Free Republic

Rafah isn’t just the last stand for Hamas, but for an entire foreign policy establishment.The desperate effort to keep Israeli soldiers from going into the last Gaza stronghold of the Islamic terrorist organization is about more than the sum of the geopolitical parts.After nation building failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and everywhere else it’s been tried, the radioactive ‘Palestinian’ nation building experiment from over 30 years ago is its last hope.Long before George W. Bush tackled nation building after 9/11, his father began the era of turning Muslim terrorist groups into countries with the project to give the PLO a...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared drone footage Tuesday of terrorists in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Rafah, near several United Nations (UN) vehicles, including gunfire by the terrorists.Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, said that the UN was working with the terrorists, and called on UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to resign (as Katz has done in the past).The IDF released a statement:During IDF operational activity in eastern Rafah on Saturday, terrorists were identified in UNRWA's central logistics compound alongside UN vehicles.In the footage, a number of terrorists and gunfire can be seen near UN vehicles...

Turkey was in "constant contact" with and supports Hamas, which is not a terrorist group, said the Turkish leader. ... Erdoğan has made a habit of comparing Netanyahu and Israel to Hitler and the Nazis... Last week, Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Erdoğan of acting like a “dictator” by blocking the country’s ports to Israeli imports and exports as part of a trade war. “This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” tweeted Katz. Erdoğan’s government, which openly supports Hamas in its war against Israel, announced export restrictions...

President Joe Biden is backing an internal revolt within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the fate of postwar Gaza, after defense minister Yoav Gallant publicly declared his opposition to long-term Israeli rule there. Gallant made an unexpected televised address in which he stated that he was opposed to Israeli military rule or civilian rule in Gaza after Hamas, and preferred rule by non-terrorist Palestinians with help from Arab states.

An intersection opposite the central bus station in Tzfat illustrates the interwoven trauma between that city and the Galileean town of Maalot, a half-hour’s drive away. At the intersection, one sign designates the road’s name as 22 Children of Tzfat Street, while a sign at the adjacent bus stop calls it 22 Children of Maalot Street. Fifty years after a notorious terrorist attack that killed 28 Israelis near and in Maalot, including 22 students on a field trip from a Tzfat high school, places and people testify to the lingering pain.

In the 1950s, lists naming accused communists and homosexuals were used as tools for blackmail, influence-peddling and ruin. Clandestine dossiers played a part in the Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of 1 million ethnic Hutus 30 years ago, as well the purges of elites and intellectuals during periods of political upheaval in China, Cambodia and, of course, Nazi Germany. Today, the woke left are putting together their own lists of the “Zionists” in our midst. These lists are just as dangerous, just as disgusting.Titled “is your fav author a zionist?” the document features a rainbow flag’s worth of categorized...

The Biden administration is urging Arab states to join a "peacekeeping" force which would control Gaza once the war ends, the Financial Times reported. The initiative aims to fill the vacuum which would be created in Gaza once Hamas is toppled and until a "credible Palestinian security apparatus" could be established. Among the countries the US has been discussing its plans with are Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco, all of which are "considering" the initiative. The US has also spoken to Saudi Arabia about the plan, but the Saudis are unwilling to deploy their own forces to the...

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that President Joe Biden's administration does not view the killings of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza by Israel in its war with Hamas as genocide, Reuters reported. Sullivan said the United States wants to see Hamas defeated, adding that Gazans caught in the middle of the war were in "hell" and that a major military operation by Israel in Rafah would be a mistake. "We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition," he said. .....

The Biden administration informally notified congressional committees Tuesday that it planned to move forward with more than $1 billion in weapons deals for Israel, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter, a major transfer of lethal aid that comes a week after the White House paused a single shipment of bombs because of concerns that a planned assault in southern Gaza could cause immense civilian casualties. The arms deals allow for the potential transfer of $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of...

