Free Republic

An Australian court has upheld a municipal council’s decision to ban the construction of a synagogue in suburban Sydney because it could become the target of a terrorist attack. The group that wants to build the synagogue near Bondi Beach called Wednesday’s ruling by the Land and Environment Court “rewarding terrorism.” The Waverley Municipal Council had denied the Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe, or FREE, permission to build near the beach, which is popular with residents and visitors. The council in its refusal of the development application said the site was “unsuitable for a synagogue because of the potential...

Political Correctness: The perils of multiculturalism and open borders have reached critical mass in Sweden. There are Muslim enclaves where postal, fire and other essential services — even police officers themselves —require police protection. A police report released last month identifies 55 of these "no-go zones" in Sweden. These zones are similar to others that have popped up in Europe in recent years. They formed as large Muslim populations emigrating to politically correct and tolerant European states refuse to assimilate and set up virtual states within a state where the authorities fear to tread. Soeren Kern of the Hudson Institute...

Though largely dismissed by the Democratic Left, America’s “surge” policy is paying attractive dividends. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is in retreat, violence is down, and political reconciliation is up. In a 16-page letter that U.S. soldiers found last October near Baghdad, AQI leader Abu Tariq complained that his 600-man force had dwindled to 20 terrorists. “We were mistreated, cheated, and betrayed by some of our brothers,” he moaned, as Sunnis swapped AQI for the USA. This shift “created panic, fear, and the unwillingness to fight,” another AQI chief whined in his own missive discovered in November near Samarra. His network,...

Under assault by Muslims and multiculturalists, free speech and freedom of the press are dead in Britain. The same sorts of people who killed them in Britain are killing them in Canada. They and their allies are using the British and Canadian courts and tribunals to bury our First Amendment rights in America. Muslims -- individually and in pressure groups -- are using British libel laws and Canadian “human rights” laws to limit what is said about Islam, terrorists and the people in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere who are funding groups such as al-Queda. The cases of Rachel Ehrenfeld and...

It was just a regular, black-inked ballpoint pen that President Bush used to sign his veto yesterday, instead of his usual personalized Cross pen. The pen was a gift from the father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, who asked Mr. Bush last month to use it when he vetoed a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq. Robert Derga, of Uniontown, Ohio, gave Mr. Bush the pen after an April 16 speech by the president at the White House. Mr. Bush invited a number of "Gold Star Families" -- families who have lost a U.S. military member in Iraq --...

In a German case in which a Muslim, Moroccan-born 26-year-old mother of two was petitioning for an expedited divorce from a man who had beaten her and threatened her life, Judge Christa Datz-Winter denied the woman’s request, a woman who already had a restraining order on her husband after police were called last May because he attacked her. The reason for the injudicious divorce denial? The Koran, the judge said, instructs that “men are in charge of women.” She explained further that the couple hails from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to...

People attributing the current conflicts in the Middle East to either religion or oil, believe they don't really have a dog in the fight. What cannot be ignored however is that a paroxysm of religious strife has broken out in the Middle East and it is exporting death and terror in the name of Allah. Still angry over the defeat in 732 A.D. at Poitiers, France that stopped their northward conquest of Europe and the Crusades that followed from 1095 to 1291, the Arabs of the Middle East have taken the temperature of the West today and concluded that it's...

I've had sources ask to meet me in some pretty odd places. But there was one meeting last year that had to be just about the strangest request yet. It wasn't just that this very-recently retired Defense Department strategist wanted to meet at the Pentagon City Mall -- that's a pretty common place to grab an off-the-record cup o' joe. It was where in the mall he had in mind: at the Nordstrom's coffee shop, tucked all the way in the far reaches of the store, just past the little kid's clothes section. So I walk past the rows of...

Captured Hizbullah Kidnapper Details Syrian, Iranian Collusion 21:53 Aug 08, '06 / 14 Av 5766 by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz The IDF released videotaped footage of an interview with a captured Hizbullah member who was involved in the July 12th attack in which eight IDF soldiers were killed and two others kidnapped. Chief of military intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, told cabinet ministers on Sunday that the Hizbullah terrorist had been taken prisoner during an operation in Lebanon. Soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are still being held hostage by the Iranian-backed Hizbullah. Among other revelations of Hizbullah recruitment and training methods, the...

Document: Al-Arian was FBI informant 4/6/2004 A former professor accused of raising money for a Palestinian terrorist group was briefly an FBI informant. That's according to court documents recently filed by federal prosecutors. Sami Al-Arian is accused of using a Palestinian charity and an academic think tank as a front for raising money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The new disclosure comes in the government's response to defense attorneys' attempts to gain access to more evidence in the federal racketeering case against Al-Arian and three other men. Al-Arian is a former professor at the University of South Florida. Al-Arian's attorneys...