Free Republic

As Barack Obama’s number two man, Joe Biden took part in many policies that were damaging to Israel but his duplicity concerning the Jewish state began in his first year in the Senate when he visited Israel. Depending on which version of events he tells, Biden takes credit for transmitting disinformation to the Israeli government in an effort to help Egypt kill more Jewish soldiers, or, as he now tells it, Biden withheld vital information that could have helped Israel defend itself. In 1973, a freshman senator named Joe Biden was sent on his first overseas trip to visit Israel....

Iran’s political and military leadership in Iran is escalating its threatening tone towards the UAE following the signing of last week’s historic diplomatic agreement with Israel. The Islamic Republic is warning the UAE of the negative consequences that will result from the expansion of Israeli activity and influence in the Emirates. In a detailed Hebrew-language piece written for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) by Lt. Col. Michael Segal, the author noted that the recurring theme in the Iranian speakers’ statements is that of the “betrayal” by the United Arab Emirates of the Palestinian Authority and their Muslim brethren,...

Over four decades after the 1973 war that saw Egyptian forces seize of the Sinai Peninsula from occupying Israeli forces in a shock offensive, the legacy of the brief conflict lives on. One of the tales of the war known by some Egyptians is the existence of a “secret code” used by the Egyptian army that Israeli intelligence was unable to crack. The cypher was simple yet unorthodox: using an unwritten language from one of Egypt’s ethnic minorities, the Nubians. With the system, words and commands that would have been undecipherable to even a veteran Israeli intelligence officer could be...

Some intelligence agencies warn the five men may travel to Syria and make use of its chaotic landscape to plot attacks elsewhere. Iran has released five senior al Qaeda operatives from detention and will soon allow them to leave the country, prompting fears they will join other terrorists in Syria planning attacks on the West. According to intelligence sources, three of the five are members of al Qaeda's ruling committee the Shura Council. Among those released in exchange for the Iranian diplomat was Abu al Kheir al Masri - the former head of al Qaeda's "external relations" committee, who was...

It was 30 years ago today Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

FBI affidavit details Abdel-Rahman's jailhouse pipeline JUNE 3--Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman laughed at the ease with which his legal team improperly smuggled messages that allowed the Muslim extremist to continue directing terrorist operations while serving a life sentence in a Minnesota prison cell, according to a sealed FBI affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun. Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were transporting messages to his disciples. "I really would like that they arrest those doves. I wish that one day I read, 'The FBI was able to arrest the doves that are contacting the Sheikh.'" The convicted terrorist then added, "as...

Devin Zentmyer of Illinois wants an end to American democracy.A conference convened last month by the Islamic extremist group Hizb-ut Tahrir in Chicago cheered the fall of secular governments in the Middle East and the political rise of groups advocating for the re-imposition of Islamic law and the revival of the global caliphate, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The speakers at the conference also endorsed a similar program in the West, particularly America.One of the attendees at the conference is doing his part to make that dream of Islamic rule in America a reality.Devin Zentmyer, who also goes by his...

It has been 45 years since Egypt and its Arab allies were defeated by Israel in the Six Day War. The defeat led to the occupation of Egyptian and other Arab land, including East Jerusalem. An equally troubling outcome was the eventual retreat of calls for a strong civil state, which Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser had been working towards in the decade prior to the defeat. "Ultimately, we ended up with a scenario in which the nation was faced with two choices: the power of the military or the power of political Islam," said novelist Naim Sabri in an interview...

Mohamed al Zawahiri and seven others were cleared of terrorism charges by an Egyptian military court, according to Reuters. Zawahiri is the brother of Al Qaeda's current leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, who acted as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man for years before bin Laden's death. The court overturned an earlier conviction of Zawahiri and the others based on charges of "committing terrorist crimes, harming national security, and planning to overthrow the state," lawyer Mamdouh Ismail told Reuters. The case was 14 years old, and also involved another prominent person, Mohamed al Islambouli, the brother of Khalid al Islambouli, the man...

CAIRO – Hundreds...have staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to demand the release of an Egyptian cleric imprisoned in the United States for plots to blow up New York City landmarks. Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, is serving life in prison after a 1995 conviction for his advisory role in conspiracies to blow up the United Nations and several New York bridges and tunnels. ....Thursday, protesters near the heavily fortified embassy held banners reading "freedom for our sheik" and chanted slogans and held prayers. The protest leader was Abboud el-Zomor, who...

