Israel: Thai bombs like India attack

BANGKOK (AP) — The homemade bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after a series of blasts in the city were similar to devices used against Israeli Embassy targets in India and Georgia, Israel's ambassador said Wednesday, building on his country's claims the incidents are part of a covert terror campaign by Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the allegations against it "baseless," saying Israel was trying to damage its relations with Thailand.

A Thai Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) official examines a backpack that was left on the bomb site by a suspect bomber in Bangkok, Thailand Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012. Thai police say two explosions have occurred in a Bangkok neighborhood. But it was not immediately clear what caused the blasts or wether there were an fatalities. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

Thai authorities are interrogating two Iranians who were arrested Tuesday after explosives ignited, apparently by accident, in a house they were renting in Bangkok.

On Wednesday, Thai immigration police chief Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai said a third suspect who fled the destroyed house was in Malaysia after boarding a flight bound for Kuala Lumpur Tuesday night. He identified the man as Zedhaghat Zadech Masoud, but had no other details.

Israel has accused Iran of waging a campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three plots this week.

On Monday in New Delhi, an explosion tore through an Israeli diplomat's car, wounding the driver and a diplomat's wife, according to Indian officials. Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia say an explosive device was planted on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy the same day, but it was discovered and defused before it went off.

Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Shoham told The Associated Press that Thai police found and defused two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles after Tuesday' blasts.

"They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi," Shoham said. "From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror."

That, and the arrest of two Iranians in Thailand "again leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it," Shoham said.

Source: The Associated Press

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US launched cyber attacks on other nations

The assumption that the US has the technological know-how to cripple a competing nation has always been just that: as assumption. In a recent sit-down interview, however, a former spy chief confirmed that America has already waged cyber attacks.

Confirmed: US has already waged cyberattacks

Mike McConnell, the former director of national intelligence at the National Security Agency under George W Bush, tells Reuters this week that cyber war is more than a distant possibility. According to the current vice chairman at Booz Allen Hamilton, the US has already launched attacks on the computer networks of other nations.

McConnell did not add any input as to what countries have been hit with American cyber warfare in the past, but he did confirm that the US has already used the ability. When asked by Reuters if the United States had the capability to destroy the computer system of an adversary, McConnell responded “Yes.” When asked if it worked, he confirmed “yes” as well.

"Do we have the ability to attack, degrade or destroy? Sure. If you do that, what are the consequences? That is the question,” added McConnell.

Although the former spy chief neglected to name any countries that have been the target of American attacks, the US is believed by some to be the culprit behind a virus that targeted computer systems in Iran in 2010. Stuxnet, an advanced computer worm discovered in June of that year, impacted the computers used in conjunction with Iran’s nuclear program. In a January 2011 article in the New York Times, an American nuclear intelligence expert speaking on condition of anonymity said that the Israelis were behind Stuxnet, placing the blame on one of America’s most important allies. The expert adds in the article that Israel did indeed work hand-in-hand with the US in perfect Stuxnet before sending it to the Iranian networks, but that Washington wanted “plausible deniability.”

Other sources have since all but confirmed America’s involvement in the worm. German cyber security expert Ralph Langner told National Public Radio last year that the virus seemed like something out of science fiction, but added that, "Thinking about it for another minute, if it's not aliens, it's got to be the United States.” He went on to call the US “the leading force” behind Stuxnet, an assumption that many in Iran believe as well. While the Iranians have never officially recognized retaliation on their part, rumors of revenge via cyberwar have been rampant in recent weeks, particularly after news broke out of Mexico last month that hackers south of the border were being recruited by Iran to participate in an infiltration of American computers.

Before it launched an airstrike` attack on Libya in 2011, a cyberattack was considered as a route to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, an Obama official said to the New York Times last year. In the end, however, America relied on other techniques. “These cybercapabilities are still like the Ferrari that you keep in the garage and only take out for the big race and not just for a run around town, unless nothing else can get you there,” the insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Times.

