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On Retirement, Israeli General Takes Credit for Stuxnet Attacks
dinscott writes "Last month, The New York Times ran a story about Stuxnet having been developed by the Americans and the Israelis as a part of a joint project, but it was based on claims by confidential sources. It now seems that the information from these sources was correct. The Haaretz — Israel's oldest daily newspaper — reports on a surprising video that was played at a party organized for General Gabi Ashkenazi's last day on the job."
Did I miss something in the article, where does it confirm US involvement?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
So did he get added to the "no fly" and terrorist watch lists?
In other words, it confirms nothing.
"The Haaretz" is redundant since the Hebrew prefix 'ha' means 'the'.
How is Israel "keeping the Middle East nuclear-free" when it is widely regarded to have at least 100 nuclear weapons of its own? The Dimona Nuclear Complex is not exactly a secret.
So this general takes credit for a virus that could still be working silently away, screwing the Iranians at every turn, if it had been competently written.
In the current issue of Internet Tough Guy Monthly:
Stuxnet: why you can write better code than the Israeli/American military-industrial complex.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The problem is that there are no partners for peace at the moment. If you were to actually ask a real Gazan or Palestinian it is possible to make peace with Israel -- they will tell you that the best Qu'ran will allow them to do is "hudna" -- i.e. long term cease-fire. As for the nuclear technology becoming a common occurrence in the Middle East -- trust me Israel is keeping tabs on them. If you were to look at the history, in 1948 and 1967, the US did not always have Israel's back. Even in 1973 US has stopped Israel from marching onto Damascus and Cairo, just because Brezhnev threatened to send the Red Army into Sinai. And finally -- we just do not want a madman with the Supreme Council of Madmen who is openly hosting the Holocaust denial conferences while promising Jews another one by wiping Israel off the map to have a nuclear weapon.
Ahmadinejad craves Western technology while rejecting the social structure necessary to create that technology. They are the biggest bunch of hypocrites.
I would argue that all the points you make do in fact point to "Bully" and that is never a good thing.
Not to pick bones, but "Her inception" to all the other countries there, basically meant that someone came and took the land away from them! Of course they are annoyed and angry about it!
Does Israel get a pretty short straw? Absolutely, but I do have to say that I don't believe that they are making it easier for themselves. For the most part, that can be said about most nations in that region. The biggest player on a field should earn the respect of the other players and get them to follow suit rather than simply intimidating, running clandestine operations and in your words "assassinating nuclear scientists in other countries".
There aren't many fundamentalists compared to moderates, but every time one of them is killed, all the moderates close to that person will feel just that little more tired, angry or plain out infuriated - giving a net result of more fundamentalists. On the other hand, each act of compassion, each charitable hand extended will keep the moderates calm and you might even find a few of the fundamentalists starting to question violence.*
Stop the cycle of violence. BE the bigger man you claim you are.
* This idea really works anywhere in the world, not just the middle east. When will people figure out that the carrot will always win over the stick.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Iran is indeed in a tough neighborhood where every single day, hour, second... Every single moment is a desperate time. Ever since her inception the US and Israel tried to annihilate her. That is why there is a policy of development when it comes to the nuclear weapons. And assassinations of the nuclear scientists by Iran's enemies shows that they are doing something right. And bombings of their reactors and finally yes -- the virus.
FTFY. Remember, the major reason for Iran's military buildup is exterior threats (and the fact that it's working only reinforces that).
And for any of you who would point a finger at the "neighborhood bully" -- remember, that you do not live in that neighborhood.
Yeah, but if I did live in, say, the Gaza strip, and the neighbour used Collective Punishment (a war crime) on my society for democratically choosing, in an election described as "free, transparent and without violence", someone they didn't like, then I'd probably work damn hard to fight for my freedom and escape from beneath their boot heel too.
> There aren't many fundamentalists compared to
> moderates
Is this gut feeling, or do you have data? If the latter, can you cite?
Also, do note that "moderate" might mean different things in different places if you're simply defining it in terms of the population median. If that's the case, you may be interested in http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/02/egypt-vs-indonesia-in-attitudes/ and can of course not provide data to support the initial claim, since it becomes true by definition.
> Stop the cycle of violence. BE the bigger man you
> claim you are.
This is a lot easier to do if you have strategic depth, for what it's worth. Or even tactical depth. Both commodities are unfortunately in short supply in the Middle East....
Hamas doesn't want peace with Israel in the long term:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
The only peace they want is one where Israel is wiped out.
Fatah's old charter also stated similar stuff: http://www.alzaytouna.net/arabic/?c=1598&a=97061
Article (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.
Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.
Article (19) Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.
Apparently their new one no longer calls for Israel's destruction. http://jta.org/news/article/2010/01/27/1010372/new-fatah-charter-omits-negationist-language
But there will be problems as long as most of them continue to hold on to the popular "radical/extremist Islam" concepts listed here: http://www.tawfikhamid.com/abcs-test-for-radical-islam/
You're operating on outdated ideas there.
