Jordanian MPs voted for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador

A majority of Jordanian MPs voted on Wednesday to seek the expulsion of Israel's ambassador to the kingdom after the Knesset debated Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Prominent lower house deputy Khalil Attieh told AFP that 86 out of 150 members of parliament voted to seek the expulsion of Israeli envoy Daniel Nevo.
The vote, which is not legally binding, came a day after 47 MPs, including Attieh, signed a motion demanding that a 1994 peace treaty with Israel be annulled.
"All deputies who attended a meeting today to discuss Israel's debate on sovereignty over Al-Aqsa voted to kick out the Israeli envoy and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel (Walid Obeidat)," Attieh said.
"This was in protest at the Knesset (Israeli parliament) debate. It is up to the government to act on the vote. If it does not, we will consider a no-confidence motion."

Israel and Saudi Arabia together against Iran?

F-15 Strike Eagle

The Sunday Times reports:
ONCE they were sworn enemies. Now Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency is working with Saudi officials on contingency plans for a possible attack on Iran if its nuclear programme is not significantly curbed in a deal that could be signed in Geneva this week.
Both the Israeli and Saudi governments are convinced that the international talks to place limits on Tehran’s military nuclear development amount to appeasement and will do little to slow its development of a nuclear warhead.
As part of the growing co-operation, Riyadh is understood already to have given the go-ahead for Israeli planes to use its airspace in the event of an attack on Iran. (For more details see also Haaretz)
(I have to add that the question Iran is not the only thing whereupon the views of the two countries converge. Think about the possible emergence of a Palestinian state. Or demcoracy in the Arab world, for that matter... )

According to Marsha Cohen (Lobelog) the Sunday Times ....
.. has once again recycled its periodic claim that Israel and Saudi Arabia are about to join forces for an attack on Iran. According to Uzi Mahnaimi, Israel’s external intelligence service, the Mossad, is formulating contingency plans with Saudi officials if Iran’s nuclear program “is not significantly curbed” in the agreement that may be signed this week in Geneva.  
Mahnaimi produced simailar scoops in 2009 and 2010, she says.

Was it (in part) Israeli fears that caused the US to change its mind on Syria?

The most remarkable news of this week was without doubt the volte face that the US has made with respect to the uprising in Syria. So far the US stand has always been to refrain from direct intervention. But at the  same time it demanded that president Assad must go and it supplied the rebels with arms, in cooperation with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Also it was at odds with Russia and China, who both refused a to let Assad down a priori and campaigned for a negotiated settlement. 

This week these differences were solved at once. The American Secretary of State John Kerry payed a visit to Moscow, during which he held lengthy meetings wit both President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. And Tuesday evening at the of the visit, both Kerry and Lavrov announced that Russia and the US have agreed to work towards convening an international conference to find a political solution to the conflict in Syria.

The conference should be convened at the end of May and must try to convince both the Syrian government and opposition to accept a solution based on the core elements of the final communique issued on 30 June 2012, after the UN-backed Action Group for Syria meeting. This meeting of a year ago called for an immediate cessation of violence and the establishment of a transitional government that could include officials serving under President Bashar al-Assad and members of the opposition. Kerry said that the conclusion e of this meeting, which was never carried out, as yet was ''the important track to end the bloodshed in Syria." And he added that 'it must not be a "piece of paper" but rather "the roadmap" for peace."The alternative is that there is even more violence," he added. "The alternative is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos."
So all at once the US dropped the demand that Assad must leave beforehand (although American offcials said that the US still prefers that he steps down)  and left the military option. Russia at the other hand is no longer so adamant that Assad stay. "We are not concerned by the fate of any individual,'' minister Lavrov said. ''We are concerned by the fate of the Syrian people." .
Apparently the US have realized that continuing this war and pushing for the fall of Assad is not bringing the desired solution. What changed the US-diplomats' mind? Was it the fact that the war - which so far already cost some 70.000 people their lives and has caused millions to flee their homes - does not seem to lead to a conclusion soon? Far that islamist factions in the end would be the winners? That Syria was on its way to become a second Iraq?   

At any rate, Abdel Bary al-Atwan, the editor in chief of the Arabic daily Al-Quds al-Arabi had an answer (I quoted this from Juan Cole's blog):

What is the secret word that caused this big change in the US stand and imposed this sudden retreat and shift from the military options that were put on the table before to diplomatic options to reach a political solution through negotiations between the rival parties that have resorted to weapons and bloody confrontations throughout the past two years?
This secret word is made up of seven letters, Israel, in addition to the fear for Israel’s existence within safe and stable borders, ridding it of the specter of war, removing the biggest danger that faces it, which is chaos, and the fear that Syria might become a base for Al-Qa`ida.

