From The new York Times, January 15, 2011, by WILLIAM J. BROAD, JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER:
...Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.
...In recent days, the retiring chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton separately announced that they believed Iran’s efforts had been set back by several years. Mrs. Clinton cited American-led sanctions, which have hurt Iran’s ability to buy components and do business around the world.
The gruff Mr. Dagan, whose organization has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists, told the Israeli Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015...
The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed.
In interviews over the past three months in the United States and Europe, experts who have picked apart the computer worm describe it as far more complex — and ingenious — than anything they had imagined when it began circulating around the world, unexplained, in mid-2009.
...In early 2008 the German company Siemens cooperated with one of the United States’ premier national laboratories, in Idaho, to identify the vulnerabilities of computer controllers that the company sells to operate industrial machinery around the world — and that American intelligence agencies have identified as key equipment in Iran’s enrichment facilities.
Seimens says that program was part of routine efforts to secure its products against cyberattacks. Nonetheless, it gave the Idaho National Laboratory — which is part of the Energy Department, responsible for America’s nuclear arms — the chance to identify well-hidden holes in the Siemens systems that were exploited the next year by Stuxnet.
The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.
The attacks were not fully successful: Some parts of Iran’s operations ground to a halt, while others survived, according to the reports of international nuclear inspectors. Nor is it clear the attacks are over: Some experts who have examined the code believe it contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults.
...Officially, neither American nor Israeli officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer program, much less describe any role in designing it.
But Israeli officials grin widely when asked about its effects. Mr. Obama’s chief strategist for combating weapons of mass destruction, Gary Samore, sidestepped a Stuxnet question at a recent conference about Iran, but added with a smile: “I’m glad to hear they are having troubles with their centrifuge machines, and the U.S. and its allies are doing everything we can to make it more complicated.”
...By the accounts of a number of computer scientists, nuclear enrichment experts and former officials, the covert race to create Stuxnet was a joint project between the Americans and the Israelis, with some help, knowing or unknowing, from the Germans and the British.
The project’s political origins can be found in the last months of the Bush administration. In January 2009, The New York Times reported that Mr. Bush authorized a covert program to undermine the electrical and computer systems around Natanz, Iran’s major enrichment center. President Obama, first briefed on the program even before taking office, sped it up, according to officials familiar with the administration’s Iran strategy. So did the Israelis, other officials said. Israel has long been seeking a way to cripple Iran’s capability without triggering the opprobrium, or the war, that might follow an overt military strike of the kind they conducted against nuclear facilities in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007.
Two years ago, when Israel still thought its only solution was a military one and approached Mr. Bush for the bunker-busting bombs and other equipment it believed it would need for an air attack, its officials told the White House that such a strike would set back Iran’s programs by roughly three years. Its request was turned down.
Now, Mr. Dagan’s statement suggests that Israel believes it has gained at least that much time, without mounting an attack. So does the Obama administration...
Finding Weaknesses
...Computers known as controllers run all kinds of industrial machinery. By early 2008, the Department of Homeland Security had teamed up with the Idaho National Laboratory to study a widely used Siemens controller known as P.C.S.-7, for Process Control System 7. Its complex software, called Step 7, can run whole symphonies of industrial instruments, sensors and machines.
...Only months later, in June, Stuxnet began to pop up around the globe. The Symantec Corporation, a maker of computer security software and services based in Silicon Valley, snared it in a global malware collection system. The worm hit primarily inside Iran, Symantec reported, but also in time appeared in India, Indonesia and other countries.
But unlike most malware, it seemed to be doing little harm. It did not slow computer networks or wreak general havoc.
...No one was more intrigued than Mr. Langner, a former psychologist who runs a small computer security company in a suburb of Hamburg. Eager to design protective software for his clients, he had his five employees focus on picking apart the code and running it on the series of Siemens controllers neatly stacked in racks, their lights blinking.
He quickly discovered that the worm only kicked into gear when it detected the presence of a specific configuration of controllers, running a set of processes that appear to exist only in a centrifuge plant. “The attackers took great care to make sure that only their designated targets were hit,” he said. “It was a marksman’s job.”
For example, one small section of the code appears designed to send commands to 984 machines linked together.
Curiously, when international inspectors visited Natanz in late 2009, they found that the Iranians had taken out of service a total of exactly 984 machines that had been running the previous summer.
But as Mr. Langner kept peeling back the layers, he found more — what he calls the “dual warhead.” One part of the program is designed to lie dormant for long periods, then speed up the machines so that the spinning rotors in the centrifuges wobble and then destroy themselves. Another part, called a “man in the middle” in the computer world, sends out those false sensor signals to make the system believe everything is running smoothly. That prevents a safety system from kicking in, which would shut down the plant before it could self-destruct.
“Code analysis makes it clear that Stuxnet is not about sending a message or proving a concept,” Mr. Langner later wrote. “It is about destroying its targets with utmost determination in military style.”
This was not the work of hackers, he quickly concluded. It had to be the work of someone who knew his way around the specific quirks of the Siemens controllers and had an intimate understanding of exactly how the Iranians had designed their enrichment operations.
In fact, the Americans and the Israelis had a pretty good idea.
Testing the Worm
Perhaps the most secretive part of the Stuxnet story centers on how the theory of cyberdestruction was tested on enrichment machines to make sure the malicious software did its intended job.
The account starts in the Netherlands. In the 1970s, the Dutch designed a tall, thin machine for enriching uranium. As is well known, A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist working for the Dutch, stole the design and in 1976 fled to Pakistan.
The resulting machine, known as the P-1, for Pakistan’s first-generation centrifuge, helped the country get the bomb. And when Dr. Khan later founded an atomic black market, he illegally sold P-1’s to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
The P-1 is more than six feet tall. Inside, a rotor of aluminum spins uranium gas to blinding speeds, slowly concentrating the rare part of the uranium that can fuel reactors and bombs.
How and when Israel obtained this kind of first-generation centrifuge remains unclear, whether from Europe, or the Khan network, or by other means. But nuclear experts agree that Dimona came to hold row upon row of spinning centrifuges.
“They’ve long been an important part of the complex,” said Avner Cohen, author of “The Worst-Kept Secret” (2010), a book about the Israeli bomb program, and a senior fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He added that Israeli intelligence had asked retired senior Dimona personnel to help on the Iranian issue, and that some apparently came from the enrichment program.
“I have no specific knowledge,” Dr. Cohen said of Israel and the Stuxnet worm. “But I see a strong Israeli signature and think that the centrifuge knowledge was critical.”
