Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Two articles about Zionism, from different angles

Zionism is no more nor less than the self-determination of the Jewish people -- as a people, and not just as adherents of the Jewish religion. Jews are in fact the only people – as a people -- for whom Israel (ancient Judea and Samaria) was ever their national homeland. Those who deny Zionism thus deny Jewish peoplehood and the fundamental right of Jews to live as a people in their own ancestral homeland, Israel.

Unique in the world, Jews are both a people and adherents of a religion. Intrinsic to and inseparable from the religion of Judaism is the land of Israel; more specifically, the centrality of and longing for Jerusalem and its Temple. Deny that centrality and you rip the heart and soul out of Judaism. Those who deny the right of the Jews to Israel and Jerusalem deny the right of the Jews to their own religion.

Judaism is like a stool supported on three legs – the nation, the religion and the land. Saw off any of these legs and the stool collapses. Does this mean that all Jews are Zionists? Of course not, no more than it means that all Jews are religious. But just as the hatred of Jews on theological grounds has always threatened the lives and safety of all Jews including those who are not religious, so the anti-Zionist hatred of Jewish self-determination is a form of bigotry which threatens the lives and safety of all Jews, whether or not they are Zionists. And the fact that there are some anti-Zionist Jews who themselves hate the expression of Jewish self-determination in the form of the State of Israel is a manifestation of that same self-same bigotry no less for being such a tragically twisted example.

The anti-Zionist madness of our time is thus far more pernicious even than hatred of Israel, pathologically obsessive and malevolent as that is in itself. Bad enough that for so many people in Britain and the west, Israel has been successfully demonised as a pariah state on the basis of a unique systematic campaign of falsehoods, distortions and libels about its history and behaviour, untruths which have nevertheless become the unchallenged basis for public discussion.

But far worse even than this is the assumption underlying this lazy defamation, that Zionism is a creed that is itself a particularly aggressive kind of racism or colonialism. This vicious prejudice has turned truth, reason and decency inside out. The right of the Jews to their own historic national homeland has been recast, entirely falsely, as a usurpation of the ‘right’ to that land of ‘Palestinians’ – who never actually existed as a discrete people in the first place. Those Jews who are Zionists now find themselves as a result cast as racists and social pariahs – merely for asserting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own historic homeland.

Those who are driven by a vicious and bigoted hatred have thus been allowed to cast the victims of their hatred as themselves hateful people. Zionist Jews are thus defamed and victimised many times over – and by those who have the gall to claim the moral high ground in doing so, from luvvies Emma Thompson and Ken Loach to the boycotters and thugs who harass and bully Zionist Jews on campus.

Read the whole thing.

And from a completely different direction, from Michael Totten:

“Are you Zionists?”

My colleague Armin Rosen and I were supposed to be conducting the interview. Instead, we were put on the defensive before we could even ask our first question.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Nope,” Armin said. “I don’t have a Zionist bone in my body.”

We were at the headquarters for the UGGT, Tunisia’s biggest labor union, in the small city of Kasserine just down the road from Sidi Bouzid where the revolution—and the region-wide Arab Spring generally—began at the tail end of 2010 when fruit vendor Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest crooked and onerous government regulation.

Four men sat in the union office with us. Armin and I wanted to hear about what happened in the early days of the revolt against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s autocratic regime, but they were in no mood to share such information with Zionists.

Our translator Ahmed Medien, a young and—shall we say—more cosmopolitan journalist based in the capital, Tunis, sat with us.

“What if we were Zionists?” I said, directing my question to Ahmed as much as to our interlocutors.

“They wouldn’t talk to you,” he said.

I was annoyed and tempted to say, never mind then, we’re done here. How would they feel if I opened an interview by asking if they were terrorists? Part of me wanted to get thrown out of their office, not because I itch for fights on the job, but because I learn as much from one interview that goes off the rails as I do from six that are predictable. But I don’t sabotage interviews. That’s up to the folks on the other side of the table. And anyway, conversations like this one that merely go wobbly, rather than implode catastrophically, can also be more revealing than typical ones.

Did I lie when I said I wasn’t a Zionist? What’s a Zionist, anyway? A person who thinks Israel has a right to exist? If so, then, yes, I suppose I’m a Zionist, or perhaps just a Zionist sympathizer since I am not Jewish. But these working-class mustachios in Tunisia’s back-of-beyond have another, more phantasmagorical, definition of the notorious Z-word. I’m certainly not a Zionist as they define one. Neither is Armin Rosen.

“We are not against Jews,” said the man behind the desk in whose office we sat, “but Zionists didn’t go to Palestine to coexist peacefully with Arab nations. They went there to take land from Palestinians and kill them. This is not a country that wants to peacefully coexist. This is a country that wants war between Arab nations.”

This is nonsense on stilts, of course, and since he and his colleagues wanted to know if Armin and I support that, then, no, neither of us lied, not really, when we said we weren’t Zionists.

