Free Republic

In response to the U.S. Senate recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to close two military bases (one American and one NATO) on its soil. This led U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper to openly question Turkey’s commitment to NATO. Two days later, The Telegraph broke a story that Hamas uses Turkey’s territory to plot attacks on Israel, which included plans to assassinate the then-mayor of Jerusalem and the chief of police, as well as a well-known advocate of Jews’ rights to pray on the Temple Mount. These two developments are part of a larger pattern...

This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates. MOSCOW — A deadly shooting erupted near the fortresslike headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service in central Moscow on Thursday evening, the security agency said in a statement that also reported several people had been wounded. Russian news reports said up to three people had been killed. “An unknown person opened fire near building #12 on the Bolshaya Lubyanka street,” the security service statement said, according to the Interfax news agency. “Some people were injured.” The statement also said that the assailant had been “neutralized” and was being identified....

On Wednesday, the UN Security Council held its periodic hearing on the Middle East. In her capacity as president of the Security Council for December, US Ambassador Kelly Craft invited Adele Raemer, a resident of Kibbutz Nirim near Gaza, to address the council. This is the first time an Israeli from the south will speak to the Security Council. In her address, Ms. Raemer asked the council: “Have you ever had to run for your life? When I hear the Red Alert early warning system for incoming rockets, I know that I have between 5-10 seconds to get to someplace...

The U.S. House approved a Democrat-backed resolution Friday calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- but did so without support from the four far-left freshmen congresswomen known as "the Squad."

lhan Omar recently posted a bizarre video of herself reciting a Muslim prayer in front of the altar of a Catholic Church. Over 20 congressmen attended the event, as did a Muslim interfaith leader…who also has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. On Thanksgiving, Ilhan Omar posted a video on Twitter with a video of her rat the pulpit in a Catholic church. In the video, Omar is reciting a Muslim prayer. The video, recorded last January when Omar first took office, was at an “interfaith service” at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the Washington D.C. area. Omar posted...

Last week the Egyptian court system denied justice to Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christian minority by again postponing judgment on two notorious cases that have been at court for years. The first concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets of al-Karm village (in Minya governorate) to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” Earlier that day she and her husband had gone to local police and complained that they were being harassed...

Seven House Democrats have written Attorney General Eric Holder invoking a list of grievances from radical Islamist groups and asking that Holder meet with representatives from those groups to hear their concerns, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. The grievances include the use of convicted felons as informants in mosques, alleged religious profiling of Somali Muslims in Minnesota and elsewhere and allegations that the FBI is working with foreign governments to question American citizens who are terror suspects. In the letter, the representatives said: "These concerns raise legitimate questions about due process, justice, and equal treatment under the law....

New York (AFP) – An American of Lebanese descent was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Tuesday for buying weapons and plotting attacks on behalf of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Ali Kourani, 34, was found guilty in May of gathering intelligence on potential attack targets, including New York’s JFK International Airport and a federal building in Manhattan. A federal court in America’s financial capital convicted him of eight allegations including conspiracy to use weapons in a violent crime. Born in Lebanon but naturalized by the United States in 2009, Kourani attended several Hezbollah training camps in his country...

As we witnessed a new round of nationwide protests in Iran, there is no sign of a slowdown in either the people’s unrest or the government’s brutal attempts at repression. By most estimates, the death toll exceeded 200. Thousands more have been wounded and arrested, and details about the regime’s tactics have begun leaking out in spite of the mullahs’ efforts to block the internet and maintain a veil of silence over ongoing developments. There are two distinct reasons for this silence. Obviously, Tehran does not relish the prospect of the international community becoming widely aware of escalating human rights...

Would Democratic Presidential Candidates Hold Israel Hostage? https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2019/11/20/Would-Democratic-Presidential-Candidates-Hold-Israel-Hostage

Last week, Israel once again faced a barrage of rockets from Gaza while most of the mainstream Democratic candidates whistled and looked away. Candidates don’t have to comment on every event happening around the world, but the ­silence of much of the Democratic field feels like more than passing disinterest. And when Vice President Joe Biden offered even a bland message of support for Israel that would have been unremarkable a few years ago, he got massive pushback from the left on Twitter. And it’s those activists on Twitter, and in the campus fever swamps, who shape the progressive conversation...

