Flame virus most powerful espionage tool ever, UN warns

The Flame virus is the most powerful espionage tool ever to target countries, a United Nations agency responsible for regulating the internet has warned. This is the most serious warning we have ever put out," said Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the UN's Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union.

The formal warning will tell member nations that the Flame virus is a dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure, he said. "They should be on alert."

Orla Cox, a security analyst at the security firm Symantec, said that Flame was targeting specific individuals, apparently Iranian related. "The way it has been developed is unlike anything we've seen before," she said. "It's huge. It's like using an atomic weapon to crack a nut."

Figures released by the Kaspersky Lab show that infections by the programme were spread across the Middle East with 189 attacks in Iran, 98 incidents in the West Bank, 32 in Sudan and 30 in Syria.

Other countries where the virus was detected include Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.

"I think it is a much more serious threat than Stuxnet," Mr Obiso said.

Unlike the Stuxnet virus that was previously used to disrupt Iranian systems, Flame does not disrupt or terminate systems.

Iran, whose nuclear facilities and oil ministry have previously been the target of virus attacks, accuses the US and Israel of trying to sabotage its programme. It denies the allegation that its programme is weapons related.

A leading Israeli politician hinted at the country's involvement in the virus. Israel rejects Tehran's claims that its nuclear programme is designed to produce energy, not bombs. It considers Iran to be the greatest threat to its survival.

"Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat is likely to take various steps, including these, to hobble it," Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon told Army Radio. "Israel is blessed with high technology, and we boast tools that open all sorts of opportunities for us."

Muslim-hater website cries for Tunisia banned Hijab

The new Islamist Regime has already unbanned Hijab, an Islam-hater website said, asking, "How long until Islamist Regime make it mandatory for all women to cover themselves?"

Neglecting the fact of high unemployment rate and human rights abuse carried by the former dictate regime, the Islam-hater website

says that Tunisia was probably the most modern, Westernized Muslim country in the world.

The website also claims that the days of tourism for Europeans in Tunisia are over while in fact tourism as well as economy is reviving.

Israeli soldiers accused of violating status quo by raising flag near al-Aqsa mosque

Soldiers on Monday violated the status quo on the esplanade of the mosques in east Jerusalem by raising Israel’s flag, the head of the Islamic Waqf organization that oversees the compound charged.

“More than 180 soldiers from a special Israeli army unit today raised a large Israeli flag opposite the mosque of the Rock, which is a grave provocation,” Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib told AFP.

The sprawling esplanade containing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the adjacent Dome of the Rock in the historic Old City is the third-holiest site in Islam after Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina.

It is also the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Sheikh Khatib said the soldiers entered the esplanade during a visit approved and organized by Israeli police.

He said he had made a complaint both to the Israeli police and to the Jordanian authorities. Jordan, which has a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri confirmed to AFP that there had been an incident but said it concerned “a small flag,” and said that a senior officer at the scene quickly intervened to expel the soldiers from the compound.

She said they would later face disciplinary measures.

Israel occupied the eastern sector of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognized by the international community, and later annexed it.

For Israelis, Jerusalem is their “eternal and undivided capital,” but Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.

Jerusalemites protest the planting of fake Jewish graves around Al-Aqsa

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, - Hundreds of Jerusalemites organized a sit-in at Wadi Rababa neighborhood in Silwan to protest the planting of fake Jewish graves south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

The occupation has planted during the last week fake graves around Al-Aqsa in order to take control of unused lands as a prelude to implement the so called Talmudic gardens plan.

The protesters demanded the removal of these fake graves and called for public and diplomatic moves to expose the Israeli occupation practices.

The protesters explained that occupation's bulldozers have removed the Islamic graves in Mamanullah cemetery in Jerusalem then planting fake Jewish graves in Wadi Rababa as a prelude to take over more than 36 dunums of strategic Palestinian lands there in the southern old city and Al-Aqsa mosque.

Protesters expressed anger at the deliberate falsification of the Arab-Islamic and Christian history of the city of Jerusalem, noting that Jerusalem municipality and the so called department of environment became tools to implement the extremist settler organization Elad's goals.

Deputy Head of the Islamic Movement in the 1948-occupied lands Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib said that occupation authorities seek to steal the land's history and the geography through convincing the world that this land particularly Jerusalem contains Jewish graves for hundreds of years.

