Israeli Online Attack Service ‘vDOS’ Earned $600,000 in Two Years

"vDOS — a “booter” service that has earned in excess of $600,000 over the past two years helping customers coordinate more than 150,000 so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to knock Web sites offline — has been massively hacked, spilling secrets about tens of thousands of paying customers and their targets. The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com at the end of July 2016, points to two young men in Israel as the principal owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States." (thanks Ali)

The Chechnya conference on Islam

So the pro-Putin Chechnya government held a world-wide conference on Islam to define "who is a Muslim" (posing the question in itself is un-Islamic if you ask me).  But the conference basically excluded Salafites and included Sufis. Saudi regime supporters and clerical kooks were furious (some 100,000 tweets were devoted to denouncing it) and it infuriated them that AlAzhar Shaykh was in attendance. The demagogue, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi first supported the conference and then denounced it.  I have not seen much about the controversy in the Western press.  

US approved terrorists

"Under a deal brokered by the United States and the United Nations refugee agency, almost 2,000 dissident Iranians have been resettled in nearly a dozen European countries since the start of 2016. Until a few years ago, PMOI, also known by its Farsi name Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union." "The group has offices in the United States and Europe."

British role in destruction of Yemen

"Notwithstanding growing disquiet on both sides of the Atlantic over how Saudi Arabia is deploying its expensive western weaponry in Yemen, the months tick by while the list of Yemeni civilians killed grows ever longer. And of course, UK arms continue to flow into Saudi Arabia’s war machine." (thanks Amir)

In one day, the US attacks six countries: it is a coincidence that they all happen to be Muslim-majority countries

"While Americans savored the last moments of summer this Labor Day weekend, the U.S. military was busy overseas as warplanes conducted strikes in six countries in a flurry of attacks. The bombing runs across Asia, Africa and the Middle East spotlighted the diffuse terrorist threats that have persisted into the final days of the Obama presidency — conflicts that the next president is now certain to inherit. In Iraq and Syria, between Saturday and Monday, the United States conducted about 45 strikes against Islamic State targets. On the other side of the Mediterranean, in the Libyan city of Sirte, U.S. forces also hit fighters with the militant group. On Sunday in Yemen, a U.S. drone strike killed six suspected members of ­al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The following day, just across the Gulf of Aden in Somalia, the Pentagon targeted al-Shabab, another group aligned with ­al-Qaeda. The military also conducted several counterterrorism strikes over the weekend in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and the Islamic State are on the offensive."

mimicking the French in Beirut: bigotry

"The Seven Sisters Bar and Grill in Beirut reportedly barred entry (link) for a couple with a veiled woman despite being told, before coming to the place, that they would be allowed to sit at the bar if they arrived between certain hours, which the couple had done." (thanks Bassel)

Repression by a U.S. ally

"The Gulf monarchy Bahrain, a close U.S. ally, “is a country that has subjected its people to imprisonment, torture and even death for daring to desire democracy,” Rajab wrote. “No one has been properly held to account for systematic abuses that have affected thousands.” "As Salon previously reported, Bahrain is a close U.S. ally. It is home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and has a free trade agreement with the U.S. The State Department calls the repressive Gulf monarchy “a vital U.S. partner in defense initiatives.” "

A reader wrote to me: "I always remember what you wrote about Adel Jubeir speaking in cliches"

"If there's a freeze, Saudi Arabia will go along with it and we are hoping there could be a meeting of the minds when this comes together," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in London."

March 14 and the Syrian people

The irony is that March 14 Movement folks in Lebanon love the Syrian "revolution" but hate the Syrian people. They write and say the most racist things about Syrian refugees.