First, the Quran does not say that, I think you're getting such a ridiculous notion from a neocon/zionist/Islamophobe. No "real Palestinian" (who?) would tell you that.
Second, look at The Palestine Papers. The Palestinian government just fell because the PA was scandalously offering to give away Jerusalem and most of Palestine with nothing in return, and yet Netanyahu's government rejected the offers.
Thirdly, the president of Iran is such a red herring. Does he control the military? No. Did he say "wipe Israel off the map?" No. To quote his exact words in Farsi: "Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said “The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” It's not about tanks going into Israel, but more like how Regan said the USSR would one day only exist in a history book. Of course Ahmadinejad does wish Israel would disappear, but he is not the Supreme Leader so he cannot make such an order. It's like the US Secretary of the Interior saying Iran should be invaded, he has no authority to do so. Believe it or not, Ahmadinejad denies he is anti-Semitic, he supports Jewish leaders in Iran and groups like Naturei Karta, and insists he is anti-Zionist, not anti-Judaism.
Punishing people as a group for the actions of their freely elected government does not in fact strike me as collective punishment. Israel has certainly engaged in collective punishment in the past, but the Gaza/Hamas example seems poorly chosen.
If you allow that as an example of collective punishment, then would you consider economic sanctions collective punishment? What about imposing tariffs that lead to unemployment and hardship in the target country?
What about a declaration of war against an a country that has a draft?
Heck, is there any way you can think of to prosecute a war at all without effectively engaging on collective punishment?
I agree that it would be really nice if wars weren't fought, of course. But I don't see how one can be fought with modern weapons between modern states or any semblance thereof without ending up in collective punishment territory, with the exception of blitzkrieg campaigns with limited objectives like the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (and even that arguably had collective punishment as part of the consequences)...
That may have been the case for decades, but look, it's 2011. The facts have changed since the 1960s.
Egypt today has a peace treaty with Egypt and a separate one with Jordan. Israel and Turkey have a mutual defense treaty, and Turkey is a NATO member so attacking Israel will bring about massive retaliation from North American and European allies. Iraq, supposedly "Israel's greatest threat today" according to Ariel Sharon, is no longer a threat. I'd say that the neighborhood is far safer than it was 50 years ago; do you still see Israeli planes being hijacked?
Israel is one of the richest countries, with a GDP per capita bigger than Spain or South Korea. The US gives it billions of dollars in military aid and Most Favored Nation free trade status. Does anyone seriously think Israel is under threat of no longer existing?
Israel is generally safe from most of its neighbors. Maybe it would be even safer if it stops its policy of bashing all Arabs (as Israeli FM Avigdor Liberman does) or provoking its neighbors to anger by Israeli MKs referring to Arabs as "worms."
[quote] No. Did he say "wipe Israel off the map?" No. To quote his exact words in Farsi: "Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said “The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” [/quote]
Maybe people who say things like: "The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” Should stop being suck fucking morons and stop saying shit like that because things like that will be interpreted by a lot of people fanatic muslims, anti-muslims, the whole western world , and a lot of people i forget to mention here, as: "We should wipe Israel of the map"
It can either be that he is to dumb to realize that quotes like that will just flame the hatred because people interpret it as calls for agression, but my guess is that if he's got the brain to get to be leader of a country, he fully realizes that...
You can be all 'he didn't say that, and he meant it in a good way' but that's bullshit... He knows he says thing that can be interpreted in a wrong way.... even if he doesn't comprehend that he shouldn't lead a country anyway....
If you don't like my sig then don't read it.
Gaza Strip, illegal occupation of land, assassination of foreign nationals who are nuclear scientists, bombings of Iraqi and Syrian reactors, cyber warfare against Iran.
Seriously, where does Israel think this aggression doctrine will end? Maybe the government needs to swap out of 'King David hotel' mode and build some bridges?
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
This is a tangent, but it's funny to me how what are called the "moderate Arab states" have been the most repressive, either socio-religiously (Saudi Arabia), or politically (Jordan and the Persian Gulf states).
Sadly, a lot of different factors combined to destroy the only multi-cultural democracy in the Middle East: Lebanon.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Technically speaking, Microsoft really deserves more of the credit than Gabi Ashkenazi.
Every wonder what conditions have to be in place before extremists get elected to power like Hamas?
Have a look at the history behind the Nazi parties rise to power for a good example.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
"Nobody is saying "he meant it in a good way," but there's quite a difference in what he actually said and people interpreting it as a sign of genocidal intent."
It is reasonable to suppose that the interpretation of genocidal intent might be reasonable given the throngs of thousands chanting "Death To Israel" many weeks per year for for 32 years, and the support for Hezbollah which has an explicitly exterminationist policy.
If the interpretation was "we want Israel to change its policies to have a much more satisfactory resolution so that Jews and Arabs will live peaceably", that clarification could have been offered.
But as far as I am aware, the ratio of that vs "Death To Israel" is something like zero to 30,000.
