Monday, March 12, 2012

347 Wikipedia "has become a battlefield over history"

Wikipedia, PayPal, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, MySpace, eBay - all in Jewish hands

The Jewish (Zionist?) hand behind Internet
http://radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/internet/jews_behind_internet.htm

(1) Generalist Dissidents try their hand at everything
(2) Wikipedia "no real quality control"
(3) Wikipedia's 'Neutral-Point-of-View'
(4) Wikipedia "has become a battlefield over history"
(5) The Foreign Ministry presents: talkbackers in the service of the State
(6) Twitterers paid to spread Israeli Propaganda in websites, forums & blogs
(7) General Petraeus' leaked email exchange about Israel

(1) Generalist Dissidents try their hand at everything

From: Tony Ryan <tonyryan43@gmail.com> Date: 13.07.2010 10:14 PM

I wonder why geopolitical writers tend to rebuild vehicles.

Could it be that our generalist ability is the outcome of our unemployability in the Age of Spin?

Good luck with your Hilux... the best vehicle ever built, apart from the Landcruiser.

My own 1985 Holden Barina has new drive shafts, wheel bearings, tyres and brakes, and goes like the clappers. It takes me up and down the country three times a year without missing a beat. Soon I'll rebuild a caravan, replacing particle board and steel with alloy. Then, saving on rent, I'll do up a Hilux and forge on into the political wilderness fomenting revolution.

Have also bought a new Fender Stratocaster and matching amp, to play revolutionary music. Or at least amuse myself.

I'd like to see your Hilux when it's finished. Need a hand getting the long motor in?

Reply (Peter M):

It's amazing how shortage of money prompts you to learn how to do things.

Did you see Woody Allen's film Sleeper? It's the only comedy by him that I actually laughed at. In this futuristic film, the dissidents live in the bush (as I recall).

You wouldn't believe the difficulties getting the motor in. The 1976 sump fouled the 1980 steering; I had to change the sump & oil pickup (put the 1980s ones on) to get it to fit. Then had to pull it out again because the linkages (on the gearbox) wouldn't go into their boot (which attaches to the subframe). This vehicle has a column gearshift - one reason I never worry about it being stolen, so never lock it or wind the windows up when at the shops. The linkages, on the side of the gearbox, are the first thing you have to position correctly; only then do you get the rear mounts in position (then the front mounts). You have to remove the boot with the linkages, and put them back into the vehicle as a package (I tied them together with a bit of string).

(2) Wikipedia "no real quality control"
From: Kerry Bolton <vindex@clear.net.nz> Date: 13.07.2010 08:27 PM

Wikipedia scholarship is based on the votes of its users - if two people are  primarily repsonsible for an entry can vote between themselves on the  credibility of the entry if it is questioned. There is no real quality  control, hence it can be used for halfwitted smear-mongering.

(3) Wikipedia's 'Neutral-Point-of-View'

From: William Tamblyn <wmtamblyn@yahoo.com> Date: 13.07.2010 10:20 PM

Wikipedia's 'Neutral-Point-of-View' is anything  but when certain interest groups are involved. Israel is the best (or worst) example -- anything negative about Israel will be edited out of existence as soon as it is noticed, and there are many in Israel and the U.S. (volunteers mostly I think) who manage to notice negative claims almost as soon as they are made.

In October 2009 a  Jewish Telegraphic Agency article inadvertently added to earlier evidence  about how this happens:

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/25/1008713/wikipedia-strives-for-balance-on-divisive-issues

<snip>

About 200 Israelis are active Wikipedians -- people who contribute and edit entries related to Israel several times a week.

Israel has the world's highest per capita amount of Wikipedia users. Israelis use Wikipedia in English in large numbers, in addition to other languages like Russian and French.