Source: RT

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Hackers disrupt Israel airline, stock market sites

JERUSALEM (AP) — A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel's stock exchange and national airline on Monday, escalating an international cyber war that has jolted this security-obsessed country.

Neither website contains sensitive information and trading and flights were not affected. But the ongoing salvos by hackers who use anti-Israel language in their posts has revealed how vulnerable Israel is to cyber warfare, despite its sophisticated computer security units in the military and advanced high-tech sector.

A security guard stands at the entrance of the national Israeli air carrier
El Al sales offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012.
Hackers disrupted the websites of Israel's stock exchange and El Al on
Monday in a deepening cyber war launched earlier this month by a group
claiming to be Saudis. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

The attacks began earlier this month when hackers identifying themselves as group-xp, a known Saudi hacking group, claimed on an Israeli sports website to have gained access to 400,000 Israeli credit card accounts. The group called it a "gift to the world for the New Year" designed to "hurt the Zionist pocket."

Israeli authorities said 15,000 accounts were hacked in that episode and credit card information about 6,000 other Israelis was disclosed online a few days later by the same network.

Last week, an Israeli hacker identifying himself as a soldier in an Israeli intelligence unit retaliated by posting information online about hundreds of Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians and others.

On Monday, El Al Israel Airlines took down its website after hacker OxOmar, who has been linked to the Saudi group, warned that both sites would be targeted by allied pro-Palestinian hackers, a person close to the company said. The source was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity.

The company said in a statement that it was taking security measures to protect the website and that disruptions on the site were to be expected.

Orna Goren, a spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, said the site was overwhelmed by electronic requests that slowed it down dramatically but it was still operating. Trading was not affected, she said.

Cyber experts say Israel is a common target for online attackers who oppose the Jewish state and its policies toward the Palestinians, but there have been no confirmed reports of sensitive Israeli government sites being hacked.

"Right now, we're not seeing anything that's especially interesting or especially dangerous," said Gadi Evron, former head of Internet security for the Israeli government.

News of the hacking led to a linguistic counterattack at Israel's state radio. Continuing its decades-long battle against the use of English words in its Hebrew broadcasts, the radio's linguist insisted that reporters use a Hebrew word, "patzchan," meaning a person who cracks something open, instead of "hacker."

Source: The Associated Press

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Anti-US chants as slain Iran nuclear expert buried

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Thousands of mourners chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" on Friday during the funeral of a slain nuclear expert whom Iranian officials accuse the two nations of killing in a bomb blast this week as part of a secret operation to stop Iran's nuclear program.

This undated photo released by Iranian Fars News Agency, claims to show Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who they say was killed in a bomb blast in Tehran, Iran, on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, next to his son. Two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of an Iranian university professor working at a key nuclear facility, killing him and his driver Wednesday, reports said. The slayings suggest a widening covert effort to set back Iran's atomic program. The blast killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, state TV reported. (AP Photo/Fars News Agency)

The assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan has raised calls in Iran for retaliation against the U.S. and Israel, and an independent news website Friday said Iran is preparing a covert counteroffensive against the West.

Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was killed in a brazen daylight assassination when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car Wednesday in Tehran. The killing bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program.

State TV showed thousands of people carrying Roshan's coffin through central Tehran before it was taken to a north cemetery for burial. As it marched, the crowd chanted "death to terrorists."

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, called Roshan's killing a "cowardly assassination" and accused the U.S. and Israel of being behind the attack. He vowed Thursday that the perpetrators and those who ordered the attack would be punished.

U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon on Friday during a visit to Lebanon issued a vague condemnation of the killing, saying attacks on "any people, whether scientist or civilian," are not acceptable, according to U.N. spokesman Eduardo del Buey.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has denied any American role in the slaying and the U.S administration condemned the attack. Israeli officials, in contrast, have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.

The assassination was carried out a day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a "critical year" for Iran — in part because of "things that happen to it unnaturally."

That prompted Hossein Shariatmadari, director of the hardline Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, to ask why Iran did not avenge Roshan by striking Israel.

