Free Republic

As campus protests—and violent police repression—continue to roll across the country, some unions are getting involved. More than 2,700 protesters have been arrested on 64 college campuses since the initial arrests at Columbia University in New York on April 18. Encampments have appeared at 184 campuses worldwide. The protesting students are calling for full disclosure of their universities’ finances and divestment from all financial ties to weapons manufacturers and Israel’s war on Gaza. Unionized academic workers are demanding decision-making power over their work and what it’s used for. For instance, academic workers in the astronomy department of the University of...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) said that Hamas can’t be eliminated and the idea they’re built on can’t be killed off and “We need a free Palestine so Hamas then ceases to need to exist.” Bowman began by saying, “We condemn the attacks of October 7, but we also condemn everything that has happened since October 7.” Later, he added, “I know Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and others, they want to wipe out the Palestinians. They want them to either leave or they will kill them. I know that’s what they want. And it’s horrible and...

The Australian Parliament rejected the Green Party's proposal to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. The Green Party's proposal was rejected by a large majority of 80 members of parliament who opposed it, as opposed to only 5 members who supported it.. Adam Bandt, leader of the Green Party, claimed that recognizing a Palestinian state would be "a concrete step towards peace." "It's not just a symbolic move, it's a critical step towards peace and towards ending the slaughter we're seeing with the invasion of Gaza at the moment," he told parliament. ....

Breaking with the stance of other Western countries, Israel decided on Monday not to express an official opinion on the issue of Catalan independence in the meantime, NRG reported. According to the report, Spain asked Israel over the weekend to publicly declare that it does not support Catalan independence, as part of Spain’s efforts to garner international consensus on the matter. Israel’s ambivalence is a departure from the opposition to Catalan independence declared by the EU and US. On Friday, US State Dept. spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that “Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the...

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...

יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad @YosephHaddad: These are not "freedom fighters" and this is not "resistance"... these are a bunch of monstrous terrorists, sadistic murderers and barbaric rapists and it is called "terrorism"!Mar 29, 2024 Link

At a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mn) sharply criticized University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Chancellor Gene Block for allowing pro-Israel counter protesters on their campus to publicly show a video of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians. "This one-sided, out-of-context view of beheaded babies, raped women and children, and slaughtered unarmed persons defamed the Muslims fighting to free Palestine from its Jewish oppressors," Omar asserted. "They made no effort to present Hamas' justification for the raid. The insinuation that targeting civilians is per se wrong overlooks the fact that Israeli...

Student negotiators and university officials reached an agreement to end the pro-Palestine encampment on the University of Oregon campus after 24 days. Five UO Coalition for Palestine representatives emerged from Johnson Hall, where the encampment was moved on May 16, after meeting with UO administrators including President John Karl Scholz. According to Michael Dreiling, a sociology professor and facilitator between the coalition and the university, encampment members have 24 hours to leave after signing the agreement. By the end of the night, some demonstrators were already packing up their tents, and cheers rang out from the site of the encampment...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A Portland burn nurse returned home on Saturday after a 17-day mission treating patients in Southern Gaza. Monica Johnston said she first heard of the opportunity to provide medical help to civilians in Gaza last year through the organization Palestinian-American Medical Association. "I hear the word ‘help,’ and my ears perk up," she told KATU on Monday, adding that her experience in the burn unit of Legacy Emanuel Medical Center led to "an absolute need to be there." Johnston arrived in Gaza on May 1, planning to stay 13 days. She worked in the European General...

Abdallah Radi says he, along with his father and cousin, raped a woman in Kibbutz Nir Oz before his father murdered her Two interrogation videos were released by the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday, showing Palestinian members of Hamas, a father and son, confessing to murdering and kidnapping people and raping women in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. The footage, which was released after it was reported by The Daily Mail, showed Jamal Hussein Ahmad Radi, 47, and his son Abdallah, 18 — both of whom were captured by the IDF in March — in a Shin Bet interrogation...

