Free Republic

GENEVA (7 September 2018) – UN human rights experts* have appealed to Iran to halt the imminent executions of Iranian Kurd prisoners Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, amid serious concerns that they did not receive a fair trial and were tortured during pre-trial detention. They also reiterated calls to halt the execution of Mr. Ramin Hossein Panahi. “We urge the Government of Iran to immediately halt their executions and to annul the death sentences against them in compliance with its international obligations,” the experts said in a joint statement, following reports that they will be executed on 8 September.“We are alarmed...

Senior officials from the United Nations and a number of European nations visited an exhibition hosted by the Palestinian Authority featuring explicitly anti-Semitic images last month. According to a report by Makor Rishon on Friday, early last month, a number of foreign representatives visited an exhibition set up by the Palestinian Authority in the illegal Bedouin outpost of Khan al-Ahmar. Built in the 1990s, the illegal encampment today houses some 170 Bedouin squatters just outside of the Israeli town of Kfar Adumim, east of Jerusalem. The encampment was never authorized, and is slated for demolition, after the Supreme Court rejected...

President Trump on Friday described his 2016 presidential election as Hillary Clinton's funeral. "I call it Hillary Clinton’s funeral, that was the night she lost the election," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. "It was a funeral, it was a wake." Trump made the remark while speaking about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference. The president has repeatedly attacked the probe as a "witch hunt" and blasted lawyers in the special counsel's office as "17 angry Democrats." Mueller is himself a longtime Republican, previously serving as FBI director under presidents of both parties. Trump on Friday...

When delusions and fantasies are substitutes for reporting. How did the Washington Post cover the end of America's UNRWA Funding?Here’s how: The United States will no longer contribute to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, the State Department announced Friday [August 31], amid widespread Palestinian outrage charging that the decision violates international law and will aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation, particularly in Gaza. The Washington Post should explain to readers, if it can, what “international law” the “Palestinians” claim has been violated. I do not think there is any. Contributions to UNRWA are voluntary. In any case,...

“This is not prison; this is a genocide,” stated an audience member following August 29 movie screenings concerning the Gaza Strip at the Washington, DC office of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). Typifying the Israel-hating audience of about 25 that filled FCNL’s small Capitol Hill presentation room, this woman’s comments demonstrated how Quakers at FCNL and beyond have joined the global demonization of Israel. The woman, a self-professed member of the radical anti-Israel organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “was totally sickened” by the evening’s viewings of Gaza in Context and Gaza: A Gaping Wound. These two...

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), together with ten House members, has asked the US State Department to investigate claims that Israel has committed “gross violations of human rights,” and depending on the results to cut military aid to the Jewish state. The letter addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry was dated February 17, and was published by Politico on Tuesday night after the news site received it from “an organization that provided input for it.” Leahy’s letter targets both Israel and Egypt, and is significant because the senator authored a law conditioning US military aid to foreign countries based on...

(CNSNews.com) – The senior Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) implied during an exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday that Iran was justified in detaining ten U.S. sailors who entered Iranian waters last month. The incident came up during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the administration’s State and foreign operations budget request, after Kerry argued that the nuclear deal and his relationship with his Iranian counterpart had been responsible for the quick resolution of what he said could have turned into a hostage situation. Then Leahy spoke: “If we had an Iranian boat,...

Pat Leahy’s Israel Obsession The Vermont senator’s fixation with the Jewish State turns ugly. April 1, 2016 Ari Lieberman    Vermont, the state that gave us unrepentant socialist, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is home to another radical liberal breed named Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Along with Sanders, Sen. Leahy represents the left flank of the Democratic Party and often finds himself at loggerheads with its more centrist members. Not unsurprising, Leahy is also a visceral critic of Israel, the Mideast’s only democracy and stalwart U.S. ally. In 2011, citing alleged human rights violations, he proposed a bill that would have cut...

The Senate's most senior lawmaker said Tuesday he will skip the Israeli prime minister's speech to Congress next month on Iran, calling the invitation by Republicans without White House consultation a "tawdry and high-handed stunt." Related Stories Seven-term Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont joined a half dozen Democrats who have decided to boycott Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, which comes in middle of delicate negotiations involving the United States, Western powers and Iran over its nuclear program. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress on March 3. "The unfortunate way that House leaders have unilaterally...

The UK Labour Party has been charged with spewing anti-Semitic sentiments in recent years. In a 2013 speech at the Palestinian Return Center in London, for instance, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the following: Where, then, lies the grievance with Corbyn? At that meeting on Sunday, Jewish Labourites were not opposing the party leader for championing the Palestinians. They were opposing him for, to take one example, his 2013 attack on a group of “Zionists” he’d encountered, where he tackled them not on their arguments but on ethnic grounds, noting that despite “having lived in this country for a very...