(h/t Mohammed the Teddy Bear)

Tunisia is moderate and even liberal compared with other Arabic-speaking countries, but the place still suffers from a heady case of Israel Derangement Syndrome. More than half the people I interviewed complained about Israel at least once even when I didn’t ask about it. Not a single one of these people—not a one—based their complaint in reality. They were jousting with a fantasy Israel that only exists in their minds.

"Human rights orgs" double-down on Tamimi

I noted last week that the EU and Amnesty International regard Bassem Tamimi as a "prisoner of conscience" and a "human rights defender" even though he was convicted of encouraging kids to throw stones at Israeli soldiers.

I mentioned that an Amnesty official visited the Tamimi family and reported, without a shred of verification, that the family's "curtains [are] burned from tear gas shot by the Israeli army into the house."

I emailed the IDF, asking if IDF allows firing tear gas into houses. The answer I received was "IDF regulations do not allow for the firing of tear gas into a house. Tear gas is used only for riot dispersal."

A reader sent my blog comments to both the EU and Amnesty's office in Amsterdam.

Amnesty's reply is priceless, as it defends itself without any evidence besides its own sterling record:

Dear Mr. XXXX.

Amnesty International regards mister Bassam Tamimi as a prisoner of conscience, who is imprisoned solely because of his role in organizing peaceful protests against the encroachement on Palestinian lands by Israeli colonists.

Therefore, in our view, he should be released immediately and unconditionally.

The underpinning of our work is solid and reliable information.

We attach much value to the checking and double-checking of all information we receive.

Hence, Amnesty reaches the above conclusions after extensive investigation of this case.

Amnesty’s strenghth is reliability.

Amnesty only acts after very thorough investigation.

At Amnesty's headquarter in London, information on human rights abuses from around the world is collected and analyzed.

Amnesty also sends research teams to investigate the human rights situation on location. During such missions Amnesty talks to victims, lawyers, local human rights activists, the government and is present at court cases.

The research is done by a team of experts, supported by specialists in different areas like international justice, media and technology.

Only when our researchers are convinced about a case will Amnesty take action. This approach guarantees that our organisation is always capable of exposing human rights abuses without error.

Through this methodology our organisation is always capable of exposing human rights abuses in a reliable way.

With kind regards,

Wim Roelofsen,
Publieksvoorlichting

Twelve paragraphs of "proof by assertion." The vignette on the Amnesty site proves every one of these assertions wrong, as Amnesty did not follow up about the "tear gas" claim and reports it as fact.

As far as Tamimi goes, the EU did not respond to my reader's query. But HRW has now added itself to the gang of people who claim, falsely, that the conviction of Tamimi was based on the testimony of a child:

An Israeli military court’s conviction on May 20, 2012, of a Palestinian activist, Bassem Tamimi, of leading illegal demonstrations violates his right to freedom of assembly, while its conviction of him on a second charge of urging children to throw stones on the basis of a child’s coercively-obtained statement raises serious concerns about the fairness of his trial, Human Rights Watch said today. The court sentenced Tamimi on May 29 to 13 months in prison, which he has already served, as well as a 17-month suspended sentence.

“The Israeli military authorities seem to have known it would be hard to justify convicting an activist for only leading peaceful protests, so they apparently used oppressive methods to produce evidence that he also encouraged children to throw stones,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

[Tamimi] was further convicted of soliciting children and youths to throw stones on the basis of evidence that, the court said, rested to a decisive degree on a statement obtained by police interrogators from a 15-year-old Palestinian boy whom soldiers had arrested at gunpoint late at night. They questioned the boy for more than four hours the following morning, after he had not slept, without letting him have a parent or lawyer present. In that statement, the boy said that Tamimi had encouraged youths to throw stones, but in court the boy retracted his statement and said the police had instructed him to incriminate Tamimi.

As I noted last week, the judge specifically ignored most the testimony of a minor and a young adult because she did not believe their testimony and because of inconsistencies - yet HRW is saying that the conviction was based primarily on this evidence.

Reading further, Amnesty admits that the judge noted that the 14-year old's testimony (of a relative of Tamimi's) was not coerced based on the fact that he was laughing during the interrogation and that police asked him if he wanted to sleep and he declined. Amnesty also admits that the judge noted there was corroborating evidence that Tamimi was directing children to throw stones, as he was gesturing from a roof towards soldiers while on a cell phone. So even though the court proceedings were completely transparent, including the videotaping of the interrogations and the reasoning behind the conviction, Amnesty and the EU are flatly stating that the judge is acting politically and not according to legal standards.

HRW also admits that there is regularly stone throwing at these weekly demonstrations. Yet Tamimi is a "peace activist."

Arab Racism: The story the Left ignores

Here's a story about racism that was published three days ago, but that was ignored in the major leftist websites. Wonder why?