And although I doubt that this was the only reason behind the US decision to back down, Al-Atwan may have a point. Take a look for instance at these recent comments (In Foreign Affairs) on the Syrian situation by the former director of the Israeli secret service Mossad,  Efraim Halevy:

 Israel knows one important thing about the Assads: for the past 40 years, they have managed to preserve some form of calm along the border. Technically, the two countries have always been at war -- Syria has yet to officially recognize Israel -- but Israel has been able to count on the governments of Hafez and Bashar Assad to enforce the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974, in which both sides agreed to a cease-fire in the Golan Heights, the disputed vantage point along their shared border. Indeed, even when Israeli and Syrian forces were briefly locked in fierce fighting in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, the border remained quiet.
Israel does not feel as confident, though, about the parties to the current conflict, and with good reason. On the one hand, there are the rebel forces, some of whom are increasingly under the sway of al Qaeda. On the other, there are the Syrian government’s military forces, which are still under Assad’s command, but are ever more dependent on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, which is also Iranian-sponsored. Iran is the only outside state with boots on the ground in Syria, and although it is supporting Assad, it is also pressuring his government to more closely serve Iran’s goals -- including by allowing the passage of advanced arms from Syria into southern Lebanon. The recent visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Salehi to Damascus, during which he announced that Iran would not allow Assad to fall under any circumstances, further underscored the depth of Iran’s involvement in the fighting. It is entirely conceivable, in other words, that a post-Assad regime in Syria would be explicitly pro–al Qaeda or even more openly pro-Iran. Either result would be unacceptable to Israel.

Israel carries out second airstrike in Syria

Israel carried out its second air strike in days on Syria early on Sunday, a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky.
Israel declined to comment, but Syria accused the Jewish state of carrying out a raid on a military facility just north of the capital.
The explosions came soon after an Israeli official confirmed his country had carried out an air strike earlier in the week targeting missiles in Syria intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The target of Sunday's attack, according to Syrian media, was the same Jamraya military research center which was hit by Israel in another assault in January. Jamraya, on the northern approaches to Damascus, is just 15 km (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

President Assad on 4 May visited  Damascus University for the inauguration of a statue dedicated to the 'martyrs of Syrian universities'. It was his second public appearance in a week. He was greeted warmly by a large number of supporters. 

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet by activists showed a series of explosions. One lit up the skyline over the city, while another sent up a tower of flames and secondary blasts.
The Western intelligence source told Reuters Israel carried out the attack and the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles which were en route to Hezbollah. "In last night's attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah," the source said.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saidthe blasts hit Jamraya as well as a nearby ammunition depot. Other activists said a missile brigade and two Republican Guard battalions may also have been targeted in the heavily militarized area just north of Damascus.
Syria's state television said the strikes were a response to recent military gains by President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels. "The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army," it said.

Uzi Rubin, an Israeli missile expert and former defense official said the Fateh-110 missile "is better than the Scud, it has a half-ton warhead". Iran has said it adapted the missile for anti-ship use by installing a guidance system, he added.

Israel bombed target inside Syria

Israel has conducted an airstrike in Syria, apparently targeting a building, a U.S. official said on Friday.  Israeli officials confirmed Saturday the country's air force carried out a strike against Syria and say it targeted a shipment of advanced missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The officials said the attack took place early Friday and targeted sophisticated "game-changing" weapons. One official said the target was a shipment of advanced, long-range ground-to-ground missiles.
It was not immediately clear where the airstrike took place, or whether the air force carried out the strike from Lebanese or Syrian airspace. CNN quoted two unnamed U.S. officials as saying Israel's warplanes did not enter Syrian airspace.
In January this year,Israel bombed a convoy in Syria. It is believed this concerned a shipment of advanced SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles bound for Hezbollah. Israel has not formally admitted to carrying out that airstrike, though officials have strongly hinted they were behind the attack.

Syria: Israel attacked military research centre

The Syrian military has confirmed that Israeli jets have carried out an air strike on its territory, but denied reports that lorries carrying weapons bound for Lebanon were hit, the BBC reports. The Syrian army said in a statement that the target was a military research centre northwest of the capital Damascus. Two people were killed and five injured in the attack, it said.
Lebanese security sources, Western diplomats and Syrian rebels say an arms convoy was hit near Lebanon's border. The attack came as Israel voiced fears that Syrian missiles and chemical weapons could fall into the hands of militants such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.
The army statement, quoted in Syria's official media, said: "Israeli fighter jets violated our airspace at dawn today and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research centre in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence." The centre, in Jamraya, northwest of the capital Damascus, was damaged in the attack, along with an adjacent building and a car park, the statement said. It said that "armed terrorist gangs", a term the government uses to describe rebel groups, had tried and failed repeatedly to capture the same facility in recent months.The statement specifically denied reports that an arms convoy had been hit.
Hours earlier, unnamed Lebanese security sources reported that Israeli warplanes had struck lorries carrying missiles towards the Lebanese border. The Associated Press quoted a US official as saying the lorries were carrying Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles.

Sudan says Israeli planes bombed military factory in Khartoum

 

The Sudanese government says it believes Israel was responsible for explosions at a military factory in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday.

