Free Republic

In the Arab countries they are fewer and fewer, driven to exodus by growing hostility. An up-to-date map of how many and who they are, three months before the pope's voyage to the Holy Land by Sandro Magister ROME, February 11, 2014 – Behind the scenes preparations are in full swing for the voyage of Pope Francis to the Holy Land, scheduled for May 24-26. When half a century ago Pope VI went to Jerusalem - the first pope in history to do do so - almost all of the holy places of the city were within the boundaries of...

Less than a year after President Obama left Israel to the sound of loud cheering after he assured Israelis in Hebrew that they “are not alone,” a new poll has found that 70% of Jewish Israelis do not trust Obama to safeguard their nation’s vital interests in negotiations with the Palestinians. The survey, published Friday in the Israeli weekly Sov Hashavua, is the latest in a string of recent polls demonstrating a precipitous fall in the confidence

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kERy_1r2LxQ]   I noticed that Roger Waters, formerly of the iconic rock band Pink Floyd, has been publicly scolding a few fellow celebrities in the field of music and film for not sharing his fanatical anti-Israel political views. Specifically, Scarlett Johansson drew Waters' ire for filming some ads for the Israeli beverage maker SodaStream and classic rocker Neil Young, who ignored Waters' directive to not book concerts in Israel. Waters has chugged the kool aid of the 'Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment', (BDS) movement, which is in reality a political movement whose underlying mission is to portray Palestinians as victims of...

...[Ma]ny observers across the political spectrum argue that there’s no coherent American Middle East policy at all....[C]olumnist Charles Krauthammer argues that Obama is simply presiding over a decline in American influence, while Democratic[s]...like Sen. Robert Menendez apparently can’t make heads or tails of the White House’s Iran policy. If sanctions got the Iranians to the negotiating table...then why is the White House fighting against a further round of sanctions that would give Washington more leverage? Because it’s part of the Administration’s grand strategy. As Obama explained to David Remnick in a recent New Yorker interview, the goal is to create...

The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords. Psalm 55:21 There are many things that are difficult to explain about the Obama administration. An apparently free and independent people not only elected him president of the United States, but also re-elected him even as it was apparent that his administration was mostly a miserable failure-- even by the measure of liberals. Historians will long ponder how a president who spent as much money and legislated as much produced very little that actually...

World War I may have ended in 1918, but the violence it triggered in the Middle East still hasn't come to an end. Arbitrary borders drawn by self-interested imperial powers have left a legacy that the region has not been able to overcome. Damascus, year three of the civil war: The 4th Division of the Syrian army has entrenched itself on Kassioun Mountain, the place where Cain is said to have slain his brother Abel. United Nations ballistics experts say the poison gas projectiles that landed in the Damascus suburbs of Muadamiya and Ain Tarma in the morning hours of...

Christianity began in the East, not the West, yet today Christians in the East are enduring an all-out-assault by Islamic terrorists, while Christians in the West live their lives largely oblivious to it all. This has to change. This is no imaginary persecution; in Syria alone there have been reports of kidnappings, Christian communities intentionally displaced by militants and, worst of all, shootings and beheadings of Christians who refused to convert to Islam. In Egypt radicals have recently destroyed dozens of churches, and the once vibrant Christian population in Iraq has been decimated. Christians in the West should stand up...

I called a hardheaded realist, a Harvard trained PhD who has been watching the Middle East professionally for decades, to ask him about Obama's Iran deal. This is what he told me. It's done. Iran will get a bomb. They want a bomb and they will not be denied unless somebody stops them. Obama does not want to stop them. He does not want a friendly regime in Iran. He wants Iran as a counterforce to America and Israel. Obama is not a Muslim, but he is a radical. He sees the U.S. and Israel as imperialistic and oppressive. He...

Pope Francis attends a meeting with the patriarchs and major archbishops of the Eastern Catholic churches in Syria, Iraq and and other parts of the Middle East, at the Vatican Nov. 21. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters) Pope to Eastern Catholics: Never resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians - YouTube Video Pope Francis announced this month he will visit the Middle East in May this year. While it has been foreshadowed since the first weeks of his papacy, this event will place the Church’s first South American Pope in the historic homeland of Christian faith, the “Holy Land”,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted President Obama for the foreign policy portion of his State of the Union address Tuesday night. “The world is literally about to blow up,” the South Carolina Republican told Roll Call. “The world as I know was not remotely described by the president.” “Syria is a contagion … Iraq is disintegrating. The whole region is moving toward chaos, and we’re doing nothing. We’re talking about limiting drones?” he continued. “I hope he will leave a residual force in Afghanistan [so] they can do the job, because if he doesn’t,

The recent fall of Fallujah, Iraq, to an Al-Qaeda-linked group provides an unwelcome reminder of the American resources and lives devoted in 2004 to 2007 to control the city – all that effort expended and nothing to show for it. Similarly, outlays of hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize Afghanistan did not prevent the release of 72 prisoners who have attacked Americans. These two examples point to a larger conclusion: maladies run so deep in the Middle East (minus remarkable Israel) that outside powers cannot remedy them. Here's a fast summary: Water is running out. A dam going up...

