Free Republic

France has delivered the first of a series of Mistral warships to Egypt, the Egyptian news website Al Ahram reported Thursday. The helicopter carriers were initially constructed for the Russian Navy, but France pulled out of the deal following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. France paid to Russia 950 million euro ($1 billion) as compensation for breaching the deal. The official ceremony was attended Egyptian Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi, the commander of the French naval forces and other top military officials from France and Egypt. The warship was named after the former president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser. A...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that he sees Israel as the victim in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and he would “100%” come to its defense if it was attacked in an interview broadcast on Monday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

A Palestinian-American activist asserted earlier this month that the United States and Israel share a common legacy of ethnic cleansing as the foundational basis of the two nations in a video posted to the online news outlet The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In the clip Osama Abu Irshaid, the National Director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), claims that the "Zionists" have co-opted the "racist" narrative of the founding of America to mirror that of the establishment of the State of Israel in order to convince Americans that the two peoples have a similar history. "We came to...

A smuggling network has managed to sneak illegal immigrants from Middle East terrorism hotbeds straight to the doorstep of the U.S., including helping one Afghan man authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America. Immigration officials have identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them up to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed by The Washington Times. Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban...

The international movement calling for a boycott against Israel on Thursday said its website was repeatedly attacked earlier this year and raised suspicions that Israel was behind the attacks. The BDS movement released a report Thursday showing that its main website suffered six attacks in February and March. The denial of service attacks, which work by flooding a target website with bogus traffic, knocked out the BDS website for several hours at a time. The report, compiled by nonprofit online security service eQualit.ie, said the attacks had a level of “sophistication and commitment” it normally does not see. It also...

At some point in the second term of any presidency, the soaring eagle becomes a lame-duck with more quack than quake in its steps. With his place in history assured, President Obama has forged a new healthcare regime, restored relations with Cuba, made unprecedented visits and negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran. The latter of these strains U.S. relations with America's staunchest Middle East allies — Israel and Saudi Arabia — beyond credulity, and suggests the president may be too absorbed in creating his own legacy to think clearly. Obama called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) "the most...

Bent on destroying Israel, and gripped by vicious anti-Semitism, Baghdad ‘pauperized’ its Jews and forced them to leave for the nascent Jewish state in 1951-2. It believed Israel would collapse under the strain. But the immigrants ultimately helped Israel thrive, and it was Iraq that suffered After Adolf Hitler’s defeat in May 1945, many Nazis melted away from the Reich, smuggled out by such organizations as the infamous Odessa group and the lesser-known Catholic lay network Intermarium, as well as the CIA and KGB. They ensured the continuation of the Nazi legacy in the postwar Arab world. Egypt was a...

The mammoth, multi-million-dollar mansion where resident Barack Obama and his family will reportedly live after the first family exits the White House is located 1,096 feet from the Islamic Center of Washington — one of the largest mosques in the Western Hemisphere. ... The exterior of the Islamic Center features horseshoe arches, Arabic script and tall, ornate minaret. The building is surrounded by an array of flags representing the countries of the world where Islam is the state-sanctioned religion. ... In addition to the Islamic Center of Washington, the embassy of Oman and the former embassy of Iran are very...

Iran said on Sunday its pilgrims would not attend the annual Muslim haj pilgrimage, blaming regional rival Saudi Arabia for "sabotage" and failing to guarantee the safety of pilgrims. Saudi Arabia, which oversees the pilgrimage to Mecca by more than two million Muslims from around the world, accused Iran of effectively depriving its citizens from the religious duty by refusing to sign a memorandum reached after talks with Iran's Haj and Pilgrimage Organization. Relations between the two Gulf powers plummeted after hundreds of Iranians died in a crush in last year's haj and after Riyadh broke diplomatic ties when its...

On May 15, Al-Alam TV broadcast a report on the opening of the third International Holocaust Cartoon Contest in Tehran. The exhibition features caricatures of Israeli PM Netanyahu, comparing him to Hitler and to ISIS terrorists. The organizer, Shojai Tabtabai, said that the exhibition was "a response to the publication of cartoons by the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, which affronted the Prophet Muhammad, as well as an expression of [our opposition] to the massacres perpetrated against the Palestinian people." Reporter: "As a form of expression of the Palestinian cause, and in the context of the massacres, perpetrated by the Zionists...

White House hints that time for new Gaza policy is near. WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had warned Israel's government repeatedly to use "caution and restraint" with half a dozen aid boats bound for the Gaza Strip before Israeli commandos raided the flotilla this week in an operation that killed nine people. In an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast Wednesday night, Vice President Joe Biden agreed that Israel had a right to inspect the cargo. "You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not ... but the truth of the matter...

In significant news that has thus far either gone under or outright unreported by the media, U.S. military advisors have “boots on the ground” in Yemen, according to a recent report in the Washington Post by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Missy Ryan: “The Pentagon has placed a small number of U.S. advisors on the ground in Yemen to support Arab forces battling al-Qaeda, military officials said on Friday, signaling a new American role in that country’s multi-sided civil war. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. personnel had been in the country for about two weeks, supporting Yemeni and...

Iran is an artificial country which includes a large number of ethnic groups: Persians, Azars, Kurds, Turkmen, Baloch, Arabs and more.... Southwestern Iran, the Khuzistan region, is home to the Arab minority group, but that is where most of the oil and gas resources are to be found underground, right under the feet of that Arab minority. They are Shiites, exactly like the majority Persians, but are treated with disdain by the government. In the past, the region was called Arabistan to allude to the ethnic group living there, but after the 1925 Persian Conquest, the Persians changed its name...

An Iranian delegation wrapped up its visit to Saudi Arabia on Friday without signing a final agreement on arrangements for the annual Hajj pilgrimage, the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has said. The ministry said the delegation decided to return to Tehran without signing the final agreement despite two days of extensive talks. “The Iranian Organization of Hajj and Visit will be held responsible before God and the people of Iran for the inability of its pilgrims to perform Hajj this year,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. The ministry said it offered...

Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

The Egyptian army said on Wednesday that its forces have killed 88 militants in central and North Sinai during recent military operations. As a continuation of an earlier campaign which started in September 2015, the army announced that it will begin the third phase of the operation entitled Martyr's Right. Martyr's Right is a comprehensive military operation targeting Islamist militants in North Sinai.

Speaking on the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement last week, President of the Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, declared that the old Middle East created by European imperialism was dead – and that an independent Kurdish state must be part of the emerging new order. Referring to the secret arrangement by the Allied Powers in World War I to divide the Middle East into “spheres of influence”, Barzani blasted the Sykes-Picot Agreement, saying that it denied the rights of the inhabitants and carved up populations with arbitrary lines. The agreement served as the basis for the establishment of the modern...

With a media blitz, the Islamic State has set its sights on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as the next shot at expanding its empire and establishing a base from which to attack neighboring Israel.

A school built in Gaza using German funds is educating their students on hatred and violence for Israel and providing children with military training At the end of March, a Hamas-affiliated news agency distributed a video showing a Palestinian teacher indoctrinating school children with hatred for Israel and support for an armed struggle against it. The teacher used the letters of the Arabic alphabet as a didactic tool to teach them "the fundamental Palestinian national principles" even before they learn to read. The video did not specify the name of the school; however, data collected by the Intelligence and Terrorism...