Israeli intelligence steps up its activity in the U.S. - and gets away with it.

By Philip Giraldi * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel's intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America's domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.

As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as "U.S. intelligence." Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It's referred to as a "false flag" operation.

Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel's mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.

In another bizarre case, U.S.S. Liberty survivor Phil Tourney was recently accosted in Southern California by a foreigner who eventually identified himself as an Israeli government representative. Tourney was taunted, and the Israeli threatened both him and journalist Mark Glenn, who has been reporting on the Liberty story. Tourney was approached in a hotel lounge, and it is not completely clear how the Israeli was able to identify him. But he knew exactly who Tourney was, as the official referred to the Liberty, saying that the people who had been killed on board had gotten what they deserved. There were a number of witnesses to the incident, including Tourney's wife. The threat has been reported to the FBI, which is investigating, but Tourney and Glenn believe that the incident is not being taken seriously by the bureau.

FBI sources indicate that the increase in Mossad activity is a major problem, particularly when Israelis are posing as U.S. government officials, but they also note that there is little they can do to stop it as the Justice Department refuses to initiate any punitive action or prosecutions of the Mossad officers who have been identified as involved in the illegal activity.

In another ongoing Israeli spy case, Stewart Nozette appears to be headed towards eventual freedom as his case drags on through the District of Columbia courts. Nozette, an aerospace scientist with a top secret clearance and access to highly sensitive information, offered to sell classified material to a man he believed to be a Mossad officer, but who instead turned out to be with the FBI. Nozette has been in jail since October, but he has now been granted an additional 90-day delay so his lawyers can review the documents in the government's case, many of which are classified. If Nozette demands that sensitive information be used in his defense, his case will likely follow the pattern set in the nine-times-postponed trial of AIPAC spies Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who were ultimately acquitted in April 2009 when prosecutors determined that they could not make their case without doing significant damage to national security. A month after Rosen and Weissman were freed, Ben-Ami Kadish, who admitted to providing defense secrets to Israel while working as an engineer at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, walked out of a Manhattan court after paying a fine. He did no jail time and continues to receive his substantial Defense Department pension.

The mainstream media reported the Rosen and Weissman trial intermittently, but there was virtually no coverage of Ben-Ami Kadish, and there has been even less of Nozette. Compare that with the recent reporting on the Russian spies who, by all accounts, did almost nothing and never obtained any classified information. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that spying for Israel is consequence free.

* Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. His "Deep Background" column appears every month exclusively in The American Conservative.

Related posts:

• James Petras – Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation
• America Held Hostage: Year 62
• Maidhc Ó Cathail – Kristol Clear: The Source of America’s Wars

Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe

By Saleh Al-Naami | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A Palestinian boy holds a 'Free Gaza' sign during a protest in East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Israeli and international activists gather weekly at the site to protest alongside with Palestinian residents, voicing dissent over the occupation of Palestinian houses by Israeli settlers. (Mimmi Nietula, Maan Images)

At a coffee shop in Al-Remal district in Gaza City, one young man sarcastically declared: "If it took them more than three and a half years to allow sewing thread and buttons through, it will probably take seven years before they allow clothes in. As for cement, we can forget it."

International economy expert Omar Shaaban, who heads the PAL-Think Institute for Strategic Studies, warned of the dangers of Israel's decision. "When the people in the US and UK hear that Israel has finally allowed ketchup and mayonnaise, which are luxury items, they assume that all other goods are available in Gaza. This is deception." Shaaban told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "some 8,000 commodities were being imported into Gaza before the siege. This number has dropped to a few dozen, which demonstrates the tragic conditions the blockade has caused."

Shaaban points to another fallacy in Israel's claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "What is the scientific definition of a humanitarian crisis?" he inquired. "Is it defined in terms of food shortages only? There are other health, social, psychological and security factors that should be taken into consideration." He noted that prior to the siege, Gaza did not see significant food shortages, contrary to the image Israel is trying to portray that Gaza was always deprived. Gaza had always managed, and sometimes prospered, Shaaban explained. "The blockade aimed to intentionally debilitate Gaza," he argued. "While many goods are being smuggled through the tunnels, the majority of Palestinians cannot afford them because they are impoverished."

According to a report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 50 per cent of the children in Gaza suffer from anemia and malnutrition. Also, one million Palestinians depend on humanitarian relief for sustenance; 80 per cent of Gaza residents live below the poverty line; and employment has reached 65 per cent, especially among the youth and university graduates. Average income per day per person is only $2.

The blockade has also depleted stocks of 88 types of vital medications, such as those for mental health, blood disease, liver disease, and formula for infants. There is also a shortage of 120 types of medical supply, including catheters, materials needed for chemotherapy, and surgical thread. The report revealed that 90 per cent of potable water in the Gaza Strip is unsuitable for human consumption, and the sole power station in Gaza has lost 60 per cent of its capacity, resulting in power outages averaging 10 hours every day.

Palestinian economist Hamed Gad asserted that the siege has almost completely obliterated all industry in the Gaza Strip. Gad told the Weekly that out of 3,900 functioning factories before the blockade, only a handful is still operating because of shortages in raw material. He added that the few factories still in business rely on materials smuggled in via the tunnels.

At the same time, Gad continued, a large number of Gaza residents relied on agriculture for their livelihood, a sector that has been destroyed by the blockade because of shortages in fertilisers, insecticides and supplies such as nylon, hoses and seeds. This situation encourages the spread of agricultural diseases that threaten crops harvested in some areas. Gad further stated that the average income has dropped by more than 50 per cent in the Gaza Strip compared to figures from 1999, when it reached $1,750 per annum. Today, it stands at $850 annually.

Prices in the Gaza Strip are also higher than the average prices in Israel, although the average share of an individual in Israel of GDP is $21,000 -- 24 times more than the figure in Gaza. Exports from Gaza have come to a complete halt and imports have dropped to less than $700 million, 70 per cent of which are smuggled from Egypt through the tunnels.

According to the Petrol Station Association, daily fuel needs in Gaza amount to 350,000 litres of solar fuel, 120,000 litres of petrol, 350 tonnes of natural gas and 350,000 litres of industrial fuel for the power station. But as a result of the blockade, solar imports have dropped by 74 per cent, petrol by 79 per cent, natural gas for domestic use by 71 per cent.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Israel did not meet its commitment to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that it will allow construction material in needed for two projects that the UN is supervising. OCHA stated that Israel has allowed in only 17 per cent of the needed construction material for these two projects, despite the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak personally assured Ban that they would allow in any material needed for the projects.

OCHA also revealed that Tel Aviv did not follow through on its promise to French President Nicolas Sarkozy to permit the passage of construction material needed to rebuild Al-Quds Hospital, destroyed during the 2008-2009 war on Gaza when it was attacked by Israeli tanks positioned in the western part of Gaza City. Sarkozy twice telephoned Netanyahu personally to request passage of the materials.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi stated that conditions in Gaza were intolerable, noting that 1.5 million people -- one million of whom are registered refugees -- are paying the price of the blockade. In a interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds, Grandi said that Israel is not responding to calls from the UN to end the siege, adding that Tel Aviv should at least allow enough construction material through to rebuild what was demolished during Israel's last war on the Gaza Strip, and the years prior to that. He criticised Israel for rejecting this "minor request".

"The blockade on the Gaza Strip is unacceptable and the policy of sporadically allowing a sack of flour here and some equipment there after a long and complicated process is unacceptable," asserted Grandi. "One and a half million people cannot live like this." He continued that while the tunnels alleviate some of the effects of the blockade imposed by Israel, it is "an illegal economy" which will have dangerous implications on the stability and security of the region.

According to Ziyad Zaza, deputy prime minister and economy minister of the dismissed cabinet in Gaza, the list of goods that Israel have recently allowed into Gaza is a joke that mocks the people and skews reality. Zaza told the Weekly that Israel is distorting and fabricating reality in an attempt to divert attention away from the harsh siege on Gaza. He called for an end to the siege once and for all, and for allowing the passage of goods -- especially cement, steel, primary materials for industry, agriculture -- and permitting imports and exports between Gaza and the world.

Zaza urged the world not to allow Israel to continue the blockade, underlining that through such "ludicrous" decisions as that to allow thread and needles, Tel Aviv is attempting to avoid anger from around the world along with pressure to end the siege. He insisted that the economic siege must be lifted and all border crossings reopened. He underlined that Israel's attempts to deceive the world would not succeed because the suffering caused by the blockade could not be concealed.

Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

Related posts:

• For security reasons, Israel bans paper from Gaza schools
• BBC (only) “Gaza issues toxic water warning” Israel has blocked chlorine delivery
• Gordon Duff: Fox In The Henhouse, Can We Trust Israeli Security Companies?

By Glenn Greenwald* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Bradley Manning and a still from the Apache helicopter attack that appeared on WikiLeaks.

On June 10, former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, writing in The Daily Beast, gave voice to anonymous "American officials" to announce that "Pentagon investigators" were trying "to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks [Julian Assange] for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security." Some news outlets used that report to declare that there was a "Pentagon manhunt" underway for Assange -- as though he's some sort of dangerous fugitive.

From the start, this whole story was quite strange for numerous reasons. In an attempt to obtain greater clarity about what really happened here, I've spent the last week reviewing everything I could related to this case and speaking with several of the key participants (including Lamo, with whom I had a one-hour interview last night that can be heard on the recorder below, and Poulsen, with whom I had a lengthy email exchange, which is published in full here). A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself. Compounding that is the fact that most of what came from Lamo has been filtered through a single journalist -- Poulsen -- who has a long and strange history with Lamo, who continues to possess but not disclose key evidence, and who has been only marginally transparent about what actually happened here (I say that as someone who admires Poulsen's work as Editor of Wired's Threat Level blog).

