By Gideon Levy
About 7,700 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel, including about 450 without the benefit of a trial. Most of them are not murderers, although they are all automatically labeled as such here. The demonstrators at Megiddo would do well to realize this. Some of the prisoners are political detainees in the full sense of the word, from members of the Palestinian parliament imprisoned without trial, which is a scandal in and of itself, to those behind bars because of their "affiliation." Innocent people are among them as well as political activists and nonviolent protesters.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110967.html
Sunday, August 30, 2009
What the new era in Japan might mean for Israel
Withdrawing from American guardianship could also change Japanese policy toward Israel. Until now, Japan limited its support for the Palestinians to aiding economic projects, in keeping with American requests. The Hatoyama government is likely to take a more pro-Arab stance, such as by recognizing Hamas and making tougher demands of Israel, such as calling for an end to construction in the settlements. Such a position would be similar to the line taken by some European governments, and will not necessarily lead to a confrontation with the United States. The Obama administration may actually be pleased.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111227.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111227.html
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Wednesday, 26 August 2009 21:54 Jeff Gates
In 2005, the Nobel Prize in Economic Science was awarded to Israeli mathematician and game theory specialist Robert J. Aumann, co-founder of the Center for Rationality at Hebrew University. This Jerusalem resident explains: “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.”
Israeli strategists rely on game theory models to ensure the intended response to staged provocations and manipulated crises. With the use of game theory algorithms, those responses become predictable, even foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. The waging of war “by way of deception” is now a mathematical discipline.
Such “probabilistic” war planning enables Tel Aviv to deploy serial provocations and well-timed crises as a force multiplier to project Israeli influence worldwide. For a skilled agent provocateur, the target can be a person, a company, an economy, a legislature, a nation or an entire culture—such as Islam. With a well-modeled provocation, the anticipated reaction can even become a powerful weapon in the Israeli arsenal.
For instance, a skilled game theorist could foresee that, in response to a 911-type mass murder, “the mark” (the U.S.) would deploy its military to avenge that attack. With phony intelligence fixed around a preset goal, a game theory algorithm could anticipate that those forces might well be redirected to invade Iraq—not to avenge 911 but to pursue the expansionist goals of Greater Israel.
To provoke that invasion required the displacement of an inconvenient truth (Iraq played no role in 911) with what lawmakers and the public could be deceived to believe. The emotionally wrenching nature of that incident was essential in order to induce Americans to abandon rational analysis and to facilitate their reliance on false intelligence.
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle_east/how_israel_wages_game_theory_warfare/
In 2005, the Nobel Prize in Economic Science was awarded to Israeli mathematician and game theory specialist Robert J. Aumann, co-founder of the Center for Rationality at Hebrew University. This Jerusalem resident explains: “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.”
Israeli strategists rely on game theory models to ensure the intended response to staged provocations and manipulated crises. With the use of game theory algorithms, those responses become predictable, even foreseeable—within an acceptable range of probabilities. The waging of war “by way of deception” is now a mathematical discipline.
Such “probabilistic” war planning enables Tel Aviv to deploy serial provocations and well-timed crises as a force multiplier to project Israeli influence worldwide. For a skilled agent provocateur, the target can be a person, a company, an economy, a legislature, a nation or an entire culture—such as Islam. With a well-modeled provocation, the anticipated reaction can even become a powerful weapon in the Israeli arsenal.
For instance, a skilled game theorist could foresee that, in response to a 911-type mass murder, “the mark” (the U.S.) would deploy its military to avenge that attack. With phony intelligence fixed around a preset goal, a game theory algorithm could anticipate that those forces might well be redirected to invade Iraq—not to avenge 911 but to pursue the expansionist goals of Greater Israel.
To provoke that invasion required the displacement of an inconvenient truth (Iraq played no role in 911) with what lawmakers and the public could be deceived to believe. The emotionally wrenching nature of that incident was essential in order to induce Americans to abandon rational analysis and to facilitate their reliance on false intelligence.
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle_east/how_israel_wages_game_theory_warfare/
Israeli hacker pleads guilty to stealing $10m from U.S. banks
Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum pleaded guilty in a New York court last week to one count of bank-card fraud for his part in a hacking scheme that U.S. officials say netted some $10 million from American banks, technology news Web site Wired.com reported.
Tenenbaum, 29, who is also known as "the analyzer," was arrested in Canada last year along with three other hackers for allegedly stealing about $1.5 million from Canadian banks. But he was put on trial in the U.S. after officials there filed a request to have him extradited.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110233.html
Tenenbaum, 29, who is also known as "the analyzer," was arrested in Canada last year along with three other hackers for allegedly stealing about $1.5 million from Canadian banks. But he was put on trial in the U.S. after officials there filed a request to have him extradited.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110233.html
Saturday, August 22, 2009
BOYCOTT ISRAEL
By Neve Gordon
August 20, 2009
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gordon20-2009aug20,0,1126906.story
August 20, 2009
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gordon20-2009aug20,0,1126906.story
L.A. Jews threaten to boycott Israeli university over 'apartheid' op-ed
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Members of the Los Angeles Jewish community have threatened to withhold donations to an Israeli university in protest of an op-ed published by a prominent Israeli academic in the Los Angeles Times on Friday, in which he called to boycott Israel economically, culturally and politically.
