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The High-Tech Warfare Behind the Israel - Hamas Conflict
Taco Cowboy writes The Israel — Hamas conflict in Gaza is not only about bombs, missiles, bullets, but also about cyberwarfare, battles of the mind over social media, smart underground tunnels and cloud-based missile launching systems. The tunnels that Hamas has dug deep beneath Gaza are embedded with high tech gadgets, courtesy of Qatar, which has funded Hamas with billions to equipped their tunnels with intelligent sensors which are networked to control centers enabling the command and control staff to quickly notify operatives nearby that IDF units are advancing inside a certain tunnel, allowing for rapid deployment of attack units and the setting up of bobby traps inside the tunnel.
In addition, Hamas has automated its rocket firing system using networked, cloud-based launching software provided by Qatar which can set off a rocket from any distance, and set them to go off at a specific time, using timers. "Anyone who thinks they have dozens of people sitting next to launchers firing rockets each time there is a barrage is mistaken," said Aviad Dadon, a senior cyber-security adviser at several Israeli government ministries. While Doha is allowing Hamas to use its technology to fight Israel, it's their own cyber-security the leaders of Qatar are worried about. For the Qataris, the war between Israel and Hamas is a proving ground to see how their investments in cyber systems have paid of — Qatar is very worried that one of its Gulf rivals — specifically Saudi Arabia — will use technology to attack it, and Qatar spends a great deal of money each year on shoring up its cyber-technology.
In addition, Hamas has automated its rocket firing system using networked, cloud-based launching software provided by Qatar which can set off a rocket from any distance, and set them to go off at a specific time, using timers. "Anyone who thinks they have dozens of people sitting next to launchers firing rockets each time there is a barrage is mistaken," said Aviad Dadon, a senior cyber-security adviser at several Israeli government ministries. While Doha is allowing Hamas to use its technology to fight Israel, it's their own cyber-security the leaders of Qatar are worried about. For the Qataris, the war between Israel and Hamas is a proving ground to see how their investments in cyber systems have paid of — Qatar is very worried that one of its Gulf rivals — specifically Saudi Arabia — will use technology to attack it, and Qatar spends a great deal of money each year on shoring up its cyber-technology.
Just another article that makes big claims yet shockingly thin on any details. How are we on /. meant to have any discussion on this when there's nothing tech-worthy - just some questionable allegations.
Weird. I'm quite sure there was a conflict even before Hamas existed.
If Hamas were funded with billions, they would not be limited to firing 500-Euro worth DIY rockets... But then again the article is from "timesofisrael.com", which I suspect is a strong believer in the idea that the entire world is conspiring to help Hamas bring terror over Israel, and whoever thinks otherwise is obviously promoting antisemitism. /. was not about promoting a particular political agenda - even if it is thrown a thin "tech" veil...
I thought
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Although there's a measure of efficacy that can only be achieved in real time conflict, there's a downside.
The technology is also exposed to your enemy, theoretically allowing different defense methods to be tested.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
That's not an article about the high tech warfare behind the Israel-Hamas conflict. It's an article about the alleged use of some pretty run-of-the-mill technology by one side (Hamas) with no reference to the actual sophisticated technology used by the other side (Israel). If the article in itself isn't necessarily so, the phrasing of the headline and the summary here is an attempt to portray this conflict as something other than the massively one-sided affair that it actually is. It's a whitewash pure and simple. I wish both sides would just stop killing each other but seriously, "cloud-based launching software"? So Hamas can launch unguided rockets without having to stand next to them. Sounds pretty nasty compared to sophisticated air defence, MBTs, total air superiority and massed artillery.
oh, please, just stop trying to justify what Israel is doing. They didn't even really know who actually killed those three people when they started bombing. They still don't know.