<snip>
___

Earlier evidence is to be found here:

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34520

<snip>

5 July 2009

<snip>

After they became an inseparable part of the service provided by public-relations companies and advertising agencies, paid Internet talkbackers are being mobilized in the service in the service of the State [of Israel]. The Foreign Ministry is in the process of setting up a team of students and demobilized soldiers who will work around the clock writing pro-Israeli responses on Internet websites all over the world, and on services like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

<snip>
___

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/twitterers-paid-to-spread-israeli-propaganda/

<snip>

"To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose," said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project [described in the snippet just above].

<snip>
___

More evidence here:

http://www.thejidf.org/2008/10/about-jidf.html

About the JIDF

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) is approximately 8 years old as a collective of activists and has operated under the name the "Jewish Internet Defense Force" since the massacre at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem earlier this year. At that point, we created a website and went more public with our activities.

We are also one of the most cutting edge pro-Israel advocacy organizations, presenting constant news and information to our many members and supporters through email, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Myspace, Digg, and other popular areas of the web.

We are a non-violent protest group who share concerns about antisemitic online content, as well as content which promotes terrorism on sites including Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google Earth, Blogger, and other sites and forums throughout the internet.

The JIDF believes in direct action both to eradicate the problems we face online and to create the publicity that will cause those with the power (companies like Facebook and Google) to take the needed action themselves.

We work to bring together individuals on different fronts, but with similar the goals of Jewish pride, knowledge, and unity, and represent a younger generation of Jewish leaders, a new approach, and a real grassroots effort for change.

<snip>

(4) Wikipedia "has become a battlefield over history"

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/25/1008713/wikipedia-strives-for-balance-on-divisive-issues

Wikipedia striving for balance on divisive issues

By Dina Kraft · October 25, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- From January’s war in Gaza to Holocaust denial, the world's largest collaborative encyclopedia has become a battlefield over history.

Yet Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales says the online, ever-evolving encyclopedia, which is authored by volunteer contributors around the world, ultimately is able to forge balanced entries even when it comes to even the most contentious issues.

"It's a human process, a slow process,” Wales told JTA during an interview in Jerusalem last week. “Usually people are pretty good about it, and we find that most people are able to understand the idea of neutrality. They will have a few emotional incidents here and there, but it's a community.

"Of course,” he acknowledged, “if someone keeps coming in and does obnoxious things over and over, then the community can decide to ban them. That happens on a fairly regular basis."

One of the Internet’s most popular sites, Wikipedia has spurred an online revolution in information gathering. It has transformed the way students -- often to the dismay of their instructors -- and others track information, and it has become the most dominant online encyclopedia, far exceeding Encyclopedia Britannica in its voluminous pages of information.

But because any Internet user can edit its content, Wikipedia has drawn criticism for being inaccurate at times and subject to agenda-driven contributors.

A few entries considered especially prone to abusive tinkering can be accessed only by designated volunteer editors; all other entries may be edited freely by any registered user. When users are flagged as ongoing troublemakers, they can be banned from the site.

Wales, who was in Israel attending the 2009 Israeli Presidential Conference, defended the Wikipedia model, saying that most fallacious elements introduced to Wikipedia entries are quickly removed by others who amend and debunk such elements.

"If you want your writing to survive in Wikipedia, you cannot write a one-sided rant; it will just be removed very quickly," he said. "If you really want to get your point across, you have to do in a way that people find acceptable. So that pushes people in the right direction."

He added, “It's not perfect, of course."

Wales pointed to Wikipedia's treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example of how Wikipedia provides a public service -- by informing about the conflict and why it’s so intractable. Where there is disagreement over facts, Wikipedia notes it.

“This is where people who don't agree about the underlying issues will still point you to use,” he said. "Does that solve the problem? No. But at least we've written about what the problem is."

About 200 Israelis are active Wikipedians -- people who contribute and edit entries related to Israel several times a week.

Israel has the world's highest per capita amount of Wikipedia users. Israelis use Wikipedia in English in large numbers, in addition to other languages like Russian and French. A growing number also are using and contributing to Wikipedia in Hebrew, which is approaching its 100,000th entry.