Another clue involves the United States. It obtained a cache of P-1’s after Libya gave up its nuclear program in late 2003, and the machines were sent to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, another arm of the Energy Department.
By early 2004, a variety of federal and private nuclear experts assembled by the Central Intelligence Agency were calling for the United States to build a secret plant where scientists could set up the P-1’s and study their vulnerabilities. “The notion of a test bed was really pushed,” a participant at the C.I.A. meeting recalled.
The resulting plant, nuclear experts said last week, may also have played a role in Stuxnet testing.
But the United States and its allies ran into the same problem the Iranians have grappled with: the P-1 is a balky, badly designed machine. When the Tennessee laboratory shipped some of its P-1’s to England, in hopes of working with the British on a program of general P-1 testing, they stumbled, according to nuclear experts.
“They failed hopelessly,” one recalled, saying that the machines proved too crude and temperamental to spin properly.
Dr. Cohen said his sources told him that Israel succeeded — with great difficulty — in mastering the centrifuge technology. And the American expert in nuclear intelligence, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the Israelis used machines of the P-1 style to test the effectiveness of Stuxnet.
The expert added that Israel worked in collaboration with the United States in targeting Iran, but that Washington was eager for “plausible deniability.”
In November, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, broke the country’s silence about the worm’s impact on its enrichment program, saying a cyberattack had caused “minor problems with some of our centrifuges.” Fortunately, he added, “our experts discovered it.”
The most detailed portrait of the damage comes from the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington. Last month, it issued a lengthy Stuxnet report that said Iran’s P-1 machines at Natanz suffered a series of failures in mid- to late 2009 that culminated in technicians taking 984 machines out of action.
The report called the failures “a major problem” and identified Stuxnet as the likely culprit.
Stuxnet is not the only blow to Iran. Sanctions have hurt its effort to build more advanced (and less temperamental) centrifuges. And last January, and again in November, two scientists who were believed to be central to the nuclear program were killed in Tehran.
The man widely believed to be responsible for much of Iran’s program, Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a college professor, has been hidden away by the Iranians, who know he is high on the target list.
Publicly, Israeli officials make no explicit ties between Stuxnet and Iran’s problems. But in recent weeks, they have given revised and surprisingly upbeat assessments of Tehran’s nuclear status.
“A number of technological challenges and difficulties” have beset Iran’s program, Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, told Israeli public radio late last month.
The troubles, he added, “have postponed the timetable.”
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Lieberman is simply telling the truth
From BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 125, January 13, 2011, by Prof. Efraim Inbar, Professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman takes a blunt approach to politics, one that is often met with resistance at home and abroad. But despite his not-very-diplomatic style, Lieberman's views on issues like the "peace process" and the Israel-Turkey relationship are representative of a large majority of the Israeli public, and his assessments are often right on the mark.
...The chances of reaching a comprehensive agreement in the near future with the Palestinians, within 12 or 36 months, are indeed nil, as Lieberman has pointed out. The Palestinian Authority is not willing to make any concessions in peace negotiations on Jerusalem or on refugees. It rejects recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state. Lieberman is correct also in pointing out that the PA lacks any legitimacy to close a deal with Israel. Abu Mazen’s corrupt regime relies on Israeli bayonets to defend it from Hamas. This is what Lieberman has said, and he is correct in his assessment.
Moreover, his views reflect the sober assessment of a large majority of Israelis. Even large swaths of the Israeli Left agree that there is no Palestinian partner for a full peace.
So why is it so terrible to tell the truth?
Similarly, Lieberman’s evaluation of the behavior of the current Turkish government is right on the mark. Turkey, under Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, has not missed an opportunity to pick a fight with Israel over the past two years, and there is nothing Jerusalem can do but wait for better times. Erdogan-led Turkey is not interested in good relations with Israel, primarily because under his helm Turkey is distancing itself from the West and displaying a greater Islamic coloration in its foreign policy. Anti-Semitic sentiments also fuel the hostility toward Israel. Israelis agree with Lieberman’s refusal to be a "punching bag for Turkey." Thus, it makes no sense to apologize and pay compensation to those who sent IHH terrorists to help Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Actually, Lieberman’s assertion that it is Turkey which owes Israel an apology seems more logical. This probably makes sense to most Israelis, who witnessed the brutal treatment of Israeli naval commandos on the Turkish ship at the hands of so-called “peace activists.”
Similarly, Lieberman's promotion of a loyalty oath is well in synch with majority Israeli opinion. Israeli Arab leaders have become increasingly vocal and violent in their support for Palestinian irredentism – and Israeli Jews want to see them checked.
Most Israelis instinctively feel, as well, that the Ultra-Orthodox-controlled Rabbinate is much too narrow and unwelcoming in its approach to Russian-Israelis who want to convert to Judaism.
Another bingo for Lieberman.
Lieberman’s attack on left-wing NGOs being fifth columns is also striking a responsive chord among many Israelis that are fed up with Israel’s use of force being portrayed systematically as a human rights violation. After all, the IDF is making consistently great efforts to behave admirably moral.
The truth is often unpleasant. As a result, the seemingly noble and relentless search for an unavailable peace formula is preferred by many to acceptance of the bad news that there is no chance to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon. Incredibly generous Israeli concessions by Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert did not bring about peace because of the Palestinians' insatiable appetite....
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman takes a blunt approach to politics, one that is often met with resistance at home and abroad. But despite his not-very-diplomatic style, Lieberman's views on issues like the "peace process" and the Israel-Turkey relationship are representative of a large majority of the Israeli public, and his assessments are often right on the mark.
...The chances of reaching a comprehensive agreement in the near future with the Palestinians, within 12 or 36 months, are indeed nil, as Lieberman has pointed out. The Palestinian Authority is not willing to make any concessions in peace negotiations on Jerusalem or on refugees. It rejects recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation-state. Lieberman is correct also in pointing out that the PA lacks any legitimacy to close a deal with Israel. Abu Mazen’s corrupt regime relies on Israeli bayonets to defend it from Hamas. This is what Lieberman has said, and he is correct in his assessment.
Moreover, his views reflect the sober assessment of a large majority of Israelis. Even large swaths of the Israeli Left agree that there is no Palestinian partner for a full peace.
So why is it so terrible to tell the truth?