If this discussion is going to descend in to 'Hamas as terrorists' then we should recognise the use of the word 'terrorism' as an adjective used to vilify one side and make an opposing side seem legitimate. The American revolutionaries were also considered terrorists as was Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. However, I don’t support Hamas’ use of violence to further their desire for a sovereign state. In fact, the state of Israel itself was founded a ‘terrorist organisation’ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... "The moment Hamas stops shooting, IDF stops shooting, period." - well that's great. But you realise Hamas are firing because they live in an occupation and under siege? They'll stop fighting when Israel pursues a 2-state strategy with sincerity. Israel has ignored its commitment to a 2-state solution in 2009. In 2012 it made agreements for a ceasefire but began laying siege to Gaza and throughout 2013 largely ignored any attempts of establishing peace (note: during this period Hamas had not killed or kidnapped a single Israeli civilian). In April this year, the talks collapsed as Abbas sought Palestinian membership in 15 UN conventions and reconciled with Hamas, and Israel made a surprise announcement of plans for 700 new settlements and refused to free a last batch of Palestinian prisoners which included Israeli-Arab citizens. That was April this year, before any of this conflict. Israel made clear it doesn't want Palestinians to pursue a non-violent route to statehood either. There you have it, if Israel wants peace it must offer the Palestinians what they have a right to - a fully functioning state with control over its own future. Don't call them Hamas terrorists for pursuing what they're entitled to and have been brutally denied even when seeking it peacefully.
Where is the "-1, delusional paranoid idiot" mod? Guess I'll have to settle for troll.
Exactly. Once they stop defending their homeland and surrender to the occupying forces the conflict will stop.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Since when is Slashdot a pro Israel propaganda outlet? This "story" about Hamas' high tech weapons is supposed to make Israel's genocidal orgy look justified?
Fuck. That.
The summary says Qatar is worried of being attacked and overtaken in a technological arms race, by Saudi Arabia. Really? Since when?
From TFA:
I'd like something a little more substantive to back this up. The paragraph concludes:
Sorry, I gotta take any news value coming from TFA with a chunk of salt.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
The sole source of information for the article is "Aviad Dadon of Israeli cyber-security firm AdoreGroup." Is that an independent source?
What do most Americans know about the background to the Israel Palestinian conflict, which has been going for 67 years?
Sure, I'm willing to believe that Hamas has some technology behind what they're doing, but it surely can't be anywhere near as advanced as what the IDF has. The Israel / Hamas conflict is about as mismatched as it would be if the US went to war with Bolivia. I'm sure if that happened, some people in the American press would point out that the Bolivians have rifles, while forgetting to mention that we have nuclear subs and airfraft carriers.
Facts have a liberal bias.
Entitlement, that's funny.
What entitles you to have entitlement? Where does it begin? Where does it end?
Who is actually entitled to own that piece magical dirt in the middle east?
Is it Hamas, because the 'evil Jew' refuses to make peace? And because they were there before the Jews came? Is it the 'evil Jews", because they were there before the Ottoman Empire practically kicked them out if they didn't want to convert to Islam? At least here we know that Judaism existed first.
What most of us can agree with is that the population suffers in this conflict. Neither civilian Palestinians nor civilian Israeli are at fault here. Most of them didn't chose to be born into these worlds.
Agreed, they're killing Palestinians and doing the same propaganda they always do, to pretend they are a credible threat that justifies the genocide.
Lets not kid ourselves, Gaza's problems are the invasion of settlers from Israel, and what Israel is doing is nothing but murder.
Gaza started as only a city. It's history is long and colorful, and smattered with conquests by many other civilizations, including Egypt, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the Asyrians, Great Britain, and many others, the list goes on, spanning about 4000 years. It wasn't until the 20th century that Gaza was officially given to the Palestinians as anything more than a mere conquered (many times over), city, and it wasn't until 1948, that a Palestinian government, was officially recognized by the world at large as anything but a band of nomadic tribes, wandering around the Middle East.
Until 1948, Palestine was a part of Israel, within it's borders, even though modern times didn't recognize Israel as it's own political entity, history shows Israel something larger than a mere city for more than 5000 years. Yes, it has also changed hands over the centuries, but by and far, it's been governed by the same people far longer than Gaza was by the Palestinians.
