early stage, indicates that memory loss, the first and primary symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, can be slowed down significantly in mice by cannabidiol. Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, affects some 24.3 million people worldwide. In the study conducted by Professor Raphael Mechoulam and a team led by Dr. Maria de Ceballos at the Cajal Institute in Madrid, Spain, mice...

JERUSALEM - Two gunmen infiltrated a rabbinical seminary and opened fire after nightfall Thursday. At least seven people were killed, police and local media said, including at least one of the terrorists. Israeli media said about 35 people were wounded. Ambulances raced to the scene from around the city. The terrorists entered a dining hall where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire. "There are at least seven killed," said Eli Dein, director of Israel's rescue service.

The prospects for a breakthrough in the peace process in the near future have dwindled following reports that Israel will demand that the future Palestinian state be demilitarized, Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said Thursday. The officials also strongly condemned Israel's security measures in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, saying the latest escalation posed an imminent threat to the PA's efforts to consolidate its power in these areas. The PA leadership said it was very concerned by the fact that Israel was planning to demand that the IDF be able to operate inside a future Palestinian state to...