Similarly, Lieberman’s evaluation of the behavior of the current Turkish government is right on the mark. Turkey, under Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, has not missed an opportunity to pick a fight with Israel over the past two years, and there is nothing Jerusalem can do but wait for better times. Erdogan-led Turkey is not interested in good relations with Israel, primarily because under his helm Turkey is distancing itself from the West and displaying a greater Islamic coloration in its foreign policy. Anti-Semitic sentiments also fuel the hostility toward Israel. Israelis agree with Lieberman’s refusal to be a "punching bag for Turkey." Thus, it makes no sense to apologize and pay compensation to those who sent IHH terrorists to help Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Actually, Lieberman’s assertion that it is Turkey which owes Israel an apology seems more logical. This probably makes sense to most Israelis, who witnessed the brutal treatment of Israeli naval commandos on the Turkish ship at the hands of so-called “peace activists.”
Similarly, Lieberman's promotion of a loyalty oath is well in synch with majority Israeli opinion. Israeli Arab leaders have become increasingly vocal and violent in their support for Palestinian irredentism – and Israeli Jews want to see them checked.
Most Israelis instinctively feel, as well, that the Ultra-Orthodox-controlled Rabbinate is much too narrow and unwelcoming in its approach to Russian-Israelis who want to convert to Judaism.
Another bingo for Lieberman.
Lieberman’s attack on left-wing NGOs being fifth columns is also striking a responsive chord among many Israelis that are fed up with Israel’s use of force being portrayed systematically as a human rights violation. After all, the IDF is making consistently great efforts to behave admirably moral.
The truth is often unpleasant. As a result, the seemingly noble and relentless search for an unavailable peace formula is preferred by many to acceptance of the bad news that there is no chance to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon. Incredibly generous Israeli concessions by Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert did not bring about peace because of the Palestinians' insatiable appetite....
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
More Palestinian conspiracy theories
From PMW, 12 January 2011, by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik:
Blaming Israel, the Jews and America for the Arab world's problems, is a recurring theme of Palestinian ideology.
The latest Palestinian Authority libel accuses Israel of involvement in major international conspiracies to undermine Arab and Muslim countries, from Yemen to Sudan, all in order to distract international attention from what Palestinians call the "Palestinian cause."
These conspiracy accusations were expressed by a senior PA official, the Director General of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's office, Abd Al-Rahim.
According to Abd Al-Rahim, Israel has orchestrated all of the following major destructive events in the Arab world:
1- the civil war in Lebanon
2- the division of Sudan
3- the civil strife in Yemen
4- the massacre of Christians in Iraq
5- the persecution of Palestinians in Iraq
Also blaming Israel for Arab world troubles, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, following the murder of Christian Copts in a bombing in Egypt, said that Israel was behind conspiracies against the Arab world, including Egypt:
"The conspiracies that are being concocted against Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and anywhere else in the world are proof that the Israeli occupation and the imperialist circles are still damaging the spirit of the [Arab] nation and its unity."
Joining the chorus of conspiracy accusations, Tawfiq Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee, accused America of collaborating to attempt "to stir up civil strife" "in Arab countries, from Yemen to Sudan." ...
Click here to see excerpts from three news items accusing Israel and America of conspiring against the Arab world, all from the official PA daily.
Blaming Israel, the Jews and America for the Arab world's problems, is a recurring theme of Palestinian ideology.
The latest Palestinian Authority libel accuses Israel of involvement in major international conspiracies to undermine Arab and Muslim countries, from Yemen to Sudan, all in order to distract international attention from what Palestinians call the "Palestinian cause."
These conspiracy accusations were expressed by a senior PA official, the Director General of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's office, Abd Al-Rahim.
According to Abd Al-Rahim, Israel has orchestrated all of the following major destructive events in the Arab world:
1- the civil war in Lebanon
2- the division of Sudan
3- the civil strife in Yemen
4- the massacre of Christians in Iraq
5- the persecution of Palestinians in Iraq
Also blaming Israel for Arab world troubles, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, following the murder of Christian Copts in a bombing in Egypt, said that Israel was behind conspiracies against the Arab world, including Egypt:
"The conspiracies that are being concocted against Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and anywhere else in the world are proof that the Israeli occupation and the imperialist circles are still damaging the spirit of the [Arab] nation and its unity."
Joining the chorus of conspiracy accusations, Tawfiq Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee, accused America of collaborating to attempt "to stir up civil strife" "in Arab countries, from Yemen to Sudan." ...
Click here to see excerpts from three news items accusing Israel and America of conspiring against the Arab world, all from the official PA daily.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Envoy demands UN speak out against attacks
From JERUSALEM POST, 22 December 2010, by JORDANA HORN:
NEW YORK – The recent escalation in rocket attacks, culminating in the wounding of a young girl, should be met “with utmost seriousness” and a response from the UN, Ambassador to the UN Meron Reuben wrote in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and the Security Council on Tuesday.
...Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, on Wednesday condemned the rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.
“These attacks are in clear violation of international humanitarian law and endanger civilians in Israel,” Serry said, adding that Israel has “a right to self-defense consistent with international humanitarian law..."...
NEW YORK – The recent escalation in rocket attacks, culminating in the wounding of a young girl, should be met “with utmost seriousness” and a response from the UN, Ambassador to the UN Meron Reuben wrote in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Kimoon and the Security Council on Tuesday.
“The incidents of the past several days are part of an escalation of terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza that target Israeli civilians, towns and military personnel..."
“[Hamas] holds the de facto authority in the Gaza Strip completely responsible for all of these incidents, which are carried out in clear violation of international law. In response to such attacks, Israel has exercised and will continue to exercise its right to self defense."
“With the intention of preventing the continued escalation of conflict, the security council, the secretary-general and the international community must send a clear and resolute message that these attacks are unacceptable..."
...Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, on Wednesday condemned the rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.
“These attacks are in clear violation of international humanitarian law and endanger civilians in Israel,” Serry said, adding that Israel has “a right to self-defense consistent with international humanitarian law..."...
Yad Vashem: 4 million Shoah victims identified
From Ynet News, 22 December 2010, by Olga Goretzki:
Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority announced Tuesday it has collected the names of 4 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust – some two-thirds of the total number of Jewish victims estimated to have been murdered by the Nazis.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said that during the last decade the museum's staff had tracked some 1.5 million names and added them to the databases.
New Effort
Shalev said. "One of Yad Vashem's central aims is to give a face and a name to each Holocaust victim, and give them back their identities. We have managed to use technology in the service of memory, and thus accelerated the collection of names and the accessibility of the information for people around the world."
In addition, the digitalization process was accelerated for names from archived documents. Yad Vashem says some 55% of the 4 million names known at present are from testimonies of family members, while the rest are from archive documents and various remembrance initiatives of communities and survivors.