Egypt has released 950 jailed members of the militant Islamist group Gamaa Islamiya. Some of them have been in prison since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat 25 years ago. The group's lawyer says about 950 members of Gamaa Islamiya have been released over the last 10 days. The largest group, several hundred, were freed Tuesday, in honor of a Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. Those released include several senior figures, some of whom have been imprisoned for more than 20 years. Gamaa Islamiya was once Egypt's largest militant Islamist group, responsible for a string of...

Zomor, Egypt (CNN) -- Aboud el Zomor watched the revolution in Tahrir Square with envy from his jail cell on a smuggled television. Thirty years ago, he and a group of conspirators plotted an Islamic Revolution to overthrow the Egyptian government. On October 6 1981, four of his associates succeeded in assassinating Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a hail of gunfire during a military parade in Cairo. Zomor, an Egyptian intelligence officer gone rogue, was convicted for his role in the murder. Three decades later, in his first interview with a U.S. television news organization since his recent release from...

As posted on Twitter: Anthony G. Martin @welshman007 Anthony G. Martin Later, folks--by the way, my news alert is ominous--the man who was banned after Sadat's murder is now back in Cairo!! Islamic EXTREMISM!

For the first time since he was banned from leading weekly friday prayers in Egypt 30 years ago, prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi will lead thousands in the weekly prayers from Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday. Sources told Al Arabiya that a military force will accompany the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars from his home to Tahrir Square, provide security for the prayers and accompany him back to his residence. Al-Qaradawi last delivered a Friday prayer sermon in Egypt in 1981 after the assassination of former President Anwar el-Sadat.

As Israel moves into the uncharted territory of managing its relations with the post-Mubarak Egypt, it is imperative that our leaders understand the lessons of the past. One of the first casualties of the Egyptian revolution may very well be Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. The Egyptian public’s overwhelming animus towards Jews renders it politically impossible for any Egyptian leader to come out in support of the treaty. Over the weekend, the junta now ruling Egypt refused to explicitly commit itself to maintaining the treaty. Instead, under intense American pressure they sufficed with stating that they would maintain all of...

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, is more than a radical network, comparable to al Qaeda; more than an ideological phenomenon, like the followers of Khomeini in the 1979 Iranian Revolution; and more than a political insurgency, similar to Pakistani jihadism. It is an Egyptian Islamist subculture of great depth and influence. It is therefore also much more than a product of political decisions made by Hosni Mubarak. The Brotherhood was powerful before Mubarak, before his predecessor Anwar Sadat, and before their elder comrade, Gamal Abdel Nasser. But the Brotherhood today is not identical with the paramilitary Arabist-Islamist Ikhwan...

On October 6, 1973, in a move calculated to attract US attention, Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal, capturing a narrow strip of land. After three weeks of fighting and with a fragile UN ceasefire in place, Sadat's grand plan came to fruition. In November, Henry Kissinger, the US national security adviser, arrived in Cairo for talks. Agreements between Israel and Egypt were brokered and the following year Richard Nixon, the US president, visited Egypt for the first time. A series of diplomatic efforts ensued which ultimately led to an historic peace agreement between Egypt and Israel and Sadat's highly...

Egyptian intelligence warned American officials about a week before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, it will be reported on Tuesday (in the NY TIMES)... MORE... A senior U.S. intelligence official denied the warning was received...

Let My People Go  Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic EqualityBy S. S. HasanOxford University Press. 320 pp. $49.95.Reviewed by Robert W. ShaffernSana Hasan, an Egyptian scholar best known for her Enemy in the Promised Land, has written another important book in Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt—a book in which she honestly confronts the sorry condition of Christians in Egypt, where the “problems faced by the Christian minority are for many . . . a taboo subject.” Hasan courageously describes the discrimination and harm often visited upon one of Christianity’s oldest communions—the Coptic...

Q: You make two very interesting points in your writings. You argue that people are naïve when they think that a democratic Egypt is just around the corner, and that the size of the opposition may be overstated. Let's start with the latter: Could Mubarak's NDP win in free and fair elections? Rubin: Nobody knows. Now, it's very doubtful. The question is, will some kind of regime party survive and get a significant amount of votes? No one knows the answer. Mubarak has a base of support. The Communist parties in Europe survived even after falling from power. A regime...