The occupation took by force the Palestinian lands in 1948 and 1967, and it is trying now to legitimize its presence through planting these fake graves to show that it is the land of Jews, Khatib told Quds Press on Monday.

This land is a Palestinian Arab Muslim land which cannot accept under any circumstances this falsification, he added.

The Deputy of the Islamic movement pointed out to "the need to face this project through disclosing these crimes and this occupation project which depends on armed force in order to prove its presence, he added that what has been disclosed is enough to prove that these graves are fake and unreal.

He said that fighting the occupation through law and media is not enough because the main problem is its presence. The Islamic nation has to combine its efforts to end this occupation, because if it continues, it will continue its aggression on the history, Geography and people.

UN Welcomes End of Hunger Strike by Palestinian Prisoners

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, has welcomed the agreement reached to end the hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody.

Mr. Serry “urges all involved to implement the agreement in good faith and promptly,” according to a statement issued today in Jerusalem.

More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners had begun an open-ended hunger strike on 17 April – Palestinian Prisoners Day – to protest against unjust arrest procedures, arbitrary detention and bad prison conditions.

For weeks now, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior UN officials have been stressing the importance of averting any further deterioration in the condition of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody who are on hunger strike, urging everyone concerned to reach a solution to their plight without delay.

Under the agreement, which was signed on Monday following mediation by Egypt and Jordan, Israel will reportedly end solitary confinement for all prisoners and allow around 400 prisoners from Gaza to receive family visits. It agreed to discuss improvements in prison conditions, such as access to televisions and telephone calls.

In return, according to media reports, Palestinian prisoners’ leaders have signed a commitment to “completely halt terrorist activity inside Israeli prisons,” including recruitment, practical support, funding and co-ordination of operations.

Fayyad: Palestinians isolated and short of funds

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Tuesday the Palestinians may have "lost the argument" on the international stage for an independent state but cautioned that continued Israeli occupation was unsustainable.

Michael Stott and Samia NakhoulReutersIn an interview with Reuters, Fayyad struck a note of discord with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by calling for elections that have long been delayed because of deep political divisions between the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
He also warned his administration's future was clouded by severe financial strains and said the Palestinians had failed to galvanize a distracted world behind their cause.
"I think we are losing the argument, if we have not already lost the argument. But that doesn't make our position wrong," said the former World Bank economist, a political independent who has had strong support amongst Western powers.
Arab unrest, the U.S. presidential elections and financial crises in Europe had combined to knock the Palestinian issue off the global agenda more than 18 months after peace talks with Israel broke down in a dispute over Jewish settlement building.
"What is the biggest obstacle we face? The state of marginalization. It is unprecedented," he said. "The Israelis have managed to successfully trivialize our side of the argument," he added, alluding to the Palestinian demands for a halt to settlement building before negotiations can resume.
Israel says talks should continue without preconditions and has continued to build housing in blocs that dot the West Bank on land the United Nations deems illegally occupied.
Speaking from his offices in Ramallah, 20 km (12 miles) from Jerusalem, with the red, black, green and white national flag behind him, Fayyad said Palestinians must get their own house in order before they could hope for long-cherished independence, which most world powers continue to support in principle.
"I do not believe we will be able to get a state unless we are able to reunify our country," he said of the political divide that has split the West Bank from the coastal enclave of Gaza, governed since 2007 by the Islamist group Hamas.
DEEP FREEZE
Attempts by Abbas, who rules in the West Bank, to bridge this divide over the past year have failed amid mutual recriminations and plans to hold long-awaited elections this month across the Palestinian territories were shelved.
"The reconciliation process is in the deep freeze. Let's face it," Fayyad said, adding that the Palestinians should forge ahead with election plans regardless of opposition from Hamas in order to re-engage with a disillusioned populace.
"A basic right of our people is being violated. The right of being able to chose our leadership," he said.
The last presidential and parliamentary elections were held in 2006 and many Palestinians, including Abbas and the Hamas leadership, have said a fresh vote can happen only if both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are involved.
Strains have been reported in relations between Abbas and Fayyad since the prime minister refused to hand over a letter from the president to Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu laying out Palestinian grievances over the failure of talks.
Fayyad disagreed with the initiative last month but said the episode was now behind them and confirmed the two were working on the formation of a new government, where he will remain prime minister but will likely lose the finance portfolio.
Given the task of building institutions in readiness for statehood, Fayyad said his job was being imperiled by a lack of resources, with Arab nations failing to hand over promised aid.
"There is an issue of survivability of the Palestinian Authority given the acute financial crisis we are going through," he said, adding his government needed a "few hundred million dollars" to keep afloat.
The Palestinian Authority - which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank - depends on donor aid from the United States, the European Union and Arab states to pay the salaries of public workers, including teachers and security personnel.
The Palestinians had planned for foreign aid of about $1.1 billion in 2011, but received just under $750 million and are lagging again in donations this year. No reason has been given for the failure of some Arab allies to honor their pledges.
Despite the many challenges facing the Palestinians and the lengthy breakdown in peace negotiations, Fayyad said he was convinced that independence would be achieved within 10 years.
"Occupation is not only a major political failure, but given its oppressive nature it is also a moral failure for Israel. It is not something that can be sustained," he said. "Walls have gone down elsewhere. Why should here be an exception?"
(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Outing Omer: The Fake Gay “Flotilla Activist”