The independent news website, irannuc.ir, quoted an unidentified security official as saying Iran is preparing a covert counteroffensive against the West in retaliation for the bomb blast. It suggested the retaliation could include assassinations abroad.

"Iran's intelligence community is in a very good position to design tit-for-tat operations to retaliate for assassinations carried out by Western intelligence services," the official said, according to the website. "Iran's response will be extraterritorial and extra-regional. It follows the strategy that none of those who ordered or carried out (the attacks) should feel secure in any part of the world."

The website's report was also carried by the semiofficial Fars news agency, which is close to the elite Revolutionary Guard.

Source: The Associated Press

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China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third World War

On November 21st, America, UK and Canada announced more sanctions against Iran. France also proposed to adopt new sanctions to force Tehran to stop it's nuclear project. On Nov 23rd, the spokesman of Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s Foreign Ministry said in a regular press conference held in Beijing that China is opposed to unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Scholars believe that, being isolated, China and Iran need mutual support. Meanwhile, the CCP government, with internal and external difficulties, may express an even tougher diplomatic "voice".

"Reuters" reported on Nov 23rd: "The United States, UK and Canada have announced new sanctions against Iran in the areas of energy and finance. France proposed 

'unprecedented' new sanctions, including freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Iran and suspending the purchase of Iran's oil.

Earlier, the "International Atomic Energy Agency" (IAEA) ad issued a report that Iran may be secretly developing nuclear weapons.

On Nov 23rd, the CCP's Foreign Ministry expressed opposition to the imposition of unilateral sanctions against Iran.

In this regard, Xia Ming, a political professor from "City University of New York" in America, believes that since the Cold War, the United States and Western 

society's biggest challenges have been seen as being from China and Iran. They are both isolated by the United States and the West. Therefore, China's policy is foreseeable.

Xia Ming says: "China and Iran are facing strong Western challenges within politics, economy and culture. So these two countries basically have a kind of coordinatio 

on the international stage, to support each other. So we can see that China and Iran coordinate a lot, with a lot of cooperation in matters of energy, arms and so on."

"Associated Press" also reported on Nov 23rd: "Since 2006, the United Nations have carried out 4 rounds of sanctions against Iran. But with export of energy, Iran has not been severely affected by the sanctions."

"AFP" said: "China supports Iran and purchases large quantities of oil from Iran. Meanwhile, China is Iran's biggest trading partner. Their bilateral trade totals up to $ 30 billion.

"Voice of America" reported, according to Chinese customs' data, this year (2011) Iran could become China's second largest crude oil supplier.

However, Iran disdains the new round of sanctions. Israel and Washington said in the event that other efforts were not effective, the possibility of military action would not be ruled out.

It's puzzling to some that Major General Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor from the Chinese National Defense University, said China will not hesitate to protect Iran even with a third World War.

Professor Xia Ming: "Zhang Zhaozhong said that not hesitating to fight a third world war would be entirely for domestic political needs. To some extent though, this would be completely ridiculous to encourage"

Professor Xia Ming pointed out that the United States and Western societies may deal with Iran by a method of "Jasmine Revolution", similar to what happened in Libya. From the perspective of the Libya model, NATO could not possibly involve itself in large-scale military action, and it would be impossible to start a new war.

In fact, a senior European diplomat with anonymity in Tehran said that the Iranian government was actually very worried about a military strike. Analysts also say that ordinary people don't worship their leaders so much any more.

But Professor Xia Ming said that the CCP regime itself is facing a much bigger crisis than Iran. The CCP regime not only faces challenges from Southeast Asia, the South China Sea, South Asia countries and so on, but also faces the pressure from America for the RMB exchange rate, export, and human rights issues, as well as the pressure of domestic issues meanwhile.

Professor Xia Ming says : "China is facing pressure from America. Meanwhile, current domestic pressure is also very considerable. In particular, we can see in civil society, the challenge to the Chinese government and resistance forces are growing. Therefore, the Chinese government is indeed facing the arrival of a big power shift in the 18th session. So, China may express a tougher diplomatic voice. On the one hand, it is a reaction to pressure from America. On the other hand, it needs to meet the demand of domestic nationalist groups.