Culture and Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman said four Israeli planes attacked the factory and two people were killed. Israel has not commented.
Sudan has blamed Israel for such attacks in the past.
Correspondents say Israel believes weapons are being smuggled through the region to Gaza.
Leaked US State Department documents three years ago suggested that Sudan was secretly supplying Iranian arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In April 2011, Khartoum held Israel responsible for an air strike that killed two people in a car near the city of Port Sudan. A similar incident happened in May 2012. Israel was also blamed for a strike on a convoy in north-eastern Sudan in 2009. In all those cases it  neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

In the latest incident fire engulfed the Yarmouk plant and nearby buildings after the explosions, with flames visible over a wide area.
Residents reported seeing aircraft or missiles overhead before a number of explosions.

Oops, the Syrian nuclear factory that Israel bombed in 2007 was ....a textile plant

 Israeli warplanes in 2007 bombed the above complex in Syria, supposedly a secret nuclear
reactor in order to win plutonium for bombs. Viewed from the air, the facility closely resembled a uranium enrichment plant designed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the one-time head of an international nuclear smuggling ring. Khan had extensive contacts with Syrian leaders in the 1980s, and some nuclear experts believed he provided them with blueprints for nuclear facilities.
After a long investigation, the International Atomic Energy Agency formally concluded in May of this year that Syria “very likely” was building a secret nuclear reactor,  when Israel destroyed the partially completed project, a conclusion that opened the door to punitive measures, including a possible referral to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions.

However, in the beangtiume it has become clear that the Isareli bombs did hit a nuclear project. ´A new report concludes that the facility and its thousands of fast-spinning machines were intended to make not uranium, but cloth — a very ordinary cotton-polyester,´ the Washington Post writes.´It is, and always has been, a textile factory,´ said one of the researchers, Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear policy expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. On his blog Arms Control Wonk Lewis quotes German journalist Paul-Anton Krüger (of the Süddeutsche Zeitung) who tracked down the chief engineer of the original project in the early 1980s.Krüger: I had been following the posts about Al-Hasakah Spinning Factory with great interest, as the name of the facility and the satellite image had come across my way while I did research on the Syrian nuclear program last May. I was aware about a possible connection to AQ Khan and the planned facility in Libya, but had never gotten to the bottom of the story. After reading an ACW post about Al-Hasakah (AP On Hasaka, November 1, 2011), I browsed through the comments section. One of the readers, “b”, challenged my journalistic ambitions. “B” reiterated that the site is supposed to have had East German spinning machines replaced by newer ones in the early 2000s and added “The Germans should be able to verify that.” Well, I am German, and I decided to do just that, hoping to narrow down the dates when the facility had been built and since when it had been used as a spinning factory. And as it turned out, they were not only spinning cotton there.

Krüger was able to track down the chief engineer who built the factory when working with a firm in Karl-Marx-Stadt in East Germany (now Chemnitz), which had been commissioned by the Syrians. This engineer, Jürgen Grobe, now 62, was able to explain the somewhat odd lay-out of the factory and its storage buildings, that had been taken by the IAEA (and Israel) as designed for the manifacture of  plutonium and the storage of nuclear material. Both Lewis and Krüger conlcude that the factory was designed for the spinning of cotton and polyesters and from the eighties on has never been anything else than a textile plant. (Read their complete story here) . 

Lewis also conlcuded that this not necessarily also exonerates Syria of having nuclear ambitions. But what is clear is that Israel was wrong in bombing this facility. 

Erdoğan in Cairo, coinciding with detoriation in Egyptian-Israeli relations

The Turkisch prime-minister Erdoğan said on Sunday that the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara was in fact a 'cause for war. But befitting Turkey's grandness, we decided to act with patience,' Erdoğan said, according to excerpts taken from an interview he gave to Al Jazeera and published by the Anatolia news agency.


Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan arrived in Cairo on Monday, accompanied by a delegation of 200 Turkish businessmen who seek closer trade ties with their counterparts in Egypt. The volume of trade between the two nations has reached $3 billion annually, which is a 40 per cent jump from the last three years.  
Much of Erdoğan’s visit will focus on the establishment of a Strategic Cooperation Council between the two countries which will work to coordinate regional politicics.
Erdoğan’s visit to Egypt comes at a time when Turkey’s relationship with Israel and Iran is deteriorating. However, Turkey is expected to expand its role in the region by improving Turkish-African relations and also playing a bigger part in the Palestinian crisis, which will be solidified by Erdoğan’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later in the week.

  

The wall in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo is being brought down. (AFP)