In an effort to strengthen its relations with Israel following Paraguay’s decision to move its embassy back to Tel Aviv, a city in Guatemala has passed a unanimous measure to name all the streets in the city after names of Israeli cities and communities. Licenciado Hugo Sarceño, mayor of Puerto Barrios, made the announcement while in Israel with a high-level delegation from the large Guatemalan city. Sarceño explained that his port city’s support for Israel is Bible-based. “We believe that everyone who helps the State of Israel will be blessed by God,” he said. “We are great supporters of the...

Today's post is in honor of U.S. Army Corporal Jeremy R. Shank, who gave his life for his country on this date in 2006. The 18-year-old native of Jackson, Mo. was serving with the 2d Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division when he sustained mortal wounds from small-arms fire during a dismounted security patrol in Hawijah, Iraq. [...] 1950: When their listening post near Satae-ri, Korea is targeted by enemy artillery and about to be overrun, the commanding officer orders his soldiers to withdraw from their post to safety. Machinegunner Cpl. Benito Martinez and Pvt. 1st Class...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said former President Barack Obama should have followed through on his infamous "red line" warning to Syria, and the United States "paid a price" as a result of Obama's inaction. Obama vowed in 2012 that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime used chemical weapons on civilians, it would be a "game changer" for U.S. military involvement in Syria. But Obama failed to enforce the promise a year later when hundreds of Syrians were killed in a sarin gas attack, and he instead brokered a multi-nation deal in which Assad pledged to remove his chemical...

Wednesday on The View, the hosts gave a warm welcome to former Secretary of State under President Obama, John Kerry, giving him the chance to promote his new memoir, while lobbing softballs about the Mueller probe, the Iran Deal and his relationship with John McCain. New host Abby Huntsman didn’t even try to represent the conservative viewpoint she was hired to offer, eagerly asking Kerry if he was running for President in 2020: “Are you -- going to run for president? A lot of people think that you should. A lot of people think that you will,” she gushed. A...

After Roseanne Barr’s former costar gave us a pretty good indication of what the future holds for her character on the new spinoff show (spoiler alert: she doesn’t have a future in corporeal form), we were able to guess what direction the show was taking. But what about Roseanne herself? Is there room for a comeback after her allegedly racist Twitter rants or is she all washed up? Ms. Barr showed up on a podcast this week to bring everyone up to date on her plans and they’re probably not what you were expecting. First of all, she won’t be...

“Abbas is apparently prepared to give up his job as president of Palestine to become the mayor of a local municipal council in a Jordanian province,” commented a Ramallah-based senior official. Many Palestinians and Jordanians have expressed surprise over the renewed talk about a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, saying they believe the idea is being floated as part of US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-unveiled plan for peace in the Middle East. They also warned that the proposed confederation was part of an Israeli-American “conspiracy” aimed at preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and turning Jordan into the homeland of the...

The Jordanians immediately rejected the confederation idea. Israel is not behind what Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said was a US-backed peace plan based on a Palestinian confederation with Jordan, senior Israeli diplomatic officials clarified Sunday. The clarification came after reports claimed the idea of a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation – which Abbas told a Peace Now delegation was raised in a conversation he had with US envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt – was an Israeli proposal. Be the first to know - Join our Facebook page. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position remains that an agreement must be directly negotiated between...

“Death to Khamenei” and “Not for Gaza. Not for Lebanon. My life for Iran” are the most important slogans to explain how fed-up Iranians have become. Israel has only two options against Iran On August 27, Iran and Syria signed a military cooperation agreement. An official visit by Iranian Defense Minister Amir Khatami came at a time when the US started pressuring Iran to leave Syria. This clearly indicates both Syria and Iran want to show off the military cooperation and connections between Tehran and Damascus in light of US sanctions and pressures on the latter. This visit again proves...

The abject failure of the Oslo Accords has had a salutary effect on Israeli society. Israelis are today quite resilient, ready to endure – if necessary – protracted conflict. The Oslo process – started between Israel and the Palestinians 25 years ago – clearly failed to bring a resolution to the conflict and did not result in peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. The nearly 1,600 Israeli casualties and many more thousands of wounded during this period by Palestinian terrorist and rocket attacks testify to this failure. Yitzhak Rabin’s land-for-security formula did not work. Be the first to know -...

WASHINGTON — America's allies in Europe are plotting ways to bypass President Donald Trump's sanctions on Iran as they work to keep the nuclear deal alive without the United States. With a second round of U.S. sanctions set to take effect in November, European officials are working at cross-purposes with Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign as they try to preserve as much business as possible with Iran. The goal is to persuade Iran's leaders to stay in the deal for a few more years — perhaps long enough for Trump to be replaced and for a new U.S. president to rejoin...