Itzik Edri is the spokesman for Wikimedia Israel, an Israeli nonprofit branch of the Wikimedia Foundation, which promotes free content and knowledge worldwide. Aside from promoting Wikipedia, the foundation works to put educational content, books, photographs and other resources for free, open use online. It also hosts conferences and promotes educational initiatives.

"Our goal is not hasbara," Edri says, using the Israeli word for public relations that benefits the state. "We are about getting more information out there."

As part of that goal, Wikimedia Israel members lobby the Israeli government for better access to its reports, records and photographs. For example, the group has been trying to convince the Israeli army spokesman's office to release some of its footage of the war in Gaza last winter -- without success. The group says it wants the photos to help balance the large number of photos of the fighting and its aftermath being posted by Palestinian groups on Wikipedia.

According to Edri, who is also among those who write and edit entries, problems in entries on the Israeli history or Holocaust-related subjects tend to be fixed as part of the Wikipedia process by the community of users.

"For example, on political issues or personalities, there will always be those writing with a more right-wing position and those with a left-wing perspective," he said. "But eventually the entries balance themselves out."

Even in Arabic-language Wikipedia entries on Israel-related topics, the entries are more balanced than one might expect, according to Edri.

On a lighter note, Wales also talked to JTA about Wikipedia in Yiddish, which he said was comprised of “a small but passionate group of people."

(5) The Foreign Ministry presents: talkbackers in the service of the State
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=34520

By: Dora Kishinevski
Calcalist
5 July 2009
http://www.calcalist.co.il/internet/articles/0,7340,L-3319543,00.html

Translated for Occupation Magazine by George Malent

After they became an inseparable part of the service provided by public-relations companies and advertising agencies, paid Internet talkbackers are being mobilized in the service in the service of the State. The Foreign Ministry is in the process of setting up a team of students and demobilized soldiers who will work around the clock writing pro-Israeli responses on Internet websites all over the world, and on services like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy* is running the project, and it will be an integral part of it. The project is described in the government budget for 2009 as the “Internet fighting team” – a name that was given to it in order to distinguish it from the existing policy-explanation team, among other reasons, so that it can receive a separate budget. Even though the budget’s size has not yet been disclosed to the public, sources in the Foreign Ministry have told Calcalist that in will be about NIS 600 thousand in its first year, and it will be increased in the future. From the primary budget, about NIS 200 thousand will be invested in round-the-clock activity at the micro-blogging website Twitter, which was recently featured in the headlines for the services it provided to demonstrators during the recent disturbances in Iran.
“To all intents and purposes the Internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” Elan Shturman, deputy director of the policy-explanation department in the Foreign Ministry, and who is directly responsible for setting up the project, says in an interview with Calcalist. “Our policy-explanation achievements on the Internet today are impressive in comparison to the resources that have been invested so far, but the other side is also investing resources on the Internet. There is an endless array of pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets, rich with information and video clips that everyone can download and post on their websites. They are flooding the Internet with content from the Hamas news agency. It is a well-oiled machine. Our objective is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are taking place, where reports and videos are published – the blogs, the social networks, the news websites of all sizes. We will introduce a pro-Israeli voice into those places. What is now going on in Iran is the proof of the need for such an operational branch,” adds Shturman. “It’s not like a group of friends is going to bring down the government with Twitter messages, but it does help to expand the struggle to vast dimensions.”

The missions: “monitoring” and “fostering discussions”
The Foreign Ministry intends to recruit youths who speak at least one foreign language and who are studying communications, political science or law, or alternatively those whose military background is in units that deal with information analysis. “It is a youthful language”, explains Shturman. “Older people do not know how to write blogs, how to act there, what the accepted norms are. The basic conditions are a high capacity for expression in English – we also have French- and Swedish-speakers – and familiarity with the online milieu. We are looking for people who are already writing blogs and circulating in Facebook”.