From The Economist:

THE multilingual, fashion-conscious residents of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, fancy their city to be cosmopolitan. But not everyone is welcome. Black people and foreigners from Asia and elsewhere in the third world who make up the bulk of migrant workers are often turned away from the city’s smarter venues. Conscious of the bad blood this can cause, Lebanon’s government has warned beach clubs against barring entry on the basis of race, nationality or disability.

But racism is unlikely to be erased overnight, either in Lebanon or in many other Middle Eastern countries where blacks are routinely looked down on. Racist taunts are often heard on Egypt’s streets, and in Yemen, darker-skinned people, known as al-akhdam (“the servants”), who make up perhaps 5% of the population, are confined to menial jobs and tend to dwell in slums. In Libya rebel militias often targeted darker-skinned people from nearby countries such as Chad and Mali and from countries further south, accusing them of being mercenaries of Muammar Qaddafi.

Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Chinese-Americans, among others, whisper of racist slurs both at work and on Lebanon’s streets. “When black or Asian friends visit,” says a young Lebanese professional, “I’m at the airport the moment they land to make sure immigration officers don’t ask inappropriate questions. It’s a disgrace.”

Some people blame the legacy of the slave trade, which brought sub-Saharan Africans, as well as others, to the region from the 7th century onwards. But Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group says that racism persists in the region because governments have been lax about tackling it. “There are racists everywhere in the world, but in many countries it is now taboo to make comments, partly because there are laws against it,” he says. “Here, even when there is legislation, it is never applied.”

Snobbery makes things worse. Millions of foreigners in the Middle East do cleaning and building jobs which locals consider beneath them. Sponsorship schemes often deny such workers basic rights. “People just see us as cheap labour,” says a Filipino university graduate who makes $200 a month in a Beirut beauty parlour. Some beach clubs have already said they will ignore the new regulation. Their customers, they say, would not tolerate having to rub shoulders with the dark-skinned servant class.

Will there be any soul-searching in the Arab world about this explicit racism? Will the "pro-Palestinian" crowd notice that Arab racism makes the bigotry of some Israelis pale by comparison? Will there be follow-up stories in the media about this, which might shame some Arabs?

No, no and no.

(h/t D)

16 year old Copt gets 3 years in prison for cartoon on Facebook

From Egypt Independent:

An Egyptian court on Tuesday upheld a three year sentence against a 16-year-old Christian student for posting a drawing on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohamed.

The Assiut Court of Appeals said that it has found Gamal Abdu Massoud guilty of defaming religion, state-run news service MENA reported on Tuesday.

Massoud published the cartoons in December, then some Muslims reacted angrily by attacking Christians and burning houses in the Manqabad village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population.

In April, Assiut juvenile court sentenced him to three years in prison.

According to Article 98(f) of the Penal Code, “Confinement for a period of not less than six months and not exceeding five years… shall be the penalty inflicted on whoever makes use of religion in propagating, either by words, in writing, or in any other means, extreme ideas for the purpose of inciting strife, ridiculing or insulting a heavenly religion or a sect following it, or damaging national unity.”

According to reports, this was the offensive cartoon, which makes this painfully ironic.

Naturally, most news outlets following the case refused to publish this cartoon.

Wall map excludes Israel

From the JC:

An interior design company has had to "re-draw" a wall world map which omitted Israel for being "too small."

Customer Joanna Koenigsberg, of Sidcup, planned to decorate walls in her new home with panels in different designs from online company Binary Box. But two of the company's map designs, one labelled with country names and one covered in different flags in the shapes of countries, each omitted Israel, giving Jordan a Mediterranean coastline.

Ms Koenigsberg said: "I was saddened because I really liked these designs, but I can't accept this fiddling with the truth."
After being contacted by the JC, the company said it was an "error" and was not politically motivated. Aidan Stonehouse, graphic designer at Binary Box, said the sticker panel had been redesigned to include Israel.

Ms Koenigsberg said she was pleased with the response, and said the company had sent her the new designs. "Of course we have no idea how many were sold of the old ones, or who designed them, but it was a decent response. I don't feel there was any political element to the oversight."

Here's part of the map; see if you agree it was an oversight. (Notice that Lebanon is missing as well.)

"Zionists using job ads to gather information"

Hamas newspaper Palestine Times reveals the Mossad's latest plan on recruiting informants: placing ads for fake jobs in Palestinian Arab media.

According to the article, Israel is placing ads for bogus jobs with attractive salaries attractive and good benefits, just to gather job applications and resumes. The applications ask for name, address, skills, achievements and personal qualities, e-mail addresses and phone number, all of which are valuable intelligence information.

The article admits that marketers use similar tactics to gather email addresses and phone numbers for spam and other marketing schemes.

One of the proofs the article gives that the Mossad is behind the ads is that one of the ads asked where the applicant lived - and mentioned Rafah separately from Gaza, indicating that the people who placed the ad were trying to gather information about smugglers in Rafah.