Last summer, “Omer” posted a video saying he had been turned down as a passenger on board one of Free Gaza’s boats because he is gay. Within a few days, he was discovered to be a fake, apparently recording his statement coordinated with the Israeli government press office.

Yesterday, Jon Ronson from the Guardian, followed up on this story. “Omer” (who turned out to be an Israeli actor named Mark and had no network of gays and lesbians) again spun his explanation about sending an email to us, then calling us on the phone. As he was pressed, he became more and more confused about the facts.

Like all good journalists, Mr. Ronson had already followed up, asking us if we had ever heard from this man,

Our colleague, Alex, running the London office was contacted. “We have never received an email or a phone call from this man, and we would not have refused his application,” she stated.

The only criteria we have for passengers is that they sign our points of unity. We have welcomed members of the LGBT community on board our boats over the years, and they have been welcomed in Gaza.

More importantly, the Free Gaza movement sees this story, made up by an Israeli actor, as another attempt to ‘pinkwash’ the occupation of Palestine,

Last year, the Tel Aviv tourism board spent $90 million to brand the city as “an international gay vacation destination. Their massive PR efforts are a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of an open society signified by Israeli gay life.

According to Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, “Gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians in Israel remain fiercely homophobic.”

Pinkwashing not only ignores the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, it denies the existence of the emerging Palestinian gay movement, with three major organizations: Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These groups clearly state the oppression of Palestinians crosses the boundary of sexuality.

As Haneen Maikay, the director of Al Qaws, has said, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is.”

Our criteria for passengers have always been their desire to advocate for the rights of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the illegally blockaded Gaza Strip. And passengers have included Christians, Muslims, Jews, as well as members of the LGBT community and people from over 34 countries.

Writer:  FREE GAZA TEAM

http://www.freegaza.org/

Palestinian Christians Against the Occupation

In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren claimed that Christians in Israel are better off than their brethren anywhere else in the Middle East. Two Sundays ago, "60 Minutes" made clear he attempted to intimidate Bob Simon by going over Simon's head to speak to Jeff Fager, the head of CBS News and executive producer of "60 Minutes," to complain that Simon's story on Christian

Palestinians was "a hatchet job" against Israel. In fact, it was a hard-hitting, but honest piece in which Simon helped to expose the terrible harm the Israeli occupation -- not Muslim Palestinians as the ambassador claimed -- is doing to Christian Palestinians in the Holy Land.

I am a Palestinian Christian, now a U.S. citizen, and my own experience and that of my family attest to the falsity of Ambassador Oren's assertion. I was born in East Jerusalem, Jordan in 1952, only a few years after my family and the majority of Palestinians fled from their homes when the newly established Jewish state took over three-quarters of historical Palestine. My family, like almost all the other Palestinians who fled -- Christians and Muslims alike -- became refugees, losing their fields, orchards, homes and practically everything else, to Israel. Israel defied the international consensus and a U.N. resolution calling on it to allow the Palestinian refugees to return. 

Had Israel allowed the Palestinians to return, it would not have become a majority Jewish state. Israel's fear of a Palestinian presence within its borders continues to drive its brutal policies of occupation, which victimize Palestinian Christians as well as Muslims. Israel occupied the rest of historical Palestine in 1967, gaining control over a large Palestinian Arab population which many Israelis view as a threat to the "Jewish character" of their country.

