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,...

Hillary Clinton's retreat from the previous US demand for a settlement freeze leaves the administration's strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace in limbo. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped from the frying pan into the fire this weekend, when she sparked a controversy regarding U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements right after some tough days of public and private diplomacy in Pakistan. But was the controversy as serious as it seemed? And what does it means for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts? Here, a fact check on some settlement myths and misconceptions. 1. What is the significance of Clinton's linguistic acrobatics? Standing next...

Israelis were given yet another reason to view US President Barack Obama with suspicion last week when he appointed former senator Chuck Hagel as the new head of his Intelligence Advisory Board. Hagel has long rubbed Israel and its supporters the wrong way, and last month he reiterated his antagonistic positions when addressing the liberal Jewish lobby group J-Street. Hagel told his audience that meeting Arab demands for a Palestinian state on ancient Jewish lands is "is central, not peripheral, to U.S. vital security interests in combating terrorism." Israel has for years been trying to impress upon Washington to not...

History will record that 2,500 years of Jewish life in Yemen is now over. As The Wall Street Journal reported October 31, the US State Department has completed a clandestine operation which brought 60 of the country's remaining Jews to America. The newspaper quoted Yeshiva University's Hayim Tawil, a Yemeni Jewry expert, as issuing the certificate of death: "This is the end of the Jewish Diaspora of Yemen. That's it." As Israelis and Jews we earnestly appreciate the efforts of the Obama administration on behalf of our Yemeni brethren. THE RESCUE illuminates an often overlooked aspect of the 60-year-plus Arab-Israel...

Ex-Egyptian Chief of Staff: Arabs will definitely defeat the Jews .

Where is Tina Fey now that we need her? Martha Coakley is the front-runner for the Dem nomination for US Senate for Ted Kennedy's old seat. In a recent debate, asked about her lack of foreign policy experience, the first credential Coakley offered in response was that "I have a sister who lives overseas, and she's been in England and now lives in the Middle East." View video here.

As a doctor and psychiatrist, I spent an awful lot of my professional life trying to change individuals in a direction that I thought appropriate and beneficial for them. I am not under any illusions about how far I succeeded. I think I succeeded very little. At the best, I implanted the seeds of change rather than caused change itself. It was often the case that my patients had adopted grossly self-destructive paths in life, that viewed dispassionately and with a minimum of common sense could lead to nothing but misery, despair and chaos. Indeed, my patients often acknowledged this...

Jpost thelastcrusade.orgLibyan President Col. Muammar Gaddafi told Sky News in an interview aired Monday that Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians and Saudis all have the right to nuclear weapons. "Even the Palestinians should have [nuclear weapons] because their counterparts, or their opponents, have nuclear capabilities," Gaddafi said in the interview. "If we don't want this situation...we'll have to disarm the Israelis from their nuclear weapons capabilities." Israel neither confirms nor denies the existence of a nuclear arsenal.

Following a conflagration of violence at Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Sunday, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal declared that "Jerusalem's fate will be decided with jihad (holy war) and resistance, and not negotiations." Clashes between Israeli police and youths armed with rocks broke out Sunday at the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount compound, home of the Muslim holy site, the al Aqsa mosque. The confrontation was apparently sparked by radical Jewish clerics' call to their followers to go up to the compound, and by calls by radical Muslim clerics for their followers to defend the site. Meshal, in Damascus, voiced hope that...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 23, 2009 White House Announces Global Technology and Innovation Fund During his speech in Cairo on June 4, the President announced that the United States would "launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries." As the latest step in delivering on this commitment, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation announced this week a call for proposals for a Global Technology and Innovation Fund. This fund will help catalyze and facilitate private sector investments that promote...

The Obama administration’s ambassador to the United Nations told Israelis on Wednesday that it was not enough to pay “lip service” to peace and urged the government to restart negotiations immediately, without preconditions, aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state. The ambassador, Susan E. Rice, in an address at a high-powered conference hosted by President Shimon Peres of Israel, also assured Israelis — many of whom are wary of President Obama’s Middle East agenda — that her government is committed to their security. “As President Peres always reminds us, being serious about peace means taking risks for peace,” Ms. Rice...