A group of Palestinian rioters vandalized Joshua’s Altar in the West Bank, a site revered by millions of Jews and Christians. The altar, which is located at Mount Ebal, was damaged after the rioters burned tires on its remains and spray-painted Palestinian flags and Arabic inscriptions on the stones last week, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post. According to a report from TPS, the site is under joint control with the Palestinian Authority and has been the target of vandalism on numerous occasions, part of a larger problem of attacks on Israeli archaeological sites under Palestinian control. “Unfortunately,...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that it had killed 15 terrorists, at least 10 of whom were from Hamas, in a strike on a “war room” that they had set up at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school. In a joint statement, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or “Shabak,” or “Shin Bet”) said: Based on IDF and ISA intelligence, the IAF carried out a precise strike on a central Hamas war room commanders embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat. The war room was used by terrorist operatives in...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel began toned down Independence Day celebrations at sundown on Monday, with hopes for an end to the seven-month-old Gaza war dim, anti-government protests growing and internal divisions festering. As the country marks its 76th year, firework displays were cancelled and the traditional torch-lighting ceremony at the Jerusalem national cemetery will be taped for TV audiences instead of livestreamed. Opposition lawmakers blasted the move as an attempt at stifling protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under attack at live events from hecklers furious about his failure to bring home the 128 hostages still held by...

It turns out that a Gaza based al-Qaeda affiliated group known as Jaysh al-Ummah has joined Hamas in the jihad against Israel. On December 8, Jaysh al-Ummah published a statement saying that its fighters had been clashing with the IDF in the north of the Gaza Strip and in Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City:Al-Qaeda is currently fighting in Gaza as Jaysh al-Ummah on the side of Hamas against the Zionists. A Jaysh al-Ummah-Statement from 8. December, 2023, announcing to have repelled the ‘Israeli’ army in fighting in the north of the Gaza Strip and in Sheikh Radwan in Gaza-City. https://t.co/g3o29r8OJG...

GOOD NEWS

History gives us conviction and guidance. Today, as we watch ravaging antisemitism and the defacing of the American flag on university campuses, prevalent examples in history of courage and bravery should spur us to respond.In 1942, German medical student Hans Scholl was awakened to the persecution of Jews in the Western world. While serving on the Eastern Front, Scholl and his war buddies, Willi Graf and Alexander Schmorell, witnessed firsthand the Nazis’ murder of innocent Polish Jewish civilians.Scholl committed to exposing the evil being done against the Jewish population. Together with Graf, Schmorell, Sophia Scholl, and Christoph Probst, he began...

New data on Gazan fatalities cited by UN agency also separates ‘identified’ deaths in hospitals from some 10,000 alleged deaths based on Hamas ‘media sources’ In a dramatic development, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has sharply revised downward the number of “identified” female and child fatalities in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The data now differentiates between the total number of deaths reported by Hamas (over 34,000) and the number of “identified” fatalities (over 24,000). The new figures reported by OCHA reduce by more than half the number of women and children that it previously...

Jews, who are 'tyrannical' and the 'brothers of apes and pigs' should be annihilated (...part of first paragraph deleted by my stupid browser) cording to a Florida Islamic cleric, wing “worse than the Nazis.” During a sermon at the North Miami Islamic Center in Florida in late April, Imam Di called for Allah to support “our oppressed brot well as for the total annihilation of Jews, whom he referred to as “apes and pigs” — a phrase that radical Islamists have historically used to describe Jews. “Oh Allah, annihilate the tyrannical Jews… for they are no match for You,” he...

Michael Moore accused President Joe Biden of being “completely misinformed” about what’s actually happening at pro-Palestinian college campus protests and offered a Mystery Science Theater 3000-style takedown of his recent press conference addressing these protests and the police responses in multiple states. Police have dispersed encampments at colleges in New York, California, Georgia, and more. At Columbia University, activists took over an administrative building, which was later breached by police. Students have demanded their schools completely divest from Israel in protest of their strikes on Gaza, which have led to thousands of civilian deaths. On the latest episode of his...

A new survey from the online magazine Intelligent found that a majority of students support the current protests on campus though admit they have little knowledge of the Israel-Hamas war and get most of their information on it from TikTok. Jimin Kim/SOPA Images/Shutterstock A majority of college students support the anti-Israel protests plaguing campuses across the country — and 15% of those surveyed who participated in one don’t believe Israel has a right to exist, a shocking new poll found.

As Townhall reported — and anyone not blinded by rabid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas hatred presumed — the number of women and children killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its massacre on October 7 is far less than the United Nations or its terrorist sources reported. The UN's Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) quite quietly and without an announcement matching the breathless outrage at and coverage of previously reported (and literally unbelievable) numbers, halved the number of women and children it previously claimed were killed in Gaza amid the war. The more than 14,000 children it said...