2020 Dems Stand With J Street, Hamas and ISIS Against Israel Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders declare war on the Jewish State. Fri Nov 1, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 55 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Not a single 2020 Democrat candidate from the massive field spoke at AIPAC’s pro-Israel summit in the spring. But 5 of the 2020 Dems, Sanders, Buttigieg, Castro, Klobuchar, and Bennett, were featured at the J Street conference alongside anti-Israel activists, BDS supporters, and terrorists. Those 2020 Dems who...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has threatened that as president she would consider cutting off U.S. aid to Israel if the country moves against a two-state solution, but last year, she condemned President Trump for cutting off aid to intransigent Palestinians. The Democratic front-runner said regarding aid to Israel, "Right now, Netanyahu says he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements. That does not move us toward a two-state solution." She added, "It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then...

INDIANOLA, Iowa — Elizabeth Warren issued a warning to Israel if it continues building settlements in the West Bank. The Massachusetts senator was asked after a town hall in Iowa whether she was open to making U.S. aid conditional on an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt construction in a territory Israel won in a defensive war in 1967, which is home to about 3 million Palestinians and roughly 400,000 Jews. "Right now, Netanyahu says that he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements. That does not move us toward a two-state solution....

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) took a hard line on Israel Saturday saying "everything is on the table" in imposing a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. "It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table," Warren said during a press availability with reporters Saturday. In a formulation more commonly deployed by previous presidents in threatening the use of force against America’s enemies, Warren repeated the phrase but did not clarify precisely what pressure—military or otherwise—might be brought...

United States troops have resumed large-scale counterterrorism missions against the Islamic State in northern Syria, military officials say... On Friday, American soldiers and hundreds of Syrian Kurdish fighters... reunited to conduct what the Pentagon said was a large-scale mission to kill and capture ISIS fighters in Deir al-Zour province, about 120 miles south of the Turkish border. “Over the next days and weeks, the pace will pick back up against remnants of ISIS,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the commander of the military’s Central Command, told reporters... When the dust settles on all of the troop movements, General McKenzie said he...

Orthodox Christianity and Islam are based on the same fundamental values, President Vladimir Putin said in an address to a religious conference in Kyrgyzstan. The conference, titled "Orthodoxy and Islam — Religions of Peace," aimed to promote interethnic and interreligious dialogue between Russia and Kyrgyzstan. "Islam and Orthodox Christianity, just like other world religions, are based on fundamental humanistic values that are of enduring importance — on mercy and love for one’s near, justice and respect for human beings," the state-run TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying Thursday. The address, which was read out to the conference by Russian...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — France’s defense minister criticized the U.S. on Saturday over what she described as “unanswered” attacks in recent months threatening the Persian Gulf, warning that the decades-long American deterrence in the oil-rich region appeared to be losing its power. Florence Parly separately said France “deplored” both U.S. President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of America from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that led to the re-imposition of crushing sanctions, as well as Tehran recently breaking the deal’s enrichment, stockpile and centrifuge limits. While saying France would continue to talk to Iran, her speech before...

Three leading Democratic presidential candidates recently endorsed a new policy regarding U.S. military aid to Israel: It should be conditioned on Israel embracing policies toward the Palestinians favored by American progressives. At the J Street conference last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) demanded that Israel "fundamentally change" its approach to terrorist-controlled Gaza, adding, "I think it is fair to say that some [U.S. military aid to Israel] should go right now into humanitarian aid in Gaza." Israeli officials believe such moves would enable Hamas to import more weapons and lead to another war. South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg...

A mystery brunette seen with Prince Andrew in a bombshell video shot at Jeffrey Epstein's New York mansion in December 2010 is Katherine Keating, the daughter of former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, her friends have told DailyMail.com. Keating, now 37, is the woman pictured leaving the Manhattan townhouse and being waved at by Prince Andrew nine years ago. A second photograph obtained by DailyMail.com showed her just minutes after leaving the apartment, standing on the corner of E71st Street and 5th Avenue. Her father Paul Keating's secretary told DailyMail.com he was 'aware of what the enquiry was about, but...