I have been a resident of the Hamra district for two years now, where there is anything but routine. As a Chicagoan as well, I compare Hamra to Wicker Park, Chicago. Concentrated with hipsters, artists, intellectuals, old money, and yuppies, it is a neighborhood consistently updating its face with new chains and cozy pubs and demolition of old relic buildings and businesses. It comprises one of the most mixed populations in Lebanon and caters to that with anything from a brothel to a Dunkin Donuts coffee. I entered Hamra as a stranger, meeting individuals at this party or that pub....

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...

REACHING LAST weekend’s diplomatic breakthrough between Turkey and Armenia was not easy. It took six weeks of secret talks in Switzerland, seven last-minute phone calls from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the two countries’ foreign ministers, and a wild ride in a Zurich police car, lights flashing and siren shrieking, for a Turkish diplomat carrying a revised draft of the accord. This breakthrough could also be said to have taken 16 years, the length of time the Turkey-Armenia border has been shut, or 94 years, the time that has passed since Ottoman Turkish forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands...

Tenured Radical Goes Global Malcolm A. Kline, October 16, 2009 A professor whom Accuracy in Academia has covered extensively is getting ready to take his act on the road. “Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West,” Jonathan Schanzer writes in The American Thinker. “His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of most Americans.” “Now, through a project designed to foster an understanding of America in the Arab world, he appears to be at...

BEIRUT - After the second mysterious explosion since July levelled a Hizbollah member’s home, Israel has formally complained to the United Nations that the militia continues to maintain weapons stockpiles south of the Litani River, along the Israel-Lebanon border, in defiance of the ceasefire that ended the July 2006 war. In both cases, Israel immediately released footage from cameras on unmanned drones showing what are thought to be Hizbollah members emptying both buildings of what appear to be rockets before UN and Lebanese army forces were allowed into the villages to investigate. Monday’s blast was almost identical to an explosion...

The government is, increasingly, the enemy. Imagine the jobs, the wealth, the independence, and cutting the jihad snake off at the head. There is no downside. We could easily extract that oil with minimum impact to the trees. ..... For decades, Democrats have blocked efforts to responsibly develop this nation's energy resources, transforming vast areas of opportunity into "The No Zone." (hat tip Jim)

S&P: Dubai Is Nearly Out Of Cash Joe WeisenthalOct. 11, 2009, 12:07 PM Don't assume that the economic comeback means Dubai is out of the woods. Holders of its debt may be in trouble, unless the Emirate can raise more money. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An analyst at credit rating firm Standard & Poor's says Dubai has "insufficient" funds to pay back billions of dollars worth of debt coming due, putting added pressure on the city-state to raise additional cash. Farouk Soussa, S&P's head of Middle East government ratings, said Sunday that the sheikdom has about $4 billion...

The president's approval rating has fallen to an astonishingly low 4 percent in the Holy Land. As his envoy jumpstarts peace talks, Richard Wolffe reports on Obama's plans to win the ally back. Is Obama surrounded by self-hating Jews? That was one of the most ridiculous—and yet perversely telling—stories to emerge from the last several weeks of Israeli media coverage. Not because the president is surrounded by Jewish aides who want to sabotage their own identity. Far from it. David Axelrod openly reveres the old Jewish deli in Chicago known as Manny’s. He has a sign in his West Wing...

There is an old and very famous saying that everyone likely knows, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Let's see if anyone finds any of this familiar. Iran declared its refusal Tuesday to discuss its nuclear program -- including the disclosure of a second nuclear enrichment plant -- when it sits down at the negotiating table Thursday with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, Reuters reported. A top Iranian official told the news agency that his country will not abandon its nuclear activities, "even...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, foreign policy adviser to former President Jimmy Carter and current President Barack Obama, is urging a radical change in US Mid-East policy. “Our long term alliance with Israel has brought us nothing but headaches,” Brzezinski opined. “Jews have been a sore spot in the region since the days of the Roman Empire. Eliminating their presence there would solve a lot of problems.” Brzezinski conceded that his proposed change would not be easy, but suggested that a possible Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities might offer an opening. “Say we have US forces shoot down the aircraft involved...