Reviewing everything that is known ultimately raises more questions than it answers. Below is my perspective on what happened here. But there is one fact to keep in mind at the outset. In 2008, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center prepared a classified report (ironically leaked to and published by WikiLeaks) which -- as the NYT put it -- placed WikiLeaks on "the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States." That Report discussed ways to destroy WikiLeaks' reputation and efficacy, and emphasized creating the impression that leaking to it is unsafe (click image to enlarge):

In other words, exactly what the U.S. Government wanted to happen in order to destroy WikiLeaks has happened here: news reports that a key WikiLeaks source has been identified and arrested, followed by announcements from anonymous government officials that there is now a worldwide "manhunt" for its Editor-in-Chief. Even though WikiLeaks did absolutely nothing (either in this case or ever) to compromise the identity of its source, isn't it easy to see how these screeching media reports -- WikiLeaks source arrested; worldwide manhunt for WikiLeaks; major national security threat -- would cause a prospective leaker to WikiLeaks to think twice, at least: exactly as the Pentagon Report sought to achieve? And that Pentagon Report was from 2008, before the Apache Video was released; imagine how intensified is the Pentagon's desire to destroy WikiLeaks now. Combine that with what both the NYT and Newsweek recently realized is the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistle-blowers, and one can't overstate the caution that's merited here before assuming one knows what happened.

* * * * *

Adrian Lamo and Kevin Poulsen have a long and strange history together. Both were convicted of felonies relating to computer hacking: Poulsen in 1994 (when he was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, ironically because a friend turned government informant on him), and Lamo in 2004 for hacking into The New York Times. When the U.S. Government was investigating Lamo in 2003, they subpoenaed news agencies for any documents reflecting conversations not only with Lamo, but also with Poulsen. That's because Lamo typically sought media publicity after his hacking adventures, and almost always used Poulsen to provide that publicity.

Despite being convicted of serious hacking felonies, Poulsen was allowed by the U.S. Government to become a journalist covering the hacking world for Security Focus News. Back in 2002, Information Week described the strange Lamo-Poulsen relationship this way: "To publicize his work, [Lamo] often tapped ex-hacker-turned-journalist Kevin Poulsen as his go-between: Poulsen contacts the hacked company, alerts it to the break-in, offers Lamo's cooperation, then reports the hack on the SecurityFocus Online Web site, where he's a news editor." When Lamo hacked into the NYT, it was Poulsen who notified the newspaper's executives on Lamo's behalf, and then wrote about it afterward. Poulsen told me that the above picture was taken at a lunch the two of them had together with convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick back in 2001. When I asked Poulsen if he considers Lamo his friend, he would respond only by saying: "He's a subject and a source."

Actually, over the years, Poulsen has served more or less as Lamo's personal media voice. Back in 2000, Poulsen would quote Lamo as an expert source on hacking. That same year, Poulsen -- armed with exclusive, inside information from Lamo -- began writing about Lamo's various hacking adventures. After Lamo's conviction, Poulsen wrote about his post-detention battles with law enforcement and a leaked documentary featuring Lamo. As detailed below, Lamo is notorious in the world of hacking for being a low-level, inconsequential hacker with an insatiable need for self-promotion and media attention, and for the past decade, it has been Poulsen who satisfies that need.

On May 20 -- a month ago -- Poulsen, out of nowhere, despite Lamo's not having been in the news for years, wrote a long, detailed Wired article describing serious mental health problems Lamo was experiencing. The story Poulsen wrote goes as follows: after Lamo's backpack containing pharmaceutical products was stolen sometime in April (Lamo claims they were prescribed anti-depressants), Lamo called the police, who concluded that he was experiencing such acute psychiatric distress that they had him involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for three days. That 72-hour "involuntary psychiatric hold" was then extended by a court for six more days, after which he was released to his parents' home. Lamo claimed he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a somewhat fashionable autism diagnosis which many stars in the computer world have also claimed. In that article, Poulsen also summarized Lamo's extensive hacking history. Lamo told me that, while he was in the mental hospital, he called Poulsen to tell him what happened, and then told Poulsen he could write about it for a Wired article. So starved was Lamo for some media attention that he was willing to encourage Poulsen to write about his claimed psychiatric problems if it meant an article in Wired that mentioned his name.

It was just over two weeks after writing about Lamo's Asperger's, depression and hacking history that Poulsen, along with Kim Zetter, reported that PFC Manning had been detained, after, they said, he had "contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo late last month over instant messenger and e-mail." Lamo told me that Manning first emailed him on May 20 and, according to highly edited chat logs released by Wired, had his first online chat with Manning on May 21; in other words, Manning first contacted Lamo the very day that Poulsen's Wired article on Lamo's involuntary commitment appeared (the Wired article is time-stamped 5:46 p.m. on May 20).

Lamo, however, told me that Manning found him not from the Wired article -- which Manning never mentioned reading -- but from searching the word "WikiLeaks" on Twitter, which led him to a tweet Lamo had written that included the word "WikiLeaks." Even if Manning had really found Lamo through a Twitter search for "WikiLeaks," Lamo could not explain why Manning focused on him, rather than the thousands of other people who have also mentioned the word "WikiLeaks" on Twitter, including countless people who have done so by expressing support for WikiLeaks.

Although none of the Wired articles ever mention this, the first Lamo-Manning communications were not actually via chat. Instead, Lamo told me that Manning first sent him a series of encrypted emails which Lamo was unable to decrypt because Manning "encrypted it to an outdated PGP key of mine" [PGP is an encryption program]. After receiving this first set of emails, Lamo says he replied -- despite not knowing who these emails were from or what they were about -- by inviting the emailer to chat with him on AOL IM, and provided his screen name to do so. Lamo says that Manning thereafter sent him additional emails encrypted to his current PGP key, but that Lamo never bothered to decrypt them. Instead, Lamo claims he turned over all those Manning emails to the FBI without ever reading a single one of them. Thus, the actual initial communications between Manning and Lamo -- what preceded and led to their chat -- are completely unknown. Lamo refuses to release the emails or chats other than the small chat snippets published by Wired.

Using the chat logs between Lamo and Manning -- which Lamo provided to Poulsen -- the Wired writers speculated that the Army Private trusted Lamo because he "sensed a kindred spirit in the ex-hacker." Poulsen and Zetter write that Manning confessed to being the leaker of the Apache attack video "very quickly in the exchange," and then proceeded to boast that, in addition, "he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables" to WikiLeaks. Very shortly after the first chat, Lamo notified federal agents of what Manning told him, proceeded to speak to Manning for the next several days while consulting with federal agents, and then learned that Manning was detained in Iraq.

* * * * *

Many of the bizarre aspects of this case, at least as conveyed by Lamo and Wired, are self-evident. Why would a 22-year-old Private in Iraq have unfettered access to 250,000 pages of diplomatic cables so sensitive that they "could do serious damage to national security?" Why would he contact a total stranger, whom he randomly found from a Twitter search, in order to "quickly" confess to acts that he knew could send him to prison for a very long time, perhaps his whole life? And why would he choose to confess over the Internet, in an unsecured, international AOL IM chat, given the obvious ease with which that could be preserved, intercepted or otherwise surveilled? These are the actions of someone either unbelievably reckless or actually eager to be caught.

All that said, this series of events isn't completely implausible. It's possible that a 22-year-old who engaged in these kinds of significant leaks, sitting in isolation in Iraq, would have a desire to unburden himself by confessing to a stranger; the psychological compulsion to confess is not uncommon (see Crime and Punishment), nor is the desire to boast of such acts. It's possible that he would have expected someone with Lamo's hacking and "journalist" background to be sympathetic to what he did and/or to feel compelled as a journalist not to run to the Government and disclose what he learns from a source. Still, the apparent ease with which Manning quickly spilled his guts in such painstaking detail over an Internet chat concerning such serious crimes -- and then proceeded to respond to Lamo's very specific and probing interrogations over days without ever once worrying that he could not trust Lamo -- is strange in the extreme.

If one assumes that this happened as the Wired version claims, what Lamo did here is despicable. He holds himself out as an "award-winning journalist" and told Manning he was one ("I did tell him that I worked as a journalist," Lamo said). Indeed, Lamo told me (though it doesn't appear in the chat logs published by Wired) that he told Manning early on that he was a journalist and thus could offer him confidentiality for everything they discussed under California's shield law. Lamo also said he told Manning that he was an ordained minister and could treat Manning's talk as a confession, which would then compel Lamo under the law to keep their discussions confidential (early on in their chats, Manning said: "I can't believe what I'm confessing to you"). In sum, Lamo explicitly led Manning to believe he could trust him and that their discussions would be confidential -- perhaps legally required to be kept confidential -- only to then report everything Manning said to the Government.

Worse, Lamo breached his own confidentiality commitments and turned informant without having the slightest indication that Manning had done anything to harm national security. Indeed, Lamo acknowledged to me that he was incapable of identifying a single fact contained in any documents leaked by Manning that would harm national security. And Manning's capacity to leak in the future was likely non-existent given that he told Lamo right away that he was "pending discharge" for "adjustment disorder," and no longer had access to any documents (Lamo: "Why does your job afford you access?" - Manning: "because i have a workstation . . . *had*").

If one believes what the chat logs claim, Manning certainly thought he was a whistle-blower acting with the noblest of motives, and probably was exactly that. And if he really is the leaker of the Apache helicopter attack video -- a video which sparked very rare and much-needed realization about the visceral truth of what our wars entail -- then he's a national hero similar to Daniel Ellsberg. Indeed, Ellsberg himself said the very same thing about Manning just yesterday on Democracy Now:

The fact is that what Lamo reports Manning is saying has a very familiar and persuasive ring to me. He reports Manning as having said that what he had read and what he was passing on were horrible -- evidence of horrible machinations by the US backdoor dealings throughout the Middle East and, in many cases, as he put it, almost crimes. And let me guess that -- he’s not a lawyer, but I'll guess that what looked to him like crimes are crimes, that he was putting out. We know that he put out, or at least it's very plausible that he put out, the videos that he claimed to Lamo. And that's enough to go on to get them interested in pursuing both him and the other.