The names hardest to track are of those murdered in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In these regions, in contrast to Western Europe, Jews were murdered near their places of residence, and the Nazis made no deportation lists.
During the last five years, there has been significant improvement in this field. According to Alexander Avraham, director of Yad Vashem's Hall of Names, there has been a huge increase in the known and documented names of victims in the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary and Greece.
Torah scrolls and synagogues
"After the Holocaust there was less awareness among survivors and relatives," Avraham explains. "During the last three years, there has been a special project for Russian-speakers in Israel, the former USSR, the US and Germany. We approach them with the help of volunteers and Jewish organizations to encourage them to submit documents, photos and anything connected with the identity of victims, but there is still a lot of work to be done."
Last year, he says, Yad Vashem staff managed to obtain a list of 38 people who were deported from Salonika (Thessaloniki) to Auschwitz, and a new project is now being launched to collect names from Poland. "Many names from there are still missing," Avaraham says.
Another project concentrates on collecting names among haredi communities. "The haredi population has developed various ways of remembering the victims," he says. "Haredim haven't really filled out testimony forms. They dedicated Torah scrolls to the memory of victims, and put up remembrance plaques at synagogues, and the names are detailed there."
Yad Vashem staff does not rest, and continues in its work identifying the 2 million victims who remain without a name and without a face.
Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority announced Tuesday it has collected the names of 4 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust – some two-thirds of the total number of Jewish victims estimated to have been murdered by the Nazis.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said that during the last decade the museum's staff had tracked some 1.5 million names and added them to the databases.
New Effort
Shalev said. "One of Yad Vashem's central aims is to give a face and a name to each Holocaust victim, and give them back their identities. We have managed to use technology in the service of memory, and thus accelerated the collection of names and the accessibility of the information for people around the world."
"The Germans not only wanted to annihilate the Jews, but also to wipe them from memory,"Six years ago Yad Vashem launched a central database on the internet. At the time, the database included the names of some 3 million Holocaust victims. The center's staff then began a concerted operation to collect the missing names.
In addition, the digitalization process was accelerated for names from archived documents. Yad Vashem says some 55% of the 4 million names known at present are from testimonies of family members, while the rest are from archive documents and various remembrance initiatives of communities and survivors.
The names hardest to track are of those murdered in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In these regions, in contrast to Western Europe, Jews were murdered near their places of residence, and the Nazis made no deportation lists.
During the last five years, there has been significant improvement in this field. According to Alexander Avraham, director of Yad Vashem's Hall of Names, there has been a huge increase in the known and documented names of victims in the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary and Greece.
Torah scrolls and synagogues
"After the Holocaust there was less awareness among survivors and relatives," Avraham explains. "During the last three years, there has been a special project for Russian-speakers in Israel, the former USSR, the US and Germany. We approach them with the help of volunteers and Jewish organizations to encourage them to submit documents, photos and anything connected with the identity of victims, but there is still a lot of work to be done."
Last year, he says, Yad Vashem staff managed to obtain a list of 38 people who were deported from Salonika (Thessaloniki) to Auschwitz, and a new project is now being launched to collect names from Poland. "Many names from there are still missing," Avaraham says.
Another project concentrates on collecting names among haredi communities. "The haredi population has developed various ways of remembering the victims," he says. "Haredim haven't really filled out testimony forms. They dedicated Torah scrolls to the memory of victims, and put up remembrance plaques at synagogues, and the names are detailed there."
Yad Vashem staff does not rest, and continues in its work identifying the 2 million victims who remain without a name and without a face.
"Every name we succeed in rescuing from oblivion is another victory over the Nazis who tried to destroy and annihilate the memory of these people,"Avraham says.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
No "1967 Borders" Ever Existed
From JCPA, Briefs Vol. 10, No. 17 21 December 2010, by Alan Baker, former Legal Adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and former Ambassador of Israel to Canada: The Palestinian leadership is fixated on attempting to press foreign governments and the UN to recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state within the "1967 borders." Indeed, this campaign appeared to have some initial successes in December 2010 when both Argentina and Brazil decided to recognize a Palestinian state within what they described as the "1967 borders."
- But such borders do not exist and have no basis in history, law, or fact. The only line that ever existed was the 1949 armistice demarcation line, based on the ceasefire lines of the Israeli and Arab armies pending agreement on permanent peace. The 1949 armistice agreements specifically stated that such lines have no political or legal significance and do not prejudice future negotiations on boundaries.
- UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 acknowledged the need for negotiation of secure and recognized boundaries. Prominent jurists and UN delegates, including from Brazil and Jordan, acknowledged that the previous lines cannot be considered as international boundaries.
- The series of agreements between the PLO and Israel (1993-1999) reaffirm the intention and commitment of the parties to negotiate permanent borders. During all phases of negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, there was never any determination as to a border based on the 1967 lines.
- The PLO leadership solemnly undertook that all issues of permanent status would be resolved only through negotiations between the parties. The 2003 "Road Map" further reiterated the need for negotiations on final borders.
Click here to read the full article.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Iran is the issue, not "Palestine"
From The Australia/Israel review, January 2011 edition, by Dr. Uzi Rabi, Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University:
American diplomatic accounts of conversations with various Arab leaders, released this past month by WikiLeaks...[show that]regional and international leaders...are not focused primarily on Israel’s traditional struggle with the Arab states and the Palestinians. Rather...with the prospect of a nuclear Iran...
...Gulf leaders are quoted as urging the United States to attack Iran as quickly as possible. Saudi King Abdullah was particularly graphic, calling on Washington to “cut the head off of the snake.” Economic sanctions were preferable, he said, but “the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out.” Two years ago, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal went as far as proposing an Arab-led military force to destroy Hezbollah in order to prevent an “Iranian takeover of Lebanon.” In December 2005, United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayid told US CENTCOM head, Gen. John Abizaid, that the Iranians had to be “dealt with before they do something tragic.” UAE military leaders were quoted as agreeing with the Americans that “President Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even.” Crown Prince bin Zayid called Ahmadinejad “Hitler” and pressed for an Israeli attack against Iran.
Earlier this year international media sources revealed that Israel and Saudi Arabia had engaged in secret talks, in which Saudi Arabia implied that it would turn a blind eye if Israel were to use the Saudi desert as a fly-over corridor to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Barring such an attack, nuclear Iran would become a regional superpower able to pressure Gulf states to line up behind it; it could serve as a source of inspiration and support for radical groups in the Gulf states and beyond; and a regional nuclear arms race would likely ensue.