While I can believe that Israeli intelligence would use methods like this to gather information, it is equally plausible that Hamas would do the same, for example in order to discover any smuggling tunnels that are not yet being taxed.

"Israelis unfurled Zionist flag on Al Aqsa Mosque"

The latest rumor started by the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation is that Israelis who visited the Temple Mount yesterday unfurled a huge Israeli flag. This one reached AFP:

Soldiers on Monday violated the status quo on the esplanade of the mosques in east Jerusalem by raising Israel’s flag, the head of the Islamic Waqf organization that oversees the compound charged.

“More than 180 soldiers from a special Israeli army unit today raised a large Israeli flag opposite the mosque of the Rock, which is a grave provocation,” Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib told AFP.

They have lots of photos of Israelis on the Mount, but not one shows any flag.

Sheikh Azzam al Khatib declared scenes like the ones above "catastrophic."

Last year they freaked out over a Photoshopped picture of an Israeli flag on top of the Dome of the Rock.

By the way, last week's rumor was that the Jews were planting fake graves all over the area of the Temple Mount, through Silwan and to the Mount of Olives, in a land-grab. That rumor has now reached the Arab League where they condemned this alleged practice.

Of course, Muslims have been known to place fake graves in areas in Jerusalem, so this looks like more projection.

Richard Millett's review of Habima's Merchant of Venice

Richard Millett does a great job reviewing the Habima Theater's production of The Merchant of Venice last night in London.

Two points he makes are worth noting here:

There was also a pen for Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists. One PSC man had donned a mask with a big nose, but swore it wasn’t an anti-Semitic gesture.

I asked some of the PSC lot whether they saw the recent production of Richard II by the Palestinian theatre company also at The Globe. They said they didn’t as it was a matinee and they had work commitments. They must have conveniently failed to spot the Saturday performance at 7.30pm then; proof, if ever it was needed, that PSC activists don’t give a damn about the Palestinians.

PA officials attend free Israeli agricultural training

From COGAT:

From May 21 to 23rd, twenty-four Palestinian officials, mostly agricultural engineers, attended a three-day seminar on agricultural technologies, plant protection, and fertilisers in Netanya. The lectures were delivered by Israeli experts, professors and officials from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture.

“This workshop is intended to provide information about technologies that we use in Israel to protect and improve crops in open-fields and green houses”, said Ayman Assad, from the Agriculture Department at the Civil Administration.

The seminar is one of many Israeli-Palestinian workshops planned for 2012. “Through these workshops we are improving the relationship, cooperation and communication with the Palestinian Authority”, added Ayman Assad. The Civil Administration offers full board to the Palestinian guests, including travel and meal coverage.

Sitting by the hotel swimming pool during lunch break, Najud, a 23 year-old agricultural engineer from Jericho confides: “I’m happy to learn here, the lectures are very intense and I wish we had more time to visit!”

The Agriculture Department of the Civil Administration works with Palestinian farmers in the field to find out more about problems affecting their trade. Based on this, the Ministry of Agriculture organizes seminars, lectures and training in Israel to increase the quality and output of Palestinian crops, explained Shlomo Ekaïam from the Ministry.

“Palestinians and Israeli consumers eat fruit and vegetables coming from Israel and the West Bank, so we collectively strive for the best agricultural standards”, he added.

Muhammad Saïd Lahan, Director of the Flower and Vegetable Protection and Preservation Department at the Palestinian Authority knows Netanya well: “I came here many times, maybe 8 or 10 times. It is important for our team to come because 16 of us are young engineers who need experience and more field-training.”

On Wednesday, the Palestinian delegation was taken to Beit Shean for training on open-fields.

“We also organize seminars in Ramallah in our own Ministry or abroad where we are often invited”, added Mr. Lahan.

Agriwashing, again! Those Israelis have no shame!

"McDonald's Happy Meal toy insults Mohammed"

From Raymond Ibrahim at Gatestone Institute:

Saudi Arabians are angry at a McDonald's toy which they say mocks their prophet Muhammad. According to a report appearing today (5/27/12) on the Arabic news website, Kermalkom.com, the McDonald's fast food restaurant "abused the Prophet Muhammad by placing his name at the base of a toy that is being distributed as part of the Happy Meal, a toy which steps on the name 'Muhammad.'"

The toy consists of a blue superhero figurine (apparently a Power Ranger Samurai. It stands on one leg, and, when the lever is pressed, it pounds on the base with the other leg. According to the Saudis, the designs that appear all around the base, where the figurine stomps its foot, is really the name "Muhammad" written several times in circles.

The toy had been distributed a few days before Saudi children and their parents began to take note of the name. Soon thereafter, Saudi Muslims launched several campaigns against McDonald's in "response to the savage attacks on the noble Prophet," under banners like "Help your Prophet!" and "Together in support of the Prophet."

Saudis, "demanding the strongest possible punishment for the restaurant" and insisting that "they will not be silent until this is realized," further complained how such an obvious insult could pass the supervision of the management at McDonalds.