And so, what it comes down, to me, is -- and I say throwing caution to the winds here -- is that what I've heard so far of Assange and Manning -- and I haven't met either of them -- is that they are two new heroes of mine.

To see why that's so, just review some of what Manning said about why he chose to leak, as reflected in the edited chat logs published by Wired:

Lamo: what's your endgame plan, then?. . .

Manning: well, it was forwarded to [WikiLeaks] - and god knows what happens now - hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms - if not, than [sic] we're doomed - as a species - i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens - the reaction to the video gave me immense hope; CNN's iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded - people who saw, knew there was something wrong . . . - i want people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.

Manning described the incident which first made him seriously question the U.S. war in Iraq: when he was instructed to work on the case of Iraqi "insurgents" who had been detained for distributing "insurgent" literature which, when he had it translated, turned out to be nothing more than "a scholarly critique against PM Maliki":

i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled "Where did the money go?" and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…

i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

And he explained why the thought of selling this classified information he was leaking to a foreign power never entered his mind:

Manning: i mean what if i were someone more malicious- i could've sold to russia or china, and made bank?

Lamo: why didn’t you?

Manning: because it's public data

Lamo: i mean, the cables

Manning: it belongs in the public domain -information should be free - it belongs in the public domain - because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge - if its out in the open… it should be a public good.

That's a whistleblower in the purest form: discovering government secrets of criminal and corrupt acts and then publicizing them to the world not for profit, not to give other nations an edge, but to trigger "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms." That's the person that Adrian Lamo informed on and risked sending to prison for an extremely long time.

Making Lamo's conduct even worse is that it appears he reported Manning for no reason other than a desire for some trivial media attention. Jacob Appelbaum, a well-known hacker of the Tor Project who has known Lamo for years, said that Lamo's "only concern" has always been "getting publicity for Adrian." Indeed, Lamo's modus operandi as a hacker was primitive hacking aimed at high-profile companies that he'd then use Poulsen to publicize. As Appelbaum put it: "if this situation really fell into Adrian's lap, his first and only thought would have been: how can I turn this to my advantage? He basically destroyed a 22-year-old's life in order to get his name mentioned on the Wired.com blog." [There are efforts underway to help secure very competent legal counsel for Manning, including a legal defense fund for him; assuming the facts are what the current narrative suggests, I intend to post more about that shortly].

None of Lamo's claims that he turned informant out of some grave concern for "national security" and "the lives of his fellow citizens" make any sense. Indeed, Lamo several months ago contributed $30 to WikiLeaks, which he's use to tout his support for whistle-blowing, and told me has has long considered himself on "the far left." Yet in the public statements he's made about what he did to Manning, he's incoherently invoked a slew of trite, right-wing justifications, denouncing Manning as a "traitor" and a "spy," while darkly insinuating that Manning provided classified information to a so-called "foreign national," meaning WikiLeaks' Assange. Lamo told me that any embarrassment to the U.S. Government could cause a loss of American lives, and that he believes anyone who breaks the law with leaks should be prosecuted. Yet he also claims to support WikiLeaks, which is run by that very same "foreign national" and which exists to enable illegal leaks.

Then there's the fact that, just in the last two weeks, Lamo's statements have been filled with countless contradictions of the type that suggests deliberate lying. Lamo told me, for instance, that Manning first contacted him with a series of emails, but told Yahoo! News that "Manning contacted him via AOL Instant Messenger 'out of the blue' on May 21." Lamo told Yahoo! "that he spelled out very clearly in his chats with Manning that he wasn't ... acting as a journalist," that it "was clear to Manning that he had taken his journalist hat off for the purposes of their conversation," and that "Manning refused" a confidentiality offer, but last night he said to me that he told Manning their conversations would have journalist-source confidentiality and that Manning never refused or rejected that. Just listen to the interview Lamo gave to me and make your own judgment about his veracity.

* * * * *

And what about Wired's role in all of this? Both WikiLeaks as well as various Internet commentators have suggested that Poulsen violated journalistic ethical rules by being complicit with Lamo in informing on Manning. I don't see any evidence for that. This is what Poulsen told me when I asked him about whether he participated in Lamo's informing on Manning:

Adrian reached out to me in late May to tell me a story about how he'd been contacted by an Army intelligence analyst who'd admitted to leaking 260,000 State Department diplomatic cables to a "foreign national." Adrian told me he had already reported the matter to the government, and was meeting the Army and FBI in person to pass on chat logs. He declined to provide independently verifiable details, or identify the intelligence analyst by name, because he said he considered the matter sensitive.

Several days passed before he was willing to give me the chat logs under embargo. I got them on May 27. That's when I learned Manning's name and the full details of his claims to Adrian. . . . If you're asking if I informed on Manning or anyone else, the answer is no, and the question is insulting.

At the time when Lamo was conspiring with federal agents to induce Manning into making incriminating statements, Poulsen, by his own account, was aware that this was taking place, but there's no indication he participated in any way with Lamo. What is true, though, is that Lamo gave Wired the full, unedited version of his chat logs with Manning, but Wired published only extremely edited samplings of it. This is what Poulsen told me when I asked if Lamo gave him all of the chat logs:

He did, but I don't think we'll be publishing more any time soon. The remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren't clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information that I'm not throwing up without vetting first.

This part of Wired's conduct deserves a lot more attention. First, in his interview with me, Lamo claimed that all sorts of things took place in the discussion between him and Manning that are (a) extremely relevant to what happened, (b) have nothing to do with Manning's personal issues or sensitive national security secrets, and yet (c) are nowhere to be found in the chat logs published by Wired. That means either that Lamo is lying about what was said or Wired is concealing highly relevant aspects of their discussions. Included among that is Manning's explanation about how he found Lamo and why he contacted him, Manning's alleged claim that his "intention was to cripple the United States' foreign relations for the foreseeable future," and discussions they had about the capacity in which they were speaking.

Second, one can't help but note the irony that two hackers-turned-journalists -- Poulsen and Lamo -- are now the self-anointed guardians of America's national security, the former concealing secrets he learned as a journalist on vague national security grounds and the latter turning informant by invoking the most extreme, right-wing platitudes about "traitors" and "spies" and decrees that his actions were necessary to "save American lives."

Third, Wired should either publish all of the chat logs, or be far more diligent about withholding only those parts which truly pertain only to Manning's private and personal matters and/or which would reveal national security secrets. Or they should have a respected third party review the parts they have concealed to determine if there is any justification for that. At least if one believes Lamo's claims, there are clearly relevant parts of those chats which Wired continues to conceal.

Given Poulsen's mutually beneficial and multi-layered relationship with Lamo, they have far more than a standard journalist-source relationship. None of Poulsen's articles about the highly controversial Lamo is ever even remotely critical of him, in any sense of the word. From the start, there were countless bizarre aspects to Lamo's story which Poulsen never examined or explored, at least not when writing about any of this. I see no reason to doubt Poulsen's integrity or good faith. Still, in light of the magnitude of this story on several levels and his long relationship with Lamo, Kevin Poulsen should not be single-handedly deciding what the public is and isn't permitted to know about the Lamo-Manning interaction.

* * * * *

The reason this story matters so much -- aside from the fact that it may be the case that a truly heroic, 22-year-old whistle-blower is facing an extremely lengthy prison term -- is the unique and incomparably valuable function WikiLeaks is fulfilling. Even before the Apache helicopter leak, I wrote at length about why they are so vital, and won't repeat all of that here. Suffice to say, there are very few entities, if there are any, which pose as much of a threat to the ability of governmental and corporate elites to shroud their corrupt conduct behind an extreme wall of secrecy.

What makes WikiLeaks particularly threatening to the most powerful factions is that they cannot control it. Even when whistle-blowers in the past have leaked serious corruption and criminal conduct to perfectly good journalists at the nation's largest corporate media outlets, government officials could control how the information was disclosed. When the NYT learned in 2004 that the Bush administration was illegally eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, George Bush summoned the paper's Publisher and Executive Editor to the Oval Office, demanded that the story not be published, and the paper complied by sitting on it for a full year until after Bush was safely re-elected. When The Washington Post's Dana Priest learned that the CIA was maintaining a network of secret prisons -- black sites -- she honored the request of "senior U.S. officials" not to identify the countries where those prisons were located so as to not disrupt the U.S.'s ability to continue to use those countries for such projects.

Both WikiLeaks and Manning have stated that The Washington Post's David Finkel, when writing his book on Iraq two years ago, had possession of the Apache helicopter video but never released it to the public (Manning: "Washington Post sat on the video … David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here"). As Columbia Journalism Review reported, both the Post and Finkel were quite coy and evasive in addressing that claim, pointedly insisting that "the Post" had never possessed that video while refusing to say whether Finkel did. The same thing happened when, on the same day, I called Finkel to ask him about WikiLeaks' claim that they possessed but never released that video. He very curtly told me, using careful legalistic language, that "the Post never had the video," but before I could ask whether Finkel himself did, he abruptly told me he couldn't talk anymore and had nothing else to say, and then hung up on me. My inquiries to the Post were met with a pro forma response that "The Washington Post did not have the video, nor did we sit on anything," but these Journalistic Crusaders for Transparency refused to answer my question as to whether Finkel himself did.