...The WikiLeaks disclosures have widened the deep-rooted divisions between the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain (the Upper Gulf states), and Iran...
The WikiLeaks documents also shed light on the ongoing military and diplomatic cooperation between Iran and Turkey, suggesting the beginnings of a new axis in the region. ...the strains between Ankara and Washington reverberate throughout the documents and beyond. For example, one document states that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds eight private bank accounts in Switzerland...
While Israel has possessed a nuclear capability for over 40 years, WikiLeaks documents show that it is Iran’s nuclear ambitions that currently worry Arab states...
...There are relatively few references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the documents, and the issue has taken a back seat to nuclear Iran in recent Arab-American diplomatic discussions. The Arab states’ deep fear of Iran’s regional ambitions, which are a source of inspiration to its clients, Hamas and Hezbollah, outweighs their concern with the intractable, but not immediately threatening Israel-Palestinian issue.
...Arab leaders seem to view the Obama Administration’s insistent focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as coming at the expense of blocking Iran’s rising power. Together with what they view as administration impotence in affecting a change in Israeli policies, Arab states essentially confer a grade of “Poor” on Washington’s overall performance in the Middle East...
American diplomatic accounts of conversations with various Arab leaders, released this past month by WikiLeaks...[show that]regional and international leaders...are not focused primarily on Israel’s traditional struggle with the Arab states and the Palestinians. Rather...with the prospect of a nuclear Iran...
...Gulf leaders are quoted as urging the United States to attack Iran as quickly as possible. Saudi King Abdullah was particularly graphic, calling on Washington to “cut the head off of the snake.” Economic sanctions were preferable, he said, but “the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out.” Two years ago, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal went as far as proposing an Arab-led military force to destroy Hezbollah in order to prevent an “Iranian takeover of Lebanon.” In December 2005, United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayid told US CENTCOM head, Gen. John Abizaid, that the Iranians had to be “dealt with before they do something tragic.” UAE military leaders were quoted as agreeing with the Americans that “President Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even.” Crown Prince bin Zayid called Ahmadinejad “Hitler” and pressed for an Israeli attack against Iran.
Earlier this year international media sources revealed that Israel and Saudi Arabia had engaged in secret talks, in which Saudi Arabia implied that it would turn a blind eye if Israel were to use the Saudi desert as a fly-over corridor to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Barring such an attack, nuclear Iran would become a regional superpower able to pressure Gulf states to line up behind it; it could serve as a source of inspiration and support for radical groups in the Gulf states and beyond; and a regional nuclear arms race would likely ensue.
...The WikiLeaks disclosures have widened the deep-rooted divisions between the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain (the Upper Gulf states), and Iran...
The WikiLeaks documents also shed light on the ongoing military and diplomatic cooperation between Iran and Turkey, suggesting the beginnings of a new axis in the region. ...the strains between Ankara and Washington reverberate throughout the documents and beyond. For example, one document states that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan holds eight private bank accounts in Switzerland...
While Israel has possessed a nuclear capability for over 40 years, WikiLeaks documents show that it is Iran’s nuclear ambitions that currently worry Arab states...
...There are relatively few references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the documents, and the issue has taken a back seat to nuclear Iran in recent Arab-American diplomatic discussions. The Arab states’ deep fear of Iran’s regional ambitions, which are a source of inspiration to its clients, Hamas and Hezbollah, outweighs their concern with the intractable, but not immediately threatening Israel-Palestinian issue.
...Arab leaders seem to view the Obama Administration’s insistent focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as coming at the expense of blocking Iran’s rising power. Together with what they view as administration impotence in affecting a change in Israeli policies, Arab states essentially confer a grade of “Poor” on Washington’s overall performance in the Middle East...
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Yoel Zilberman, from the heart of the heartland
From Youtube:
Yoel Zilberman - The Founder of "HaShomer HaHadash" (The New Guardian) talks at a Jerusalem Conference about the organization's activities, in response to Bedouin attacks on Jewish-owned farms in the Galil and the Negev, and Jewish farmers who are abondoning their lands in fear ...
...young guys who join the farmers and work with them day by day...
Last week we did ...an historical revolution ...army preparatory programs ...a service year, a year before the army, when guys finish high school ...will start next year ...like King David every 8,10 guys will be on a lookout in the fields with a herd of sheep learning Torah in the morning, learning Zionism in the evening, learning Arabic...we're in the Middle East.
And these guys, togther with the cattle herds with practice, running and full-contact training, ...they're going to retore the courage of the Jew in Israel, the Jew who guards ...
The fortified walls of Jerusalem are those same farmers and cowboys, the same lands ...the 4 million dunams of state land, that's what protects our country.
...we foresee that in the year 2015, we'll have more than 2,000 guards, no less than 6,000 volunteers...and no less than 30 groups...of 8-10 guys before the army, out with the sheep in the fields, literally going back to the roots, and these guys relearn their own story and don't let anyone confuse them and their are no cracks and no confusion,
and then the whole world will be clear on whose this is ...I ...include the Arabs... they're just waiting for us to tell them it's ours. They haven't yet understood that, they're just waiting and ... b"h ...it will happen.
Yoel Zilberman - The Founder of "HaShomer HaHadash" (The New Guardian) talks at a Jerusalem Conference about the organization's activities, in response to Bedouin attacks on Jewish-owned farms in the Galil and the Negev, and Jewish farmers who are abondoning their lands in fear ...
"return of the narrative, Israeli sovereignty and dignity"
...young guys who join the farmers and work with them day by day...
Last week we did ...an historical revolution ...army preparatory programs ...a service year, a year before the army, when guys finish high school ...will start next year ...like King David every 8,10 guys will be on a lookout in the fields with a herd of sheep learning Torah in the morning, learning Zionism in the evening, learning Arabic...we're in the Middle East.
And these guys, togther with the cattle herds with practice, running and full-contact training, ...they're going to retore the courage of the Jew in Israel, the Jew who guards ...
The fortified walls of Jerusalem are those same farmers and cowboys, the same lands ...the 4 million dunams of state land, that's what protects our country.
...we foresee that in the year 2015, we'll have more than 2,000 guards, no less than 6,000 volunteers...and no less than 30 groups...of 8-10 guys before the army, out with the sheep in the fields, literally going back to the roots, and these guys relearn their own story and don't let anyone confuse them and their are no cracks and no confusion,
and then the whole world will be clear on whose this is ...I ...include the Arabs... they're just waiting for us to tell them it's ours. They haven't yet understood that, they're just waiting and ... b"h ...it will happen.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Israel Remembers the Holy Temple and the Holocaust on Tevet 10
From Israel National News, 17 December 2010, by Maayana Miskin:
Friday is the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, a fast day on which Jews remember the siege of Jerusalem that preceded the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile.