In response, "Saudi McDonald's" has withdrawn the toy from all its restaurants, "in order to safeguard against any accusations or misunderstandings."

Get ready to seethe:

And, just in case you cannot see the obvious allusion to Mohammed in the squiggle, this site makes it clear as day:

Calligraphic Mohammed

Waiting for the fatwa....

(h/t Ian)

Democracy, Egyptian-style

Egypt's runoff elections will be between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi and former PM Ahmed Shafiq.

So supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood decided to burn down Shafiq's headquarters:

A group of protesters stormed the campaign headquarters of presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq late Monday night, ransacking and burning the offices there.

A secretary working at the campaign offices, Heba Hamed, told Egypt Independent that the campaign workers were notified to leave before the fire started and that the intruders had been apprehended. The fire was later extinguished.

An eyewitness told Egypt Independent that some 400 people arrived from the direction of Tahrir Square chanting against feloul, or remnants of the former regime. They broke into the villa near Vini Square in Dokki that hosts Shafiq's offices, and then stole computers and documents and threw some into the street.

If Shafiq wins the runoff, it is clear that those against him will simply start a new violent revolution.

That seems to be the lesson that some Egyptians have learned from the revolution: not that democracy is the way to go, but that protests are the way to get the government you want. If it doesn't work the first time, keep trying.

Ya'alon hints Israel might be behind "Flame" malware

Wired reports on a newly discovered cyber weapon that dwarfs Stuxnet in complexity:

A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation.

The malware, discovered by Russia-based anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab, is an espionage toolkit that has been infecting targeted systems in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa for at least two years.

Dubbed “Flame” by Kaspersky, the malicious code dwarfs Stuxnet in size – the groundbreaking infrastructure-sabotaging malware that is believed to have wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 and 2010. Although Flame has both a different purpose and composition than Stuxnet, and appears to have been written by different programmers, its complexity, the geographic scope of its infections and its behavior indicate strongly that a nation-state is behind Flame, rather than common cyber-criminals — marking it as yet another tool in the growing arsenal of cyberweaponry.

The researchers say that Flame may be part of a parallel project created by contractors who were hired by the same nation-state team that was behind Stuxnet and its sister malware, DuQu.

“Stuxnet and Duqu belonged to a single chain of attacks, which raised cyberwar-related concerns worldwide,” said Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, in a statement. “The Flame malware looks to be another phase in this war, and it’s important to understand that such cyber weapons can easily be used against any country.”

Early analysis of Flame by the Lab indicates that it’s designed primarily to spy on the users of infected computers and steal data from them, including documents, recorded conversations and keystrokes. It also opens a backdoor to infected systems to allow the attackers to tweak the toolkit and add new functionality.

The malware, which is 20 megabytes when all of its modules are installed, contains multiple libraries, SQLite3 databases, various levels of encryption — some strong, some weak — and 20 plug-ins that can be swapped in and out to provide various functionality for the attackers. It even contains some code that is written in the LUA programming language — an uncommon choice for malware.

Kaspersky Lab is calling it “one of the most complex threats ever discovered.”

“It’s pretty fantastic and incredible in complexity,” said Alexander Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Lab.

Flame appears to have been operating in the wild as early as March 2010, though it remained undetected by antivirus companies.

“It’s a very big chunk of code. Because of that, it’s quite interesting that it stayed undetected for at least two years,” Gostev said. He noted that there are clues that the malware may actually date back to as early as 2007, around the same time-period when Stuxnet and DuQu are believed to have been created.

Gostev says that because of its size and complexity, complete analysis of the code may take years.

“It took us half-a-year to analyze Stuxnet,” he said. “This is 20-times more complicated. It will take us 10 years to fully understand everything.”

Kaspersky discovered the malware about two weeks ago after the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union asked the Lab to look into reports in April that computers belonging to the Iranian Oil Ministry and the Iranian National Oil Company had been hit with malware that was stealing and deleting information from the systems. The malware was named alternatively in news articles as “Wiper” and “Viper,” a discrepancy that may be due to a translation mixup.

Kaspersky researchers searched through their reporting archive, which contains suspicious filenames sent automatically from customer machines so the names can be checked against whitelists of known malware, and found an MD5 hash and filename that appeared to have been deployed only on machines in Iran and other Middle East countries. As the researchers dug further, they found other components infecting machines in the region, which they pieced together as parts of Flame.

Kaspersky, however, is currently treating Flame as if it is not connected to Wiper/Viper, and believes it is a separate infection entirely. The researchers dubbed the toolkit “Flame” after the name of a module inside it.

Among Flame’s many modules is one that turns on the internal microphone of an infected machine to secretly record conversations that occur either over Skype or in the computer’s near vicinity; a module that turns Bluetooth-enabled computers into a Bluetooth beacon, which scans for other Bluetooth-enabled devices in the vicinity to siphon names and phone numbers from their contacts folder; and a module that grabs and stores frequent screenshots of activity on the machine, such as instant-messaging and email communications, and sends them via a covert SSL channel to the attackers’ command-and-control servers.