Members of the new unit will work at the Ministry (“They will punch a card,” says Shturman) and enjoy the full technical support of Tahila, the government’s ISP, which is responsible for computer infrastructure and Internet services for government departments. “Their missions will be defined along the lines of the government policies that they will be required to defend on the Internet. It could be the situation in Gaza, the situation in the north or whatever is decided. We will determine which international audiences we want to reach through the Internet and the strategy we will use to reach them, and the workers will implement that on in the field. Of course they will not distribute official communiqu?s; they will draft the conversations themselves. We will also activate an Internet-monitoring team – people who will follow blogs, the BBC website, the Arabic websites.”

According to Shturman the project will begin with a limited budget, but he has plans to expand the team and its missions: “the new centre will also be able to support Israel as an economic and commercial entity,” he says. “Alternative energy, for example, now interests the American public and Congress much more than the conflict in the Middle East. If through my team I can post in blogs dealing with alternative energy and push the names of Israeli companies there, I will strengthen Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity, and along with that I may also manage to help an Israeli company get millions of dollars worth of contracts. The economic potential here is great, but for that we will require a large number of people. What is unique about the Internet is the fragmentation into different communities, every community deals with what interests it. To each of those communities you have to introduce material that is relevant to it.”

The inspiration: covert advertising on the Internet

The Foreign Ministry admits that the inspiration comes from none other than the much-reviled field of compensated commercial talkback: employees of companies and public-relations firms who post words of praise on the Internet for those who sent them there – the company that is their employer or their client. The professional responders normally identify themselves as chance readers of the article they are responding to or as “satisfied customers” of the company they are praising.

Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”?

“Of course,” says Shturman. “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.”

Test-firing in the Gaza War

According to Shturman, although it is only now that the project is receiving a budget and a special department in the Foreign Ministry, in practice the Ministry has been using its own responders since the last war in Gaza, when the Ministry recruited volunteer talkbackers. “During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers. We gave them background material and policy-explanation material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the Internet,” says Shturman. “Our target audience then was the European Left, which was not friendly towards the policy of the government. For that reason we began to get involved in discussions on blogs in England, Spain and Germany, a very hostile environment.”

And how much change have you effected so far?

“It is hard to prove success in this kind of activity, but it is clear that we succeeded in bypassing the European television networks, which are very critical of Israel, and we have created direct dialogues with the public.”

What things have you done there exactly?

“For example, we sent someone to write in the website of a left-wing group in Spain. He wrote ‘it is not exactly as you say.’ Someone at the website replied to him, and we replied again, we gave arguments, pictures. Dialogue like that opens people’s eyes.”

Elon Gilad, a worker at the Foreign Ministry who coordinated the activities of the volunteer talkbackers during the war in Gaza and will coordinate the activities of the professional talkbackers in the new project, says that volunteering for talkback in defence of Israel started spontaneously: “Many times people contacted us and asked how they could help to explain Israeli policy. They mainly do it at times like the Gaza operation. People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the Internet. The Ministry of Absorption also started a project at that time, and they transferred to us hundreds of volunteers who speak foreign languages and who will help to spread the information. That project too mainly spreads information on the Internet.”

“You can’t win”

While most of the net-surfers were recruited through websites like giyus.org, which was officially activated by a Jewish lobby, in some cases is it was the Foreign Ministry that took the initiative to contact the surfers and asked them to post talkbacks sympathetic to the State and the government [of Israel] on the Internet and to help recruit volunteers. That’s how Michal Carmi, an active blogger and associate general manager at the high-tech placement company Tripletec, was recruited to the online policy-explanation team.

“During Operation Cast Lead the Foreign Ministry wrote to me and other bloggers and asked us to make our opinions known on the international stage as well,” Carmi tells Calcalist. “They sent us pages with ‘taking points’ and a great many video clips. I focussed my energies on Facebook, and here and there I wrote responses on blogs where words like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘murder’ were used in connection with Israel’s Gaza action. I had some very hard conversations there. Several times the Foreign Ministry also recommended that we access specific blogs and get involved in the discussions that were taking place there.”