The siege is described in the Bible in the Book of Kings.
The day is also the time at which mourning prayers are said for Holocaust victims whose date of death is not known. Many religious Jews mourn the Holocaust on the 10th of Tevet rather than on the date chosen by the Israeli government in the Hebrew month of Nissan.
The tenth of Tevet is observed as a fast from morning until nightfall. It is the only day-long fast day that can fall on a Friday.
Another event that is mourned on the 10th of Tevet is the day on which King Ptolemy of Egypt forced Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Their translation was used by those who sought to assimilate Jews into Greek culture, and later formed the basis of the Christian Bible, which for many centuries was used to promote persecution of Jews.
Yet another is the death of Ezra the Scribe, who led Jews back to Israel from their exile in Babylon and directed the construction of the Second Temple.
Friday is the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, a fast day on which Jews remember the siege of Jerusalem that preceded the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile.
The siege is described in the Bible in the Book of Kings.
The day is also the time at which mourning prayers are said for Holocaust victims whose date of death is not known. Many religious Jews mourn the Holocaust on the 10th of Tevet rather than on the date chosen by the Israeli government in the Hebrew month of Nissan.
The tenth of Tevet is observed as a fast from morning until nightfall. It is the only day-long fast day that can fall on a Friday.
Another event that is mourned on the 10th of Tevet is the day on which King Ptolemy of Egypt forced Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Their translation was used by those who sought to assimilate Jews into Greek culture, and later formed the basis of the Christian Bible, which for many centuries was used to promote persecution of Jews.
Yet another is the death of Ezra the Scribe, who led Jews back to Israel from their exile in Babylon and directed the construction of the Second Temple.
Cyprus, Israel sign deal demarcating sea borders
From The Associated Press, Dec 17, 2010, MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS:
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus and Israel signed an accord Friday demarcating their maritime borders to facilitate a search for mineral deposits in the east Mediterranean where huge natural gas reserves have been discovered.
...Cyprus has licensed U.S. firm Noble Energy to explore an 800,000-acre area bordering Israeli waters where massive gas fields have been found under the seabed.
Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel's energy needs for the next two decades.
Noble Energy is also part of a consortium developing the fields and predicted in June that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field — Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.
Cyprus Energy Service Director Solon Kassinis told The Associated Press in an e-mail that there are currently no estimates on gas reserves inside the Cypriot zone because drilling has yet to begin.
Noble has not said when drilling would start inside its Cypriot block.
...Lebanese lawmakers have said that some of Israel's recently discovered gas fields stretch into Lebanese territorial waters. Israel has denied the charge.
Hezbollah has threatened to use force to protect Lebanon's natural wealth.
Meanwhile, Turkey is mulling starting oil and gas exploration off Cyprus' northern coast...
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus and Israel signed an accord Friday demarcating their maritime borders to facilitate a search for mineral deposits in the east Mediterranean where huge natural gas reserves have been discovered.
...Cyprus has licensed U.S. firm Noble Energy to explore an 800,000-acre area bordering Israeli waters where massive gas fields have been found under the seabed.
Two fields, Tamar and Dalit, discovered last year, are due to start producing in 2012, and experts say their estimated combined reserves of 5.5 trillion cubic feet (160 billion cubic meters) of natural gas can cover Israel's energy needs for the next two decades.
Noble Energy is also part of a consortium developing the fields and predicted in June that Israel will also have enough gas to export to Europe and Asia from a third field — Leviathan, thought to hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters) of gas.
Cyprus Energy Service Director Solon Kassinis told The Associated Press in an e-mail that there are currently no estimates on gas reserves inside the Cypriot zone because drilling has yet to begin.
Noble has not said when drilling would start inside its Cypriot block.
...Lebanese lawmakers have said that some of Israel's recently discovered gas fields stretch into Lebanese territorial waters. Israel has denied the charge.
Hezbollah has threatened to use force to protect Lebanon's natural wealth.
Meanwhile, Turkey is mulling starting oil and gas exploration off Cyprus' northern coast...
the real peace process: Israeli companies outsourcing to Palestinians
From The Associated Press, 17 December 2010:
HOD HASHARON, Israel (AP) — Within the pastel walls of a modest suburban office, Israeli high-tech workers have accomplished a feat that still eludes their political leaders: They have created a partnership with the Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be stalled, but that hasn't stopped a small but steady trickle of Israeli technology companies from seeking to work with people on the other side of the decades-old conflict.
Israeli CEOs say it's their way of bringing a little bit of peace to their troubled corner of the world. But the real reason they're hiring Palestinians, they acknowledge, is because it simply makes good business sense.
Israel's high-tech industry is among the country's crowning achievements. Israel has the most start-ups per capita in the world and has helped produce such game-changing innovations as instant messaging and Internet telephony. Many Israeli tech firms send work offshore to eastern Europe, India or China.
In the past three years, however, some have turned to Palestinian engineers and programmers. They are cheaper, ambitious, work in the same time zone, and — surprisingly to many Israelis — are remarkably similar to them.
"The cultural gap is much smaller than we would think," said Gai Anbar, chief executive of Comply, an Israeli start-up in this central Israeli town that develops software for global pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Teva.
At a previous job, he worked with engineers in India and eastern Europe, but found communication difficult. So in 2007, when he was looking to outsource work at his new start-up, he turned to Palestinian engineers. He said they speak like Israelis do — they are direct and uninhibited. Today, Comply employs four Palestinians.
Palestinian engineers have also warmed up to the idea. "I doubt you would find a company who says, 'I am closed for business'" to Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology Association....
...About 10 Israeli start-ups and international companies with centers in Israel have been outsourcing to the West Bank in the past three years, said Tova Scherr of Mercy Corps, an international aid group working to encourage these ventures. Scherr said visits by Israeli businessmen to Ramallah — with Israeli military permission — are becoming more common.
Networking giant Cisco says it was the first international corporation with research and development centers in Israel to begin outsourcing work to the West Bank. Israeli branches of Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have followed Cisco's example and begun to outsource to the Palestinian territories this year, according to Mercy Corps.
...Word of the West Bank's potential is spreading: Tahboub of Asal Technologies said he received about 20 inquiries this year from Israeli companies.
"We are doing great work for our country," Tahboub said, referring to the yet-to-be-born Palestinian state. "I believe the (technology) sector will become one of the pillars of the Palestinian economy."
