Free Republic

In April, the Islamic Republic of Iran conducted another rocket launch, ostensibly to put an Iranian satellite into orbit, which fell far short of its mark. Many analysts speculated that its purpose had nothing to do with satellites. Those paying attention to Iran’s recent activities & skeptical of the Islamic Republic suggested that this latest launch was yet another example of Tehran’s ongoing effort to test its long-range ballistic missile program. About two weeks later, these suspicions were confirmed when the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces, Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi, boasted that the launch had been a successful...

It has been the longstanding belief of these authors that Obama’s White House, especially its foreign policy penchant for supporting jihadis (both Sunni and Shiite), is run by a troika. The front man of the troika is obviously Barack Hussein Obama, who uses his position as President of the United States of America to cajole the U.S. and the rest of the world to accept terrorists as politically legitimate players. Obama’s deputy, and often his mouthpiece, is Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry is indirectly related through his daughter’s marriage to the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif. The brains of...

Islamic State fighters have recently arrived in the Gaza Strip to train with their Hamas counterparts, a senior IDF official said in an Arabic interview published Friday.

President Obama—with the help of an equally arrogant 38-year-old national security fabulist, Ben Rhodes—remade the Middle East to empower America’s most hated enemy. How would the American people react to knowing that an administration, then still stinging from Republican critiques of its anti-Americanism and weakness on the world stage, was holding secret negotiations in Oman with the most powerful still-standing member of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil”? Under these conditions, Obama—with the help of an equally arrogant 38-year-old national security fabulist, Ben Rhodes (with whom he’s said to “mind-meld”)—succeeded in remaking the Middle East to empower America’s most hated...

White House spokesman Josh Earnest angrily reacted to the suggestion that embattled Obama aide Ben Rhodes testify in a hearing on the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday. “With all due respect to the chairman, if he has an interest in a hearing about false narratives as it relates to the Iran deal then I’ve got some suggestions for people they should swear in,” Earnest said. Earnest went on to name congressional members who either opposed the Iran deal or as the Earnest put it were “wrong or just lying.” Earnest admitted he did not know the procedure for swearing in...

Israel's decision to honor a controversial Greek Orthodox priest at its official Independence Day ceremony is driving a wedge in the country's tiny Christian Arab community as the government recognizes him for his efforts to encourage Christians to enlist in the Israeli military. Father Gabriel Naddaf's recruitment drive has deeply divided Israel's Christian Arabs, who make up just 2 percent of Israel's population. His inclusion in a ceremony tinged with sadness for many of the country's Arabs, along with new allegations accusing him of sexually harassing young people he helped, has only added to the anger and risks overshadowing what...

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday took part in the Seventh International Bayt al-Maqdis Islamic Conference in Ramallah, Samaria, in which he aired libel against Israel apparently on the background of its counter-terror actions. In his speech, he called on the international community to get involved in order to "defend" the Arab residents of Jerusalem who are dealing with "illegal" activities from Israel "that oppose international law and human rights." Hamdallah's call to take action against Israel urged international pressure so as to end the "occupation" and establish an independent Palestinian state along the 1949 Armistice lines,...

Hamza Bin Laden, the son of former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, is calling for the targeting of Jewish and Western interests and the building of an army to “liberate Jerusalem.” US Jewish institutions on alert following calls for attacks from bin Laden’s son.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon weighed in on Memorial Day, negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the possibility of a unity government on Tuesday, in a special interview with Army Radio. "The bravery of bereaved families is invisible but very significant," Ya'alon stated. "They overcome the pain, overcome the hole in their lives. This is true heroism." Ya'alon also addressed rumors of a unity government, .... Those challenges include pressure from Paris to begin negotiations with the PA, which he confirmed have failed before due to the PA refusing to cooperate. "They slammed the door to President [Barack] Obama and...

Israeli threats, not Obama's entreaties, saved embassy staff in Cairo during 2011 crisis. Speaking at a Foreign Ministry ceremony on the eve of Yom HaZikaron, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu revealed that Israel had threatened Egypt during the 2011 Cairo embassy crisis. During the event on Tuesday, held to honor the memory of 16 Foreign Service members who were killed in the line of duty overseas, Netanyahu emphasized that Israel was willing to go anywhere and take any action to protect the lives of its servicemen and women. The Prime Minister noted that during the siege of Israel’s embassy in Cairo...