By stark contrast, WikiLeaks isn't interested in helping governments, militaries and corporations keep secrets. They're interested in the opposite: forcing transparency on institutions which conduct the vast, vast bulk of their substantive conduct in the dark. They're not susceptible to pressure from political and corporate officials; rather, they want to hold them accountable. That's what makes WikiLeaks so uniquely threatening to elite institutions, and anyone who doubts that should simply read the 2008 Pentagon Report discussing ways to destroy it, or review the Obama administration's unprecedented and rapidly escalating war on whistle-blowers generally.

Any rational person would have to acknowledge that government secrecy in rare cases is justifiable and that it's possible for leaks of legitimate secrets to result in serious harm. I'm not aware of a single instance where any leak from WikiLeaks has done so, but it's certainly possible that, at some point, it might. But right now, the scales are tipped so far in the other direction -- toward excessive, all-consuming secrecy -- that the far greater danger comes from allowing that to fester and grow even more. It's not even a close call. Any efforts to subvert that secrecy cult are commendable in the extreme, and nobody is doing that as effectively as WikiLeaks (and their value is not confined to leaking, as they just inspired a serious effort to turn Iceland into a worldwide haven for investigative journalism and anonymous whistle-blowers).

This Manning detention -- whether it was by design or just exploited opportunistically -- is being used to depict WikiLeaks as a serious national security threat and associations with it as dangerous and subversive. Just in the last week alone, several people have expressed to me fears that supporting or otherwise enabling WikiLeaks could subject them to liability or worse. There's no reason to believe that's true, but given the powers the U.S. Government claims -- lawless detentions, renditions, assassinations even of American citizens -- that's the climate of intimidation that has been created. This latest incident is clearly being used to impede WikiLeaks' vital function of checking powerful factions and imposing transparency, and for that reason alone, this is an extremely serious case that merits substantial scrutiny, along with genuine skepticism to understand what happened.

* * * * *

My one-hour discussion with Lamo last night can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorders below. It is in two segments (the first roughly 40 minutes, the second roughly 20) because Lamo requested at one point that we go off the record, which we did for 1 minute or so to discuss the parts of Manning's chat that Lamo claims are too personal to publish (Lamo spoke only in generalities about that and I learned nothing specific). The only other part that is edited out is the first two minutes or so of the discussion, before the interview begins, where Lamo for some reason insists that I respond to a Tweet of his before we begin, which I then did.

Part 1:

Part 2:

UPDATE: Four relevant items from today: (1) The Washington Post's Jeff Stein reports on Julian Assange's fear of being arrested by U.S. authorities, as well as what appears to be the imminent release by WikiLeaks of a video showing a horrendous U.S. air strike in Afghanistan that killed far more civilians than the U.S. military acknowledged; (2) After interviewing Poulsen, Columbia Journalism Review publishes a timeline reporting that, shortly before Lamo's scheduled May 27 meeting with FBI agents about Manning, Poulsen traveled on that date to Sacramento and "spent a few hours with Lamo"; (3) Judging by this June 10 article, The Washington Post obtained at least some of the Lamo-Manning chats, and quoted parts which Wired has not published -- proving that Wired is withholding more than just "personal issues" and national security secrets; and (4) Gawker's Adrian Chen has an excellent post demanding that Wired provide far more transparency regarding the parts of the Lamo-Manning chats they continue to conceal.

Listen to the Podcast:

Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory

I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. I am the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown.

Source: Salon

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By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

DID ISRAEL GIVE US THE DISEASE TO SELL US THE CURE?

Israeli Actor With Metal Bar Walking Through Solid Steel

It is a given that Israel has destroyed any credibility it once had. It is one thing when a cheap set-up job is leaked but this one was sent out special delivery with "Government of the State of Israel" stamped all over it. This was pure suicide. Only idiots that want to be fooled-politicians in the pocket of AIPAC and Fox News-were really taken in. Frankly, with no integrity to sacrifice in the first place, humiliation is impossible anyway. With the "news cycle" such as it is, a new massacre or terrorist bombing could happen at any time. As Israel needs one quickly, it is quite possible we may get one.

I guess I never thought that any country would go as far as to place people, spawned just like in a video game, in something used as vital evidence supporting Israel as "defending themselves." Not much hope of making that dog hunt anymore. Maybe that dog never should have been tossed in a well at birth. Israel’s continual ranting about terrorism might all have been movie magic from day one. We now have to go back decades and look for photos and videos that are now likely to have all been altered like the films Israel sent of the dancing Palestinians on 9/11. Nothing was altered on these; they were simply many years old, just like the still photos of weapons Israel claimed they found on the Freedom Flotilla, photos with digital signatures from as early as 2006.

What Israel has presented to us as "self defense" is now an act of terrorism. I don’t know if putting armed terrorists in a film, Israeli actors dressed up, waving steel rods around, is a crime but it should be. Were there any question, the films make it clear. What we need to know is why has falsifying evidence of terrorist acts become an industry in Israel, a nation that handles the security, including the video security, of most world airports, including nearly all airports in the United States? Would you go to a doctor who worked in a germ warfare lab? Would you hire a check forger to work in a bank? Would you hire a child molester to watch your kids? Well, we have hired Israel to watch our ports, our nuclear facilities, our airports and much more-a country we know for certain will give us a phony video, an altered container scan or a falsified radiation reading if it serves their purpose.

Think of the Americans continually piping on about Israel as our ally, the great democracy, the bastion of liberty in the Middle East. Even the ill-named Simon Wiesenthal Center or ADL, issuing a mass fatwa declaring the entire population of the planet either "anti-Semites" or "self hating Jews," or a combination of both, won’t get them past this one. Israel already killed off their "Auschwitz card" when they were caught dubbing "Go Back to Auschwitz" over the screams for help from Flotilla wounded, like ventriloquists. We have even heard that Israel is now telling the Palestinians to go back to "Gazauschwitz." Odd sense of humor.

There is no doubt America was burned in the flood of intelligence received from Israel after 9/11. "Their" agenda, a long history of grudges, was settled at the cost of thousands of American lives, lives still being lost.

A question comes to mind: why develop an industry for falsifying evidence of terrorism? What comes to mind at first is, of course, that Israel has a multi-billion dollar industry in selling security equipment and services, managed by Mossad personnel who are allowed now to work in the private sector and still actively serve their government. But does it go deeper? If you can and will, as Israel has shown us, add people into videos, then you can also remove them. When we see videos of "Arab terrorists" planting bombs or firing weapons as in Mumbai, what else are we not seeing? Have the players been switched? Have some people been removed? Why?

Thus far we have seen proof that Israel creates phony passports from any country and moves agents where they choose. We have also seen videos altered to cover the murder of innocent civilians. From this we can guess that when we see a video of a rock-throwing teen being shot it may well have been a child carrying school books instead. This is exactly the kind of thing done with the videos from the Freedom Flotilla and no reasonable person could imagine that Israel sat on this 35-year-old technology without ever using it.

Were phony videos and agents using falsified passports used to cover the 7/7 bombings in London? A curious set of circumstances involving the Netanyahu visit, alterations of his plans to avoid areas under attack, bring the videos showing "Arab-looking" suspects under suspicion. Now we know it could have been anyone or no one; the bombs could have been planted at any time and remotely activated.

Once you take that step into deception or the moment you are caught doing something you may have done for decades, you can’t close that door again.

Most intelligence professionals recognize that a significant percentage of Israelis who do business around the world are employed by their intelligence agencies. Many of these individuals carry Australian, German or British passports; many more seem to be Arabs, speaking local dialects with perfection. Many American contracting companies have had Israeli agents placed among their employees as have UN NGO organizations, many well-known charities and, of course, the press. However, the majority are employed in selling, installing, maintaining equipment in high security installations or, in fact managing the installations themselves, providing broad services. This is, as it were, the rub. Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the airport the Detroit "Crotch Bomber" hurried through with no passport, was an Israeli-run facility.

Where were the videos showing who our terrorist met with while in Schiphol, an airport with the broadest high-definition video of any facility outside Israel? Oh, the video is missing, it disappeared, the Israeli company running the airport misplaced it. Wasn’t there time to cut in a pack of dancing Palestinians who could have been shown strapping a bomb to his "johnson"? They could have all been carrying steel bars and walked right through the airport walls to get there. When they left, they might have just dissolved through the floor like vampires.

Times Square was supposed to get us to forget the Mossad fiasco in Detroit, another airport managed by Israelis. When the Indian passenger picked out by the bomb dogs was taken into custody, where did that video go? What was his name? Did he simply disappear? Was he sent back to Israel like the dancing Israeli video crew on 9/11? When the government of Yemen reported that the "Al Qaeda" operatives, you remember, the ones Dick Cheney released from Guantanamo, had been in contact with Israeli handlers, where did that story go? Yemen has their laptops, filled to the brim with helpful hints on running operations, Mossad style.

The issue then is one of trust. Can an airport be guarded by the same people who shuffle assassins and terrorists through airports? Can we accept a group of special effect clowns to handle video security footage that we may end up going to war over? No matter how cheaply priced or how nicely packaged the stolen American technology being offered is, shouldn’t it matter who we do business with?

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

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El Al racial profiling

By Jonathan Cook * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Two Palestinian brothers with Israeli citizenship have won 8,000 US dollars in damages from Israel's national carrier, El Al, after a court found that their treatment by the company's security staff at a New York airport had been "abusive and unnecessary."

Abdel Wahab and Abdel Aziz Shalabi were assigned a female security guard who watched over them at the airport's departure gate for nearly two hours, in full view of hundreds of fellow passengers, after they had passed the security and baggage checks.

Later, El Al's head of security threatened to bar Abdel Wahab, 43, from the flight if he did not apologize to the guard for going to the toilet without first getting her approval. Abdel Aziz said he had been humiliated and "cried like I've never cried before in public."