Russia is another ally of Iran, with similar policy to that of China. Toward Iran.

Source: YouTube

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Israeli wins chemistry Nobel for quasicrystals

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for a discovery that faced skepticism and mockery, even prompting his expulsion from his U.S. research team, before it won widespread acceptance as a fundamental breakthrough.

While doing research in the U.S. in 1982, Shechtman discovered a new chemical structure — quasicrystals — that researchers previously thought was impossible.

Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman poses for
photographers during a news conference at the
Haifa Technion, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011.
Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry
on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals,
a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers
previously thought was impossible. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

He was studying a mix of aluminum and manganese in an electron microscope when he found the atoms were arranged in a pattern — similar to one in some traditional Islamic mosaics — that never repeated itself and appeared contrary to the laws of nature.

He concluded that science was wrong — but it would take years for him and other researchers to prove that he was right.

Since then, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories and a Swedish company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Quasicrystals are also being studied for use in new materials that convert heat to electricity. They were first discovered in nature in Russia in 2009.

Despite the initial reluctance in the scientific community to accept his discovery, it "fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter," the academy said in its citation for the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award.

"The main lesson that I have learned over time is that a good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent in what he read in the textbooks," Shechtman, 70, told a news conference Wednesday at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.

Shechtman is a professor there and at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He will receive the award along with the other Nobel Prize winners at a Dec. 10 ceremony in Stockholm.

Israel has won 10 Nobel prizes, a source of great pride in the country of just 7.8 million people. Schechtman was congratulated by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize as Israel's foreign minister in 1994, and by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Every citizen of Israel is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud," Netanyahu said.

In chemical terms, a crystal is traditionally defined as a regular and repeating arrangement of atoms within a material. A quasicrystal presents a pattern that scientists had thought was impossible. The pattern of atoms within a material influences the material's physical properties.

"His battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter," the academy said.

Nancy B. Jackson, president of the American Chemical Society called Shechtman's discovery "one of these great scientific discoveries that go against the rules." When Shechtman announced it, other experts hesitated.

"People didn't think that this kind of crystal existed," she said. "They thought it was against the rules of nature."

Only later did some scientists go back to some of their own inexplicable findings and realized they had seen quasicrystals but not realized what they had, Jackson said.

Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy said Shechtman's discovery was one of the few Nobel Prize-winning achievements that can be dated to a single day.

Crystallographers always believed that all crystals have rotational symmetry, so that when they are rotated, they look the same. On April 8, 1982, while on a sabbatical at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards and Technology in Washington, D.C., Shechtman first observed crystals with 10 points — pentagonal symmetry, which most scientists said was impossible.

"I told everyone who was ready to listen that I had material with pentagonal symmetry. People just laughed at me," Shechtman said in a description of his work released by his university.

For months he tried to persuade his colleagues of his find, but they refused to accept it. Finally he was asked to leave his research group, and moved to another one within the institute.

Shechtman returned to Israel, where he found one colleague prepared to work with him on an article describing the phenomenon. The article was at first rejected, but finally published in November 1984 — to uproar in the scientific world. Double Nobel winner Linus Pauling was among those who never accepted the findings.

"He would stand on those platforms and declare, 'Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.'" Shechtman said.

In 1987, friends of Shechtman in France and Japan succeeded in growing crystals large enough for x-rays to repeat and verify what he had discovered with the electron microscope.

"It borders on art," academy member Sara Snogerup Linse said of the quasicrystal patterns. "Humans have created similar patterns in macroscopic scale with the help of ceramic tiles, quilts, etc. But what was new was that it was found also in the world of molecules and atoms."

Cesar Pay Gomez, a structural chemistry expert at Uppsala University in Sweden and an adviser to the prize committee, said research on quasicrystals is ongoing "in the field of thermal-electric applications, where waste heat can be converted to electrical currents or energy."