The malware also has a sniffer component that can scan all of the traffic on an infected machine’s local network and collect usernames and password hashes that are transmitted across the network. The attackers appear to use this component to hijack administrative accounts and gain high-level privileges to other machines and parts of the network.

Flame does contain a module named Viper, adding more confusion to the Wiper/Viper issue, but this component is used to transfer stolen data from infected machines to command-and-control servers. News reports out of Iran indicated the Wiper/Viper program that infected the oil ministry was designed to delete large swaths of data from infected systems.

Although the Flame toolkit does not appear to have been written by the same programmers who wrote Stuxnet and DuQu, it does share a few interesting things with Stuxnet.

Stuxnet is believed to have been written through a partnership between Israel and the United States, and was first launched in June 2009. It is widely believed to have been designed to sabotage centrifuges used in Iran’s uranium enrichment program. DuQu was an espionage tool discovered on machines in Iran, Sudan, and elsewhere in 2011 that was designed to steal documents and other data from machines. Stuxnet and DuQu appeared to have been built on the same framework, using identical parts and using similar techniques.

But Flame doesn’t resemble either of these in framework, design or functionality.

Stuxnet and DuQu were made of compact and efficient code that was pared down to its essentials. Flame is 20 megabytes in size, compared to Stuxnet’s 500 kilobytes, and contains a lot of components that are not used by the code by default, but appear to be there to provide the attackers with options to turn on post-installation.

“It was obvious DuQu was from the same source as Stuxnet. But no matter how much we looked for similarities [in Flame], there are zero similarities,” Gostev said. “Everything is completely different, with the exception of two specific things.”

One of these is an interesting export function in both Stuxnet and Flame, which may turn out to link the two pieces of malware upon further analysis, Gostev said. The export function allows the malware to be executed on the system.

Also, like Stuxnet, Flame has the ability to spread by infecting USB sticks using the autorun and .lnk vulnerabilities that Stuxnet used. It also uses the same print spooler vulnerability that Stuxnet used to spread to computers on a local network. This suggests that the authors of Flame may have had access to the same menu of exploits that the creators of Stuxnet used.

The researchers say they don’t know yet how an initial infection of Flame occurs on a machine before it starts spreading. The malware has the ability to infect a fully patched Windows 7 computer, which suggests that there may be a zero-day exploit in the code that the researchers have not yet found.

Iran admits losing lots of data to Flame:

Iranian authorities have admitted that malicious software dubbed Flame has attacked it, and instructed to run an urgent inspection of all computer systems in the country.

Iran's MAHER Center said Tuesday that the Flame virus "has caused substantial damage" and that "massive amounts of data have been lost."

The center, which is part of Iran's Communication's Ministry said that the virus' level of complexity, accuracy and high-functionality – noted mostly by the information corrupted – indicated that there is a "relation" to the Stuxnet virus.

Iranian experts said that Flame was able to overcome 43 different anti-virus programs.

While no one knows who is behind "the most sophisticated virus of all times," the bottom line, computer experts say, is that only a state could have developed such a complex virus.

And Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon hinted that Israel might be that state:

"Anyone who sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat will likely take various countermeasures, including, to hurt them," said Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya'alon, in an interview with program "Good Morning Israel" with Golan Yochpaz. "Israel is blessed as a country rich in high technology; these tools we have open all sorts of possibilities to us."

(h/t Yoel)

Gazan union prefers unsafe water to Israeli desalination

Ma'an reports, poorly:

The union of Palestinian contractors on Monday announced a boycott a UN agency that allows Israeli firms to bid for construction work in the Gaza Strip.

The union said contractors would boycott all work for UNICEF "until they backtrack from their decision to take offers from Israeli companies and equate them with Palestinian companies."

Urging all local and official organizations to follow suit, the union said in a statement that hiring Israeli firms for projects in Gaza would reward Israel's siege of the enclave and destroy the Palestinian economy.

The decision to boycott followed a meeting between union leaders and UNICEF special representative Jean Gough.

Really? Israeli firms are bidding to do construction work in Gaza, where their workers would be in grave danger?

You have to read further to see what is really going on:

In a statement, Gough said UNICEF purchased goods and services through a competitive bid process "from qualified Palestinian manufacturers, authorized dealers and companies.

"We only buy from other providers when goods are not available."

That changes things a little. And what might these goods be?

UNICEF is building a desalination unit in the Gaza Strip. The UN has estimated that almost 95 percent of water pumped in Gaza is unfit for drinking.

"We are committed to work with our Palestinian partners to ensure that this unit can be built without delay and with the best quality materials available, so that it can benefit Palestinian children as soon as possible," Gough said.

"The final decision on the continuation of this project is in the hands of our Palestinian counterparts and stakeholder."