Although surveys of Palestinian citizens, who comprise one-fifth of Israel's population, show that most have suffered degrading treatment when flying with Israeli carriers, few bring cases to the Israeli courts.

The brothers are now planning to sue El Al and its New York staff in the United States over Israel's racial profiling of passengers in a country where the practice is illegal.

"I'd rather go to New York by donkey than fly with El Al again," said Abdel Aziz, 44. "We will keep fighting this case until Israel is embarrassed into stopping its policy of discriminating against its Arab citizens."

The brothers, who live in northern Israel, were the only Palestinians in a party of 17 Israeli insurance agents on a two-week business trip to Canada and New York in 2007.

They arrived four hours early at John F Kennedy airport in New York for their return flight with Israir, an Israeli charter company, to allow time for the additional checks they expected from El Al's security staff.

El Al has special agreements with most countries' airports to carry out its own security checks for passengers flying with Israeli airlines.

The brothers said they were questioned, searched and had to wait two hours while their bags and carry-on luggage were subjected to lengthy inspections.

"The Jews with us went through in minutes," said Abdel Aziz, in his home in the village of Iksal, near Nazareth. "The difference in treatment was very clear."

Keren Weinberg, Israeli security agent

When Abdel Wahab visited a toilet without her permission, a noisy argument broke out between the two, with Ms Weinberg accusing him of "roaming freely." He said he told her to "either arrest me or go away."

Ilan Or, the head of El Al security, was then called and issued him an ultimatum that he apologise or be prevented from catching the flight. Abdul Wahab told a magistrate's court in Haifa this month that he broke down in tears and finally said he was sorry.

"I was in shock. One minute I was made to feel like a terrorist and then the next like a naughty child," he said.

Judge Amir Toubi said the security staff had admitted that neither brother was deemed a security threat and that Israeli law did not allow checks to continue after passengers had passed the security area.

"With all due understanding of security needs, there is no justification for ignoring the dignity, freedom and basic rights of a citizen under the mantle of the sacred cow of security," the judge ruled.

El Al told the court that it had been "asked by the state to conduct security checks abroad on behalf of [charter companies] Arkia and Israir airlines, and is acting under the security guidelines set by official bodies of the state."

Abdul Wahab praised the court's decision but said the damages were minor and would not act as a deterrent against El Al repeating such behaviour in future. He said the brothers would appeal to a higher court in Israel and were planning to initiate a legal action in New York, too.

"I will not rest until we get an apology from El Al and they acknowledge that what they did is wrong," he said. He called on all Palestinian citizens to boycott El Al until it committed to stop its discriminatory policy.

A 2007 report on racial profiling by Israeli carriers, published by the Arab Association for Human Rights and the Centre Against Racism, concluded: "This phenomenon is so widespread that it is hard to find any Arab citizen who travels abroad by air and who has not experienced a discriminatory security check at least once."

The two groups found that Arab and Muslim passengers typically faced long interrogations and extensive luggage searches, and were also regularly subjected to body and strip searches, had items including computers confiscated, were kept in holding areas and were escorted directly on to the plane.

The report noted that foreign countries that allowed Israel to carry out its own security checks at their airports failed to supervise them and preferred to "ignore their discriminatory nature and the human rights violations committed on their own soil".

New York's JFK airport was one of the airports that refused to answer questions from the groups about incidents of discriminatory treatment of Arabs and Muslims.

Israel has also come under harsh criticism for the standard racial profiling policies it uses against its own Palestinian citizens and foreign Arab nationals at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.

The practice of putting different color-coded stickers on Jewish and Palestinian passengers' luggage ended three years ago. However, airport guards still write a number on uniform white stickers indicating the level of security threat. Critics say higher numbers are reserved for non-Jews.

Faced with a lawsuit from Israeli human rights groups, Menachem Mazuz, the attorney general at the time, instructed the airports authority in early 2008 to implement "visible equality" by ending discriminatory screening policies.

However, observers have noticed no change in practice. "This was a very cynical exercise. ‘Visible equality' simply means making it look like there's equality when the inequality persists," said Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth.

In December an airport official told the right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper: "Profiling makes the biggest difference. A man with the name of Umar flying out of Tel Aviv, whether he is American or British, is going to get checked seven times."

Two years ago Israel's racial profiling policy made headlines when a member of an American dance troupe with a Muslim-sounding name was forced to dance at the airport to prove he was who he claimed.

The incident with the Shalabi brothers follows on the heels of a diplomatic crisis between Israel and South Africa over revelations that spies posing as El Al staff have been operating at Johannesburg airport, gathering information on non-Jewish passengers visiting Israel.

El Al has threatened to close the route after South African officials stopped providing the airport guards with diplomatic immunity.

South African TV reported last month that two of the Mossad assassins suspected of killing a Hamas commander in Dubai in January may have used Johannesburg airport to fly back to Israel.

* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair".

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By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

There has been something verging on the surreal in the US-Israel interplay over the past year or so, culminating in the kick in - er, the face delivered to Vice President Biden two weeks ago with Israel's surprise announcement of yet more new settlement construction, and capped by Secretary of State Clinton's groveling submission to Netanyahu at a recent AIPAC conference. Her speech was the verbal equivalent of what a White House intern allegedly did for her husband once (or more) upon a time, supposedly earning "Presidential kneepads" thereby.

Israeli officials have repeatedly not only ignored but also openly insulted in word or deed the persons or policies of almost every senior American official with whom they have dealt, including Clinton, Biden, Middle East Envoy George Mitchell, and President Obama himself.

And they have taken it, one and all, occasionally with brief bursts of verbal anger that rapidly subsided into yet another steadfast affirmation of the eternal, undiminished, unchallenged and unchallengeable US willingness to underwrite the security of Israel, and especially to its absolute unwillingness to deny Israel a single dollar, bomb or bullet. God knows, I wish they had even half the same demonstrated commitment to the security of the United States and the well-being of the American people -- but then, no one can easily serve two masters.

Creating a Shambles and Calling it Policy

Sure, America's Middle East policy is a shambles. America's standing is much lower now than when Obama came into office. The Iraq war is winding down, with no certainty at all how that country will go. Afghanistan is a mess, but then, Alexander the Great couldn't do much with it either, so that's no surprise. And Israel -- not wanting America to be bored with only one and a half wars -- evidently is trying to help by encouraging us into war with Iran, to spare them the cost of attacking it. Such a friend!

Then there are the long-suffering Palestinians, a people whose situation Obama himself declared in his one bright moment in Cairo last June to be "intolerable." Hello? Mr. Obama, did you sleep through so many classes that the meaning of that word slipped past you? Something that is "intolerable" needs to be put right, and by any objective measure, the US has the power on absolutely every dimension needed to do just that.

Ah, but that would mean actually doing something to Israel, or at least withholding something from it, or perhaps even voting against it in the UN. And that would mean bypassing Congress and going to the American people. And that isn't going to happen, at least with this Administration. Obama just isn't the man to do that job.

From Bad to Worse

The whole thing almost reminds me of a turnabout "battered spouse" exercise, in which the stronger lets the weaker do the beating, murmuring "now, dear" at intervals but letting the beatings continue. And as usual, whenever anyone else dares to point out what is happening, the battered spouse staunchly affirms a determination to stand by the battering partner, no matter what happens.

What is manifestly going to happen is that a demonstrably bad situation is going to get worse, and more than a few people are making that abundantly clear. Probably the only thing that might jolt the Israeli-dominated train of US Middle East mismanagement off its tracks, would be a catastrophe following a US strike against Iran producing US casualties way beyond those from the Vietnam War -- something that could happen all too easily. And then, yet again, there is Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian Bantustan....

More dangerously, Clinton's hat-in-hand, I-love-you-now-and-forever verbal burlesque at the AIPAC conference makes two things abundantly clear. One is the extraordinary extent of Zionist control within and over the US Government -- when you hurt someone or some Administration and it comes back for more, you have them. The other is how little the members of AIPAC themselves, at least nominally US citizens, care about the US itself -- there isn't any longer even a facade of "dual loyalty," only loyalty to Israel alone.

I am very old-fashioned, and a decade in the US Marines gave me an odd affinity for qualities such as pride and loyalty and duty and honor. I'd like to hope that somewhere way down deep these supposed "leaders" of the most powerful country on earth would find something of those qualities in themselves, or at least acquire a sense of shame, and understand that they are there to safeguard America and Americans, and not to sustain Israeli militarism, racism and colonialism.

If they did, then Israel would find itself confronting sanctions and embargoes, its aid from the US would end, and the illegal blockade of Gaza would be forcibly broken -- and that would be just for starters.

But that, too, isn't likely in the here and now. In the Middle East, as in so many other areas of public policy, the US Government and its so-called "leaders" simply are not a part of any workable solution. So perhaps we should just send them all some diplomatic kneepads emblazoned with the Star of David -- although I do wonder what kind of a cigar Netanyahu will flash.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

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An investigation into claims by South Africans that they have been harassed at airports by people claiming to be with 'Airport security' when in fact they are working for El Al Israeli airline. The interesting part though is that all these security guards are trained by Shin Bet and actually work for them. Shockingly they illegally detain and question passengers (even when not flying on their plane), as well as illegally search people, make copies of documents and pass these off to Israel.

Generally with video's like this, there will be cries of "Anti-Semitism"!

PLEASE NOTE... THIS IS NOT THAT! THIS VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS ILLEGAL SPYING, BREAKING THE LAW, SPYING ON INNOCENT CITIZENS OF A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY, SPIES BEING PLANTED AS 'SECURITY GUARDS'.

There may also be claims to discredit this story, the story was aired by CARTE BLANCHE.