Tom Engelhardt: Petraeus, McChrystal, And The Surgettes On Next Moves In AfghanistanGen. Stanley McChrystal, America's military commander in Afghanistan, tells David Martin the spread of violence in that country is worse than he expected. PHOTO Gen. David Petraeus (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) STORIES Poll: Afghanistan Troop Increase Unpopular U.S. Commander May Revise Troop Request (CBS) Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited The...

This morning the president, along with the leaders of France and Britain, "stunned" the world with this news. President Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, demanded Friday that Iran immediately allow international weapons monitors to inspect a nuclear facility the Islamic Republic acknowledges it has been secretly building for years. Obama, joined by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the opening of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, warned Iran that it will be "held accountable" to an impatient world community if it does not fully disclose its nuclear ambitions.

The speech given earlier today by Benjamin Netanyahu to the United Nations was one of the best I've heard a politician given in all the years I've been following politics. While I have no doubt the speech will be universally lauded for its excellence, the question remains just how much of a difference it will make. That remains an open question. Netanyahu delivered a powerful indictment over holocaust denial, Iranian aggression, and the UN's utter apathy in the face of it all.

Here is video of President Obama making a statement today after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Obama said the United States is committed to a "just and lasting peace in the Middle East." At the end he got the photo-op I'm sure he wanted: Netanyahu and Abbas shaking hands in front of him - with Obama in the middle of the camera shot. . . . (VIDEO)

SNIP If Carter hadn't let the Shah be overthrown in 1979, "there wouldn't be this problem in Afghanistan, nor would there have been the Iran-Iraq war," Pahlavi tells Avenue magazine. "Iraq would never have dared to even send a plane over our country. The Gulf War wouldn't have happened, nor would any of the problems of the past 30 years, including the exporting of religious fanaticism." SNIP

Back during 2008, Congressional leaders were eager to call oil executives to testify before them because of the high price of gasoline, which was tied to the higher prices of oil. On Sept. 17, President Barack Obama surprised a lot of people and announced he was pulling the mat out from under two Eastern European allies - Poland and the Czech Republic - when he decided not to go forward with a missile defense shield proposed during the previous Bush administration. "President Obama reeling back the Bush administration's plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, instead opting for...

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon on Sunday that Israel "will not hold back" when attacked and holds the Lebanese government responsible for any assault on his country. Netanyahu delivered the warning after two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Friday. Israel responded immediately with artillery fire, and the exchange ratcheted up persisting tensions between the two countries. "We view this very gravely," Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "We will not hold back when Israeli territory comes under fire, and will not reconcile ourselves to missile fire or any other form of terror directed at Israeli citizens."...

England is deserted, Australia and New Zealand have merged, and the man who bought Ireland has killed himself. They were designed to make Dubai the envy of the world: a series of paradise islands inhabited by celebrities and the super-rich reclaimed from the azure waters of the Arabian Gulf and shaped like a map of the Earth. It was called The World. As millions of tonnes of rock were dumped into the sea for the foundations, timely leaks suggested that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were to buy Ethiopia, Sir Richard Branson was tipped to occupy England, while Rod Stewart...

The Jihadi attacks against New York and Washington created an unforgettable date in the collective psyche of Americans: this nation was bled by men indoctrinated by an ideology that, both in its texts and in its actions, knows no mercy for free societies. The terrifying three numbers and a hyphen 9-11 took their place in the country's national identity, alongside Pearl Harbor in the high drama of American history. But 9-11 became also a benchmark to other nations and regions of the world. In Europe, Russia, and India, civil societies began identifying the date 9/11with their own subsequent traumas. Madrid...

Every commemoration of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reveals our confusion. Eight years after 9-11, we are still asking ourselves too many questions, and in those questions are embedded the reasons the war has gone on so long. Who is this enemy and why do they want to harm us, many ask. If you can’t define the enemy, you cannot defeat him. Where are we this year in the confrontation with the forces that caused us harm and want to defeat us? Are we making progress in the war against the “terror forces;” are we far from victory;...