There is a simple test of Ambassador Oren's claims: I say to him, "Mr. Ambassador: If your country is so good to Christians, why don't you allow me, my family and thousands of Palestinian Christians to return to our homes in the part of Jerusalem which Israel occupied in 1967 or the western part of the city from which Palestinians were forced out in 1948? Why is it that any Jew from any country in the world can claim full rights of citizenship as soon as he or she sets foot in Jerusalem, while I, whose family roots in Jerusalem go back many centuries, am barred from living with full human rights in my hometown?"

Ask Ambassador Oren about the Palestinians who hail from the predominantly Christian villages of Iqrit and Kufr Bir'im which, like the majority of Palestinian Arab villages, were razed to the ground after 1948. Iqrit and Kufr Bir'im are only two of many such Christian villages, but well known because of the long -- but unfortunately failed -- campaign waged on their behalf by courageous Israeli human rights advocates.

There is no doubt that Arab Christians face problems in the Middle East. The worst examples were during the Lebanese civil war and in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, when political and economic stability collapsed. Israel's attacks on Lebanon played a major role in destabilizing that country, and Israeli hawks cheered the loudest for the U.S. invasion which destabilized Iraq.

Palestinian Christians are, indeed, worried about the militancy of extremists who cloak themselves in distorted Islamic rhetoric. Yet, the majority of Palestinian Muslims and Christians have chosen peaceful resistance. To say that Hamas is the cause of the declining Christian population in the occupied Palestinian territories is standing the truth on its head. 

Our people are fleeing their homeland because the Israelis are confiscating the land of Palestinians -- Muslims and Christians alike -- to build Jewish-only settlements and the Apartheid Wall which is ghettoizing many Palestinian communities. Palestinian Christians are leaving because of Israeli checkpoints and barriers that severely restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians, destroying their economy and preventing their access to their holy places in Jerusalem. They are leaving because Israel diverts Palestinian water resources in a way that gives illegal Jewish settlements the right to enjoy swimming pools while the fields of Palestinian farmers next door go fallow for lack of water.

But Palestinian Christians are speaking for themselves through the Kairos Palestine Document:

• "We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation. ... Today, we bear the strength of love rather than that of revenge, a culture of life rather than a culture of death. ... [We] endorse nonviolent resistance based on hope and love that puts an end to evil by walking in the ways of justice."

There is no difference at all in the degree of suffering that Palestinian Christians and Muslims are experiencing under Israel's long military occupation. To suggest that Palestinian Christians are doing well under Israeli domination couldn't be further from the truth.

American Methodists and Presbyterians are increasingly troubled by Israel's ongoing subjugation of Palestinians -- Christians and Muslims alike. Though they have long-standing concerns for the welfare of Israelis, many Methodists and Presbyterians believe the time has come to move beyond words and into actively demonstrating to this right-wing Israeli government that they will not stand aside silently as Israel oppresses generation after generation of Palestinians. 

In the days and weeks ahead, both the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) will consider resolutions to divest themselves from companies -- Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard -- profiting from Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories. 

If they do so, they will be alerting the Israeli government that the occupation will no longer be tolerated as business as usual. Palestinians have the right to live free of Israeli domination. Methodists and Presbyterians alike could send a very strong message to the Israeli and American governments if they move ahead with these sensible resolutions to divest from companies that shamefully benefit from the repression of Palestinians.

Philip Farah is the co-founder of Palestinian American Christians for Peace and of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace, www.wiamep.org. This post was originally published in the Huffington Post on May 1, 2012. 

Palestinian Christians and 60 Minutes (cont'd)

MAY 2 2012 - By Robert Wright - In the wake of the controversy over last week's 60 Minutes episode on Palestinian Christians, the Israeli website 972 today runs an illuminating post by a Palestinian Christian, Philip Farah. On the question of whether Christians are being driven out of the occupied territory by Islamic radicals or by Israeli policies, Farah writes:

Palestinian Christians are, indeed, worried about the militancy of extremists who cloak themselves in distorted Islamic rhetoric. Yet, the majority of Palestinian Muslims and Christians have chosen peaceful resistance. To say that Hamas is the cause of the declining Christian population in the occupied Palestinian territories is standing the truth on its head.