Part 1/2:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGwBXIPUW5E

Part 2/2:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POWvgcKWg-U

Israel - South Africa Crises Faces Deadline

Israel's national airline El Al may be forced to ground all flights to South Africa on Sunday after South Africa accused Israel of violating international law by using armed Israeli intelligence agents with diplomatic passports to screen passengers boarding the El Al flights in South Africa.

A diplomatic quarrel between the two countries broke out in September after "Carte Blanche", a South African investigative television program, alleged that the El Al's policy was to profile passengers based on race and religion and offered evidence that its security personnel were actually employed by the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service.

Using hidden cameras, detectives and testimony from a former South African El Al security officer disgruntled over the alleged non-payment of a bonus by El Al, the South African investigative program found evidence that the security personnel for El Al, a private company, had their guns licensed through the Israeli embassy and alleged that the officers were agents of Israel's secret service. The program explicitly accused the Israelis of using racist security policies and knowingly violating South African law.

The program led to an outcry in South Africa, a country still recovering from the wounds of decades of racial persecution during the Apartheid era, and in November South Africa revoked the diplomatic immunity of all El Al staff operating in the country.

A team of Israeli diplomats was dispatched to South Africa to try resolve the matter, but after months of negotiations the two countries do not seem to have come to an agreement on the status and operation of Israeli security personnel in the country.

El Al has now announced that it will cancel all flights to South Africa if its security staff are not provided with diplomatic passports by the end of the month.

Israeli President Shimon Peres is expected to raise the issue when he meets his South African counterpart President Jacob Zuma at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

El Al refused to comment on the content of the negotiations.

"The Israeli Foreign Ministry is dealing with this and we are hoping that the matter will be solved," Anat Friedman, a spokesperson with El Al Israel Airlines told The Media Line.

Andy David, a spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Israel would not waver on security.

"In order for us to fly anywhere in the world there are some security preconditions that need to be fulfilled," he told The Media Line. "If they are not fulfilled then El Al cannot fly. With regards to South Africa, the two governments have been in touch and are trying to solve the matter, but if the necessary preconditions for the security of the El Al flight cannot be met then El Al will have to stop flying to South Africa."

South African officials were also tight lipped on the status of the late-hour negotiations.

"We cannot comment on discussions that are ongoing," Elizabeth Smith, Political and Trade Counsellor at the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv told The Media Line. "We prefer to keep these discussions on a bilateral basis and not to speak about the issue indirectly through the media."

But a senior South African Foreign Affairs official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the issue centered around diplomatic immunity.

"South Africa did not expel a diplomat or withdraw the diplomatic immunity of a diplomat," the official told The Media Line. "We withdrew diplomatic immunity for someone who was not a diplomat."

"We are following our obligations under international law," they said. "The Vienna convention is an agreement among states to regulate who is entitled to diplomatic immunity and who is not. Security officers working outside of embassies are not entitled to diplomatic immunity."

"Now the governments are trying to work out how they can best solve the problem in such a way that our adherence to international law is respected and our domestic legislation is respected," the official added, referring to South African legislation governing where armed security personnel can operate.

Directives from the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, require Israeli airlines to provide their own security in foreign airports, an arrangement host countries have traditionally accepted. The head of an Israeli airline's security team in a particular country, a Shin Bet agent, is generally given a diplomatic passport so as to operate with diplomatic immunity.

"Israel Security Agency agents probably operate wherever they perceive a threat," David J Bentley, an analyst with Big Pond Aviation told The Media Line. "Authorities around the world are generally just not quite sure how to handle the situation."

El Al flies a Boeing 767-300 to Johannesburg three times a week, carrying between 1235 and 1400 passengers a week when at full capacity. El Al is the only airline that runs direct flights between Israel and South Africa.

"With the World Cup coming up in South Africa this year and the world's media so focused on South Africa, South African authorities simply do not want any more attention on the country in a manner in which they are not in control of," Bentley said. "To have agents of another country operating in their territory, it's probably the worst time for things like this to happen."

But Dr Virginia Tilley, a researcher at South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council, said the incident had caused much more embarrassment for Israel than South Africa.

"To have put South Africa in a position of having its national law and national sovereignty violated by Israeli intelligence operations is a considerable embarrassment to the Israeli government," she told The Media Line. "Of course these things happen but they are not supposed to be publicly thrown in the face of the host country."

"This was outrageous from the beginning," said Dr Tilley, who was featured on the Carte Blanche investigative program as one of the passengers El Al security agents had profiled. "In South Africa it is particularly not OK for anybody to be screening people based on ethnicity or race and giving them a hard time on that basis."

"They are going way beyond what would be necessary for the security of the airplane," she said. "For example I was traveling to Israel, had a series of documents with me and they copied all of them and faxed them to Israel. That has nothing to do with the safety of an airplane."

"They are conducting espionage under the guise of an airline," said Dr Tilley. "They can't operate a foreign intelligence gathering service in South Africa, interrogating South African citizens on South African soil. That's illegal."

"Israel's argument is that they have unique security considerations and that as such they need unique accommodations from the host country," she said. "That argument begins to crumble when you don't inform the host country."

"Nobody likes that," Dr Tilley said. "Most countries would find it quite irritating that the Shin Bet was operating on their soil without telling them, so this has very broad implications and could spread. Other countries will say 'Well if South Africa is not going to let you do illegal things on their soil then we're not going to let you do illegal things on our soil.'"

The Carte Blanche investigative program had sent a Muslim man with a hidden camera to Johannesburg airport to meet a friend near the El Al check-in desk. While the man was not flying and did not approach the check in desk, he was thoroughly interrogated by men claiming to be airport security personnel. The men turned out to be employees of the Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, with diplomatic passports and guns licensed through the Israeli embassy.

"El Al does excellent security work, but they work above the law," Jonathan Garb, a former El Al security agent in South Africa told the program. "This here is secret service operating above the law here in South Africa... It's like the CIA, or the FBI, or MI5, but they're hiding behind the guise of the airline."

"The crazy thing is that we are profiling people racially, ethnically, even on religious grounds," he said, pointing out that the Israeli profiling system meant that black passengers endured much harsher profiling than white passengers.

"We pull the wool over everyone's eyes," Garb added. "We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing."

Mr Garb was employed by the Israeli airline as a security guard and profiler, trained in Israel and tasked with screening passengers attempting to board El Al's direct flight between Johannesburg and Tel Aviv. After 19 years with the airline, he was fired, allegedly after he filed a complaint with the South African Department of Labor over a financial bonus he claims he was entitled to.

Source: AHN

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Lebanon reacts: Would it be simpler just to put the whole world on?

By Franklin Lamb* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

However President Obama is judged on various subjects for his first year in office, he has already made history in the way that neither his predecessor nor any other leader has ever managed.

On January 3, 2010, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) issued new security directives to all United States and international air carriers with inbound flights to the U.S. effective January 4, 2010. The TSA press release sought to assure the traveling public: "The new directive includes long-term sustainable security measures developed in consultation with law enforcement officials and our domestic and international partners."

At midnight Washington DC time, January 3, it went into effect and placed 675,000,000 (675 million) more Muslims and Arabs on yet another 'Terrorism 'list. Also added were Nigerian and Cuban Christians but they were not the target.

675 million is the approximate total number of people on the new list from the ten prone to terrorism Countries as the Washington Post called them this morning, or terrorist leaning countries according to Fox news, (Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen) and the four current State sponsors of Terrorism ( Iran, Syria, Libya and Cuba).

All 675 million of these citizens are subject to being watched, patted down, and full body scanned under arrangements calling for 'intense screening' by the national airlines who would like to transport them to the US. As with the new H. R. 2278 Congressional initiative against satellite TV providers, the airlines flying from or via the 14 countries will have to enforce the new stringent security measures or themselves risk losing their lucrative US bi-lateral landing rights and potentially, end up on yet another US Special Global Terrorism facilitator list.

In addition to the approximate 675 million covered by the new measure, with the average birth rate of these countries being approximately 45 live births per 1000 per year, it means that more than 17,000,000 newborns will join the new US T list even before their first gulp of their mommy's milk. And every subsequent years worth of new 'T babies'.

The new list initiative is enough to warm Dick Cheney's heart, reputed as he is to have never seen an Muslim or Arab (except those he does business with) he didn't want terrorized by a listing or other means, but the international rebellion against this latest US War on Terrorism initiative has begun.

As this report is being prepared, Nigeria has just weighed via media reports reaching Beirut around noon on 1/5/09 and its government has demanded that their 150,000,000 (150 million) citizens be immediately scratched from the new T list of 14 countries singled out for special treatment. Nigeria Information Minister Dora Akunyili announced today that Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, did not accept the new Terrorism list and we do not have a history of terrorism and such a move could not be justified. It is unfair to include 150 million Nigerians on the US list for tighter screening because Nigerians do not have terrorist tendencies.

It's no secret these days that anyone who even looks like they could be Arab or Muslim is already on a 'mental US Terrorism watch list' evidenced by reports of some passengers deciding not to board flights after observing Hijab wearing females or Abaya wearing Muslin or Arab men looking at them. What often happens according to airport security officials is that non Muslims sometimes stare at Muslims trying to detect something unusal or suspicious about them and then the Muslims stare back wondering why they are being stared at and both parties become paranoid.

The Lebanese, bless them all, ever alert to foreign intrigues, and were among the first objecting to being placed on the new US T list.