HOD HASHARON, Israel (AP) — Within the pastel walls of a modest suburban office, Israeli high-tech workers have accomplished a feat that still eludes their political leaders: They have created a partnership with the Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be stalled, but that hasn't stopped a small but steady trickle of Israeli technology companies from seeking to work with people on the other side of the decades-old conflict.
Israeli CEOs say it's their way of bringing a little bit of peace to their troubled corner of the world. But the real reason they're hiring Palestinians, they acknowledge, is because it simply makes good business sense.
Israel's high-tech industry is among the country's crowning achievements. Israel has the most start-ups per capita in the world and has helped produce such game-changing innovations as instant messaging and Internet telephony. Many Israeli tech firms send work offshore to eastern Europe, India or China.
In the past three years, however, some have turned to Palestinian engineers and programmers. They are cheaper, ambitious, work in the same time zone, and — surprisingly to many Israelis — are remarkably similar to them.
"The cultural gap is much smaller than we would think," said Gai Anbar, chief executive of Comply, an Israeli start-up in this central Israeli town that develops software for global pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Teva.
At a previous job, he worked with engineers in India and eastern Europe, but found communication difficult. So in 2007, when he was looking to outsource work at his new start-up, he turned to Palestinian engineers. He said they speak like Israelis do — they are direct and uninhibited. Today, Comply employs four Palestinians.
Palestinian engineers have also warmed up to the idea. "I doubt you would find a company who says, 'I am closed for business'" to Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology Association....
...About 10 Israeli start-ups and international companies with centers in Israel have been outsourcing to the West Bank in the past three years, said Tova Scherr of Mercy Corps, an international aid group working to encourage these ventures. Scherr said visits by Israeli businessmen to Ramallah — with Israeli military permission — are becoming more common.
Networking giant Cisco says it was the first international corporation with research and development centers in Israel to begin outsourcing work to the West Bank. Israeli branches of Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have followed Cisco's example and begun to outsource to the Palestinian territories this year, according to Mercy Corps.
...Word of the West Bank's potential is spreading: Tahboub of Asal Technologies said he received about 20 inquiries this year from Israeli companies.
"We are doing great work for our country," Tahboub said, referring to the yet-to-be-born Palestinian state. "I believe the (technology) sector will become one of the pillars of the Palestinian economy."
France gives Lebanon anti-tank missiles
From AFP, 17 December 2010:
BEIRUT — France will give Lebanon 100 anti-tank missiles, a government official said on Friday, confirming a deal that raised concerns in Israel and the United States earlier this year.
"Prime Minister Saad Hariri was informed on Wednesday of the French decision to supply the army with 100 ... HOT missiles that will be used by the military's Gazelle helicopters," the official told AFP.
"The missiles will be delivered before the end of February and are being given with no conditions attached," the official added. In Paris, the office of French Prime Minister Francois Fillon confirmed that a letter to that effect had been sent to Hariri.
In August, a US lawmaker objected to the transfer saying the missiles could end up being used against Israel given the influence of the powerful militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"The influence of Hezbollah militants and their Iranian and Syrian backers in the Lebanese government is rising," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had said.
"Therefore, to sell weapons to Lebanon at this time would be very irresponsible and could jeopardise security and stability in the region," she said.
Local press reports had said Israel, which fought a devastating war with Hezbollah in 2006, also expressed concerns.
In November, Washington lifted a hold it had placed on 100 million dollars in military aid to Lebanon after receiving assurances that the army would closely monitor the border with Israel and that the assistance would not be diverted to Hezbollah.
The Shiite movement is considered the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.
Intelligence officials estimate Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of more than 40,000 short and long-range rockets as well as other sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, that the party claims can reach deep inside Israel.
BEIRUT — France will give Lebanon 100 anti-tank missiles, a government official said on Friday, confirming a deal that raised concerns in Israel and the United States earlier this year.
"Prime Minister Saad Hariri was informed on Wednesday of the French decision to supply the army with 100 ... HOT missiles that will be used by the military's Gazelle helicopters," the official told AFP.
"The missiles will be delivered before the end of February and are being given with no conditions attached," the official added. In Paris, the office of French Prime Minister Francois Fillon confirmed that a letter to that effect had been sent to Hariri.
In August, a US lawmaker objected to the transfer saying the missiles could end up being used against Israel given the influence of the powerful militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"The influence of Hezbollah militants and their Iranian and Syrian backers in the Lebanese government is rising," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had said.
"Therefore, to sell weapons to Lebanon at this time would be very irresponsible and could jeopardise security and stability in the region," she said.
Local press reports had said Israel, which fought a devastating war with Hezbollah in 2006, also expressed concerns.
In November, Washington lifted a hold it had placed on 100 million dollars in military aid to Lebanon after receiving assurances that the army would closely monitor the border with Israel and that the assistance would not be diverted to Hezbollah.
The Shiite movement is considered the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.
Intelligence officials estimate Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of more than 40,000 short and long-range rockets as well as other sophisticated weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, that the party claims can reach deep inside Israel.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Kissinger: court Jew and Antisemite
From JPost, December 17, 2010, by Isi Leibler:
Few would be shocked with details of further anti-Semitic outbursts by former president Richard Nixon revealed in the latest transcripts of tapes released from the Nixon library. He was a vulgar man whose foul mouthing extended beyond Jews to Afro-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and other ethnic groups.
...Nixon's anti-Semitism primarily amounted to appalling negative stereotyping. But he did employ a Jewish Secretary of State and, according to his Jewish speechwriter William Safire, his heroes included Benjamin Disraeli, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter and Herman Wouk.
... despite his unsavory character and negative traits, ...during the 1973 Yom Kippur War [Nixon] overruled his Jewish Secretary of State [Henry Kissinger] who sought to delay arms to Israel in order to boost Sadat and make Israel more pliable in negotiating with the Egyptians. Nixon's massive weapons airlift provided Israel with desperately needed arms. ...We should remain eternally grateful to him for having avoided countless additional Israeli casualties and possibly even having averted a disaster for the Jewish State.
...We are now privy to Kissinger's notorious outburst to Nixon following a meeting with Golda Meir during which she pleaded for the White House to support efforts to free Soviet Jews...
He ended this obscene remark by conceding that gassing Jews "may be a humanitarian concern."
...Far from apologizing now for his outburst Kissinger justified it. In an email to the JTA, he insisted that the most callous statement about Jews ever recorded by a senior US official "had to be viewed in the context of what was happening".