And does it work? Does it have any effect?

“I am not sure that that strategy was correct. The Ministry did excellent work, they sent us a flood of accurate information, but it focussed on Israeli suffering and the threat of the missiles. But the view of the Europeans is one-dimensional. Israeli suffering does not seem relevant to them compared to Palestinian suffering.”

“You can never win in this struggle. All you can do is be there and express your position,” is how Gilad sums up the effectiveness so far, as well as his expectations of the operation when it begins to receive a government budget.

* “department for the explanation of Israeli policy” is a translation of only two words in the original Hebrew text: “mahleqet ha-hasbara” – literally, “the department of explanation”. Israeli readers require no elaboration. Henceforth in this article, “hasbara” will be translated as “policy-explanation”. It may also be translated as “public diplomacy” or “propaganda” – trans.

gm

(6) Twitterers paid to spread Israeli Propaganda in websites, forums & blogs

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/07/twitterers-paid-to-spread-israeli-propaganda/

Twitterers Paid to Spread Israeli Propaganda

Internet Warfare Team Unveiled

by Jonathan Cook / July 21st, 2009

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.

“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term hasbara, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said. “They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a “thought-police state”.

She added that “good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved.”

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry’s team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January.

“During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers,” Mr Shturman said.

“We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet.”

The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.

Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy. High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.

Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack. “People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet.”

He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.

The new team is expected to increase the ministry’s close coordination with a private advocacy group, giyus.org (Give Israel Your United Support). About 50,000 activists are reported to have downloaded a programme called Megaphone that sends an alert to their computers when an article critical of Israel is published. They are then supposed to bombard the site with comments supporting Israel.

Nasser Rego of Ilam, a group based in Nazareth that monitors the Israeli media, said Arab organisations in Israel were among those regularly targeted by hasbara groups for “character assassination”. He was concerned the new team would try to make such work appear more professional and convincing.

“If these people are misrepresenting who they are, we can guess they won’t worry too much about misrepresenting the groups and individuals they write about. Their aim, it’s clear, will be to discredit those who stand for human rights and justice for the Palestinians.”

When The National called the foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman, denied the existence of the internet team, though he admitted officials were stepping up exploitation of new media.

He declined to say which comments by Mr Shturman or Mr Gilad had been misrepresented by the Hebrew-language media, and said the ministry would not be taking any action over the reports.

Israel has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach to new media since it launched a “Brand Israel” campaign in 2005.

Market research persuaded officials that Israel should play up good news about business success, and scientific and medical breakthroughs involving Israelis.

Mr Shturman said his staff would seek to use websites to improve “Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity”.

David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel’s consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.

“Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million,” he wrote in Ynet.

Israel has become particularly concerned that support is ebbing among the younger generations in Europe and the United States.

In 2007 it emerged that the foreign ministry was behind a photo-shoot published in Maxim, a popular US men’s magazine, in which female Israeli soldiers posed in swimsuits.

(7) General Petraeus' leaked email exchange about Israel

From: James Morris <justicequest2000@yahoo.com> Date: 14.07.2010 06:39 PM

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/07/general-petraeus-israel-emails

General Petraeus’s leaked emails about Israel

Posted by Mehdi Hasan - 05 July 2010 18:17

Blogger Philip Weiss has them, and they’re not pretty.

I've written the cover story for this week's New Statesman on the rise and rise of David Petraeus and America's "cult of the generals".

Here's an extract:

Twelve of the 43 men who have served as US president have been former generals -- including the very first occupant of the Oval Office, George Washington. Nonetheless, there has not been a general in the White House since Dwight D Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander in the Second World War and architect of the D-Day landings, left office in 1961 (excoriating the "military-industrial complex" on his way out). But the rise of the generals in recent years, exemplified by the hallowed status of Petraeus, has altered the dynamic. If a general is elected to the White House in 2012 or 2016, the grip of this cult on the US polity will once again have been demonstrated.