On Sunday night's (1/3/09) late and wild van ride back to Beirut from Beital in the now frigid and frequently bitterly cold and windblown, Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, this observer got an ear full. Our driver, by appearance, down to the Akek (Amber) ring on his little finger, neatly trimmed short beard, black wool jacket and black baseball cap, was a Hezbollah guy. Fellow passengers were accepting as Abass treated us to his new CD of Resistance music, (again and again!), including the popular songs Haydar, Hayder and Oh Hussein!, and the catchy Ali, Ali! (Ali was the cousin and son in law of the Prophet Mohammad who Shia Muslims believe should have been the first Khalifa (successor) of the Prophet rather than Abu Bakr and his line including Omar (the second Khalifa) and Othman (the third Khalifa). In important respects, from this succession argument grew the Shia-Sunni conflict now deeply splitting Islam. On the van, it was a party atmosphere among the fifteen or so passengers most of whom were returning from week-end visits to their families with Bekaa toting delicacies of one kind or another. Van users, including this one, prefer Hezbollah drivers on the Beirut-Bekaa run because they know every pot hole on the route over the West Lebanon Mountains, don't try to overcharge riders, are unfailingly polite to the elderly and infirm-assisting them on and off the vans, and perhaps most importantly, these guys drive like bats fleeing hell, which cuts travel time by about one-third.

But those probably most grateful for riding with drivers like 'Abass' are those whose documents might not be quite in order or they just might be carrying contraband of some sort. For them our driver was golden because drivers like him are routinely waived thru various check points en route once their affiliation is noticed. One can't help wondering what would happen if a US 'profiling' system was in place and a van was pulled over by a Pennsylvania State trooper named Lawrence and his flashing red light, for ID and luggage inspection or just to sniff inside the vehicles quickly rolled down windows. Would the van still have passengers traveling to Beirut or would he ask to share a smoke?

The friendly young man sitting next to me opened a carry on case and while not wanting to appear snoopy, one could not help noticing that it was packed with filled honey comb and softball sized clumps of Red-bud Hashish (known locally by Western clients as 'H & H', with sometimes the prized honey fetching more than the Red-bud) two ancient Bekaa products. Appreciated from before Roman times each harvest achieved bumper crops this year. The near record yield was recorded despite a couple of DEA funded 'photo op' anti-drug 'raids' last summer that the locals laugh at. The chatty kid told me lots of couriers make at least twice weekly Baalbek trips.

One Baalbek young lady, a member of the large Jaafar clan ( which producers some of Hezbollah's best fighters) , studying Journalism at Beirut's American Lebanese University (LAU), commented to this observer after our driver took a music break to tune in the news, Oh, your country just added 14 more Muslim countries to another airplane Terrorism list. Mabrouk!

This opened an animated discussion of the ways things are going these days between the Obama administration whose sweet words last spring have become the source for scowls and ridicule in Lebanon due to deep disappointment and, once more dashed hope of America becoming an honest broker in the region --and of course, the various US Terrorism lists.

A teen ager from the back of the van sing-songed Wouldn't it be easier just for you Americans to put the whole world on your terrorism list and then let everyone on the planet convince you they should be taken off? And another smart alec grinned: Or you could just stop giving Israel weapons to kill and terrorize us and then there would be no need for any terrorist lists at all? Within two seconds, not more, an old woman who must have been in her 80's, wrapped in an Ashoura black covering, and who appeared to be sound asleep, lifted her head and shouted Enshallah! (God willing!) and returned her head forward to slumber. With that sage intervention the van erupted and shook in laughter.

The strongest reaction came from 'Mustapha' who appeared to be some sort of Salafist recently arrived from the gulf. Claiming to have friends in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he expressed a strong opinion and with anger in his voice:

Does your government think Muslims with self respect and who value the Koran will allow his family especially his wife and his daughters to be body scanned? He would rather die. This will not happen. One phone call and your Embassy in Lebanon will close faster than the one in Yemen. I think sometimes that you Americans have no idea about these latest aggressions against Muslims? Are you out of your minds? We are a peaceful people with a few extremists doing some crasy things but only in response to crimes against us like in Palestine. Stop provoking us and leave us and our lands!

Will frequent flyers start to Glow?

As Mustapha expressed, Muslims and Arabs find the full-body scanner treatment abhorrent and they will likely oppose in strongly. In this they are not alone with many questions being raised from cost (approximately $ 200,000 each or 10 more expensive that the usual metal detectors) to questions whether such devices would have even detected the type of bomb allegedly used on Christmas Day in Detroit.

While the Israel Defense Industries has announced a crash program to build and distribute quickly a cheaper and improved full body scanner (FBS) version, the stock of American Science & Engineering, a US company that makes the full body scanners skyrocketed after Christmas and hit $82 dollars per share on 1/4/09, up from around $ 42 this summer.UK companies like L-3 Communications and Qinetiq hope to fend off competitors in landing quick orders. Qinetiq announced yesterday that it can perfect a stand-off full body scanner to reduce privacy issues.

Former Bush Homeland Security director, Michael Chertoff admitted to NPR the other day that he is in the hunt for contracts for his new consulting firm, while denying that his advocacy of fbs when he held his post is a conflict of interest. Janes Weekly claims the fbs are here to stay.

There are many critics of FBS including claims that it tends to fry hearing aids, and sends massive doses of ionizing x-rays radiations to the thyroid and breast areas. Others insist dogs are more effective and much cheaper.

Dr. John Gofman, Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, a leading U.S. expert on the biological effects of X-radiation has concluded after exhaustive research that there is NO SAFE DOSE-LEVEL of ionizing radiation. His studies indicate that radiation from medical diagnostics and treatment is a causal co-factor in 50 percent of America's cancers and 60 percent of our ischemic (blood flow blockage) heart disease. He stresses that the frequency with which Americans are medically X-rayed makes for a significant radiological impact.

The rapid introduction of full body scanners at British airports threatens to breach child protection laws which ban the creation of indecent images of children. Terri Dowty, of Action for Rights of Children, in London claims that the scanners could breach the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a "pseudo-image" of a child.

Privacy Issues

The ACLU and similar civil liberty organizations in England and Europe are waging a campaign against fbs on privacy grounds some arguing that the images created by the machines are so graphic they amount to "virtual strip-searching" and have called for safeguards to protect the privacy of passengers involved. US and European Child porn laws are applicable in the view of some lawyers and there is growing concern that TSA type at airports around the World do not commit offences under child pornography laws or sell to the likes of the National Enquirer, the UK Sun, NY Post etc. full body scan images of celebrities, movie stars and others. Some governments are expressing concern that images could end up on the Internet.

A 12-month trial at Manchester, England airport of scanners revealed naked images of passengers including their genitalia and breast enlargements only went ahead last month after under-18s were exempted.

According to a US Congressional source, the Obama administration's new list is meant to parry the coming expected rampage from the likes of Russ Limbaugh. Already some conservatives such as retired Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney who wants to get young Muslim men naked in the worst way. The former US Air Force general's comments during a recent Fox News broadcast. "We've got to go to more than just the normal process that they're talking about now," he opined on Saturday. "We have got to go to very; very strict screening and we've got to use profiling. And I mean, be very, very serious about the profiling. If you are an 18-28-year-old Muslim man, then you should be strip searched. If we don't do that, there's a very high probability that we're gonna lose an airliner."

The Obama administration has expressed for months an interest in revamping the Terrorism lists and who is on them who should not be. Now is the time to rethink the whole T list concept. They can boomerang and cause many more problems than they were constructed to prevent. The Obama administration should proceed on a case by case basic with people suspected of planning violence. It should immediately scrap the latest 675, 000,000+ Mega Special Global Terrorism List and try good works rather than threats and serial humiliations to build trust and friendship among Muslims and Arabs who are identical to ourselves in what they are working to accomplish in life for their loved ones.

* Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

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While it allows the security screeners -- looking at the images in a separate room -- to clearly see the passenger's sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger's face is blurred, TSA said in a statement on its website... Read more!

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Read and laugh:

Israeli soldiers warned about Facebook [USA TODAY]

Israeli defense officials say they've identified an unlikely new threat to national security - Facebook.

A new list of rules aims to prevent soldiers and Defense Ministry employees from revealing classified information on social networking sites. The officials say some soldiers have uploaded pictures of themselves with classified equipment and inadvertently revealed sensitive information.

The rules released Thursday allow soldiers to create pages on networking sites as long as they don't identify themselves as soldiers or reveal any information about what they do.

The officials say defense authorities continue to surf the Net to make sure there are no further security breaches. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the rules have not been officially published.

All what I saw of Israeli soldiers online so far were some dirty asses, few boobs and burning Merkava's :-)

Good luck for our "occupation-resistance inelegance". I'm sure they are following up with some of these dump asses and using all the info they can get.

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A warning to readers, the below article contains graphic passages.

In January of this year, my teenage daughter and I went to an event in Los Angeles sponsored by Women in Black at which Hedy Epstein^*, a Holocaust survivor, ardent anti-Zionist, human rights worker spoke. Hedy did not speak of her own biography today, but from her website I garnered the following information: Hedy was born August 14, 1924 in Freiburg, Germany. After Hitler came to power, Hedy's family tried unsuccessfully to leave Germany. She spoke today of remembering her parents saying they would go anywhere, but never to Palestine because they were ardent anti-Zionists. In May 1939 Hedy went to England on a children's transport, 500 children were on that transport, part of the almost 10,000 children that England took in between December 1938 and September 1939. Hedy never saw her parents again. Her parents were eventually sent to concentration camps. After the war, Hedy returned to Germany and worked for the US government. She became a participant in the Nuremburg Medical Trial at which the doctors who had experimented on humans were tried. Part of why she went back to Germany was to find her family. She was unsuccessful, her entire family had been sent to Auschwitz where they had been killed. In May 1948 she came to the US and became active professionally and personally in the causes of civil and human rights and social justice.

Hedy told us that day that when she was younger, she had mixed feelings about the state of Israel. On one hand she said, she was glad there was a place the Jews could go after the Holocaust. But always weighing on her thoughts, were the memories of her own parents anti-Zionism. Her mother, Hedy said, always said, "Zionism will come to no good". As the years passed by, Hedy worked in the field of human rights, but, she said, Israel was on the "back-burner of her mind". That changed for Hedy in 1982 when she heard of the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla. Shortly after this Hedy began a chapter of Women in Black in St. Louis, Missouri where she resides.