Not Just Israel’s Problem by: Malcolm A. Kline, September 10, 2009 The stateside narrative on the Middle East has it that those most ardently arguing a tough stance against Iran are Israeli hardliners and their American supporters. As with most international stories that America’s press corps and academic elites weigh in on, the view looks quite different on the scene. “The Arab states are as, if not more, nervous about a nuclear Iran as Israel is,” Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the U. S. said last week. Gold, who lives with his family in Jerusalem, spoke at...

Obama to Chair UN Security Council Role could have prez crossing paths with Gaddafi Updated 6:45 AM CDT, Wed, Sep 9, 2009 Barack Obama is set to become the first-ever U.S. president to chair the United Nations' 15-member Security Council when it meets later this month. The council, which next meets Sept. 24, deals with a host of global challenges, including nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The Obama administration hopes to use the month-long appointment to emphasise a departure from the Bush administration's strategy of pursuing its own unilateral policies through the council. Obama will join other heads of government...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2009 – Iran is a problem not just for the United States, but for the greater Middle East and the world, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera in an interview being broadcast this week. Gates long has wanted to speak with Al-Jazeera, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said, because the news network reaches the Muslim world in a way no other network can duplicate. The hour-long interview ran in its entirety yesterday and will repeat through the week. If Iran builds nuclear weapons, it would create an arms race in the Middle...

The Region: America's obsession with dialogue Sep. 6, 2009 Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST On August 26, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly was asked what the US thought about the dispute between Iraq and Syria. His answer shockingly recalls the last time a US government made that mistake. First, some background. Iraqi leader Nuri al-Maliki visited Syria on August 18 to discuss the two countries' relationship. He offered Syrian President Bashar Assad a lot of economic goodies in exchange for expelling 271 Iraqi exiles involved in organizing terrorist attacks against their country. Assad refused. Maliki left. The next day,...

There were angry clashes in a city centre today as right-wing protesters fought with anti-fascist campaigners in a busy shopping street. A planned demonstration by The English Defence League in central Birmingham descended into violence as the group charged along New Street, close to the city's main train station. More than twenty men have been arrested. 'There were about 250 people in total, fighting and Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211414/Anti-fascists-clash-right-wing-protesters-Birmingham.html#ixzz0QFxinqVM

A CARGO ship that vanished in the Channel was carrying arms to Iran and was being tracked by Mossad, the Israeli security service, according to sources in both Russia and Israel.

Just as the U.N. General Assembly is due to meet later this month to consider what to do about Iran's insistence on enriching uranium as part of its nuclear development program, Tehran has announced that it is open to further discussions on the issue, but it will not be pressured to meet any September deadline. "No one can impose sanctions on Iran anymore," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a recent press conference. "The Iranian nation favors interaction and dialogue but will not surrender to pressure," according to Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi.

One is a pop icon and the other a former contender for the post of Israel's prime minister — but Madonna and Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni appear to have found a lot to talk about. Madonna is in Israel for concerts on Tuesday and Wednesday. Livni's spokesman Gil Messing says the two women dined for more than two hours late Monday at the singer's request. Both wore short-sleeved black dresses and embraced as they emerged from a Tel Aviv restaurant. Messing says the pair decided to keep the content of the conversation private. He said Livni "was very impressed...

With Attorney General Holder’s investigation of CIA operatives who utilized enhanced-interrogation techniques on detainees, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the Obama administration’s downgrade of the War on Terror to “overseas contingency operations,” and the administration’s release of terrorists captured by heroic U.S. military personnel, what should be a preposterous question to ask the President of the United States, now needs to be asked. In the interest of America’s national security, how will President Obama treat the terrorists in America? According to a previously disclosed 2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment, prepared by Virginia’s Fusion Center, “Al-Qa’ida, Al-Shabaab, HAMAS, Hizballah, Jama’at...