Erdogan's visit also coincides with a detoriation in the relations between Egypt and Israel after Egyptian demonstrators on Friday broke down the wall around the Israeli embassy in Giza,  and broke in into the embassy itself, from where they removed the Israeli flag for the seond time in two weeks and threw papers out of the windows. Israel evacuated its embassy staff and their families, who said to fear for their lives. Israeli sources said that Israeli leaders were upset that Egyptian police only came into action after intruders were already in the embassy. Also Israel was angered by the fact that prime minister Netanyahu was unable to reach the leader of the Military Council SCAF, marshall Tantawi, after the news reached Jerusalem, and had to ask for help from US-president Obama, who himself also had to wait quite some time before he got Tantawi on the line. The storming of the embassy lateron led to fierce fighting between demonstrators and military police and utter chaos, that left three people dead and 1049 wounded.   
Both Egypt and Israel are saying that they are committed to the peace treaty and to continue the diplomatic relations on the same level as before, but it is obvious that the atmosphere has become cooler. Al Ahram Online reports that according to identical accounts offered by Egyptian officials and foreign diplomats in Cairo, Egypt had asked Israel before the developments of last Friday to keep the Israeli ambassador in Tel Aviv and to reduce the volume of its staff to the minimum, but Netanyahu insisted on sending the ambassador back only a few days before the latest protest.
"We are not expelling him, but we thought a long holiday for the Israeli ambassador in Egypt would be useful for all of us now; unfortunately, Israel thought otherwise and when anger erupted on Friday evening they had to solicit the intervention of the Americans who sent a plane to carry him and the rest of the staff out of Egypt," said one official.
Today, there is a tacit agreement between Egypt and Israel that the long holiday for the ambassador is in place and there are guarantees offered by Cairo to both Washington and Tel Aviv that stepped up security measures will be in place to prevent another attack on the embassy.
Meanwhile, Egypt is insisting that Israel should proceed faster with its investigation in the killing of Egyptian border guards – despite Israeli hesitation and complaints about the attack on its embassy.
"We are telling the Israelis that the authorities have to tell the public that it did not turn a blind eye to the killing of Egyptian soldiers," the same official added.

Egypt uncovers Israeli spy-ring with ramifications in Syria and Lebanon

Syrian reactor destroyed in 2007. Satellite pictures, above taken before, and under after the bombardment.  Wikileaks revealed a cable this week, sent in 2008  by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in which she confirmed that it was a nuclear reactor which was being built with help of North Korea and that it was destroyed by the Israelis.   

The confessions of an Egyptian accused of spying for Israel have led to three espionage cells being dismantled in Lebanon and Syria, where an agent was executed in November, Cairo newspapers said Friday.
Tareq Abdul Razzak, the 37-year-old owner of an import-export business, is accused of having spied for Israel together with two wanted Israelis.
Egypt, which has a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, informed Lebanon and Syria of his activities in recruiting agents after Abdul Razzak's arrest in May, Al-Masri newspaper said, quoting a security source close to the investigation.
The suspect has allegedly confessed that his two Israeli contacts had tasked him with making visits to Damascus with a fake passport and identity under the guise of business trips.The aim of the missions was to deliver sums of money to a Syrian holding a "sensitive" post with the security services.
Al-Shuruk daily said Abdul Razzak has provided investigators with copies of reports he had passed on to Israeli intelligence from a Syrian chemist working for the security services in connection with a Syrian nuclear programme.
The Syrian expert had been spying for Israel for 13 years, according to the confessions. He was executed in Syria last month, said Al-Shuruk, which did not give sources for its report.
On Sept. 6, 2007, Israel launched an air raid on northern Syria that destroyed an alleged secret nuclear reactor.
The Egyptian trader is to be tried in Egypt's High Security Court on charges of spying for Israel and recruiting agents to report on telecoms secrets in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, a judicial source said on Monday.
Arrest warrants have been issued for his two Israeli accomplices, the source said, without giving a trial date.

Abdul Razzak is accused of supplying Mossad between 2007 and 2010 with the names of potential recruits employed in the telecommunications sectors in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. According to a court statement, Abdul Razzak's first contact with Mossad was in 2007, when he received an email while looking for work in China. The same year he met the Israeli agents in Thailand, where the Egyptian was asked to set up an import-export business back home as a cover for his real work with Mossad.
Abdul Razzak also set up a website that offered telecommunications jobs in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, with the aim of looking for more potential recruits, the statement said. In Lebanon, more than 100 people have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel since April 2009, including telecoms employees, members of the security forces and active duty troops. (AFP).

Iranian nuclear scientist killed and another wounded, Iran accuses Israel and US

An Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed on Monday and another wounded in two separate attacks in Tehran. Both men were targeted by men on motorbikes who attached bombs to the windows of their cars as they drove to work.
Both worked at the nuclear engineering department of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. The killed scientist, was named Majid Shahriari. His wife was injured. The scientist injured in the second attack was named as Fereydoon Abbasi. His wife was also wounded. According to the conservative news website Mashregh News, Dr Abbasi is "one of the few specialists who can separate isotopes" - a process that is crucial in the manufacture of uranium fuel for nuclear power stations and is also required for the creation of uranium-based nuclear weapons. Abbasi has also been a member of the Revolutionary Guards since the 1979 revolution, the website said.

 

Cartoon from Haaretz. The caption says: Meanwhile in Tehran.

  

At a news conference, President Ahmadinejad accused Western powers and Israel of being behind the murder. "One can undoubtedly see the hands of Israel and Western governments in the assassination which unfortunately took place," he said, without specifying which Western governments. He said the assassination would not stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear programmes.
Earlier, state television reported a similar claim by Iran's Interior Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, who accused US and Israeli intelligence services of killing the scientist."Mossad and the CIA are the enemies of Iranians and always seek to hurt this nation. They particularly want to stop our scientific progress," he said. The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, who went to visit the surviving scientist in hospital, said he had a message for the country's enemies: "Do not play with fire".