And if anyone reads the articles you linked to, they will see that Irgun was officially categorized as a terrorist organization by the State of Israel upon its inception. One month later, Irgun forces and IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) clashed in military battles with casualties. Irgun has ceased to exist, and its ways have been denounced by the Israeli government. Implying otherwise requires more proof than you have given here.
You're an idiot.
Not quite, actually
First of all, USA does not provide Israel with any help. . .
Yes, actually, it does. Israel currently receives more than $3 billion in (mostly military) aid from the US of A.
Jews compose no more than 0.3% . . . 30% of Nobel prizes . . . this is why they flourish.
You're wrong again. I won't dispute the statistics, but I will dispute the conclusion. They (oops, We) flourish because of a strong tradition of academic study, necessitated by the sheer volume that one needs to learn before Bar Mitzvah (and Bat Mitzvah for the more modern Jew). Further, in some areas of the world, Jews were forbidden from owning land (see the definition of "ghetto") so they were, by necessity, forced into academia, banking and other "service" occupations.
There was a single attack on the USA, and it went to war with another country. There is a terrorist attack on Israel every day. . .
Again, you grossly mis-charactarize, and ignore certain facts. The attack that brought down the World Trade Center (WTC) wasn't the first on that pair of buildings. Further, there was another (not of middle-east origin) terrorist attack in Oklahoma several years before the WTC was brought down. To make matters worse, we have more money than we deserve, and our president at the time was an authoritarian zealot.
I don't care to suggest that Israel, and Jews more generally don't have a difficult time, but your posting shows an ignorance that can't go without some response.
Both references - the article on the Irgun and that of Deir Yassin - are sterling examples of the fallibility that Wikipdia engenders. Both articles are either carefully crafted to accuse without actually doing so outright ("the Irgun shot at an Arab", "Arabs were shot as well", "throwing explosives at an Arab bus" - who exactly these Arabs were is not mentioned, because if they turned out to be known troublemakers or murderers, the story would be far less interesting). Furthermore, the story of Deir Yassin is not the massacre you imagine it to be, as even a brief perusal of the fine article makes clear. Deir Yassin, like the non-killing of Muhammad AlDura and the purported deaths of 500 civilians in Jenin, is just one of those propaganda stories that Arabs tout to demonize Jews and Israelis in particular, in the full knowledge that the latent anti-Semitism that is rife in the West will rise to the occasion and cheerfully ignore the facts. "...terrorist territory, born of violence" - using this logic, the survivors of Sobibor were terrorists, too.
Really, if that's the case, then let's look at their founding manifesto. In 1985, they listed their goals (from wikipedia):
Granted this translation comes from an Israeli website, but the fact that Israel was colonizing Lebanon made for a pretty popular rallying point of opposition. In 2009 they updated their manifesto, given that Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon (though they do keep bombing it and shooting people over the border)
I just read the original article, and as a fluent Hebrew speaker, can safely say that it's been grossly misquoted and misinterpreted.
During the generals retirement party, news coverage of both the Stuxnet and the Syrian reactor attack was shown, probably as part of a recent army related events montage. This was no power-point slide titled "recent accomplishments". The conclusion drawn here are akin to claiming that the US was responsible for the recent unrest in Egypt, since news coverage of that even was played at the retirement party of a state secretary...
Israel may have been responsible for these events, but I'd hardly say this "evidence" is conclusive
Um. No?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
First off- I'm from Israel, and an avid slashdot reader for some time now (but that's besides the point) and this is the very first time I've felt so compelled about a comment to actually register an account :)
So much of what you wrote indicates absolute ignorance in Mid east affairs and I just had to name a few of your "inaccuaricies": ;)
1. "Egypt today has a peace treaty with Egypt" - seriously? Israel does have one, as it has for over thirty years.
2. Israel-Turkey relations have never been poorer, in Israel it's been attributed to Turkey's current PM (ErdoÄYan) policies- it's been so poor that in the past month Turkey called off a joint Israel-Turkey-US aerial exercise after Turkey recalled Israel's invitation at the last minute and the US wouldn't partke.
3. Iraq, supposedly "Israel's greatest threat today" according to Ariel Sharon, is no longer a threat.
Serously?? you may not know this but Ariel Sharon has been in a coma for the past 5 years so I would advise against taking any of his "current advice"
4. You made a comment about economic concerns, Israel's economic state really is good (though the GDP per capita isn't higher than Spain's, you can google it yourself) but for the most part people here really are afraid for Israel's existence, for example- Syria, Hizbollah backed Iran who constantly state in public that they want to destroy the "zionist entity", Hamas shooting rockets daily, Iran sending warships "to secure Syria"...
It doesn't mean I agree with all the decisions the politicians make but this is a democratic nation (unlike most countries around us) and if the people feel it doesn't properly represent them they can actually voice their criticism and may even go for re-election...
You clearly don't know enough about the situation to have an informed opinion...