It was 20th century politics and the UN that finally enacted a Palestine, and it was the UN that gave more than just a city to the Palestinians. The Palestinians have been fighting a war to take over more than what's theirs for far longer than any can remember, and they've been in another country's/state's land wandering around homeless until the 20th century.
This is not about religion, or religious ideologies, it's about politics, and empire building. The Israeli's have had control of that land for far longer than any one civilization, it's part of their territory, they were forced to give it up by the UN, who really have no true authority to give an other's real estate away. The Palestinian government, and by that governance, the people, have been aggressors against the government and people who, historically, have controlled that territory longer than anyone else in history.
Who's right? Who's wrong? I don't know, but history is quite an eye opener.
If this discussion is going to descend in to 'Hamas as terrorists' then we should recognise the use of the word 'terrorism' as an adjective used to vilify one side and make an opposing side seem legitimate.
True enough. And it's not just "terrorism" that gets used this way. It's a common ploy in any propaganda.
Taken at face value, though, it means "pursuing your goals by means of inflicting terror", as in do horrible things to scare people into doing your will or at least acquiescing to your doings. Question then is, does hamas do that?
From this very safe very long distance I say, no. The rockets aren't effective at killing people and by now everybody knows this. So it's not about the terror (any longer). What they're instead trying to do is to provoke Israel into reacting, then they sacrifice their own by using them as human shields, generating a death toll that then gets used to stir up an "Israel is killing us!" frenzy. And it's working pretty well.
It is cynically, callously using lives to try and secure political gains, but not really terrorism.
"The moment Hamas stops shooting, IDF stops shooting, period." - well that's great. But you realise Hamas are firing because they live in an occupation and under siege?
They're firing because they're pursuing the goal of total annihilation of Israel. The occupation and under siege parts are fairly hard to make stick unless you squint really hard and wilfully ignore both hamas' own actions and the parts where Israel gave up plenty occupied territory complete with infrastructure for their mortal enemies to live and thrive in. You can make the case that when two are fighting two have some guilt, but that is not this argument. This is pure one-sided entirely self-serving rationalisation. It's popular enough in the Arab world, but still one-sided.
Don't call them Hamas terrorists for pursuing what they're entitled to and have been brutally denied even when seeking it peacefully.
Are they? Have they? I think they've been given more than their fair share and thrown much of it away with the explicit goal of trying to exterminate Israel. I also think that hamas isn't nearly as entitled as it thinks it is. Again, this is propaganda. Don't believe me? Well, you've been busily pointing at previous doings, so let me add one 1977 interview. Since you know your history so well, you know exactly what I'm talking about and also why your claims to entitlement are that much bunk.
Seriously? Two state solution? Refresh my memory - who is it who has *rejected* a 2-state solution repeatedly? Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't Israel.
Palestinians rejected 2-state proposals in 1937 and 1947 which were *accepted* by the Jewish leadership. Why? Because the Arabs were too busy shouting that Israel had no right to exist. Then the Arab-Israeli war (1948) and the Six day war (1967), as well as a constant stream of attacks and sabotage by Palestinian militants convinced Israel that the Arabs had no real interest in negotiations or peace - in fact, Hamas' charter specifically names their objective:
In more recent years, Israel has stated its willingness to give up nearly the entirety of the lands they gained in 1967 in exchange for peaceful coexistence, but even that isn't good enough - the rockets keep falling, and the bombs keep exploding.
But yeah, given Israel's history - of both being willing to accept a 2-state solution, and defending themselves against attacks by organizations hell-bent on their destruction, I can see how you'd conclude that Israel is the one who is dead-set on not accepting a 2-state solution.
But please, bring up settlements now. Let's talk about the settlements that Israel evacuated in the Sinai and Gaza when it withdrew from those territories. Do you really think if they actually felt the Palestinian leaders were *serious* about recognizing Israel and living peacefully alongside them, that the Israeli government would - for a single second - hesitate to evacuate the other settlements as well?