Interestingly, in an unrelated story on the supposedly declining power of the Israel lobby in today's Guardian, the paper's Washington correspondent, Chris McGreal, writes:

Senior figures in the American military, including General David Petraeus who has commanded US forces in both wars, have identified Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian land as an obstacle to resolving those conflicts.

McGreal is referring to the general's official "posture" statement on US Central Command -- which Petraeus was in charge of before he was redeployed to Afghanistan by President Obama a fortnight ago. In this, he says:

The [Israel-Palestine] conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR [Centcom's Area of Responsibility] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilise support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

Petraeus's prepared statement caused uproar in pro-Israeli circles back in March, when it was published, with some on the right and the left automatically assuming he must be a private supporter of the Palestinians and that he had suddenly and bravely decided to stand up to the Israel lobby inside the United States.

But guess what? In a gaffe that hasn't yet attracted the same amount of press as Stanley McChrystal's bizarre interview with Rolling Stone, Petraeus accidentally leaked an email exchange of his -- with the belligerent, neoconservative, pro-Israeli columnist Max Boot -- to an activist named James Morris, who then passed it on to the blogger Philip Weiss:

Last March General David Petraeus, then head of Central Command, sought to undercut his own testimony before the Senate armed services committee that was critical of Israel by intriguing with a right-wing writer to put out a different story, in emails obtained by Mondoweiss.

The emails show Petraeus encouraging Max Boot of Commentary to write a story -- and offering the neoconservative writer choice details about his views on the Holocaust:

"Does it help if folks know that I hosted Elie Wiesel and his wife at our quarters last Sun night?! And that I will be the speaker at the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in mid-Apr at the Capitol Dome . . ."

Petraeus passed the emails along himself through carelessness last March. He pasted a Boot column from Commentary's blog into in an "FYI" email he sent to an activist who is highly critical of the US's special relationship with Israel. Some of the general's emails to Boot were attached to the bottom of the story. The activist, James Morris, shared the emails with me.

You can read the full details here.

Meanwhile, here's a taster of Clayton Swisher's amusing response on the al-Jazeera blog:

It's not clear what miracles Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel can work for General Petraeus now that he's the top officer in Kabul.

Based on these emails Petraeus apparently authored, subsequently leaked to blogger Philip Weiss, it seems the former Central Commander thought a private dinner with Weisel and a Holocaust Museum stint might boost his pro-Israel bona fides ("some of my best friends are Jewish!").

I guess the good general is keener on becoming the next US president, and not upsetting the Israel lobby in the meantime, than some had assumed.

Israel's biological weapons research - fooling the MIT selection committee

From: Roy Tov <tovroy@gmail.com> Date: 14.07.2010 09:48 PM

IIB, Bibi and Terror

Roy Tov

http://www.roytov.com/articles/iib.htm

MIT had been fooled again. The Israeli scientist had been accepted for a post-doctoral position with no opposition at the selecting committee. All his credentials were good and there was no reason an American Institution would suspect him. However, for those in the know, his identity as an Israeli science spook was clear. He held an advanced degree in life sciences from Bar Ilan University. His research up to now could not be directly linked to biological warfare, but it could be derived into deadly biological weapons. The lack of link was due to the fact this part of the research had never been published. Smiling smugly, he began planning his future siphoning out science from the US to his operators at the Mossad.

Science Spooks

In The Cross of Bethlehem  I describe David Y., a spook working for the Shabak in the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS). After he trained on us, he left for the USA, from where he steals science for the glory of the State of Israel.

This type of people is backed by the Shabak and Mossad information gathering capabilities. For example David was the second – and last – student admitted on the spot the year I began my studies at the WIS, I was the first. However, his admission was very different from mine. He had early knowledge of who would be in the selecting panel and brought with him relevant papers to the event. He showed them to me and the student that brought me to WIS. Both had been graduated from the Bar Ilan University. The impression the papers caused on the panel was enough to get him into the WIS.