Israeli minister Meridor cancels trip to Britain out of fear for arrest, Israel suspends dialogue with UK

The Israel minister for Intelligence and Atomic Energy, Dan Meridor,  on Monday a planned visit to London, England, after receiving information that he might be facing a lawsuit or an arrest warrant upon arrival. 
He was due to speak at a fund-raising dinner organized by the Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre.
Meridor was not a member of the cabinet of Ehud Olmert which staged the onslaught on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009, but the Israeli Foreign and Justice Ministries notified him  that he might face charges connected to his alleged role in the IDF raid on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010. That raid resulted in the deaths of 9 Turkish activists. Meridor refused to comment on the cancellation.
Meridor is member of a forum of seven ministers that advises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The forum discussed the arrival of the Gaza-bound flotilla in a meeting that took place on May 26, according to Netanyahu's testimony before a committee investigating the raid.

This is not the first case of Israeli politicians facing legal charges in Britain. In 2009, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Kadimah-leader Tzipi Livni over war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza while she served as foreign minister. Livni canceled her trip to London as a result of information of the warrant issued against her.

In 2005, a retired Israeli general, Doron Almog, returned to Israel immediately after landing in London because he was tipped off that British police planned to arrest him. The warrant against Almog - who oversaw the bombing of the Gaza home of a leader of the military wing of Hamas, Salah Shehadeh, in which 14 people were killed, including his wife and nine children - was later canceled.
Other Israeli leaders, including former military chief Moshe Ya'alon and ex-internal security chief Avi Dichter faced similar difficulties. The last one cancelled a trip to Spain last month, where he was to take part in a conference.

Update 4/11:
Israel has postponed all strategic dialogue with Britain in protest at a law which allows UK courts to prosecute visiting Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. Strategic dialogue between the two countries takes place annually and focuses on defence and security issues. "The strategic dialogue has indeed been postponed," Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman, said on Wednesday.
The development came as William Hague, the British foreign minister, arrived in Israel for a two-day visit. On top of the agenda would  the law that prohibits visits of Israeli politicians to Britain, Palmor confirmed. The law in question gives British courts "universal jurisdiction" to issue warrants against individuals accused of war crimes, including visiting foreign politicians. Britain's embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed that the government was taking the issue very seriously and said that a draft amendment to the law would be put before parliament "in the coming weeks".

Israel deports Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire

Israel on Monday has deported Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire after she lost an appeal in the Israeli Supreme Court. Corrigan Maguire won the Nobel peace prize along with Betty Williams in 1976 for their efforts to end sectarian violence in their native Northern Ireland. Maguire, who was banned from Israel for 10 years after trying to breach its naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in June with the ship Rachel Corrie, was detained and ordered deported last Tuesday after flying into Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport.
She appealed the order in the Supreme Court, arguing that she had been deluded in signing a paper that she would not return to Israel in ten years without knowing what she was signing. However, according to a transcript of the hearing, the Court voiced incredulity at her argument that she had been unaware of the ban. "I hope the court will allow me to stay in Israel with my Israeli and Palestinian friends," Maguire told reporters before the court turned her down Monday. "There will be peace in this country, I believe it, but only when Israel ends apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people," she said, using terminology Israel has long challenged.

Stuxnet, the software worm that attacks installations, made in Israel to target Iran?

Several media reported lately about a new kind of software malware,  which is able to spy on and reprogram industrial systems. According to some it may have specifically been devised to target nuclear installations in Iran. It was written to attack SCADA systems which are used to control and monitor industrial processes. The worm, called Stuxnet, seems to be extremely complex and sophisticated, which suggests that it could only have been written by a 'nation state', according to some experts.

Stuxnet was first detected in June by a security firm based in Belarus, but may have been circulating since 2009. Unlike most viruses, the worm targets systems that are traditionally not connected to the internet for security reasons. Instead it infects Windows machines via USB keys - commonly used to move files around - infected with malware.It is believed to be the first-known worm designed to target real-world infrastructure such as power stations, water plants and industrial units.
Once it has infected a machine on a firm's internal network, it seeks out a specific configuration of industrial control software made by Siemens. Once hijacked, the code can reprogram so-called PLC (programmable logic control) software to give attached industrial machinery new instructions. "[PLCs] turn on and off motors, monitor temperature, turn on coolers if a gauge goes over a certain temperature," said Liam O'Murchu of security firm Symantec. who has been tracking the worm for som time.
'Those have never been attacked before that we have seen.'
An industrial control security researcher in Germany who has analyzed the Stuxnet computer worm is speculating that it may have been created to sabotage nuclear installations in Iran, since many of the reported attacks took place in this country.

The high number of infections in Iran and the fact that the opening of the Bushehr nuclear plant there has been delayed led Ralph Langner to theorize that the plant was a target. Langner gave a talk on the subject at the Applied Control Solutions' Industrial Control Cyber Security conference today and published details of his code analysis on his Web site last week.