Five years ago a dear friend asked her, "Hedy, have you ever thought about going to Palestine?" Up til that moment she said, she had never put her desires in words or actions, but when asked this question by her friend, she immediately said, "Yes, I am going". Hedy did not know where the response came from, but at that very moment, Hedy set her mind on going to Palestine, and the manner in which she would venture there at age 78 would be as an ISM (International Solidarity Movement) volunteer.

Hedy spoke to us of her experience becoming an ISM worker, the vigorous training the volunteers must undergo in order to perfect non-violent protest. If a volunteer cannot perfect this art, then they are simply not accepted. In total, Hedy has been to the Occupied Territories four times, the first two times as an ISM volunteer, the third as a representative of her congressman, and the last time for the international meeting of Women in Black this last year in Jerusalem.

Hedy spoke of her first impressions of Palestine, how when she arrived, the ISM volunteer simply called a Palestinian family on the spot and said, "I have four women here, and they need a place to stay". Hedy told us this is normal for ISM, it works because there is NEVER a problem finding a home to take the volunteers in. No matter how poor the host family is, they welcome the volunteers with open arms, willing to share all they have. Hedy wanted us to know, she wanted to tell us, this is the culture and hospitality of the Palestinian people. From her own experience, her gentle voice, Hedy put the audience in that place.

She attended MANY protests, and was tear-gassed and shot at by the IOF many times. The first demonstration she attended, the IOF opened fire upon the crowd and her friend, an Israeli who had only four weeks before been released from the army but who himself felt he must stand against his own government's actions, was shot, only a few feet away from her. Her friend who came with her from the States, standing directly next to her was hit by shrapnel. Both the Israeli who had stood with ISM and Hedy's friend were taken by an old rickety car to the nearest hospital. Hedy's Israeli friend until this day cannot walk due to the wounds he sustained that day. Hedy attended many demonstrations, in Ramallah, Belin, Hebron, Beit Umar and other places in her two visits as an ISM volunteer. She also lost her hearing due to a sound bomb which exploded at her feet. But what happened to Hedy, at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, is almost impossible for her to speak about.

On returning home to the States after her second trip, Hedy and her friend were to fly out of Tel Aviv. When Hedy and Diane approached security, something happened, the officer split them up, Diane in one line, Hedy in another. Hedy didn't know what was happening at first. She thought to herself, "Well, Diane is Christian and I am Jewish, maybe they have separate lines for each". She was pulled aside as an officer flipped through her passport. Then, as if they came up out of the ground next to her, stood two men saying they were security and she must follow them. She was frightened, but when she went to pick up her bag the officer said, "No, we will carry that for you".

Hedy replied (because she was trying to make light of the situation) "Oh you are porters, I thought you said you were security." Sternly they led Hedy to a room in which she was interrogated about her time in the Occupied Territories for five hours.

Then the officer said to Hedy, "You must take off your clothes, we need to search you".

"No, I will not take off my clothes, I need to speak to an attorney" Hedy replied.

"What, you want to call an attorney? There is no phone. Take off your clothes NOW"

"No I will not do that, please, I won't do that" But then Hedy thought, "I need to get out of here, I need to cooperate to get out of here" So Hedy removed her clothes.

"Bend over" said the officer.

"What for, why do I need to bend over?"

"BEND OVER, it is for security!"

Afraid for her life, Hedy Epstein bent over to be searched, naked, in an interrogation room in Ben Gurion Airport.

What followed on the trip home was a fog for Hedy. She and Diane missed their flight. The next day they flew home on Elal which was not the airline they had reserved on. Hedy does not remember much of her flight home. Diane told her that the flight attendants treated Hedy very badly. Hedy does not remember this. All Hedy remembers is taking the magazines from the pocket in front of her and writing on every page, "I am a Holocaust survivor and I will NEVER return to Israel"

Hedy spent the next year receiving the counseling she needed to recover from the dehumanizing abuse she received in Israel. She has since been back twice, once as an aid to her congressman's office and again this last summer for the International Conference of Women in Black. Palestinians who receive this treatment on a constant basis do NOT receive counseling, nor do they have anywhere else to go.

When Hedy began to speak, she said, "First a little house keeping". Please reserve all questions for when I am done speaking. At the end, you may raise your hands and you can wait until I call on you. If you are disrespectful or try to make statements rather than asking questions, I will turn around and face my back to you. I have been speaking for many years now on this subject, and I find this is what works best for me"

My daughter and I were sitting in the middle of the room. In the row behind us, sat some people who could not stop speaking amongst themselves as Hedy spoke. Under their breath, but clearly audible to my ears I heard them over and over say, "Liar, liar, you are lying, you are an anti-Semite, you are a self-hating Jew, you love terrorists, you are a f--g bitch, you will die in hell for your lies". As my tears ran from Hedy's story, they were assaulted by the ugly voices behind me. I turned to them several times and glared. I turned and said "PLEASE be quiet and let her speak". I received nasty nasty glares in return. The hatred was seething behind my own back.
The very minute the moderator stood to say, "Now we are ready to...."

The man sitting directly behind me jumped into the aisle and shouted:

"You have said what you want to say, now I will say what I have to say. The Women in Black raised their voices for him to sit down but he shouted, "My fourteen year old son was involved in a double suicide bombing. He had to carry his friend out in his arms. His friend almost died from these TERRORISTS. Israel does NOT want to occupy, Israel NEEDS Security. You are a LIAR. You are here to LIE to these people and I will not let you do this'

Some men went over to him and ushered him back to the seat directly behind me. Hedy then addressed him, "I am against violence of any sort, no matter who does it. I did not come here to talk about what you are talking about, I came here to talk about my experiences in the Occupied Territories and what I had happen to ME and what I saw, how Israel treats the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The world knows of your story and I am VERY sorry for what happened to you. I will never condone violence of any sort, and I also will not listen to shouting. The world will hear me TOO".

The words are not coming to my fingers of how I felt myself at that moment. Why did this man want to silence Hedy Epstein? I know why he did, because this is what they do best, try to silence people. Try to shout, try to intimidate, hell, the intimidation I felt at my own back as he sat there was absolutely chilling. I looked at my teenage daughter and she was visibly frightened from the venom released from these people surrounding us. It was TENSE.

More shouts from the audience in back of me came as Women in Black called on polite people willing to raise their hands to ask questions. The row in back of me kept muttering, "Liar, liar, she is a f----g liar"

Then Women in Black said that the questions were closed. Pretty much all hell broke loose as one woman yelled loudly, "You will NOT shut us up. This is America!! Go to hell, you are a LIAR!!"

Several people ushered her to the back corner as she continued to yell, "This is AMERICA, we do NOT live by SHARIA law here. You WILL NOT SHUT ME UP!!"

Eventually some people were able to quieten her as the rest of the audience got to go forward and speak to Hedy personally.

By the time I reached Hedy, I had already talked to Pat from Women in Black who I have been corresponding with the last week. I asked her if this was normal, since the last event they sponsored for Mohammed Omer was nothing like this. Pat told me "Yes, there is a group of them who come to most everything. We know who they are, and we know what to expect" I did NOT expect this. Call me naive, call me just a person who expects civilized behavior, but today was one of the most emotionally frightening two hours I have spent. And that was just here in a public library in Beverly Hills. For GOD's SAKE, what is it like to experience this on a daily basis. To be despised like the Palestinians are themselves by the Zionists. I cannot begin to put into any words, only tears streaming from my own eyes, even as I write. This is the gravest injustice, the GRAVEST injustice.

When I reached Hedy, I said, "Hedy, you are an angel"
She replied, "No I'm just Hedy"
I said, "Just Hedy, God bless you and may angels always be with you"

Palestine, one day soon, Inshallah, you WILL be free. May God lift you up to where you rightfully belong, and protect you from all harm. May you hold in your arms, YOUR people in YOUR land.

^*Hedy Epstein is also a member of Deir Yassin Remembered.

- Under the Holly Tree is where this post first appeared.

- About the author: I am a person who likes to make friends around the world and get to know other cultures. I lived in the Middle East from 1975-1980 and that is very much a part of the person I am today. My philosophy is to be open and respectful to others and to offer my own friendship to them. I truly believe that where there is a strong will there is a way to meet in mutual respect. Where there is suffering, I believe each one of us has the responsibilty and the gift of compassion from our creator to lend our help, from an open ear, to an open hand to lift up. Peace is my goal, and peace begins with me. My only request is for you to treat others and me the way you yourself wish to be treated. Robin's blog can be found here!

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Web-savvy criminals have turned Israel into the world's highest ranking source of malicious Internet activity per user, security experts have told The Jerusalem Post.

From July through December 2006, 9 percent of all such activity could be traced back to Israel. Taiwan came next with 8%, while Poland and the US tied at 6%, according to a report issued in March by security software giant Symantec, based in Cupertino, California...

The sophistication of Israel's Internet users and its developed hi-tech sector have contributed to the high level of malicious Web activity, said Arie Danon, Symantec manager for the Mediterranean region...

Reznik chalked the high amount of criminal Internet activity here up to the fact that Israel, according to a study his company performed in February, is a large exporters of spam, accounting for approximately 2% of world junk mail in 2006...

"The figures clearly show that spammers are operating intensively in Israel on an international level" said Yaniv Barzilai, TrekIT deputy managing director of sales, referring to the TrekIT report. Although spam is not itself considered malicious by the researchers and is not necessarily illegal, the Symantec report found that it is increasingly intertwined with malicious criminal activities. [Source: The Jerusalem Post]

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