Bar Ilan

Dating back to 1955 and located in Ramat Gan – part of Gush Dan, the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area – Bar Ilan is the second largest academic institution in Israel and the most dubious one due to its semi-open links with the Shabak and the Mossad. Bar-Ilan is a hotbed for Shabak patsies, agents and informants. Yigal Amir - Rabin's assassin - and his Shabak manipulator – Avishai Raviv – were students there. The fact insane nationalism is breed there is not surprising, after all the university enforces Talmudic-Pharisaic interpretations of the Bible even on exact sciences students. It is named after Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, a Religious Zionist leader who believed in providing a dual curriculum of secular academic studies and Talmudic Torah studies. It is another version of Netanyahu’s Mule.

However, there is more. The State of Israel uses a simple trick to disguise some of the academic titles achieved in its universities. In the first years of the WIS, the institution was busy developing the nuclear program of the State of Israel. In order to protect the true work of the scientists there, the academic titles achieved in the process were awarded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Most of these works were disguised so that their connections with the Israeli nuclear mass destruction weapons program weren’t evident. The same goes for the Bar Ilan University, which issues academic titles for works carried out at IIB - Israel Institute for Biological Research.

IIB

The Israel Institute for Biological Research makes an interesting sight. It is located near the Weizmann Institute of Science, on the southern entrance to Nes Tziona (a town, the name means “Flag to Zion”). The Palmahim air force base is nearby; this is from where Israel launches nuclear ballistic missiles, Jericho nuclear missiles are launched from Wing 2. Overall the area is known as an academic powerhouse, with most of Israel’s weapons of mass destruction linked one way or the other to it.

The IIB is an interesting sight because there is nothing to see there. A solid wall blocks everything; approaching the guards at the entrance is a bad idea, the event will end with a quiet investigation on the person attempting that. Next to the main entrance is the “other-half.” Roughly half the institute had been purchased by a Japanese pharmaceutical corporation; glimpses of the interior of this part are sometimes available to passersby.

Developing biological warfare is not considered a benevolent occupation, that’s why IIB seeks this type of protection, a very unusual one for academic institutions.

Nerve Toxins

There is no doubt about these activities. On 4 October 1992, El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed into the Groeneveen and Klein-Kruitberg flats in the Bijlmermeer neighborhood of Amsterdam. Many people died and were injured. The cargo included over 280 kilograms of depleted uranium – used for certain types of missiles – and 190 litres of dimethyl methylphosphonate, which could be used in the synthesis of Sarin nerve gas. The owner of the last was the IIB. The IDF possesses weapons containing Sarin.

Even clearer was a later event. On September 25, 1997, Khaled Mashal – a prominent leader of the Hamas – was the target of an assassination attempt carried out by the Israeli Mossad under orders of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two Mossad agents carrying Canadian passports entered Jordan and injected Mashal with an unknown nerve toxin. A few days later, Netanyahu surrendered to international pressure and provided the antidote. Toxin and antidote were developed at the IIB.

Bio-Terrorism

There is no doubt the State of Israel committed an act of Bio-Terrorism. It was approved by Benjamin Netanyahu, a.ka. "Bibi." That transforms the state and the man into terrorists. This status was corroborated by the Human Rights Council of the UN, but due to other reasons.

How come then, that American academic institutions continue collaborating with terrorists? I understand the selecting committee of MIT – or any other university – can be fooled in such a way. However, I won’t accept the claim that the CIA do not know about these extra-curricular actions performed by Israeli scientists in America. The CIA knows about this type of terror-precursors and lets it go on. The same goes for the American administration.

Let me state that clearly: if you – American leaders – want us – lesser humans – to believe you are in favor of justice and that your “War on Terror” is for real and not Deep-Pockets-driven, then you must address also the Israeli terror. Otherwise, just shut up and let us live in peace with our peaceful neighbors. We deserve it.

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