Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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)