Our people are fleeing their homeland because the Israelis are confiscating the land of Palestinians -- Muslims and Christians alike -- to build Jewish-only settlements and the Apartheid Wall which is ghettoizing many Palestinian communities. Palestinian Christians are leaving because of Israeli checkpoints and barriers that severely restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians, destroying their economy and preventing their access to their holy places in Jerusalem. They are leaving because Israel diverts Palestinian water resources in a way that gives illegal Jewish settlements the right to enjoy swimming pools while the fields of Palestinian farmers next door go fallow for lack of water.

This testimony meshes with the one piece of evidence on this issue that I got first-hand. During a trip to Israel and the West Bank last summer, the group I was with visited a Palestinian brewery in the village of Taybeh. After touring the brewery, before getting back on the bus, a few of us were chatting with a Palestinian woman who was one of the brewery's proprietors. Small talk about how her business was doing led her into a pretty intense discussion of the occupation. She didn't deliver a political rant--she didn't talk about Palestinians lacking the right to vote or due process of law. She just talked about how her brewery couldn't count on the things an American-based company would take for granted--consistent access to water, electrical power, etc.--because these were under the control of Israelis who didn't seem very attentive to the needs of Palestinians. 

But however mundane her critique, it was no less animated for that. And after watching this articulate, forceful testimony from a Palestinian woman with a cross around her neck, I said to a traveling companion something to the effect that, if you could get this woman on American TV, that could change some American opinions about the Palestinian predicament. I think that's one reason the Israeli government was so concerned about the 60 Minutes broadcast: It provided first-hand testimony about the grim reality of the Israeli occupation from people large numbers of Americans might actually believe.

***

60 Minutes on the Plight of Palestinian Christians

APR 23 2012

Last night's 60 Minutes segment about the plight of Christians in the West Bank has gotten a lot of attention, in part because of the attempt by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren to intervene with CBS brass while the segment was being put together. (See the 11-minute point in the video below, where CBS correspondent Bob Simon confronts Oren with this fact.)

You can see why Oren might rather the piece hadn't aired. Things that Palestinian Muslims routinely say about the Israeli occupation may get more traction in America when Palestinian Christians say them. Such as this, from a Christian clergyman: "The West Bank is becoming more and more like a piece of Swiss cheese, where Israel gets the cheese--that is, the land the water resources, the archaeological sites, and the Palestinians are pushed in the holes."

Also, Oren clearly doesn't want this document, mentioned by Simon, to get attention. In it an interdominational group of Middle Eastern Christian clergy--Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant--refer to the occupation as "clear apartheid." (Oren hints that they're anti-Semitic.)

Finally, the 60 Minutes piece complicates the post-9/11 Israeli narrative according to which Israel and Judeo-Christian America are involved in a common struggle against Islamic radicals, and the occupation should be viewed in that context. Hence the importance of the moment when Oren insists Christians are leaving the West Bank under duress from Islamic radicals, not because of the occupation, and Simon presents testimony to the contrary.

Notwithstanding Oren's understandable qualms, the piece struck me as legitimate and balanced. Its subject--the ongoing exodus of Christians from the Holy Land--is of undeniable interest to American viewers. And Simon emphasizes that Israel isn't singling out Christians for persecution; their plight is simply the plight of Palestinians in general--a plight that, Simon notes, is due partly to actions taken by Israel to secure itself against terrorism. Now that Oren has had a chance to see the 60 Minutes piece, I'd be interested in hearing what, if any, parts of the story he thinks CBS should have included but didn't.

--

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/palestinian-christians-and-60-minutes-contd/256646/

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/60-minutes-on-the-plight-of-palestinian-christians/256218/

Israel must be prepared for future confrontation with Egypt, says ex-Defense Minister

In a wide-ranging interview with TheMarker, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer says ties with Egypt must be maintained at all costs.

In the summer of 2005, Israeli-Egyptian relations were rosy. Sitting around a conference table one day were executives from the Israel Electric Corporation and the Egyptian-Israeli East

Mediterranean Gas Company. Sitting across from them were Egypt's petroleum minister and his Israeli counterpart, fresh from their meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Facing the cameras, which captured their visible excitement, the two signed off on the agreement that would bring Egyptian natural gas flowing into Israel.