Airline employees increasingly refusing to say the word "Israel"

True story. Experienced travelers are in an international airport in a major European city preparing to board flight # 816 bound for Tel Aviv, Israel. The boarding pass reads Gate C-3. Experienced travelers that they are, they watch the board for the inevitable gate changes and keep an ear tuned towards announcements that come over the PA system. Gates change all the time. They hear an announcement. It is repeated three times in a row. A voice is saying: “flight # 816 to Palestine boarding at Gate C-3” The Israeli ambassador to Serbia was notified ..." (thanks Basim)

Jordan royal (UN "High" Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra`ad Al-Husayn) tells the world that he has white skin, which makes him a better Muslim

"I am a Muslim, who is, confusingly to racists, also white-skinned".  By the way, Human Rights Watch director on Twitter carries remarks by this guy day and night, around the clock.  Notice that this Jordanian regime diplomat (who got into his position by virtue of Israeli approval) only takes on governments and organizations which are on bad terms with the US government.  How brave of him.

Nuclear tests by country and year

This is how the US ignited the Lebanese civil war II

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "This is how the US ignored the Lebanese Civil War: Lebanon as a Police on behalf of Israel".

The New York Times is as ignorant of Syria as the Libertarian Party candidate

"Correction: September 8, 2016 
An earlier version of this article misidentified the de facto capital of the Islamic State. It is Raqqa, in northern Syria, not Aleppo.

Correction: September 8, 2016 
An earlier version of the above correction misidentified the Syrian capital as Aleppo. It is Damascus." (thanks David)

Zionist lies and distortions: the Pavlovian invocation of anti-Semitic charge when Israeli occupation and war crimes are criticized

Look at this crazy article: the headline and the article are lies and decption--i.e., standard Zionist practices and mode of operation.  You read the syllabus and it is nothing like what is being described. Also, what the writer does not know is that at UC, Berkeley undergraduates can teach courses if people are willing to take them. This is what it is.

Saudi regime banns Huffington Post (Arabic and English)

Huffington Post (in the US and Arabic Qatari regime versions) is banned in Saudi Arabia.  

The only Arab media TV station allowed in Israeli prisons is Al-Arabiyya (news station of Muhammad bin Salman)

A prisoner in Israeli jail explains what channels are permitted by Israeli repressive regime. Aljazeera is still banned.

An important day in the history of the Saudi-Zionist alliance: the Israeli lobby in DC has come out in full support of Saudi tyranny

The article by Dennis Ross on behalf of the Zionist lobby in full support of the Saudi regime is historical.  As you know, Dennis Ross visited for a few days Saudi Arabia as part of a delegation from the Israeli lobby in Washington, DC. They were received by the Saudi potentate and by other unelected members of the Saudi royal family.  After few days in the Kingdom, Ross was ready to declare that a revolution is underway in Saudi Arabia (of course, he was citing the language of a Saudi official).  But Zionists are to revolution is what Hillary is to socialism.  But what is interesting is that Muhammad Bin Salman assured the Zionist delegation that House of Saud has no ideology and yet toward the end of the article Ross talks about their anti-Iranian ideology.  Subscribing to the Saudi-Israeli policies in the region is the crux of non-ideology.  The Israeli lobby has now officially and publicly came out in full support of the agenda of the House of Saud.  It took Ross a few days in the kingdom meeting with only officials of the regime to give the readers of the Post an "informed" assessment of what is going on in the kingdom.

PS My favorite part of the article is Dennis Ross, not noted for his feminism, remarking that he saw women in Saudi Arabia, thereby implying that women in the kingdom are free because some of them were allowed to see a delegation from the Israeli lobby in DC.

Conspiracy theory? ISIS 'minister of war' is a US-trained sniper

"ISLAMIC State has reportedly appointed a US-trained sniper to the position of minister of war as it steps up its campaign of terror."

U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia top $115B

"Since taking office in January 2009, the Obama administration has offered over $115 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia in 42 separate deals, more than any U.S. administration in the history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship."

Leaked report on British arms sales to Saudi Arabia

"Stephen Doughty: We've taken evidence from a range of non-governmental organizations and experts operating in the region who have amassed a significant amount of evidence of strikes that have targeted civilian areas, hospitals, and even humanitarian operations. Obviously, that gives us a great deal of concern about whether the UK is upholding its international law obligations and its own domestic law about arms exports." (thanks Amir)

Sudanese cartoonist comments on the Israeli protection of Sudanese tyrant

The transformation of Hillary

Watch here.

"Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinians since 1947 has been referred to as “incremental genocide”

"Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinians since 1947 has been referred to as “incremental genocide” – a term used by historian Ilan Pappe and echoed by Michael Ratner, a human rights lawyer and CCR’s former president, who died earlier this year. “It’s been going on for a long time, the killings, the incredibly awful conditions of life,” Ratner said during Israel’s assault on Gaza in July 2014, referring to the expulsions of Palestinians from hundreds of towns and villages starting in 1947. “It’s correct and important to label it for what it is,” he added." (thanks Amir)

Leftists leaving Israel?

I read this "Many leftist Israelis are leaving Israel." You mean all three of them?

Mahmud Sfayr

This man is not known to many but he is very known to a few in Lebanon.  Mahmud Sfayr is the first commander of a resistance front against Israeli occupation troops.  On March 22, 1978, in the wake of Israeli invasion of Lebanon, revolutionary leftists in Lebanon formed the Popular Resistance Front for the Liberation of the South from Occupation and Fascism.  He was its first commander (this was prior to the Resistance Front formed by Lebanese Communist Party and Communist Action Organization and Socialist Arab Action Party-Lebanon in September 1982).  Safayr was unassuming and modest and did not carry himself like a military commander.  I ran into him a few years ago when I gave a talk at Tadamun Club in Tyre.  Someone told me: did you know that this was Mahmud Sfayr? I did not know and went up to him and talked to him.  When the left declined in Lebanon, Mahmud retired and drove a cab.  There are many stories of pure and uncorrupt revolutionaries like Mahmud Sfayr.  He was liked and respected.  My condolences to his family and comrades--those who are alive and those who are martyrs.

Qatari regime and Christian conservatives

"THE GULF STATE of Qatar is small but exceptionally rich and uses its money relentlessly to acquire friends and influence. The recipients of its largesse have been many and various, from Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation in the United States to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. But while there have often been complaints about Qatar’s support for militant Muslims its dubious links with non-Muslimreligious groups have largely gone unnoticed.

Over the last decade Qatar has been working quietly with socially-conservative elements in the west to promote "traditional" ideas of family life. In doing so it has readily joined forces with Mormons and the more reactionary parts of the Roman Catholic church. It has also helped fund a right-wing think tank set up by a former leader of Britain's Conservative Party.
In turn, these western groups seem content to accept support from a country where polygamy is legal, where gay sex – and, indeed, any kind of sex outside marriage – is a crime, where loveless arranged marriages are not uncommon, where a husband can divorce a wife simply by saying so three times but a wife who wishes to divorce her husband must go to court." (thanks Morgan)

A scoop by Will McCants, really: apparently Syrian rebels were funded by small donations--just like Bernie Sanders

Will McCants (@will_mccants)

9/5/16, 7:52 AM Debate about who armed Syrians utterly elides role play by outside private citizens. States not sole or even main source of $ early on.

"Israel using “black ops” against BDS, says veteran analyst"

"A veteran Israeli intelligence analyst is linking recent attacks and harassment campaigns against Palestinian activists and human rights organizations to so-called “black ops” by Israel’s intelligence agencies.

Writing in the Maariv newspaper on Sunday, Yossi Melman, who has covered Israel’s spy agencies for decades, reveals telling details about Israel’s ramped up fight against the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

The fight is being led by Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs. According to Melman, Erdan’s ministry is gearing up to face BDS as if it were a military challenge.

“We want most of the ministry’s work to be classified,” its director general Sima Vaknin-Gil recently told the transparency committee of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

“There are many sensitivities, and I can’t even explain in an open forum why there are such sensitivities,” Vaknin-Gil said. “A major part of what we do stays under the radar.”

Vaknin-Gil added that the ministry aims to “build a community of warriors.”

According to Melman, the ministry has recently hired 25 workers whose names are classified. It has an intelligence section run by a former security services operative and receives assistance from “a special unit” within Israeli military intelligence and from the Shin Bet secret police.

