Eideard

Iran says it will put on display a series of foreign spy drones that it claims to have obtained, including four Israeli and three US unmanned aircraft…the exhibition will be held “in the near future”, and that foreign ambassadors based in Tehran and local journalists would be invited.

“The latest domestically manufactured electronic warfare equipment will also be put on show at the exhibition,” the newspaper said. “The foreign unmanned aircraft that Iran has are four Israeli and three US drones…”

Last week, Iran’s elite revolutionary guards put on show a US unmanned aerial vehicle, believed to be an RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which they claimed to have brought down electronically. However, military experts have questioned the veracity of Iranian claims, while the US insists that the drone malfunctioned and was not brought down by Iran.

There was one Pentagon flunkie today who claimed Iran only had a replica of an RQ-170.

Mystery surrounds how Iran got their hands on the aircraft and whether it was genuinely intact, as shown on Iranian TV. Nato said earlier this month that a surveillance drone flying over western Afghanistan went missing and could be the one that entered Iranian airspace along the country’s eastern border. Iran says it downed the drone near the eastern city of Kashmar, some 140 miles from the country’s border with Afghanistan…

Iranian officials also promised to reverse-engineer the drone and decode its technical information. Iran has claimed that Russia and China have requested to see the drone.

The other two US drones were brought down by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps over the Persian Gulf in January, according to the Tehran Times report…

The Christian Science Monitor has published an interview with an Iranian engineer who claimed to be involved in the Islamic regime’s capturing of the US drone. The engineer said Iranian electronic warfare specialists brought down the drone by exploiting a navigational weakness in its GPS system.

Americans are well enough accustomed to our imperial bluster. There really isn’t any need to reassure the “patriots” – and those who oppose our arrogant tread across the landscape of the world will be ignored as usual. An area where true bipartisanship is foreign policy can be guaranteed.

The Central Intelligence Agency is systematically monitoring Twitter, following up to 5 million foreign tweets a day, according to a new report.

The CIA’s Open Source Center reviews and analyzes information widely available to the general public, including Twitter and Facebook, and keeps eyes on everything from blogs to tweets to more traditional media, The Associated Press says in a feature article on the unit.

Analysts monitor information in an array of languages and cross-reference it to existing intelligence, and are often called on to provide information on the mood of a region after a foreign policy event…

When President Barack Obama gave a speech addressing Middle Eastern issues a few weeks [after Bin Laden's killing], the center monitored negative Arabic and Turkic tweets, denouncing the president as too pro-Israel, and Hebrew tweets criticizing the president for being too pro-Arab.

The center’s analysis ends up in Obama’s daily intelligence briefing in some form almost every day, reports the AP.

The CIA started reviewing social media after watching Twitter’s influence during the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, when thousands protested the contested results of an election that kept Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in office.

If you believe this started in 2009 or the CIA is a solo operation – I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Want to know how common the task has been, rent Redford’s movie, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR sometime. The plot doesn’t have to derive from today’s Tweets; but, Redford’s job description in the movie – back in 1975 – certainly fits.

Turks cared more for Furkan Dogan than does the Obama government

Turkey expelled Israel’s ambassador and suspended military accords Friday, a day after publication of a U.N. report saying that Israel had used unreasonable force in a raid on a Gaza-bound ship that killed nine Turks.

Stung by Israel’s refusal to meet demands for a formal apology, pay compensation to families of the dead, and end the blockade of two million Palestinians living in the Gaza enclave, Turkey announced it was downgrading ties with the Jewish state further.

“Turkey-Israel diplomatic relations have been reduced to a second secretary level. All personnel above the second secretary level will be sent home by Wednesday at the latest,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference in Ankara…

Israel Friday said it accepted the findings of the U.N. report, and that it hoped to mend ties with Turkey, but reiterated that it would not apologize for the deaths. Of course not. Arrogance is thematic in Israeli politics.

Immediately after the attack on the aid convoy last year, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel, suspended joint military exercises, and barred Israeli military aircraft from Turkish airspace.

Friday, Turkey went a step further by putting military pacts with its erstwhile ally on ice…

Erdogan’s stand on the Palestinian issue has held Turkey in good stead among Arabs agitating for greater democracy, notably in Egypt and more recently Syria…

Davutoglu also said support would be given to Turkish and foreign victims of the Israeli raid to seek justice from courts. One of the nine Turks killed was a U.S. citizen.

I presume you can guess how much support the United States has offered the family of the American murdered by the Israelis?

Yeah – I couldn’t find any support either from the Obama administration for Furkan Dogan the unarmed 19-year-old who was shot five times by Israeli gunmen. Obama did the usual “regrettable” everyone gets when the Israelis murder civilians. Furkan Dogan’s father has received no reply from requests to Hillary Clinton. And nothing additional that could be taken as criticism of Israel for the nine killings of members of the peace flotilla.

The wedding of Inna Zyskind and Pavel Kogan last week was one of the happiest days of their lives.

Friends and family watched as they exchanged vows and rings under a canopy in their quirky designer outfits. Then more than 1,000 guests attended an open-air festival in Tel Aviv, with street performers and musicians, partying long into the night.

The couple’s only regret is that their marriage is not legally recognised in Israel. In fact, it was organised by activist groups as part of a colourful protest against religious restrictions on who can marry.