Today’s recognition of the State of Palestine is virtue-signalling at its most dangerous and dumb. So now we know what it takes to become a state: the murder of Jews. Rape, kill and kidnap Jews and seven months later, the leaders of Ireland, Spain and Norway will recognise your statehood. That’s the lesson of today’s coordinated spectacle of virtue-signalling in Dublin, Madrid and Oslo: pogroms work. The butchery of civilians gets results. Fascism has its rewards. This is ‘diplomacy’ at its most dangerous. Of course, Irish taoiseach Simon Harris, Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre are...

The Israeli foreign ministry has posted a video message directed at Ireland, which claims that if the Irish Government recognizes the State of Palestine, it will be encouraging terrorism. The headline states: “Recognizing a Palestinian state will lead to more terrorism, instability in the region and jeopardize any prospects for peace. Don’t be a pawn in the hands of Hamas.” In the 35-second video, the script declares: “Ireland: The possibility of recognizing a Palestinian state risks turning you into a pawn of Iran and Hamas.” It continues: “Such a move will only strengthen Hamas and weaken an already dysfunctional Palestinian...

Norway, Ireland and Spain said on Wednesday they are recognizing a Palestinian state, in a historic but largely symbolic move that deepens Israel’s isolation more than seven months into its grinding war against Hamas in Gaza. The announcements came as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister and the International Court of Justice is considering allegations of genocide that Israel has strenuously denied.

Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney, was among the experts who advised the International Criminal Court (ICC) in seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar over alleged war crimes. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, asked Clooney, 46, to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and the Gaza Strip, where Israeli military forces have been operating since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

The two-state solution has been proposed for decades – with the application of the titular adjective, “moderate.” Attempts to bring it about have been unsuccessful. In multiple ways, the Arab side rejects or undermines it. It is not politically correct to ask whether rejectionism is the political and diplomatic tactic of those who imagine themselves as the Palestinian people. In today’s climate, it is unacceptable even to inquire whether it is an ideological position, a culturally inculcated pattern, or a natural outgrowth of Islamist religious construct. Nevertheless, a short historical overview can suggest that those possibilities need be investigated. Time...

There have been some unsettling developments in the Gaza Strip this weekend, suggesting a situation that many analysts had previously warned us about. Israel has been portraying the assault on Rafah as essentially being the "last stand" for Hamas, where the IDF would take out the terrorist group's four remaining battalions of fighters. But yesterday, fighting broke out in Jabaliya and Gaza City in the northern part of the Strip that Israel had cleared months ago. The IDF was attacked in multiple locations. Some of the attackers may have been Hamas fighters that were missed in the original clearing efforts...

Dozens of students at Duke University walked out on legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech on Sunday, with some chanting "free Palestine," according to videos of the ceremony posted on social media. The student protesters staged the walkout just as Seinfeld, who is Jewish and a vocal supporter of Israel, was introduced, according to the videos. Some students carried Palestinian flags as they left the stadium. Other graduates and guests chanted "Jerry! Jerry!" as the comedian took the stage to receive an honorary degree. Seinfeld delivered his speech without major interruptions, Reuters reported. The "Seinfeld" star opened his speech with...

In the words of Shakespeare: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Such is Benjamin Netanyahu. Presently, the world press is tearing this man down, but he is arguably the greatest world leader of the past fifty years. Does he have his faults? Yes! Who doesn’t? But Netanyahu has had to navigate his country’s security through the decades when even his “friends” (Clinton, Bushes 1 & 2, Obama) wanted to enforce policies on Israel that were self-destructive. And his country had little margin of error if things went wrong. Soon after he announced...

The Burning Man festival removed a massive pro-Palestine sculpture from the list of art installations set to be on display at the massive gathering this summer. More than 1,000 people signed an online petition demanding the 8-foot-by-14-foot fiberglass watermelon titled “From the River to the Sea” previously listed on the event’s website be removed — but organizers said the listing was only submitted to cause a “stir” and likely won’t be part of the annual festival in the Nevada desert. “The phrase ‘From the River to the Sea’ is more than just words; it is a battle cry that legitimizes...

In a slap to Israel’s face, the United Nations General Assembly voted by an overwhelming 143-9 margin Friday to grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestinians and also reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the U.N. The nine nations who voted against the measure were Czechia, Hungary, Argentina, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Israel, and the United States.The U.S. had opposed membership for Palestine in the past, and reiterated their stand before the vote:The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership...