Free Republic

Rome, 4 Dec.(AKI) - Muslim intellectuals in Italy have rejected a plan by the conservative government to halt the construction of new mosques, arguing that a shortage of mosques was making it more difficult to monitor radical Islam. The anti-immigrant Northern League, a coalition partner, has renewed calls to stop any more mosques being built. Its call followed the arrest on Tuesday of two Moroccans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on several targets in the northern city of Milan. One of the suspects accused of planning attacks in Milan was a Muslim preacher at an Islamic cultural centre outside the...

(IsraelNN.com) Gaza terrorists escalated their attacks on the western Negev Wednesday morning, launching a barrage of Kassam rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon shortly before 11:00 a.m. A number of strategic installations are located in the area, including an electric power plant. At least two of the more advanced types of the homemade missiles struck the southern section of the city, sending several people into severe emotional shock. Three workers at a factory in the city's industrial zone were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital after they complained of ringing in their ears following the attack. A third Kassam rocket slammed...

A Color Red alert was sounded in Ashkelon Monday, after rockets were launched at the city. Earlier, one man was killed from a rocket attack on a construction site in the city. (Shmulik Hadad)

Dec 29, 2008 9:55 | Updated Dec 29, 2008 16:32 Over 50 rockets strike South; 1 killed by Grad in Ashkelon By JPOST.COM STAFF Gaza terrorists fired over 50 projectiles at southern Israel Monday, the latest two rockets hitting the Ashkelon Beach region, causing no casualties or damage. Earlier Monday, Hanni Al-Mahdi, 27, of the Beduin town of Aroer in the Negev, was killed and at least 14 people were wounded when a Grad-type missile hit a construction site in Ashkelon's center. Of the wounded, five were reported to be in moderate-to-serious condition and the rest were lightly wounded. Several...

Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists on Tuesday evening impacted in Ashdod and in Ashkelon, Channel 2 reported. There were no initial reports of casualties.

shkelon’s wide boulevards and seafront promenade are deserted, the few souls who do venture out quickly make their way back indoors, listening out for the wail of rocket warning sirens that are now setting the uncertain rhythm of their lives. Ashkelon, a coastal city of some 110,000 people, is reluctantly finding itself thrust onto the front line of the latest showdown in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with other cities unaccustomed to incoming fire such as Ashdod and Beersheva. “This is all new to us,” said Avichai Levi. Like other residents, he had never experienced anything like the rocket assault that...

Home Front Command's deputy chief says the rocket that struck the school in Beersheba was manufactured in China, is heavier than the Qassam and can "potentially cause much greater damage." He said the rocket contains metal pallets that can spread out across a radius of up to 100 meters (about 328 feet) from the point of impact.

Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month cease-fire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza. Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded as the Israeli Air Force conducted more than a hundred strikes. About Israel's right to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launchpad for...

Today, people ask, why didn’t the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony, because they didn’t think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner. After all, hundreds of thousands of Jews were involuntarily contributing to the German war effort. They were making clothes, repairing roads, growing food. Why should the Third Reich destroy a highly effective, very cheap, and low-problem labor force, thus crippling itself and helping to ensure that it lost the war?...

For most of the past 16 years or so, a seemingly benign specter has been haunting the world - namely, the notion that there exists a New Middle East, one that plays by rules very different from those in the Bad Old Middle East. Beginning with the first of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Israel was launched by its own political leadership into a "peace process" whose main axiom was that the Old Middle East was dead and gone. Oslo was based on the assumption that what was needed to resolve the conflict was a sincere willingness on...

Moving beyond the question of international law, the charge that Israel is using a disproportionate amount of force in the Gaza Strip because of reports of Palestinian casualties has to be looked at critically. Israelis have often said among themselves over the last seven years that when a Hamas rocket makes a direct strike on a crowded school, killing many children, then Israel will finally act. This scenario raises the question of whether the doctrine of proportionality requires that Israel wait for this horror to occur, or whether Israel could act on the basis of the destructive capability of the...

Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday discussed prospects for peace in the Middle east with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Syria and Israel this year held four rounds of indirect talks mediated by Turkey, but the talks made no significant headway. Advertisement In Syria Carter is also expected to meet with the exiled leadership of Hamas, Khaled Meshal. Carter's first meeting with Meshal in April drew sharp criticism from the Bush administration which labels Hamas as a terrorist group.

Yesterday the MSM was all agog, practically guaranteeing that Israel would agree with the French Proposal for a 48 Hour Truce. Today the Israeli Cabinet gave its answer: "We didn't initiate the Gaza operation in order to end it while Israeli towns are still under fire, as they were before the operation...Israel has shown restraint for years; she gave the truce a chance; we told ourselves 'let's try it,' but Hamas violated the truce." Did Israel do the right thing? Absolutely !!! Let me explain:

Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity. Choosing a new government in 2006, just 24 percent of the voters considered the issue important, and only 4 percent regarded it as the election's central theme. What a turnabout, it seemed and whatever the reason, it was a soothing respite for a country whose history of tolerance was the first in 21st-century Europe to clash with the...

The "terrible massacre" occurring among the Palestinian people would never have happened if it hadn't been for the divisions among them, said Saudi Arabia's foreign minister at the opening of an emergency Arab League meeting Wednesday. Saud al-Faisal slammed the ongoing division of the Palestinians between the Islamist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority, under Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank saying it opened the door to Israel's air strikes against the Gaza Strip. "This terrible massacre would not have happened if the Palestinian people were united behind one leadership speaking in one voice," he said at the league...

IsraelNN.com) Opposition leader, favored Prime Ministerial candidate and famed public speaker Binyamin Netanyahu is taking a break from politics to defend Israel in the international arena. Netanyahu gave 20 interviews on Tuesday alone to international television networks, explaining why justice is on Israel’s side in the current battle with Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of countries are estimated to have seen and heard him say that Israel has no choice but to respond to Hamas rockets. "It is as if there were an 'Al-Qaeda' with a base supported by Iran just outside of New York,” Netanyahu said...

SEO Guru Taps Facebook To Support Israel in Gaza War By Laurie Sullivan Online Media Daily Marketing and SEO Guru Joel Leyden is reaching out through search engine optimization and social media to help Jews and Christians express their support for the Israel Defense Force and Israeli civilians. The Facebook forum, "I Support the Israel Defense Forces In Preventing Terror Attacks From Gaza"--created about three hours after the first strikes were made in Gaza--explains Israel's position to the world, Leyden said. "The stickiness makes it a medium that lets people feel, rather than remain passive," he said. "You can put...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel rejected international pressure for a two-day cease-fire with Hamas and sent warplanes Wednesday to demolish smuggling tunnels that are the lifeline of Gaza's Islamic rulers. The diplomatic efforts to forge a truce were set in motion by the scale of destruction in Gaza since Israel unleashed an offensive Saturday against Hamas militants firing barrages of rockets that are striking closer to the Israeli heartland than previous attacks. Gaza officials say the five days of airstrikes have killed 390, including 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces, and have wounded about 1,600. The U.N. says...

TEHRAN – The Zionist regime’s recent criminal acts against the people of Gaza are undoubtedly acts of genocide similar to the one committed by the Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki stated on Tuesday. Addressing foreign diplomats in Tehran, he deplored the international community’s inaction to halt war crimes in Gaza. “There is no doubt that the Zionist regime’s recent acts are in breach of the Geneva Convention and all other international rules and regulations,” he pointed out. “The Zionist regime’s crimes in the past sixty years are obvious examples of crime against humanity which...

Some Excerpts: Hamas, despite its terrorism, isn't al Qaeda. A conflict-ending agreement with Israel will require a unified Palestinian house with Hamas included, agreeing to recognize Israel and end violence. Third, Obama will need to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid and development assistance for the economy. Boycotting economic assistance for 1.5 million Palestinians in hopes of toppling or pressuring Hamas makes no sense. The United States must orchestrate, or at least participate in, a new economic initiative for Gaza, and it will need Israel's support for this. Fourth, the administration should continue to support Abbas with economic aid, training for...