Free Republic

Had the terrorists targeted non-kosher establishments with non-Jewish victims, Amman would likely have been cooperative.” An FBI “Most Wanted Terrorist” poster for Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Ahmad Tamimi, one of the masterminds of the Aug. 9, 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem that led to the deaths of 15 civilians, two of them Americans. Speak to policy analysts or policy-makers about the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and you’ll frequently encounter a series of truisms. For example, that Jordan is both a friend of the West and a vital, respected component of the Arab world. Or that Jordan’s peace treaty...

(2011 editorial) I have always been fascinated by the timeless parable of the scorpion and the frog. It’s a short yet powerful warning about the often immutable nature of certain beings. In this case, the deadly and incontrovertible nature of evil. As the story goes, a scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a body of water, since the scorpion cannot swim. The frog then rightly asserts that doing so would put its life at great risk, as the scorpion is known to lethally sting other creatures, sometimes without provocation. To counter the frog’s argument, the scorpion insists that...

Ibrahim al-Akari, the suspected driver in Wednesday's deadly terror attack which saw one Israeli killed and at least 14 wounded, is a known Hamas operative, and his brother was serving a life sentence for murdering an Israeli police officer until he was freed in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal. Hamas has taken responsibility for the attack. Akari rammed his van into a group of Border Patrol forces and then continued to plow into a group of pedestrians, only to continue his attack on foot, attempting to hit pedestrians with a metal rod. He was then shot and killed by the...

Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas and imprisoned for 5 years, called on the US to release Jonathan Pollard on Tuesday. "I heard the request tonight, like everyone else, from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to release Jonathan Pollard, who has sat for 29 years in prison," Shalit wrote to Yediot Aharonot. "After Israel has released terrorist prisoners back to the Palestinian Authority as a gesture [for negotiations], we ask for a mutual gesture." "I am sure that like me, the entire nation of Israel agrees that to demand such a simple gesture as Pollard's release is...

A terrorist prisoner who went on a hunger strike in order to pressure Israel to release him was released on Monday from an Israeli prison. According to The Associated Press (AP), Samer Issawi returned home to a joyous welcome from friends and family. Issawi’s on and off hunger strike lasted for more than eight months, until he agreed to a deal with Israel last April. Issawi agreed to serve eight months for violating bail conditions and then be freed to his Jerusalem home. On Monday evening, he underwent a medical exam in an ambulance parked outside the prison in northern...

The United States has denied that a session of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority had been cancelled following the deaths of three rioters in the Kalandia refugee camp, north of Jerusalem. "I can assure you that no meeting has been cancelled," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters. Her statement contradicted claims made earlier today by a PA spokesperson who said that "The meeting that was to take place in Jericho...today was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Kalandiya today." "What happened today in Kalandiya shows the real intentions of the Israeli government," said PA Chairman...

Two videos in one - action and reaction - October and November 2012. The first video is about two weeks before the second. In the first video, Hamas released footage of its militants launching rockets from what appear to be apartment buildings in the Gaza Strip, close to the border with Israel. The second video is two weeks later, showing the apparent Israeli retaliation, in which a pinpoint laser guided bomb, or a missile takes out the car carrying a military commander of Hamas, Ahmed Jabari, who is alleged to have masterminded rocket attacks against Israel, including against civilian areas....

Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades has released a promo for a new movie in which actors reenact the attack in 2006 in which then-IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. The promo for the movie, which will air later this week, comes as the movement marks one year since Shalit was released in exchange for 1,027 terrorists held in Israeli prisons, including several convicted of mass murder. A statement released by Hamas’ military wing further claimed that the complete film will also show authentic excerpts of the kidnapping that have not yet aired. video .....

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking about the escalation in rocket attacks in the South on Friday and Shabbat, said: “We will continue to attack anyone who tries to harm Israeli citizens.” The Palestinian Ma’an news agency reports that air strikes continue to rock the Gaza Strip, killing three men on Saturday, raising to 15 the number of Palestinians killed since Israel killed a military leader 24 hours earlier. According to the AP, an Israeli air strike killed the commander of the militant group behind the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and a second militant in Gaza on Friday in...

Soldiers from the Golani Brigade arrested Mamun Ismail Salame Stut on Tuesday. Stut was one of 1,027 terrorists released in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in October. His arrest makes him the first released prisoner to be re-arrested since the Shalit deal. According to an IDF spokesperson, Stut was arrested for being a security threat in the area of Dura near Hebron. Stut was first arrested in 2002 and indicted for attempted murder, membership in a terror organization, assembling bombs, and providing asylum to terrorists. An Israeli court sentenced him to 38 years in prison. He was slated...