The United States on Monday announced a $50 million aid program for Gaza, reports The Associated Press (AP). American officials quoted by the news agency said that the money will be used over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs in the coastal enclave. The money will be distributed by the U.S Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services. The U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Donald A. Blume, said the effort is meant to address "the dire needs that are obvious in Gaza", according to the AP report. Gaza's economy has sharply declined since...

The United States on Monday announced a $50 million aid program for Gaza, reports The Associated Press (AP). American officials quoted by the news agency said that the money will be used over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs in the coastal enclave. The money will be distributed by the U.S Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services. The U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Donald A. Blume, said the effort is meant to address "the dire needs that are obvious in Gaza", according to the AP report. Gaza's economy has sharply declined since...

Celebrations of the Eighth Annual "Childhood Festival" by the Islamic Association in Khan Yunis, Gaza, featured children simulating acts of defiance against Israeli soldiers and policemen. In the play, a girl dressed as a veiled Palestinian woman pushes an Israeli "policeman" in defiance while weapons are trained on her, children throw stones at "policemen," and young boys dressed in military fatigues emerge from a "tunnel" to take an "Israeli soldier" prisoner. A girl reciting a poem called upon children to "die as a martyr, and blow up the enemies." The footage was posted on the Internet on May 5, 2016....

There are some resemblances to a traditional children’s carnival. The children are dressed in beautiful, bright colors. Young girls are bearing flowers in their hair, and the children moving around to loud, fun music, waving flags and singing songs. The one exception at this children’s festival in Gaza is that the songs, musical acts and dances are about guns, bombs and killing Israeli soldiers. It’s the eighth annual Khan Yunis festival and hundreds of young children seated in a stadium watch the show—one in which other children dance around role playing the killing of Israeli citizens, the waving of guns...

Autonomous Iraqi Kurds appeal to descendants of former residents, promising Jews will be 'freer and safer' there than in much of Europe. Looking to distinguish itself from the rest of Iraq and deepen ties with the Kurdish diaspora, the autonomous region of Kurdistan is courting religious minorities, including Jews. Some 300,000 Jews are descended from refugees who fled the region after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Today, most of them live in Israel, though a small community, numbering perhaps several hundred families, still exists in Kurdistan. Few if any practice any form of Judaism, but a sizable portion identify...

The director of State Department press relations told reporters Tuesday that a glitch was likely responsible for the mysterious disappearance of a portion of video from a press briefing in 2013 that reportedly shows the Obama administration deceiving the media and public to sell the Iran nuclear deal. Elizabeth Trudeau was responding to a story that Fox News’ James Rosen reported the night before on how the administration had campaigned extensively to deceive the media and the American people about key aspects of the Iran agreement. In his report, Rosen said he just learned that video from the State Department’s...

A recent article by David Samuels at the New York Times Magazine, based on an interview with Obama's foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes, purported to explain how, and about what, the Obama administration lied to get public support for the Iran Scam. According to the article, the principal Obama lie involved who was the Iranian president when the negotiations with Iran began. It's much deeper and worse than that. As Paul Harvey would say, “Here’s “the rest of the story.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogp40PeddI Iranian President Rouhani was elected on June 15, 2013 and assumed office on August 3d. According to Rhodes, negotiations started...

Eight months ago, in September 2015, when every pundit opined that Donald Trump was a laughable candidate, I wrote that: “In short, get ready for a President Trump. But, more importantly, Trump, and only Trump, has the guts to erase Obama, and the vestiges of Obama's traitorous Iran-First policies, like Obama never existed. Just call Trump the Eraser-Man. America will elect Trump because they want to erase Obama, and all of his domestic and national security policies. After one year of President Trump, Obama and his policies will be just a bad dream.” As for the Middle East, real estate...

In light of Ben Rhodes' revelation over the weekend that he led a White House effort to lie about the Iranian nuclear deal, it is useful to look back at last summer, when the White House attacked the Associated Press and its diplomatic reporter, @APDiplowriter (Matt Lee) for asking too many questions about the deal, particularly about the side agreement that allows the Iranians to 'self-inspect' their weapons production facility at Parchin. What this story is really about is the politicization of expertise, and how far things can go when one group of experts (arms controllers) decides to fight...

Ben Rhodes has offered us four lessons 1. the press really is both lazy and stupid 2. the press acts as obama's useful idiots 3. all of obama's policies are likely based on deceit 4. Ben Rhodes is an a**hole and a liar Ben Rhodes is the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications for Barack Obama and seems to have an extraordinary amount of influence in the current administration. Rhodes was the architect of the phony scheme to blame a video for the Benghazi attacks. He is also the guy who last April promised the Iran deal would contain "anywhere,...