"With the forensics we now have, it is evident and provable that Stuxnet is a directed sabotage attack involving heavy insider knowledge," he wrote. "The attack combines an awful lot of skills--just think about the multiple zero-day vulnerabilities, the stolen certificates, etc. This was assembled by a highly qualified team of experts, involving some with specific control system expertise. This is not some hacker sitting in the basement of his parents' house. To me, it seems that the resources needed to stage this attack point to a nation state."
Langner does not say he has evidence to support his speculation as to the target, nor does he say exactly what the code is designed to do on the target's system.
The presentation shocked attendees of the cybersecurity conference, Joe Weiss, the organizer of the event, told CNET. As a result, "there are a whole slew of recommendations coming out of this to address control system cybersecurity that had not been addressed before," he said.
"The implications of Stuxnet are very large, a lot larger than some thought at first," Michael Assante, former security chief for the North American Electric Reliability Corp., told The Christian Science Monitor. (IDG News Service also covered the news.) "Stuxnet is a directed attack. It's the type of threat we've been worried about for a long time. It means we have to move more quickly with our defenses--much more quickly."
Richard Silverstein speculates that the worm may have originated in the laboratories of  a special Israeli unit:

''By all accounts. the worm is so advanced, performs so many functions, and operates in such a complex fashion that it can only have been produced by the intelligence agency of a sovereign nation.  We can imagine which nations would have the capacity to mount such an operation and the motivation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.  The CIA and Mossad (or IDF military intelligence) spring to mind.  My money is either on Israel and a shared operation mounted in some way by both countries.
IDF military intelligence has such a capability, Unit 8200, which analyzes intercepted communications and performs all manner of cyber-warfare tasks.  A recent profile of the group described its operations in some detail though didn’t deal with the question of whether 8200 may’ve been involved in this attack.  Forbes published this warm and fuzzy profile as well making 8200 out to be a real cool version of Silicon Valley. Silverstein's line of thought is easy to follow. Which country is more than any other interested in incapacitating Iran's nuclear capability?
 Photo's: on top the Iranian nuclear plant in Bushehr, down the uranium erichment facility in Natanz.

Netanyahu bragging about how he wrecked Oslo

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to a bereaved family in the settlement Ofra, in 2001 when he wasn't in the government anymore. On the tape - which was filmed without his knowledge - he brags about how he wrecked the Oslo agreements. Also he tells that he knows how to handle the United States. 'America is a thing that can be pushed easily....'  

Turkish autopsy report: Israelis on Mavi Marmara shot to kill

Journalist Cevdet Kiliçlar (38) moments before he got killed. His only weapon was a camera with which he was taken pictures till the very end. He may even have photographed his killer, but the camera was taken by Israel. (The picture is a still, taken from a tape by Iara Lee, Cultures of Resistance). 

All but two of the nine Turks killed in an Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship for Gaza were shot more than once, and five died from bullet wounds to the head, according to forensic reports. The documents, penned this month, were made available to AFP Tuesday by lawyers for the victims' families, who have petitioned Turkish prosecutors to investigate the May 31 bloodshed on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ferry. "The findings make it clear the Israeli forces shot to kill the activists and not to overpower them," one of the lawyers, Yasin Divrak, told AFP.
The youngest victim, 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, a dual Turkish-US national, was shot five times, including twice in the head, the report said. A bullet that pierced his face was fired from close range, it said, adding he was hit also in the back of the head.
The forensic experts failed to detect other close-distance shots on the remaining victims. All nine bodies had been washed before being brought to Turkey and their clothes were either blood-soaked or otherwise unfit for analysis, making it impossible to reach a conclusion on the ranges of most shots, according to the documents.
Journalist Cevdet Kiliclar, 38, the web editor of the Islamist charity IHH that led the ill-fated campaign, was killed by a single bullet that hit him between the eyebrows, the report said.
Divrak drew attention to the autopsy of 61-year-old Ibrahim Bilgen, which included the discovery of a tiny bag containing pellets, still intact in his brain, which the report said was was fired from a hunting rifle.
"It is not a type of weapon that we have ever heard of," he said.
Israel says its commandos used force after they were attacked with sticks and stabbed as soon as they landed on the Mavi Marmara, which was sailing in international waters. But the activists insist the troops opened fire as soon as they landed.
The bloody ending to the aid mission, which had aimed to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, plunged ties between Turkey and Israel, once close allies, into deep crisis.
Turkey has dismissed a commission set up by Israel to investigate the raid, insisting for a UN-led international probe.