This report from Israel’s state broadcaster, subtitled in English by activist Ronnie Barkan, shows Vaknin-Gil vowing to defeat the BDS movement in her testimony to the Knesset committee. It also shows the committee’s chair, Stav Shaffir, complaining that the government is revealing almost nothing about how it is spending the huge sums allocated to the anti-BDS effort. "

Britain protecting Saudi war crimes to facilitate arms sales

"The British government faces growing calls to review its lucrative arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Yesterday the international charity Oxfam accused Britain of being “one of the most significant violators” of the Arms Trade Treaty. 

The UK’s arms sales are, at least in theory, also subject to the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports which forbids “the export of equipment which might be used for internal repression or international aggression, or contribute to regional instability”. It is difficult to see how Saudi Arabia's ill-conceived intervention in Yemen can be regarded as anything other than a contribution to regional instability.

Statistics compiled by the Campaign Against Arms Trade show that the Yemeni war has brought a sales bonanza for British arms firms. In little more than nine months between the start of the bombing campaign and the end of 2015, the UK government approved licences for military exports to Saudi Arabia worth £2.8 billion ($4 billion) – a huge increase on the previous few years.  

The government has clearly been eager not to miss this business opportunity and, longer term, Britain will become even more dependent on trade with countries like Saudi Arabia if it eventually leaves the EU. To justify its position, the government has repeatedly claimed that the Saudis are not committing war crimes in Yemen – despite ample evidence to the contrary.

In the latest example, last week, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced that it was withdrawing staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen "in the absence of credible assurances" that the Saudi-led coalition would refrain from bombing medical facilities. MSF's announcement came after an airstrike on a MSF-supported hospital in Hajjah province killed 14 people including an MSF staff member on August 15. It was the fourth time in 12 months that MSF facilities in Yemen had been hit.

Under pressure, the British government has now retreated from its claims that Saudi-led forces are not committing war crimes in Yemen. It did so quietly by issuing a written statement on the last day of parliament before the summer recess – thus minimising the opportunities for discussing it."

Human Rights Watch director and his admiration for Jordanian regime:

The director of HRW has been peddling praise for this Jordanian diplomat (he calls him UN human rights chief--like he won the post from heavy work on human rights by the Jordanian regime).  There is little attention and campaigns by HRW about human rights deterioration in Jordan.  There is a Jordanian writer (Nahid Hattar) who is languishing in jail (and in poor health) without trial because he allegedly insulted God by posting a cartoon on Facebook.  I don't like Hattar and there is an old ideological feud between us and he supports Syrian regime brutality and referred to Syrian people in racist terms, but if Hattar was a prisoner for the same offense in Iran or some other non-pro-US regime, all Western human rights organization and media would be launching campaigns on his behalf. The other day, the Jordanian regime also arrested Ghazi Husayni without charging him with a crime. But like all violations of human rights in the despotic kingdom, there is no noise in Western media.  And here is director of HRW below expressing his admiration for this member of the Jordanian royal family:

Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth)

9/6/16, 5:39 AM UN rights chief takes on Geert Wilders' "lies & half-truths, manipulations" & fearmongering. bit.ly/2bOTICc pic.twitter.com/3ZQoHTCgAe Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) 9/5/16, 8:53 PM Beware the populists lest we succumb to their "banalization of bigotry"--UN rights chief.

For the first time officially, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia declares that all Shi`ites are not Muslims

He said in a phone interview: "We have to understand that those are not Muslims. Those are sons of Magi.  And their hostility to Muslims is an ancient matter, especially toward the Sunnis".

PS The WSJ story, from the AP, is not accurate. It claims that he was referring to "Iranian leaders". He did not. He said: those people.  It was clear from the rest of his rant that he was talking about Shi`ites.

