Free Republic

“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...

Women’s March co-organizer Linda Sarsour (far-right) speaking at a panel on antisemitism at The New School on November 28, 2017. Photo: Screenshot. In a year when Muslim political candidates are breaking new ground or falling just short of doing so, it’s not surprising to see politics dominate the country’s largest annual gathering of Muslim Americans.But the political sessions at the annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention in Houston, Texas were far from celebrations. Rather, they cast a dire picture for Muslims in America.Speakers warned of “Islamophobia” as a dire threat lurking just outside their doors. And while...

“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...

Anti-Semitic Islamist activist, Linda Sarsour, was in fine form at ISNA, warning Muslims that if they weren't fighting Israel, they were complicit. She warned them against even daring to "humanize" Israelis, as Steve Emerson reports at The Algemeiner. Her tone often was not aimed at inspiring Muslims to be more politically active, as much as it was to shame them for not doing so. If they aren’t sufficiently engaged in advocating for the Palestinian cause, she said, “you as an American Muslim are complicit in the occupation of Palestinians, in the murder of Palestinian protesters. So when we start debating...

Syria has denied reports that a series of blasts at a military airport near Damascus on Sunday were from Israeli air strikes, state media say. The loud blasts, reported at the Mezzeh airport, were caused by an explosion at a munitions dump, Sana news agency said, citing Syrian military sources. The incident was the result of an electrical fault, the agency added.

Large explosions were reported at a Syrian military air base early Sunday in an attack widely attributed to Israeli warplanes. However, Syria denied an attack had taken place. The reported strike occurred just after midnight at Mazzeh air base near Damascus, a key regime facility thought to have been targeted by Israel in the past. The military airport of Mazzeh, in the west suburbs of Damascus, was hit by a “possible Israeli missile, which hit a munitions store setting off successive explosions,” the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdel Rahmane told AFP.

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to publish a memoir of his years in the White House, the Jewish Insider claimed. In it, Kerry claims Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu leaked details regarding a confidential peace agreement with the Hamas ...

Imagine being cut off from the world – for your whole life. That’s reality for children like Aya. The blockade of Gaza began when she was a baby, the occupation in the West Bank before her parents were born. Now she is eleven, and the blockade goes on. Aya’s childhood memories are of conflict and hardship, walls she cannot escape, and the fear that the only home she knows, however tiny, could be gone when she returns from school. This Ramadan, please help support children like Aya who have known nothing but conflict and hardship. Donate here: http://buff.ly/2qgsP0Y#forPalestinerefugees Yet neither...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

On one of the nights of the last week of last June, the Syrian security forces imposed strict measures inside and around Damascus International Airport. Just before midnight, a private UAE plane landed on one of the runways. About forty minutes passed before a huge procession of black Four-Wheel vehicles took off carrying the passengers to the Mezzeh area, in the center of Damascus, where the new office of Major General Ali Mamlouk, director of Syria’s National Security Bureau is located. There, a senior US officer led a delegation that included officers from several US intelligence and security agencies. Ali...

The Trump administration has decided to cancel all U.S. funding of the United Nations aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of its determination to put its money where its policy is as it seeks a recalculation of U.S. foreign aid spending and prepares its own Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In an announcement to be made within the next several weeks, the administration plans to voice its disapproval of the way the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, spends the funds and to call for a sharp reduction in the number of Palestinians recognized as refugees, dropping it from more than...

hen President George W. Bush sent U.S. troops into Afghanistan to attack Taliban and Al Qaeda forces following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland, nations around the world lined up in support of America – as they should have. When Israel is attacked by Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and other groups, many nations and the United Nations line up solidly against the Jewish state for daring to defend itself. No matter how much care Israel takes to prevent civilian casualties when it retaliates against terrorist attacks, it receives automatic condemnations and complaints that it has used...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A single mother fatally shot her severely disabled 7-year-old son and then attempted suicide after years spent caring for her child, authorities and family friends in Oregon said Wednesday. A relative found Tashina Aleine Jordan, 28, unconscious Monday at the Bend home she shared with her son and mother. Authorities found the boy, named Mason, and pronounced him dead. Notes at the scene indicated Jordan was the shooter, police spokesman Lt. Clint Burleigh told KTVZ-TV. Jordan remained hospitalized Wednesday and clinging to life after taking a combination of pills, said Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel.

The Palestinians have been playing the long con with the "right of return" issue, which was always more of a fantasy than reality. They conned the UN for years about the number of "refugees," when in fact, the vast majority of Palestinians in refugee camps have no "right" to return to anything. Many were urged to leave by Arab leaders in 1948, others were abroad and never lived in Israel. the number of individuals considered Palestinian refugees today is a matter of intense debate. UNRWA, classifies Palestinian refugees as those who left Israel in 1948; those who left the West...

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi blasted the United States on Friday, after the State Department announced it would cut $200 million in bilateral assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA). "The U.S. administration is demonstrating the use of cheap blackmail as a political tool. The Palestinian people and leadership will not be intimidated and will not succumb to coercion. The rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale,” she said in a statement. “There is no glory in constantly bullying and punishing a people under occupation. The U.S. administration has already demonstrated meanness of spirit in...

A Palestinian Authority refugee receives a budget four times larger than a Syrian, Iraqi or African refugee, according to a study conducted by the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, ahead of Sunday's visit to Israel by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Yediot Ahronot reported on Sunday. At the end of last week, the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA), which deals only with Palestinians, released its annual financial report, which in 2016 generated an average of $246 for each of the 5.3 million Palestinians it defines as a refugee, while the United Nations High Commissioner...

In yet another showing of blatant antisemitism, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, declared last Friday that the Gaza Palestinians, who have been violently attempting to infiltrate the Israeli border to "kill the Jews" and "burn the Jews," are the victims and in need of armed security. This mind-boggling defense of terrorists is of no surprise to those of us who follow UN politics. Earlier this summer when the US walked out on the UN Human Rights Council, Nikki Haily issued a statement on the decision, calling the Council a protector of "the world’s worst human rights abusers" with a "chronic...