 A single bullet between the eyebrows. (Picture IHH)

AFP got the autopsy reports the same day that IHH, the humanitarian organisation that organized the flotilla, published a detailed report about the mission and the Israeli attack. In order to see it click here

Israel presents its new spokesman: Tony Blair

 How wonderful that Didi Remez follows the Hebrew press and from time to time translates items like this one - together with the warning that this is NOT satire. Good for him, I nearly got confused. The teaser of the article from Tuesdays Maariv reads: Quartet envoy at the forefront of  the Israeli hasbara. And the headline: Israel presents: spokesman Blair.
After this introduction the text itself is almost superfluous, but here it is nevertheless - thanks to Didi's blog Coteret :

It turns out that Quartet envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair was the person who in fact presented to the international media the change in the policy of the Israeli government on the Gaza blockade. This was decided in coordination with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. And what was the prime minister’s contribution to helping Israeli PR efforts? He made do with a short statement to the press that he gave at the Likud faction meeting, and another laconic statement in English that was given to the foreign media.
Indeed, since two evenings ago, Blair has been going from one television studio to the next; he gave six interviews in two days, he handled tough questions from interviewers and he is trying to employ his great experience to enlist support in international public opinion for the relaxing of the blockade and for Israel’s new policy.
Netanyahu’s aides explained that the most important arena was that of the media and international public opinion. It was therefore decided that it would be better to have Blair present the important change in the government’s policy since he is considered objective and of international stature and since the decision about relaxing the blockade was made in coordination with him.
Blair met in Israel yesterday with a series of public figures and politicians, among them Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom, Deputy Prime Minister and Intelligence Affairs Minister Dan Meridor and Opposition Chairwoman Tzippi Livni. Earlier he met in Ramallah with PA Chairman Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

 Blair of international stature? Well, I could buy that. But objective? Read what he told the Jerusalem Post on Monday:

Anyone thinking of organizing an aid flotilla for Gaza should instead utilize the legitimate existing land crossings, where Israel is now lifting restrictions on civilian goods,' Blair said.'If we imple ment this policy so that the things that people are trying to bring in by flotilla you can bring in through the legitimate existing crossings, do it that way,' he urged in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

So it's better to shelve all those attempts to break the blockade and cooperate with the Israelis, is what he councils us. And that long before we could even get an idea whether the Israelis are going to let building materials through, will make exports possible or - maybe the most important of all - okay the import of raw materials and the flow of people, both of which are needed for the industry in Gaza to start a process of recovery.
Blair a mediator? Blair objective? As objective and trustworthy probably as when he told British parliament in 2002 that the invasion of Iraq could not be avoided because of it's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Then he was Bush's man, now he serves Netanyahu. Blair the hasbarist.

 Update:

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem today (21 June, TP) stated that the Security Cabinet decision on Gaza represents the first baby step in the right direction of bringing Israel's policy in line with its obligations. Though the implementation of the policy remains to be seen, any relaxation of the stringent restrictions on imports is to be welcomed. However, this cannot be the end of the conversation. The goal is not to improve humanitarian assistance but to obviate it.

Gaza needs to rebuild a self-sustaining economy, which requires import not only of foodstuff and commercial goods but also raw materials for manufacturing, industry and agriculture. It also requires a regulated system for exports, which addresses security concerns, as well as ability for people to travel in and out of Gaza for all functions of daily life. - (My Italics, TP.)

Lebanese aid ships will sail via Cyprus to Gaza

The Lebanese newspaper An Nahar reported on Monday:

Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi confirmed that the ministry allowed organizers of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to sail from the northern port city of Tripoli to Cyprus before heading to the Hamas-run territory.
Aridi's remarks on the vessel "Julia" on Sunday night came as Israel's Haaretz daily reported that the Jewish state had initiated diplomatic efforts designed to prevent the departure of at least one ship, carrying 50 to 70 Lebanese women and food aid. Israel has been in touch with the U.N., U.S., France, Spain and Germany. It has also been speaking with the Vatican because "Mariam" is expected to include several dozen Catholic nuns, Haaretz said.
However, according to Aridi the ship was not named "Mariam," stressing that the voyage was christened "Mariam" in honor of Virgin Mary.
While confirming that "Julia's" first destination will be Cyprus and not Gaza, the minister stressed that he won't sign on any illegal sail.Aridi also stressed that "Julia's" voyage to Cyprus was not in violation of Security Council resolution 1701 and that the vessel would undergo a technical checkup before it sails from Tripoli.
The Lebanese government is responsible of its decision, Aridi added.
However, Israeli military sources warned that it would be very easy to take control of Iranian and Lebanese ships because they are from countries which are in enmity with the Jewish state. They told Haaretz that they would deal firmly with them.
Two Iranian Red Crescent boats also plan to depart for the blockaded enclave.

Cartoon by Naji al-Ali 
 

Ynet adds that also a second ship, the Naji al Ali, named after the famous Palestinian cartoonist who was  murdered in 1987, will sail to Cyprus. The Naji al-Ali will be carrying 25 European activists, including parliament members, and some 50 journalists. 

Update Tuesday: A ship that will carry aid from the Iranian Red Crescent Society to the Gaza Strip will leave on June 27 carrying 1,100 tons of supplies and 10 people on board, Abdolrauf Adibzadeh, the head of the organization, said in Tehran today. The vessel, which will head to the coastal strip ruled by the Hamas militant group through the Suez Canal, is not looking for a confrontation with Israel, he added.

Ireland: capture Rachel Corrie completely unacceptable

Rachel Corrie with its dangerous cargo.