Incumbency rate in the US Congress

Tom Perry of Reuters is freaking out over Hariri's financial crisis

"The Hariri family's pre-eminent role in Lebanese politics is being shaken by a financial crisis at its Saudi construction firm, a development that could dilute Sunni influence in the country and leave Iran's allies even more firmly in control."  This Perry guy is so pro-Hariri that he maintained that Hariri built his reputation on "rebuilding Lebanon". Yes, he racked a debt of $60 billion while he managed the worst reconstruction plan of any post-war country anywhere.  And not one person interviewed in this article is not pro-Hariri. Not one.

Don't be alarmed: this case does not involve Muslims. It involves a Christian murderer

"An Oklahoma woman accused of killing her daughter by forcing a crucifix down her throat told police she believed the 33-year-old woman had been possessed by the devil. KFOR-TV reports that police went to the suspect's Oklahoma City home Saturday afternoon and found Geneva Gomez dead on the ground with a crucifix placed on her chest. Officers say they found Gomez's body arranged in the shape of a cross."

creepy propaganda

"A provincial governor in Egypt has ordered changes to a sculpture honoring fallen soldiers after many on social media said it appeared to depict an unwanted advance on a woman symbolizing the country." (thanks Fred)

The New York Times is too ignorant to tell the difference between a far-left person and a far-right person: on the great George Carlin

"Mr. Carlin, who died in 2008, had always been a left-leaning comic whose skepticism of government would be right at home with the Tea Party."  Ehhhh, no, he won't be at home although I understand that ideological variations are beyond your understanding based on the duality of Republican-Democrat.

Olivier Roy on Islamization of Radicalization

"I think that these guys do not become radicalized because they become more and more religious. It is not religious radicalization that leads to political radicalization. When they became radical, they are religious. They frame their wrath in a religious narrative. They think they will go to paradise. It is Islamization of radicalization. I think Islam is the framework of the radicalization; it is not the primary cause. What I am saying, which there is a lot of misunderstanding about: It is not because they pray more and more, or go more and more to a mosque, that they become radicals. When they became radicals, they choose the religious narrative and believe in it. These guys are not Salafi. The idea that this is the Salafization of Islam does not make sense because their approach to salvation is not the Salafi approach. The Salafis do not believe in suicide. They think that suicide is a sin against God, like the Jews and the Christians. If you kill yourself or put yourself in a position where you will necessarily be killed, you preempt the will of God. But in the mind of the suicide bombers, the idea is that you don’t need to be a good Muslim, you don’t need to pray five times a day, you don’t need to go for hajj. If you make a supreme sacrifice, you will go directly to paradise and there is no need to be strict believer." (thanks Nabeel)

Did you know that the Ethiopian people didn't have a cuisine until Ethiopian arrived in Israel?

According to the New York Times (which called Howard Stern a feminist), Ethiopian food is not worth unless it arrives via Israel.

The worst place to study Arabic for Americans

"It’s hard to say, but probably not Lebanon! No offense to Beirut, but I found it really hard to find people who would speak Arabic to me."

Sign of progress? Reading Deepak Chopra in Tehran?

"“It doesn’t mean that people are atheist or anti-Islam,” Behjat said. “It means the middle class is fed up with the official version of religion that is imposed on them politically.” The texts are legal and officially licensed, but the readership is small. Behjat sells fewer than 2,000 Chopra books a year."

I have signed this petition against the Ramallah collaborationist clique

The statement and signatures are here.

How Muslims are expected, nay required, to police their own communities

This is now standards in Western societies: that Muslims are required in return for tolerance toward them to police their own communities and to point out the trainers and dangerous elements among them.  Imagine if this is said, say, about the Jewish communities. That would be classified rightly as classical anti-Semitic: the typical anti-Semitic view that the Jewish citizenship in Western societies is conditional on good behavior and conduct.  And the beauty is that in all Arab American and Muslim American conventions and conferences, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security send officials to speak to those members and to urge them to intensify their police work of other Muslims.  And the audiences cheer as if the visits by government security officials is an honor for the audiences.

Liking Syrian refugees and hating Syrian people

I like how some American liberals feign love and acceptance of Syrian refugees in the West but they call for US bombing of Syria, presumably because the bombs will only kill Asad and his family, but will spare the Syrian people.

And everyone raced to shake Sisi's hands