Free Republic

WARNING: This story contains graphic details Decades before Yahya Sinwar became the political leader of Hamas in Gaza, Israeli journalist and author Ehud Yaari sat down with him over hummus in an Israeli prison in the Negev desert. He describes Sinwar, who conversed in fluent Hebrew, as a curious but cunning Islamist, bent upon the destruction of the state of Israel. "He is not somebody who's thinking about negotiations, a two-state solution — that's not Sinwar," said Yaari, who interviewed Sinwar in prison four times between 1993 and 2001. "He was very clear that the state of Israel should be...

One of the most accurate aspects about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is the use of the word Nazi to describe the terrorist enemy. No other label or historical parallel could capture the chilling ferocious madness – but not scope – of Palestinian butchery of Israelis. The Nazi vilification epithet has now become conventional Israeli discourse in public and media circles with the vivid revelation – in words and photos – of Palestinian savagery and barbarism by Hamas on October 7. Hamas terrorists, without an ounce of inhibition or remorse, shot youth in cold blood at the music festival...

There they go again. The story is so old already. Arab militia or Arab army or Arab terrorist attacks non-Arab. Or was that Muslim fanatic attacks non-Muslim? This time, it's happening in Sudan. While we're sitting and talking, probably a few hundred more black Africans in Sudan have starved to death, or been brutally killed, raped, enslaved, or simply pushed off their land by 7th century Arab imperialist invaders, or more rightly "Arab settlers". Oh yes, that's right. "Arab settlers". Like the ones Saddam Hussein brought into Kurdistan - i.e., the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq - in the 1970s...

On September 25, the 23rd Arab-American Candidates’ Night Dinner was held in Virginia, attended by 46 Democrats and Republicans seeking office, with former governor and current Democratic Senate candidate, Tim Kaine, as a major speaker. The dinner honored a top Muslim Brotherhood official affiliated with Hamas named Jamal Barzinji, an inconvenient and overlooked fact for Kaine’s campaign team. Tim Kaine was the governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010 and then was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was on the short-list to become President Obama’s running mate. He is now running for Senate and will likely face...

Testimony in the trial of Chicago resident Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar of Northern Virginia, continued yesterday. FBI Agents gave testimony focusing on items found in Ashqar's home during a search of his Oxford Mississippi residence on December 26, 1993, in addition to wiretaps of his phone and fax lines. Special Agent Bradley Benabidez testified that the FBI acquired over 2400 hours of audio during the year that they maintained a wiretap. Benabidez further described the December 1993 search of Ashqar’s home where a team of agents from the FBI photographed over 1600 documents. A few of those documents which...

I get lots of angry e-mails. I understand. The writers may be missing some facts and need to look at issues from different perspectives. I believe in human decency, fairness and goodness, and have been proven right in many cases when anger and misjudgment gave way to more understanding and even agreement. Such is the power of man’s greatest innovation — communication. Last week, an American reader fired a question at me: “I need to know why in hell people would murder in the name of Islam and take such apparent joy in it.” I felt the man was innocently...

The United States has used its veto power to block a Security Council resolution presented by Arab states Thursday condemning Israel's killing Monday of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in the Gaza Strip. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte told the Security Council that the United States is "deeply troubled" by the killing of Ahmed Yassin, saying it has escalated tensions in the region and could set back peace building efforts. But before the vote, Mr. Negroponte told the council that the United States could not approve the measure, which it views as one-sided for failing to mention Hamas suicide attacks that...

TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) – Armed Forces General Headquarters said in a statement on Tuesday that the U.S. should be considered as an accomplice in the killing of the Palestinian spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on Monday. The Zionist state terrorism, which is the worst kind of terrorism in the world, is not possible without the U.S. backing, the statement said. Undoubtedly, Yassin’s martyrdom will give more power to the Palestinian people’s resistance against occupation, added the statement. Zionist sources said Monday prime minister Ariel Sharon personally ordered and monitored the helicopter attack on the paralyzed cleric.

Israeli Armored Force Enters Northern Gaza -Source Mon Mar 22, 5:12 PM ET JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sent armored vehicles into the northern Gaza Strip (news - web sites) Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets from the territory into Israel, a military source said. The source said a small number of armored vehicles had entered a zone about 1,000 feet from a border fence between the Gaza Strip and southern Israel's Negev region, after at least four rockets had been fired from Gaza. The move came hours after the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and threats by angry...

Opinions Range From "Don´t Expel Arafat" To "Smash The Entire P.A." IDF Intelligence Chief Gen. Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today that the recent focus on Arafat is actually strengthening him. Farkash warned, in the name of all Israel's security bodies, that expelling Arafat would "unite all the PA organizations on both sides and will increase terrorism." Farkash further said that Abu Mazen's main obstacle is Arafat, who is "sticking his hands everywhere, including encouraging terror." Farkash confirmed, in this connection, the indications that Arafat is funding the Al-Aqsa terrorist group. MK Ehud Yatom...