UNICEF spokeswoman Catherine Weibel told Ma'an that the agency had invited bids from authorized dealers and manufacturers for the project but no company had yet been hired.

Ah, so it is specialized desalination equipment that is up for bid, not "construction work." And Israel is a leader in that field.

So Palestinian Arab contractors, who don't care in the least if UNICEF pays double for non-Israeli products, are prepared to force UNICEF to bar products from Israel in their normal competitive bid process.

The Ma'an story doesn't quite capture the cynicism that is being shown here, where the health of Gazans is being politicized in order to make a ridiculous point - ridiculous because Gazans prefer to buy Israeli goods for their own families when given a choice.

Habima's "Merchant of Venice" goes on despite interruptions

From BBC:

A performance of The Merchant of Venice by Israel's Habima theatre company has taken place at Shakespeare's Globe in London amid protests by pro-Palestinian activists.

Around 15 protesters were led or carried out during the performance after unfurling banners and Palestinian flags.

The actual performance carried on despite the disruptions.

The Hebrew-language production has proved controversial since a group of high-profile stage names called for the Globe to boycott the company over its performances in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

On Monday late afternoon there were small-scale demonstrations outside the Globe by both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups.

There was also a police presence outside the theatre, while a private security firm was employed inside the building.

About 10 minutes into the play, a banner reading "Israel Apartheid leave the stage" was unfurled from the first-floor balcony accompanied by several Palestinian flags.

Security men moved in and several people were removed, some of them saying "No violence!"

Other protesters showed peace signs or stood up with tape over their mouths.

Audience members who attempted to take photos were asked to stop by stewards.

More banners and flags were unfurled on two more occasions before the interval.

As the protesters were removed, some shouted "Free Palestine!"

After the interval, a man standing in front of the stage was ejected after shouting: "Hath a Palestinian not eyes?" in a twist on Shylock's famous speech.

Another performance of The Merchant of Venice is due to take place on Tuesday.

The idea that the protests were because Habima performed in Ariel, and not simply because it is Israeli, is a lie. The protesters themselves admit it:

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, co-ordinator with the Boycott Israel Network, said: "This campaign is not an attack on individual artists, we are not censoring the content of their work nor are we concerned about their ethnicity or the language they speak.

"As with South African sport in the apartheid era, this is about refusing to allow culture to be used to whitewash oppression."

This quote also shows that contrary to the BBC's assertion that these were "pro-Palestinian activists," they are simply anti-Israel bullies.

Chag sameach!

The holiday of Shavuot starts on Saturday night, so I will not be blogging until Monday night at the earliest.

Have a Chag Sameach, and an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend for the Americans!

Video: IDF soldiers receive Purim packages from US kids

Connections Israel created a hugely successful program this year, signing up scores of Jewish schools and synagogues in North America to send customized Mishloach Manot packages to IDF soldiers and to families of terror victims on Purim.

The video was just released, and it is heartwarming to see all the drawings and letters that Jewish children wrote to support the IDF:

The best antidote to the hate that Israel receives every day is an infusion of love, and this is a beautiful way to show it.

Abbas' terror wing consolidates and reorganizes

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the terror wing of Fatah, has been somewhat splintered in recent years.

They are all still loyal to Fatah's leader, though - who is Mahmoud Abbas. He's so busy with his peaceful activities that he hasn't had the time to dismantle several organizations that are part of his own Fatah party.

The groups have announced a military unification and placing all of their weapons under a single unified military council, "from Rafah to Jenin."

A spokesperson would not confirm or deny that these moderate terrorists get funding from Iran.

Latest Latma

This is the second time I've seen them spoof a song from the Israeli musical Kazabla, and it is a good one:

Aussie anti-Israel rally: "'Zionists rape female prisoners"

From AIJAC:

The recent "Nakba Day" protests in Sydney attracted some controversy due to a ruling by NSW Supreme Court Justice Christine Adamson allowing the protesters to block peak-hour traffic in the centre of Sydney's CBD. Adamson drew particular criticism for likening "Nakba Day" -- a Palestinian commemoration of the establishment of Israel ("nabka" meaning "catastrophe" in Arabic) -- to Australia Day, Christmas Day and ANZAC Day.

That said, something far more sinister took place at the protest. A video (below), posted anonymously on Youtube, depicts various scenes from the protest set to dramatic music. The video shows a number of protesters bearing Hezbollah flags, which are a common occurence at such events, despite their military wing being listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. While the bulk of the video simply shows a few dozen people stopping traffic as expected, it takes a more concerning turn around the 8 minute mark.

At this point, an off-camera female voice begins reading what is alleged to be a "letter from a Palestinian female prisoner". A transcript is provided below, with the more shocking portions emphasised in bold.