The Nobel Prize in chemistry announcement capped this year's science awards.

Immune system researchers Bruce Beutler of the U.S. and Frenchman Jules Hoffmann shared the medicine prize Monday with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, who died three days before the announcement. U.S.-born scientists Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess won the physics prize on Tuesday for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace.

The Nobel Prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

Source:

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. 

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Facebook sued for $1 billion over Intifada page

WASHINGTON – Facebook and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg have been hit with a lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion in damages over a page on the social network which called for a "Third Intifada" against Israel.

Facebook this week shut down the "Third Intifada" page, which had almost 500,000 fans, but the lawsuit filed in a court here claims that the social network showed "negligence" by not quickly responding to appeals to remove the page.

Besides awarding damages, the complaint calls on the court to bar Facebook "from allowing the Facebook page titled 'Third Palestinian Intifada,' and other related and similar sites, which advocate violence and death to Jews."

The suit, a copy of which was obtained by technology blog TechCrunch, was filed in DC Superior Court by Larry Klayman, who describes himself in the complaint as "an American citizen of Jewish origin" who is "active in matters concerning the security of Israel and all people."

Klayman also identifies himself as the founder of Freedom Watch, whose website describes it as a political advocacy group dedicated to protecting privacy, free speech and other rights and "our national sovereignty against the incompetent, terrorist state-controlled United Nations."

Facebook dismissed the case as "without merit" and said it would fight.

"While we haven't been served with a complaint, we believe the case is without merit and we will fight it vigorously," a Facebook spokesman said.

Facebook shut down the page on Tuesday, several days after Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein sent a letter to Zuckerberg urging him to remove it.

Facebook said the page was initially tolerated because it "began as a call for peaceful protest" but direct calls for violence began appearing and the page was removed for violating Facebook's policies.

Source: The RAW Story

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'Terrorists' Attack Egypt-Israel Gas Pipeline

Egyptian officials blamed "terrorists" for an explosion which tore into a gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel and Jordan, and sent flames towering into the sky near the Gaza Strip.

The governor of the region, Abdel Wahab Mabrouk, said he suspected "sabotage", but provided no details.
State television quoted an official as saying that the "situation is very dangerous and explosions were continuing from one spot to another" along the pipeline.
The blast came as a two-week-old popular uprising has engulfed Cairo and Alexandria.
Last week, Egypt reinforced the Sinai peninsular with two battalions of troops to protect tourists at Red Sea resorts and to support police who continue to help Israel maintain the long standing siege on Gaza, home to a million Palestinians.
Israel has a 15-year contract to import gas from Egypt worth billions - but the deal, signed in 2008, has been unpopular with many Egyptians.

The massive fire following the explosion could be seen from
44 miles away

Last week, the main Egyptian shareholder in pipeline company EMG, Hussein Salem, was reported to have fled Cairo on one of 19 private jets which carried wealthy Egyptians to Dubai.
The Sinai Peninsula, home to Bedouin tribesmen, has been the scene of clashes between residents and security forces because tribesmen complain that they are missing out on development opportunities.
The explosion went off early Saturday at a gas terminal in the northern Sinai town of el-Arish, several hundred yards away from the local airport.
Mr Mabrouk told Egypt's Nile News TV that the fire was brought under control by mid-morning, after valves allowing the flow of gas from the terminal into pipelines were shut off.

At this stage, the gas supply to Israel was stopped according to procedure in emergency scenarios

Chen Ben Lulu, spokesman for Israel's infrastructure ministry

The pipeline attacked was carrying gas to Jordan but Israel temporarily shut down, officials said, as "a precaution".

Jordan said gas supplies from Egypt were expected to remain halted for a week until the pipeline was repaired.
A Jordanian energy source said the kingdom had switched power generating stations to burning fuel oil and diesel as a precaution, after the cut-off of the Egyptian supply.
The blaze shooting vertically in the air was visible from rooftops of homes next to the Gaza-Egypt border, about 44 miles away.
The pipelines transport gas from Egypt's Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea to Israel and Jordan and supplies about 25% of the gas used to generate Israel’s electrical power.