Kissinger at the time had just lost a tough battle with Senator Henry Jackson who had managed to persuade Congress to adopt the Jackson-Vanik amendment linking trade with the Soviet Union to the extension of human rights and freedom of emigration.
Whilst this proved to be a turning point and a major victory for the campaign to free Soviet Jewry, it was enormously frustrating for Kissinger, whose principal objective was to bring about detente with the Soviet Union, even if that required ignoring human rights violations including the persecution of his own people...
There were other occasions when Kissinger adopted inexplicably negative attitudes relating to Jews. For example, he opposed the construction of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington claiming that it would provide too high a profile for the Jews and reignite anti-Semitism.
...Menachem Rosensaft of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors called on Jewish organizations which had previously honored Kissinger, to strip him of his honorary doctorates, medals and awards. He caustically suggested that Kissinger still felt closer to Germany than to his Jewishness, noting that in 2007 when receiving a medal from the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, Kissinger had referred vaguely to "the difficulties of my childhood" and then went on to lavishly praise Germany without making any reference to Nazism or the Holocaust.
...God help us from dependency on [such] Jews [like Kissinger,] appointed or elected to public office ...
Few would be shocked with details of further anti-Semitic outbursts by former president Richard Nixon revealed in the latest transcripts of tapes released from the Nixon library. He was a vulgar man whose foul mouthing extended beyond Jews to Afro-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans and other ethnic groups.
...Nixon's anti-Semitism primarily amounted to appalling negative stereotyping. But he did employ a Jewish Secretary of State and, according to his Jewish speechwriter William Safire, his heroes included Benjamin Disraeli, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter and Herman Wouk.
... despite his unsavory character and negative traits, ...during the 1973 Yom Kippur War [Nixon] overruled his Jewish Secretary of State [Henry Kissinger] who sought to delay arms to Israel in order to boost Sadat and make Israel more pliable in negotiating with the Egyptians. Nixon's massive weapons airlift provided Israel with desperately needed arms. ...We should remain eternally grateful to him for having avoided countless additional Israeli casualties and possibly even having averted a disaster for the Jewish State.
 |
| Kissinger: antisemitic "Court Jew" with Nixon |
...We are now privy to Kissinger's notorious outburst to Nixon following a meeting with Golda Meir during which she pleaded for the White House to support efforts to free Soviet Jews...
"The immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern."
He ended this obscene remark by conceding that gassing Jews "may be a humanitarian concern."
...Far from apologizing now for his outburst Kissinger justified it. In an email to the JTA, he insisted that the most callous statement about Jews ever recorded by a senior US official "had to be viewed in the context of what was happening".
Kissinger at the time had just lost a tough battle with Senator Henry Jackson who had managed to persuade Congress to adopt the Jackson-Vanik amendment linking trade with the Soviet Union to the extension of human rights and freedom of emigration.
Whilst this proved to be a turning point and a major victory for the campaign to free Soviet Jewry, it was enormously frustrating for Kissinger, whose principal objective was to bring about detente with the Soviet Union, even if that required ignoring human rights violations including the persecution of his own people...
There were other occasions when Kissinger adopted inexplicably negative attitudes relating to Jews. For example, he opposed the construction of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington claiming that it would provide too high a profile for the Jews and reignite anti-Semitism.
...Menachem Rosensaft of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors called on Jewish organizations which had previously honored Kissinger, to strip him of his honorary doctorates, medals and awards. He caustically suggested that Kissinger still felt closer to Germany than to his Jewishness, noting that in 2007 when receiving a medal from the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, Kissinger had referred vaguely to "the difficulties of my childhood" and then went on to lavishly praise Germany without making any reference to Nazism or the Holocaust.
...God help us from dependency on [such] Jews [like Kissinger,] appointed or elected to public office ...
Thursday, December 16, 2010
'Stuxnet virus set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2 years'
From JPost, 15 December 2010, by YAAKOV KATZ:
The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years....
...[Top German computer consultant] Langer said ... “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”
...Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, said that Iran had suspended work at its nuclear-field production facilities, likely a result of the Stuxnet virus.
According to Langer, Iran’s best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most “advanced and aggressive malware in history.” ...
Widespread speculation has named Israel’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200, known for its advanced Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, as the possible creator of the software, as well as the United States...
The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years....
...[Top German computer consultant] Langer said ... “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”
...Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, said that Iran had suspended work at its nuclear-field production facilities, likely a result of the Stuxnet virus.
According to Langer, Iran’s best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most “advanced and aggressive malware in history.” ...
“It is extremely difficult to clean up installations from Stuxnet...Just to get their systems running again they have to get rid of the virus, and this will take time, and then they need to replace the equipment, and they have to rebuild the centrifuges at Natanz and possibly buy a new turbine for Bushehr.”
Widespread speculation has named Israel’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200, known for its advanced Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, as the possible creator of the software, as well as the United States...
Jordan hedges its bets with Iran
From Ynet News, 12 December 2010:
Jordan's King Abdullah II said Sunday he was seeking "practical steps" to improve his frosty relations with Iran, a contrast to his regime's frequent criticism of Iran's policies.
...Abdullah has been one of Iran's harshest critics in recent years, warning that its growing influence in the region could undermine him and other pro-American moderates.
The Royal Court statement said Abdullah accepted Ahmadinejad's invitation to visit Tehran soon, but no date was set.
...As early as 2004, Abdullah warned of Iran's growing influence in Iraq and the rest of the region.
In US cables released by WikiLeaks, US Ambassador to Jordan Stephen Beecroft quoted Jordanian officials describing Iran as an "octopus" whose tentacles "reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates."
Iran's "tentacles" include Qatar, Syria, the militant Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, an Iraqi government linked to Iran and Shiite communities across the Mideast, according to the cables.
Jordan's King Abdullah II said Sunday he was seeking "practical steps" to improve his frosty relations with Iran, a contrast to his regime's frequent criticism of Iran's policies.
...Abdullah has been one of Iran's harshest critics in recent years, warning that its growing influence in the region could undermine him and other pro-American moderates.
The Royal Court statement said Abdullah accepted Ahmadinejad's invitation to visit Tehran soon, but no date was set.
...As early as 2004, Abdullah warned of Iran's growing influence in Iraq and the rest of the region.
In US cables released by WikiLeaks, US Ambassador to Jordan Stephen Beecroft quoted Jordanian officials describing Iran as an "octopus" whose tentacles "reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates."
Iran's "tentacles" include Qatar, Syria, the militant Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, an Iraqi government linked to Iran and Shiite communities across the Mideast, according to the cables.
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