What kinds of utter BS propaganda is this?
Did you know
>>The military announced early Sunday that 23-year-old Hadar Goldin of the Givati infantry brigade had been killed in battle on Friday.
So they bombed away and killed 35+ Palestinians on a lie. Buddy wasn't kidanpped he was killed in battle.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Mod this propaganda.
Korma: Good
Two-state solution = apartheid. Would the ANC have accepted a two-state solution in South Africa, which would only have vindicated the racist ideology of white South Africans who claimed that blacks and whites had to be separate? That's something that pro-Israel people never understand. Whenever someone says 'apartheid', they'll talk to you about the Arab minority in Israel, which completely misses the point. Apartheid, in this case, refers to the fact that, in the area that is historically known as Palestine, there is apartheid in that the goal is to have a Jewish state and a Palestinian state even though both groups believe that they have claims over the entire land.
This is why it's very different from many other conflicts: in Ukraine, for instance, you could potentially partition the land since you have a rather clear line dividing east and west over language and political views. Same in (South) Sudan for instance where you could separate majority Muslim populations from majority Christian ones. Not so much in Palestine, at least if you go back to 1946 before there were large population transfers.
If you look at population statistics from that era, you find that Palestinians outnumbered Jews virtually everywhere. If you had had a free and fair referendum and assuming that people would have voted along ethnic lines (why would Jews vote against having their own state, why would Palestinians decide that they wanted to be ruled by Jews), the Jewish state would have been the Jaffa region, period. And that's a huge problem. The right to self-determination is not only for white people, even though it took Western countries close to 20 years to finally realize that. The Jewish people certainly had the right to go to Palestine, purchase land following willing-buyer-willing-seller principles and perhaps one day become a majority there. I believe in open borders, so I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is when people claim that the fact that their ancestors may or may not have been forced to leave that area 2000 years ago means that they now have a right to exclude people who are currently living there. We all have roots somewhere in modern-day Kenya, that doesn't mean it's now okay for me to go and colonize that place. There's been invasions, etc. for thousands of years everywhere on earth and we don't go back 2000 or 3000 years to see who *really* has a claim on the land.
You can't expect them to collaborate with their 'enemy'
The only thing they can do is guerilla warfare or agree to the occupation.
If they didn't have the support from the palestinian public eg: if Israel was actually civil
with these people instead of raiding them en masse and 'interrogating' their children then Hamas
wouldn't exist as it is now anyway. Punishing everybody for the crimes of a few is wrong policy.
Threat the people like people, work your informants
and send special ops to the actual terrorists, that's how you get them.
Genocide? Really? When Hamas stores and fires missiles from civilian centers, what is Israel supposed to do? Politely ask Hamas to step away from their human shields.
I don't know who said this but it sums the situation up quite clearly: "Israel uses missiles to protect its civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its missiles".
Rule of thumb: if you find you need to provide my end of the argument in order to win, you are probably wrong. e.g.:
No, that's not it at all. The Zionist enterprise was about creating a Jewish state, but that term does not mean what you think it means. It is not about creating a state only for Jewish (religion) people, but about creating a national home for the Jewish people. That phrasing is actually the subtitle of the Zionist charter.
Which means Israel is not, and was never meant to be, a Jews only state. If you want to claim otherwise, please provide references.
The reason I would not agree to an indiscriminate return is not because I don't like to see Arabs around (I wouldn't buy a home where I did were that the case). It's because that would turn Israel into an Arab state (i.e. - it would replace one nation's state with another). One look at the personal freedom, economics and personal safety track record of neighboring countries is enough, and that's the case where Arabs rule over Arabs. As a rule, they like me even less than they like themselves.
Your willingness to gamble away my property, my freedom and my life is touching, but I think I'm going to pass none the less.
A nation state has every right to preserve its character through immigration control. All countries filter out immigrants, and Israel isn't even the only democracy to use religion as a criteria. Your insinuation that that's wrong needs citations.
Strawman. I never made that argument. Next.
Shachar