The fire occurred near gas branch lines to Jordan and Israel

"At this stage, the gas supply to Israel was stopped according to procedure in emergency scenarios," Chen Ben Lulu, spokesman of Israel's Infrastructure Ministry, said.
"We are not sure what caused the explosion."
If the explosion is the result of terrorism it comes as Israelis watch events anxiously in Cairo where a change of regime, many believe, could undermine Israel’s 30-year peace treaty with the Jewish state’s neighbour.
Last week, dozens of alleged Hamas activists held in Egyptian jails escaped amid the chaos and are believed to have made their way back into Gaza through secret smuggling tunnels.
Some may have stayed behind to embarrass the embattled Egyptian government.

Source: Sky News

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Israel urges West: Make sure new Egypt regime honors peace deal

Prime Minister wants international community to make clear that new leadership must meet a series of conditions similar to those posed by Hamas in order to gain recognition of legitimacy.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked U.S. President Barack Obama and a number of other Western leaders in recent days to make it clear to any new Egyptian regime that it must abide fully by the peace agreement with Israel.


Senior Israeli officials said that Netanyahu would like the international community to make it clear to any new Egyptian leadership that will emerge that it must meet a series of conditions in return for receiving legitimacy in the eyes of the West - similar to those posed to Hamas following the Islamist movement's victory in Palestinian elections. The Mideast Quartet had demanded, and still requires, that in return for recognition, Hamas relinquish terrorism, recognize Israel and accept as binding previous negotiated agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.


Although Netanyahu is not drawing a comparison between Hamas rule and a new Egyptian government, he would like to see, along with demands for democracy and respect for human rights, that the international community set as a condition that any new government in Cairo abide by the international agreements to which the Mubarak regime had signed, according to officials.


"The matter was made clear to the Americans and many other countries," a senior official in Jerusalem said. "We are not opposed to democracy in Egypt but it is important for us to preserve the peace agreement."


The Prime Minister's Bureau issued a special statement yesterday to clarify the Israeli position on the situation in Egypt.


"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel's interest is to preserve the peace with Egypt," the message read. "Israel believes that the international community must require any Egyptian government to preserve the peace agreement with Israel."


Source: Haaretz

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'Anxious' Israel backs Egypt regime

As US and EU leaders urge Egypt to reform in face of popular uprising, Israel voices support for Mubarak's government.

Israel has called on the United States and Europe to curb their criticism of president Hosni Mubarak "in a bid to preserve stability in Egypt" and the wider Middle East, an Israeli newspaper reports.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Monday that the foreign ministry, in an urgent special cable, instructed its ambassadors to key countries, to "stress ... the importance of Egypt's stability".

Increasingly, president Mubarak has been isolated by swift and at times harsh criticism from Western leaders whocalled for reform. It is unclear how angry Egyptians will interpret Israel's apparent support for their government.

Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, discussed the situation in Egypt
with US officials on Sunday [AFP]

The protests in Egypt have reportedly thrown the Israeli government into turmoil, with military officials holding lengthy strategy sessions, assessing possible scenarios of a post-Mubarak Egypt.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said on Sunday that his government is "anxiously monitoring" the political unrest in Egypt, his first comment on the crisis threatening a government that has been one of Israel's key allies for more than 30 years.

Israeli officials have remained largely silent about the situation in Egypt, but have made clear that preserving the historic 1979 peace agreement with the biggest Arab nation is a paramount interest.

The peace deal, cool but stable, turned Israel's most potent regional enemy into a crucial partner, provided security on one of its borders and allowed it to significantly reduce the size of its army and defence budget.

'Anxiously monitoring'

"We are anxiously monitoring what is happening in Egypt and in our region," Netanyahu said before his cabinet's weekly meeting on Sunday.

"Israel and Egypt have been at peace for more than three decades and our objective is to ensure that these ties be preserved. At this time, we must display responsibility, restraint and utmost prudence,'' Netanyahu added.