By Avi Bar-Eli and Sami Peretz

Last week the optimism of that sunny summer day dissolved completely. The $500-million gas pipeline running through the Sinai peninsula was sabotaged 14 times in as many months. The IEC stands at the edge of a financial abyss. EMG is falling apart. The moribund Mubarak is waiting to be convicted of killing his own people. Egypt's former petroleum minister, Sameh Fahmy, was arrested on suspicion of government corruption. His erstwhile Israeli counterpart, former Defense Minister and National Infrastructures Minister, and current Labor Party MK Benjamin "Fouad" Ben-Eliezer, made a miraculous recovery a year ago from a virulent bacterial infection of his lungs, only to watch the collapse of the edifice he had worked so carefully to build.

"I felt a pang in my heart," Ben-Eliezer told TheMarker, speaking about the collapse of the natural gas deal. "Egypt is a pivotal state for Israel. People have no idea of its significance. It was the stabilizing force of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and in effect controlled the Arab League. Its loss will be a very big blow to us. From now on it will be a completely different story. The (Egyptian ) army is weakening, losing its autonomy to the benefit of the government. That is bad for us. It is vital that we maintain the relationship with Egypt at any price."

The first Egyptian gas arrived in Ashkelon on May 1, 2008. "The gas contract reinforced the peace treaty, and was therefore historic primarily on account of its strategic implications, and only afterward on account of its economic implications." But no one who has been listening to the remarks of Israeli cabinet ministers over the past week would come to that conclusion. The message dictated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is: The suspension of gas delivery is not the result of political developments; it is, in effect, a business dispute between an Israeli company and an Egyptian company.

Both states signed off as guarantors of the gas contract, explains Ben-Eliezer. "I saw in that agreement the most important added value for the State of Israel, because what is the significance of the peace treaty by itself? Nothing. It has no meaning, it is merely a non-belligerence agreement."

How do you explain Bibi's PR argument?

"Bibi, with some justification, wishes for himself a situation in which relations with Egypt continue as they are. He is doing the right thing. I too would be very happy were a way to be found to renew the relationship between Egypt and EMG, and to also talk about a new gas contract and new prices. But if we look at the declarations of all the Egyptian presidential candidates we find there isn't one who does not speak of his intention to cancel the gas project after he is elected."

In other words, the Egyptian decision to cancel the gas contract is political?

"Absolutely political. There is no way for the gas pipeline to be turned off without the approval of the political leadership. On the other hand, it must be remembered that this is a temporary transitional government, so we must wait and see what the permanent government does. Bibi talks about us being a natural gas superpower, and it's true. But despite our power, I want to maintain the gas contract (with Egypt ) at any price, because of its importance in reinforcing the peace.

"When I learned of the cancelation, I made a statement I later regretted, that in essence the last link in the peace between us and Egypt had been broken. I see the Middle East as more religious, more Islamic, more anti-Israel, while the rest of the world is on a delegitimization campaign against us, while itself coping with difficult problems. I don't see the Middle East settling down over the next three or four years.

"Voices of opposition to the Egyptian-Israeli natural gas project first surfaced four years ago, and they took a practical turn immediately after the fall of the Mubarak regime, in February of last year, whether through grassroots calls for its cancelation, through the hunt launched against figures involved in it in Egypt or by bombing the Sinai pipeline."

In 2005 you saw a small number of people profiting personally from the gas contract, while at the same time there was no improvement for the millions of poor farmers in the Egyptian Delta. You didn't think it would fall apart eventually?

"As a cabinet minister, I make one single calculation - the good of my country. Israel was looking to get natural gas as quickly as possible, so I traveled between Moscow, Turkey and Egypt. I met with [Vladimir] Putin, and twice with the CEO of [Russian gas giant] Gazprom. I built a friendly relationship with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and with his petroleum minister. I didn't make socioeconomic calculations for an entire nation, but instead, I was interested only in the speed with which I could build the gas pipeline between Sinai and Ashkelon."

And that's ethical?

"Yes. You must always ask yourself which value you put first, and in my eyes reinforcing the peace was a supreme value. The gas contract was with Yossi Maiman's EMG. I didn't care about anything except laying the pipeline, and I was not involved in any of the financial negotiations."

Had you listened two years ago to Jordan's King Abdullah, perhaps you would have recognized that the gas project was viewed negatively by the Egyptian people.

"There was a reason why I said that even while talking, we must also be prepared for war. Look at what's happening in Sinai. There are already factories for making missiles and giant warehouses of explosives and rifles. The area today includes all the known terror organizations in the Middle East as well as serving as a base for the sabotage activities of the Bedouin shabab [Arabic term for youths with too much time on their hands]."

Is Sinai a lost cause?