MK Zvulun Orlev (Bayit Yehudi) intends to introduce Knesset legislation that would limit the authority of the government to abrogate prison sentence of terrorists and use them as “bargaining chips” to realize a policy objective. Orlev said that the recent experience of Israel's release of over 1,000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit had convinced many MKs and ministers for the need for such a law. Orlev said that a large number of government officials, Knesset members and minister now regret releasing so many terrorists for Shalit, and believe that Israel could have secured the kidnapped soldier's release using other...

Israel has canceled the pardon of the former Fatah terror leader in Jenin, Zakaria Zubeidi, and instructed him to hand himself in to the Palestinian Authority (PA), he told Ma'an on Thursday. Zubeidi, who headed the Al-Aqsa Brigades during the murderous terror war launched by the PLO in 2000, told the PA-based news agency he had stuck to all the conditions of the amnesty deal granted him by Israel three years ago. However, he said, Israel informed PA security forces on Thursday that Zubeidi's pardon had been revoked, and that Israeli forces would detain him if he did not turn...

Now that the second phase of the Shalit deal has been implemented and 550 terrorist prisoners have been released, the Hamas terror group is already planning the next kidnapping. In a press briefing held on Sunday evening, the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obeida, welcomed the Shalit deal and called it “an achievement of the Palestinian resistance,” according to a Channel 2 News report. Abu Obeida then added, “Our wish was and still is to empty the prisons of the occupation of all the heroic prisoners. Our success in this historic deal will not cause us to never abandon...

A terrorist released in the Shalit deal is reportedly hospitalized and under IDF guard. According to the family of a Jewish man hospitalized at Hadassah in Jerusalem, he has recently had to share his room with a terrorist who was apparently shot in the course of IDF counter-terror activity. The terrorist is under constant police and IDF guard. The relatives told Arutz Sheva that they have been told that the terrorist was freed in the recent Shalit deal, and was recaptured after engaging in terror activity against Israel. This claim is currently uncorroborated. The family members claim that the Arab...

Saudi Arabia's controversial Islamist and preacher, Sheikh Awad al Qarni, offered a bounty of $100,000 for the kidnapping of any IDF in 'Palestine' who can be used as leverage to force Israel to release more terrorists from its prisons. Qarni said on his Facebook page, "This award is in response to the allocation of funds to settlers who kill Palestinians prisoners released." Qarni claimed his initiative, highly praised by many in Saudi Arabia, was a response to reports in Israel's media that funds had been allocated by 'settlers' to kill terrorist Mustafa Muslimani, who was released under the deal for...

The most common justification for the Shalit deal is to wear it as a perverse badge of moral nobility. "What other country would exchange a thousand terrorists for one man." This is a close cousin of the argument that says the United States treating terrorists with kid gloves proves that it is nobler than them. Both of these insufferable arguments are symptoms of the moral decline of civilization. If the life of a single soldier is more important than the battle, then why have battles or soldiers at all? We don't send soldiers out to fight because we think that...

The release of Gilad Shalit has attracted worldwide attention, including Arab users of the Internet who share their thoughts on Twitter.

Days after the mass release of hundreds of terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has released a surprise demand, and is calling on Israel to release 1,000 more. Abbas claims that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised him that if Israel were to free Hamas terrorists in exchange for Shalit, it would also free Fatah terrorists, in order to avoid hurting Abbas’ political standing. In an interview with TIME Magazine, Abbas said the deal was kept secret so that it would not affect negotiations for Shalit’s freedom. Olmert promised not only to free more terrorists,...

I can still see his eyes and his twinkling smile as I walked him to the bus, with his rucksack over his back and a pair of ‘kafkafim’ (shower shoes) tied on and dangling from a piece of string. It was Sunday night, the first week of June 1982 and once again Israel was at war. After incessant shelling from the PLO in Lebanon forcing the people in northern Israel into their bomb shelters all weekend, Israel had finally had enough. AT 5 a.m. on June 5, IDF forces crossed the border into Lebanon. That evening, Rav Amital z”l, the...

Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit is set to be released on Tuesday. In exchange, Israel will release 1,027 terrorists, among them murderers sentenced to consecutive life sentences. Needless to say, ‘life sentence’ does not carry the same force in Israel as it does in other places. Those Israelis who have greeted this news with euphoria argue that Shalit has suffered, his family has suffered, and so everything must be done to release him. This myopic view ignores the suffering of those families who seek justice for the death of loved ones murdered by the terrorists about to be released. Israelis in...