As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper finishes the last segment of his historic visit to the Middle East, the measure of success is clearly evident in the reaction. Harper, long a vocal supporter of Israel, was welcomed to the Jewish state as ‘a great friend of Israel’. The pomp and circumstance upon the arrival of the Canadian delegation was impressive to say the least, and spoke to the often overlooked bond between the two nations.

A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall could scuttle one of President Obama’s biggest second term goals — a nuclear deal with Iran. Republicans have lambasted the interim agreement with Iran, calling for the Senate to move an Iran sanctions bill. The House last year passed a measure in an overwhelming and bipartisan 400-20 vote. Both the Obama administration and Iran have warned moving such a measure could kill a final deal. A number of Democrats have also criticized the interim accord, which lifted $6 billion in sanctions on Iran in exchange for a commitment to restrictions on enriching...

Barack Obama's inexplicable and increasingly dangerous tilt toward Iran is getting harder to hide. Whether his administration is consciously shifting policy or simply making ad hoc, unrelated (even incoherent) decisions is unclear. But the cumulative effect is indisputable — a declining America in the Middle East inevitably means a stronger Iran, portending grave risks for Washington and its appalled friends and allies. The first (and still the most significant and most damaging) shift toward Iran was last November's Geneva agreement regarding Tehran's nuclear weapons program. This deal, technically still not yet operational (and with specific provisions still being hammered out),...

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history. The focus of al Qaeda's leaders has always been regime change in the Arab world in order to install Taliban-style regimes. Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged as much in his 2001 autobiography

Former White House officials on Wednesday rushed to defend President Obama against scathing criticism from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In his new memoir, Gates wrote the president did not believe in his own strategy in Afghanistan, and that for him, it was “all about getting out.” Former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said Gates shouldn’t have released his memoir while the war in Afghanistan is still being fought. “It’s one thing as historians look back on an administration, but in the middle of it, when you’re pursuing a war at the same time, and one that...

.....news reports of Sunni tribes in Anbar cooperating loosely with the Baghdad government against al-Qaeda,and expedited U.S. military assistance and intelligence, gave reasons for hope. But then came Sunday’s news conference by Secretary of State John Kerry. Although the secretary spoke about the dangers of al-Qaeda gaining ground in Iraq and the countermeasures the United States was taking,he stated no fewer than four times that this fight was not ours but the Iraqis’. This,combined with an immediate denial of a suggestion that no one is even making—that the United States put troops on the ground-undercuts all the good commitments he...

Two years after Obama declared that the administration has decimated Al Qaeda worldwide, Al Qaeda has delivered the most devastating blow to the United States since the 9/11 attacks that precipitated America’s war on Islamic terrorism. The fall of the Iraqi Anbar province towns of Ramadi and Fallujah recently to foreign fighters under control of Al Qaeda, called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, represents not just a tactical defeat in Obama’s “Smart Power” strategy, but a strategic surrender of the entire U.S. foreign policy conception for the last 50 years. “US policies and leaders in three...

The myopic focus on "horrible" Israel and "sadly deprived" Palestinians in Israel is a disasterous farce -- for the entire Middle East region.Secretary Kerry has returned from Israel,"empty handed" again, but full of hope for change in which he can believe -- anything consistent with his librul ideology. History, facts and other aspects of reality are, to him, inconsequential. There have been many attempts at "peace process" frameworks, none of them acceptable to the principal actors in Palestine and few acceptable to Israel. Secretary Kerry apparently intends to present a new "framework" in a few weeks, covering all "core issues," including...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced confidence on Sunday the Iraqi government and tribes would be successful in their fight against al Qaeda, and said Washington was not considering sending troops back to Iraq. Sectarian and ethnic tensions have risen in Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in December 2011, inflamed by the conflict in neighboring Syria, where mainly Sunni rebels are trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, who is backed by Shi'ite Iran. The Iraqi army has joined forces with local tribesmen to battle al Qaeda, which has teamed up with groups of Syrian rebels to...