Dr. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, a veteran peace activist, branded Israel as an apartheid state and said that a boycott was "the only way to save it from itself."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109275.html
Members of the Los Angeles Jewish community have threatened to withhold donations to an Israeli university in protest of an op-ed published by a prominent Israeli academic in the Los Angeles Times on Friday, in which he called to boycott Israel economically, culturally and politically.
Dr. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, a veteran peace activist, branded Israel as an apartheid state and said that a boycott was "the only way to save it from itself."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109275.html
Robert Fisk: For the truth, look to Tehran and Damascus – not Tripoli
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Forget all the nonsense spouted by our beloved Foreign Secretary. He's all too happy to express his outrage. The welcome given to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in Tripoli was a perfect deviation from what the British Government is trying to avoid. It's called the truth, not that Mr Miliband would know much about it.
It was Megrahi's decision – not that of his lawyers – to abandon the appeal that might have told us the truth about Lockerbie. The British would far rather he return to the land of the man who wrote The Green Book on the future of the world (the author, a certain Col Muammar Gaddafi, also wrote Escape to Hell and Other Stories) than withstand the typhoon of information that an appeal would have revealed.
Brown and Gaddafi. Maybe they should set up as a legal company once their time is up. Brown and Gaddafi, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. Not that the oaths would be truthful.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-for-the-truth-look-to-tehran-and-damascus-ndash-not-tripoli-1775813.html
Forget all the nonsense spouted by our beloved Foreign Secretary. He's all too happy to express his outrage. The welcome given to Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in Tripoli was a perfect deviation from what the British Government is trying to avoid. It's called the truth, not that Mr Miliband would know much about it.
It was Megrahi's decision – not that of his lawyers – to abandon the appeal that might have told us the truth about Lockerbie. The British would far rather he return to the land of the man who wrote The Green Book on the future of the world (the author, a certain Col Muammar Gaddafi, also wrote Escape to Hell and Other Stories) than withstand the typhoon of information that an appeal would have revealed.
Brown and Gaddafi. Maybe they should set up as a legal company once their time is up. Brown and Gaddafi, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. Not that the oaths would be truthful.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-for-the-truth-look-to-tehran-and-damascus-ndash-not-tripoli-1775813.html
Friday, August 21, 2009
Darfur: The shame of Muslims
By Salaam Abdul Khaliq, IFN Columnist
News of the genocide in Darfur seems to have vanished from headlines, and as a consequence, from the mind of the world community as well. Darfurians have been suffering from unspeakable atrocities since 2005, when the conflict erupted between them and the government of Sudan. There has been much speculation as to the exact cause of this genocide, but one thing is sure: the American Muslim community is apathetic. Ask any educated and well-informed Muslim about Darfur and he or she will respond with blank stares and confusion. The reason? There has been little talk in the Muslim community about Darfur. So far, there has been little or no serious outrage from community leaders, Islamic organizations or the common person. The excuse seems to be lack of information, or rather the purported disinformation coming from Christian and Jewish groups known for their pro-Israel stance.
Some Muslims embrace this thinking and declare ignorance in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. These same Muslims have many times rightly voiced outrage over the suffering of fellow Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Chechnya. But the atrocities in Darfur brought little or no outrage to speak of. The lack of accurate information is nothing more than a shameful excuse to keep quiet because we are all afraid to say aloud what we think quietly, namely that the perpetrators of this genocide are Muslims. Sunni Muslims to be precise... like most of us. Pointing the finger at the Sudanese government would seem akin to pointing the finger at ourselves, wouldn’t it?
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/38491/1185/
News of the genocide in Darfur seems to have vanished from headlines, and as a consequence, from the mind of the world community as well. Darfurians have been suffering from unspeakable atrocities since 2005, when the conflict erupted between them and the government of Sudan. There has been much speculation as to the exact cause of this genocide, but one thing is sure: the American Muslim community is apathetic. Ask any educated and well-informed Muslim about Darfur and he or she will respond with blank stares and confusion. The reason? There has been little talk in the Muslim community about Darfur. So far, there has been little or no serious outrage from community leaders, Islamic organizations or the common person. The excuse seems to be lack of information, or rather the purported disinformation coming from Christian and Jewish groups known for their pro-Israel stance.
Some Muslims embrace this thinking and declare ignorance in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. These same Muslims have many times rightly voiced outrage over the suffering of fellow Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Chechnya. But the atrocities in Darfur brought little or no outrage to speak of. The lack of accurate information is nothing more than a shameful excuse to keep quiet because we are all afraid to say aloud what we think quietly, namely that the perpetrators of this genocide are Muslims. Sunni Muslims to be precise... like most of us. Pointing the finger at the Sudanese government would seem akin to pointing the finger at ourselves, wouldn’t it?
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/38491/1185/
By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent,
Sweden's foreign ministry has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Stockholm in a bid to solve the developing crisis between the two nations over a recent article by a top Swedish newspaper alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs.
Although the meeting with Israeli envoy Benny Dagan had been scheduled before the article was published, officials in the Swedish foreign ministry told local news agencies on Friday that it would now be used to address the escalating tension between the two countries.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109008.html
Sweden's foreign ministry has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Stockholm in a bid to solve the developing crisis between the two nations over a recent article by a top Swedish newspaper alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs.
Although the meeting with Israeli envoy Benny Dagan had been scheduled before the article was published, officials in the Swedish foreign ministry told local news agencies on Friday that it would now be used to address the escalating tension between the two countries.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109008.html
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