About 200 people have taken part in a protest in Belfast against the Israeli seizure of an Irish aid ship trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.Irish Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described the Israeli intervention as a "raid" and said it was a "completely unacceptable and unjustified use of force".
"The Rachel Corrie should have been allowed to proceed to Gaza without Israeli aggression," he said.
"This is an attack on an Irish flagged vessel and it demands a strong response by the Irish government."
Mary Hughes, one of the founders of the Free Gaza movement, which has been organising aid shipments, condemned Israel's actions.She added: "We are totally outraged that they have once again gone into international waters and violently boarded the boat, and force people to go to Israel when all we wanted was to be left to get to Gaza."
Several thousand people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday to show solidarity with the Palestinians and denounce the Israeli raids on aid boats bound for Gaza, with some Jews participating alongside Muslims. Protesters gathered in the Bastille area, in a rally which included Palestinian flags and one banner saying "French Jewish Union For Peace" with around 100 French Jews following it. It was not clear just how many were there in total.
In London, thousands of protesters wearing t-shirts with slogans like "Free Gaza" converged outside the prime minister's official residence at Downing Street, before staging a noisy march to the Israeli embassy.

 Demonstratie in Istanbul.


Thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Istanbul, burning Israeli flags and branding the country a "murderer" over its deadly raid on Gaza-bound aid ships. The crowd, numbering about 10,000, gathered at the Çağlayan square on the European side of the city at the call of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, one of the key organizers of the aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip."Murderer Israel!" chanted the demonstrators, at times breaking into shouts of "Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great." The crowd also expressed support for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, chanting "We are all soldiers of Hamas!"

 Alexandria on Friday. (Picture Al Masry al-Youm, Tareq el-Farmawy).

In Cairo there were also protest rallies, but the biggest Egyptian protests took place on Friday. That day Egypt's mosques were packed with thousands of demonstrators after the noon prayer on Friday, protesting the killing of activists on board the Freedom Flotilla by Israeli forces. The largest demonstration occurred in Alexandria, where more than 20,000 protesters, including members of various professional syndicates, members of the Muslim Brotherhood and representatives of opposition parties, gathered in front of the Qaid Mosque and chanted slogans in support of the Palestinians.
In the Governorate of Gharbiya, more than 15,000 demonstrators gathered in the cities of Kafr el-Ziat, Basyoun, Qatur, Samnud, el-Mahala, Tanta and Zifti. The demonstrators burned the Israeli flag and demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Cairo, in addition to calling on the religious authorities to sanction a holy war against Israel. Crowded demonstrations also occurred in Arish, Sharqiya, Damietta, Aswan and Assiut.
 In Tel Aviv leftist and rightist demonstrators clashed Saturday night as more than 6,000 Israelis gathered to protest the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship earlier this week, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.he protest was originally planned by to mark the anniversary of the Six Day War which broke out 43 years ago today. Among the organizers were left wing parties Meretz, Hadash and Peace Now organization. The demonstrators carried banners saying "The government is drowning us all," "We must stride for peace," and "A right wing government = clear and immediate danger to state security." As the demonstrators marched from the Rabin Square near the city's municipal building toward the Tel Aviv museum several hundred rightist demonstrators followed the procession. Upon their arrival at their final destination the spirits heated up between the two opposing groups, during which they two sides cursed and shouted at each other.

CPJ denounces Israel’s use of footage seized in flotilla raid

New York, June 3, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces Israel’s editing and distribution of footage confiscated from foreign journalists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla that was raided on Monday.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office released edited portions of confiscated video on its YouTube channel, where the footage was labeled as “captured.” The Foreign Press Association in Israel, which represents hundreds of foreign correspondents in Israel, says the military “is selectively using footage to bolster its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked,” The Associated Press reported.

CPJ called on the Israeli government to immediately return all equipment, notes, and footage confiscated from journalists. “Israel has confiscated journalistic material and then manipulated it to serve its interests,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “It must cease this practice without delay, and return all property seized from journalists who were covering this legitimate news event.”

Journalists have complained of mistreatment during the raid. Al-Jazeera cameraman Issam Zaatar told the Qatar-based channel that as he was filming the raid an Israeli soldier struck him with a stun gun. He said he suffered a broken arm and his camera was damaged during the altercation.

Gadijah Davids, a South African radio journalist, also had her equipment confiscated, according to her station, Radio 786. Rushni Ali, the station manager, told CPJ that Davids is in Turkey and will be leaving for South Africa on Friday. The South African government provided emergency travel documents for Davids because she “had nothing with her: no clothes, no travel document, no equipment” Ali told CPJ.

Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald chief correspondent, told his newspaper that the raid was “very ugly.” He accused Israel of “absolute disrespect” with regard to the way that he and other reporters were treated. “Our job requires us to get the stories, and to reveal things that are not otherwise being revealed,” McGough said in a phone interview that appears on the paper’s Web site. “As Israel’s appalling handling of the flotilla demonstrates, you need journalists there to bear witness, to reveal what is happening out there.”

CPJ’s Abdel Dayem said: “The treatment meted out to our colleagues is unacceptable. It is Israel’s responsibility to conduct its operations in ways that also allow journalists to report the news.”