It was the first high-level comment from Israel on the Egypt protests, which began last week with disorganised crowds demanding the resignation of Mubarak and have grown into the most significant challenge to Egypt's autocratic regime in recent memory.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, discussed the situation in Egypt with Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, on Sunday, according to a statement from Barak's office. No details of the discussion were released.

Over the weekend, Israel evacuated the families of its diplomats from Cairo and security officials began holding urgent consultations.

Israel's primary concern is that the uprising could be commandeered by Egypt's strongest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and its allies, who would presumably move Egypt away from its alignment with the West and possibly cancel the peace agreement with Israel.

"[...] Israelis, have been overtaken by fear: The fear of democracy. Not here, in neighbouring countries," Sever Plocker, an Israeli commentator, writes in the daily Yediot Ahronot.

"Its as though we never prayed for our Arab neighbours to become liberal democracies," Plocker writes.

The benefits to Israel of peace with Egypt have been significant. In the three decades before the peace agreement, Israel and Egypt fought four major wars.

Defence calculations

Israel now spends nine per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, Shueftan said - compared with 23 per cent in the 1970s, when a state of war with Egypt still existed.

Where Israel once deployed thousands of soldiers along the Egyptian frontier, today there are several hundred. This reduction allowed the Israeli economy to begin flowering in the years after the peace deal, he said. Mubarak has also served as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

If Egypt resumes its conflict with Israel, Israelis fear, it will put a powerful Western-armed military on the side of Israel's enemies while also weakening pro-Western states like Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo, offered a grim assessment on Sunday in Yediot Ahronot.

"The assumption at present is that Mubarak's regime is living on borrowed time, and that a transition government will be formed for the next number of months until new general elections are held," he wrote.

"If those elections are held in a way that the Americans want, the most likely result will be that the Muslim Brotherhood will win a majority and will be the dominant force in the next government. That is why it is only a question of a brief period of time before Israel's peace with Egypt pays the price," Shaked wrote.

Egypt-Iran similarities?

Some in Israel have compared US president Barack Obama's response to the crisis to that of former US president Jimmy Carter to the Iranian revolution in 1979. Obama has called on Mubarak to show restraint and pass unspecified reforms in Egypt.

"Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as 'the president who lost Iran', which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic republic," Aluf Benn, an analyst inHaaretz, wrote.

"Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who 'lost' Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled."

Still, the Obama administration has stopped short of calling for the resignation of president Mubarak, and as of Sunday, the Pentagon continued to have high-level discussions with the Egytian military.

Former Israeli general Yaakov Amidror said that in the short term, Israel will face increased smuggling activities in the Sinai peninsula, where the authority of the Cairo government has been further weakened by the unrest.

As a result of Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip, widely lambasted as inhumane and an obstacle to the peace process, weapons, fuel and other goods enter the Hamas-controlled territory.

"They will now try to get in everything they couldn't get in before," Amidror said.

Israel captured Sinai in 1967 and then ceded it to Egypt in the 1979 peace deal. The area was demilitarised as part of the agreement.

For now, the unrest seems to have had the opposite effect. Gaza smugglers said the supply routes have been disrupted and that they have not received any merchandise from Egypt since Friday, apparently because of difficulties in transporting the goods across Egypt to the Gaza border.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

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U.S. push for Israeli, Palestinian intelligence: WikiLeaks

The United States instructed its Middle East diplomats in 2008 to gather data on encrypted Israeli communications and build financial and "biometric" profiles of Palestinian leaders, a leaked embassy cable shows.

The secret memorandum, signed by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and published by Wikileaks, suggests the Bush administration fretted about lacking intelligence despite warm ties to Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA).

Citing the needs of U.S. analysts, the October 31, 2008 cable presented envoys in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and several Arab states with an exhaustive and prioritized list of data regarding the "Palestinian Issues" being brokered by Washington.

These included "evidence of Government of Israel support for or opposition to actions to limit and/or reduce settlement and outpost growth" on occupied land where Palestinians want to establish a state.