"The best period for Sinai and the Bedouin who inhabit it was when Israel controlled it. Businesses flourished, tourism was at its peak, the fishing was unrestricted. Sinai today is a powder keg. There's chaos there."

So what's the solution?

"I very much hope that the new Egyptian government will get on its feet and get back to being in charge there, but the question is who will control the presidency - The Salafis? The Muslim Brotherhood? Because the protest has not calmed down. It is still there, and it is not dying down."

Is the peace agreement already a dead letter?

"On the time axis, [we] must be prepared for the possibility of a confrontation with Egypt. I hope I am wrong, and I would like nothing more than for the next [Egyptian] government to want to sit down with us. If I were a consultant to the next Egyptian president I would tell him to maintain the peace agreement at any price; first, because every year it gives him $2 billion in U.S. aid and second, because he will be incapable of spending a fortune on readying the army for confrontation, while the nation is crying. Egypt has 85 million people, and a third of them earn less than $2 per day."

What would you advise him with regard to the natural gas contract?

"To carry through with it. Otherwise there will only be the peace treaty on paper, and I also want good neighborly relations, security coordination and embassies. In my eyes the gas pipeline is as important as the peace agreement."

Why do you think Fahmy and Mubarak's sons, with whom you signed the gas contract, arrested?

"Am I an expert on corruption? Does it seem likely to you that if I were getting a monthly payment from Egypt the Mossad wouldn't hear about it?"

Former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit also received $11 million from Maiman for services rendered [after he retired].

"And in one payment," (Ben-Eliezer says, laughing ).

You recently bought an apartment in Jaffa for NIS 9 million.

"And in a rare step, I submitted a detailed account of all the sources of the payment, including the mortgage I intend to apply for."

If every possible stone in the matter of the gas project were to be overturned, would you come out of it looking good?

"I'd come out of it a prince. The rest of them? I have no idea. My guess is that no official Israeli [individual or agency] is involved, and I don't believe that any Israeli element got its hands dirty over it. It's hard for me to believe that I wouldn't have heard about it by now. I have got wind of many different things that were checked immediately."

Are you still in close contact with any of the Egyptians?

"In the past I was in touch with General [Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi [commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and defense minister], but that has faded too. Any ties to Israel are bad for them, and they are very sensitive to what is happening here. Every word that appears in our press is immediately translated for Cairo."

US claims father illegally moved kids to Gaza

(AP) — Authorities in the U.S. have filed criminal charges against a divorced Palestinian father who took his three children from Kansas to live in his native Gaza in an alleged violation of his custody decree.

Bethany Gonzales wants her children back in America. The divorced Muslim parents lived in suburban Kansas City until their father, Ahmed Abuhamda, took the children in February to Gaza.

He was charged last week in a federal criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas with intent to avoid prosecution on three state felony counts charging him with aggravated interference with parental custody.

The mother says she signed off on passports so the children could attend a wedding. The father claims she knew he was moving them to Gaza.

UN rights expert raises alarm over Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli Prisons

 UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk on Monday said he was appalled by the “continuing human rights violations in Israeli prisons,” amid a massive wave of hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners.

In extraordinary acts of collective nonviolent resistance to abusive conditions connected to Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory, more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners began an open-ended hunger strike on 17 April 2012, Palestinian Prisoners Day. This hunger strike is a protest against unjust arrest procedures, arbitrary detention and bad prison conditions. Prison authorities have reportedly taken punitive measures against those on hunger strike, including by denying them family and lawyer visits, confiscating their personal belongings and placing them in solitary confinement.

“I am appalled by the continuing human rights violations in Israeli prisons and I urge the Government of Israel to respect its international human rights obligations towards all Palestinian prisoners,” Falk said. “Israel must treat those prisoners on hunger strike in accordance with international standards, including by allowing the detainees visits from their family members.”

Falk noted that since the 1967 war, estimated 750,000 Palestinians including 23,000 women and 25,000 children have gone through detention in Israeli jails. This constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territory or 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“Israel’s wide use of administrative detention flies in the face of international fair trial standards,” Falk said. “Detainees must be able to effectively challenge administrative detention orders, including by ensuring that lawyers have full access to the evidence on which the order was issued.” The Special Rapporteur noted that Israel currently holds around 300 Palestinians in administrative detention.

Falk called on the international community to ensure that Israel complies with international human rights laws and norms in its treatment of Palestinian prisoners.