Dear brothers, we are your sisters. Do you not hear our cries? Do you not hear our lamentations? Have the walls of our cells prevented our voices from reaching you? Or have the luxuries of your lives deafened you? Or has the pleasure of this world erased your Ghibtah [positive jealousy/ambition]? Your jealousy for your sisters from your hearts?

We are your sisters, captured in cages like animals, with zookeepers -- the Zionists. Our stomachs have been filled with children of zina [unlawful fornication] from daily rape. Our bodies are paraded naked in front of these animals while they drool over us. Our food is mixed with their faeces and our drink mixed with their urine.

Where are you, oh brothers? Where is your honour? Why have you not liberated us? Why have you not destroyed the walls of this hell we live in? Even if it means we will die with them. Wallahi [I swear to God]! Wallahi that's more honourable to us than living in there. Wallahi death to us is sweeter than being handled by them.
Crowd Members:

Khaybar Khaybar, ya Yahud! ["Khaybar Khaybar, oh Jews!" -- a reference to the Qoranic "Battle of Khaybar" -- where Mohammed conquered a Jewish town called Khaybar after a month-long siege]
Speaker:

No, not 'Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud'.

By Allah my brothers, on the Day of Judgment, after we complain to God about the injustice we've suffered at the hands of the Zionists we will complain about our brothers who sat idle while their sisters were raped. Do not let any of us give birth to one more child of zina from the descendants of Zion. We would rather have our wombs torn out and fed to the dogs.

We beseech you by Allah to guard your honour and have Gibtah -- jealousy -- for your sisters. We are your sisters and we are calling to you to save us from this terror. May Allah [indistinct] and as-salaam aleikum [peace be upon you].
Despite the speaker's rather half-hearted attempt to curb what was overtly racial villification, there is absolutely no doubt that this "letter" contains severely vitriolic and racially charged sentiments that are inciting racist chants from the crowd.

The attempt to mask the word "Jew" with "Zionist" would be laughable if there were anything remotely funny taking place. Even putting aside the fact that the allegations of Israelis raping Palestinian prisoners are completely unfounded -- such accusations are not even made by the most hostile of the many NGOs for whom criticising Israel is their raison d'etre -- the "descendants of Zion" is clearly not intended to refer to people who choose to identify with a particular ideology.

The "letter" contains the imputation that it is worth killing Palestinian prisoners in order to kill "the descendants of Zion" -- a clear endorsement of terrorist attacks that kill innocent civilians, regardless of who the victims are, so long as some Jews are amongst their number.

AIJAC notes that the Arabic "zina" usually means concensual relations, not rape, and thinks that the speaker/fake letter writer is using the word "rape" poetically but is really complaining about Jewish men sleeping with Arab women. I find it hard to believe as the letter was purportedly written from prison, and the crowd reaction is more in keeping with the literal meaning of "rape."

(h/t Ian)

Pal Muslims attack Christian village - no one reports it

A must-read from Hisham Jarallah at the Gatestone Institute:

A few weeks ago, veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon reported on the plight of Christians of the Holy Land who have been leaving the region for many years.

In large part, Simon blamed the Christian exodus on Israel.

But had Simon visited the Christian village of Taybeh in the West Bank, he would have heard "the other side to the story."

This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.

The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.

Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.

Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel's security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.

Just last week, scores of Muslim men from surrounding villages, some of the men armed with pistols and clubs, attacked Taybeh.

Fortunately, no one was harmed and no damage was caused to property.

Palestinian Authority policemen who rushed to the village had to shoot into the air to drive back the Muslim attackers and prevent a slaughter.

The attack, residents said, came after a Muslim man tried to force his way into a graduation ceremony at a girls' school in Taybeh.

The man, who had not been invited to the ceremony, complained that Christians had assaulted him. Later that day, he and dozens of other Muslims stormed the village with the purpose of seeking revenge for the "humiliation."

Were it not for the quick intervention of the Palestinian security forces, the attackers would have set fire to a number of houses and vehicles and probably killed or wounded some Christians.

Palestinian government and police officials later demanded that the Christians dispatch a delegation to the nearby Muslim villages to apologize for "insulting" the Muslim man. To avoid further escalation, the heads of Taybeh complied.

Also at the request of the Palestinian government, residents of the village were requested not to talk to the media about the incident.

Even some of the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank urged the Taybeh residents not to make a big fuss about the incident.

This was not the first time that Taybeh had come under attack. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslim men went on rampage in the village, torching homes and cars, and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, after learning that a Muslim woman had been romantically involved with a Christian businessman from the village.

The 30-year-old woman had been killed by her family.

Western journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have refused to report about the most recent attack on Taybeh, most probably because the story does not have an "anti-Israel angle."

Like Bob Simon, most Western journalists prefer to see only one side of the story. All they want is to find stories that shed a negative light on Israel.

Simon, by the way, has probably never heard of Taybeh.

The next time anyone wants to learn about the true problems facing the Christians of the Holy Land, he or she should head to Taybeh and conduct off the record and private interviews with the villagers.