Settlement growth has been one of the chief obstacles to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Written two months before Israel's surprise offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the cable sought "details on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations underway or planned" against Palestinian militants, "including targeted assassinations and tactics/techniques used by ground and air units".

Diplomats were asked for a comprehensive overview of Israel's high-tech communications, from Internet and cellphones to state-run "information repositories associated with radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled systems used for passports, government badges, and transportation systems".

The cable sought updates on the movements and private contact details of Israeli civilian and military officials as well as "biographical, financial and biometric information on key PA and Hamas leaders and representatives, to include the young guard inside Gaza, the West Bank and outside".

Source: Reuters

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Israelis bribed to admit U.S. goods to Gaza: WikiLeaks

U.S. distributors accused Israel in 2006 of charging exorbitant fees to allow their goods into Gaza and an Israeli general admitted corruption existed at a major border crossing, a U.S. diplomatic cable shows.

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and published Thursday by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, said frequent closures of the Karni crossing had "exacerbated the problem of access and appears to have forced up the cost of bribes" paid to Israelis.

The disclosures predate the 2007 armed takeover of the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, by Hamas Islamists hostile to the Jewish state. Israel has cited the Hamas threat in justifying a controversial blockade it has kept on Gaza, with Egyptian help.

"As of late May 34 shipments of American goods, amounting to nearly USD 1.9 million dollars, have been waiting three to four months to cross into Gaza," said the cable, classified "secret" by the U.S. ambassador to Israel at the time, Richard Jones.

"U.S. distributors assert they are being asked to pay 'special fees' which amount to as much as 75 times the standard processing fee as quoted by GOI (Israeli government) officials."

The cable quoted distributors for several U.S. companies complaining that payoffs were required to move their trucks to "a spot near the head of the so-called 'Israeli line'," which progressed more quicker to help Israelis supplying Palestinians.

"According to business contacts, allegations of corruption at Karni have a long history," the cable said.

It said Yossef Mishlev, the general in charge of Israel's Palestinian liaison unit at the time, had "acknowledged the problem (and that) corruption was the root cause of backlogged shipments waiting to cross into Gaza at Karni."

The liaison unit declined comment on the cable. The Israel Airports Authority, which the cable cited as having overall responsibility for Karni, denied wrongdoing.

"There was an investigation at the time, and no accusations were leveled against any Authority officials. This problem may have been connected to the truck drivers at Karni," an Authority official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The crossing is now under Israeli military control due to enhanced risk of Palestinian attack on it, the official said.

The U.S. diplomatic cable describes Karni staff being confronted by the bribery allegations during a May 26, 2006 meeting attended by embassy officials.

The Karni staff "did not address the issue of bribes," according to the cable, but suggested the U.S. government finance the purchase of more conveyor belts for their terminal or arrange for distributors to ship through Kerem Shalom, a crossing on the southern Israel-Gaza border that abuts Egypt.

Source: Reuters

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Israel said would keep Gaza near collapse: WikiLeaks Leaks

Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keepGaza's economy "on the brink of collapse" while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.

Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The territory, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, is run by the Islamist Hamas group, which is shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence or accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.

"As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge," one of the cables read.

Israel wanted the coastal territory's economy "functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis," according to the November 3, 2008 cable.

In a speech in January 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to spell out that policy, which has since been eased in the wake of an international outcry over a deadly Israeli raid last May on a Turkish aid ship trying to break the blockade.

"We will not harm the supply of food for children, medicine for those who need it and fuel for institutions that save lives," Olmert said at the time.

"But there is no justification for demanding we allow residents of Gaza to live normal lives while shells and rockets are fired from their streets and courtyards (at southern Israel)," he added.

The Jewish state says it has significantly relaxed the blockade since May, with dozens of truckloads of goods entering the territory daily. Aid organizations have said shipments should be increased further.

Palestinians say impoverished Gaza remains effectively a "prison" sealed off by Israel, and have called for an opening to allow normal trade and other links with the world.

Source: Reuters

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