New details reveal the man who tried to assassinate a Saudi prince got past palace security with explosives hidden in his Rectum. - The man who tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s anti-terror chief last Thursday managed to get past security in a Jeddah palace by hiding explosives in his Rectum. - Details of the assassination attempt, the first against a member of the Saudi royal family in decades, were revealed to the pan-Arab Al-Arabiyya. - The method of hiding explosives inside the body is unprecedented among Al-Qa’ida terrorists, and may draw a re-examination and alteration of security arrangements around sensitive...

Summer 2009 Twice Branded: Western Women in Muslim Lands Judy Bachrach Every time I despair of the way women are treated in Muslim countries—and the few syllables Western leaders and op-ed columnists expend on their humiliations, mutilations, harassments, and, yes, murders—I turn to the Web site of Mona Eltahawy. Eltahawy spent her formative years in Egypt and Saudi Arabia: A couple of years after I stopped visiting, a horrific fire broke out in a school in Mecca, home to the Muslim world’s holiest site. Fifteen girls burned to death because morality police standing outside the school wouldn’t let them...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will return from his European trip to find that two Likud rallies have been organized to express opposition to the settlement freeze he reportedly negotiated with US envoy George Mitchell in London. The first, scheduled for Tuesday at Tel Aviv's Azrieli Tower, was organized by Minister-without-Portfolio Yossi Peled. It is not officially an anti-Netanyahu rally but rather a "pro-Jerusalem event," and yet MKs who attend are expected to bash the deal the prime minister is negotiating with the Americans. The second, set for September 9 at the Likud's Tel Aviv headquarters, openly opposes any freeze on...

Iran is vigorously pursuing several missile and space programs at an almost feverish pace with impressive achievements. Iranian missile technology now seems to be more advanced than that of North Korea. A recent report claims that it will take the Iranians just six years to develop a nuclear warhead that could be carried by a ballistic missile.

•Iran is vigorously pursuing several missile and space programs at an almost feverish pace with impressive achievements. The Iranians have upgraded their ballistic missiles to become satellite launchers. To orbit a satellite is a highly sophisticated endeavor. It requires proficiency in stage separation and advanced guidance and control systems to insert the satellite into a stable, desired trajectory. They took the Shahab, extended it a bit, added a new lightweight second stage, and now they have the Safir space launch vehicle. The very capability to build a two-stage satellite launcher, rather than the usual three-stage rockets for space-lift vehicles, is...

London - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a crucial round of diplomatic talks in Europe Tuesday that progress in the Middle East peace process would 'confound cynics and surprise the world.' Speaking in London after a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Netanyahu said he had outlined what he called the 'winning formula' for Middle East peace. 'We need a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel,' Netanyahu told reporters after the one-hour meeting. 'Recognition is the pillar of peace.' Brown said the talks had been 'as realistic as ever but more optimistic' than in the...

The New York Times seems to feel that there are two sides to the charges in a Swedish newspaper that the IDF kills Palestinians and takes their organs for transplants. Read Accusation of Organ Theft Stokes Ire in Israel. "Stokes Ire?" Is that what's news?

Israel must survive but American Jews are “over it.” AIPAC sold out for a glass of lemonade in the Oval Office and J Street is as pro-Israel as David Duke. It is time to wake up and realize the menu in the White House has changed. However, the financial dynamic has also changed and a healthy bottom line trumps political propaganda any day of the week. The Golden Rule is alive and well and “him with the gold is still making the rules.” Some believe the enormous buyouts of American companies by Arab investors is proof of the growing fear...

Former US presidential nominee Mike Huckabee says Israel is much better favored by the American evangelicals than by the American Jewish community. "Maybe one of the hard things is to convince some of our Jewish friends that Evangelicals are the best friends they've got - because I think generally, that's the case," Huckabee said in the epilogue to a three-day visit to Israel. "Evangelicals are so much more supportive of Israel than the American Jewish community," he added in an interview with the CBN News. He said that the evangelical Christians were, unlike Jews, consistently supportive of the Israeli territorial...

In the hoopla over health care reform, this geopolitical story went largely unnoticed. Israeli President Shimon Peres said Wednesday that the Kremlin has promised to reconsider the planned delivery of powerful air defense missiles to Iran.