Inna, who was born in Russia, was able to move here and become an Israeli citizen under the state’s law of return for Jews. But she is not recognised as truly Jewish by Israel’s orthodox rabbinical establishment. And in Israel, only religious marriages, not civil ones, are allowed…

“This was our demonstration,” says Pavel. “We’re secular people. We want to break the religious monopoly over this part of our life in Israel. We should be allowed a civil wedding…”

RTFA for detail, anecdotes, none of which should come as a surprise. Celebrating love and marriage, trying to live a civilized life in the 21st Century – in a nation that tries to cram people’s lives into tiny ideological boxes leftover from the Talmud – can be an exercise in futility.

To be expected in any land legally ruled by a culture which rejects history, science, secular knowledge.

Protesting a security demand that an al-Jazeera producer remove her bra, fellow colleagues bowed out of a meeting with Israel’s prime minister.

Israeli security personnel screening those attending the annual foreign correspondents event in Jerusalem Tuesday, asked al-Jazeera producer Simri Diab, 31, to remove her bra. She refused and was not permitted to enter the hall where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was due to speak, Ynetnews.com said Wednesday.

Diab told Ynetnews three reporters from the station planned to attend the event. She said she was forced to wait for a long period in the queue and then singled out with other Arab reporters. One of the security guards allowed her to sit down because of she is pregnant. She later agreed to a body search in a holding room downstairs, she said.

“They later took me downstairs to the security check cell. They asked me to take off my coat and then my vest. I did. Then they asked me to take off my shirt. I took a deep breath and did it. I was left with just my undershirt and trousers, without my shoes and the rest of my equipment. The female officer felt me with her hands for 15 minutes in any place possible. I told her I was pregnant and asked her not to use the manual device, but compromised on that later too.” When later asked to remove her bra, she said she refused and was told she would not be permitted to attend…

Yes, this goes beyond the usual depths of paranoia and political dementia that infects the actions of self-important pimps of national security, TSA, Shin Bet or otherwise. But, then, there’s probably a race to the bottom between Israel and the United States over who can produce the greatest number of bigoted incidents per month.

Neither nation produces any justification greater than “people hate us” – without ever examining the larger question of “Why does everyone hate us?”

Why wasn’t I invited?

In a statement issued Friday, the president and first lady Michelle Obama sent “warmest wishes to all who are celebrating Hanukkah around the world.”

But a Hanukkah party in the State Room next Wednesday has generated some criticism over the size of the guest list and the wording of the invitation, The New York Times reported.

Some are disturbed that the guest list for the president’s party is smaller than at Hanukkah parties in the Bush administration.

An Israeli newspaper ran a headline, “Obama downsizes Hanukkah in the White House,” the Times said…

But Rabbi Levi Shemtov, tasked with making sure the White House kitchen is kosher for the party, called it a tempest in a teapot…

“This is all one big overblown latke,” Shemtov said. “I feel that we need to save our communal kvetching in reserve for when it’s more called for and really matters.”

“Really matters” doesn’t really matter, of course, to nudniks whose only remaining role in politics – since the last election – is to whine.

A twist has emerged in the story of Israeli citrus fruit reportedly sold in Iran in defiance of a ban on commercial dealings between the two enemy states. It has now been revealed the fruit, a type of orange-grapefruit hybrid marketed as Jaffa Sweetie, were not Israeli in the first place.

The Sweeties were brought to Iran from China, where faking the origin of goods is a common practice.

The discovery of apparent Israeli origin caused a stir in Iran. Outrage followed, distribution centres stocking the fruit were sealed and accusations were traded. Such is the infamy of dealing with Israel that an Iranian official went so far as to accuse the opposition of a “citrus plot”.

However, Tal Amit, the general manager of Israel’s Citrus Marketing Board, told the BBC the fruit had not originated in his country.

“First of all, it’s a bit annoying that somebody is using our brand name and registered trademark without our permission,” he said.

Principled boycotts are a time-honored political activity, of course. Grape boycotts supporting farmworkers, boycotts of South African fruit during the Apartheid era, come to mind.

Nothing more than hilarity comes from this event. Too many avenues of hypocrisy to spin.

I trust Cylon Centurions more than these greed-powered politicians
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage, current and former government officials say.

The lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman of California, became the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee after the 2002 election and had ambitions to be its chairwoman when the party gained control of the House in 2006. One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post.

It is not clear exactly when the wiretaps occurred; they were first reported by Congressional Quarterly on its Web site.

The official with access to the transcripts said someone seeking help for the employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, was recorded asking Ms. Harman, a longtime supporter of its efforts, to intervene with the Justice Department…In return, the caller promised her that a wealthy California donor — the media mogul Haim Saban — would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who was expected to become House speaker after the 2006 election, if she did not select Ms. Harman for the intelligence post…

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman were fired from Aipac in March 2005 and indicted a few weeks later. They were charged with violating the World War I-era Espionage Act when they shared with colleagues, journalists and Israeli Embassy officials information about Iran and Iraq they had learned from talking to high-level United States policy makers.

Same old, same old. Israel can do no wrong unless they interfere with lobbyists and military contracts. They get a slap on the wrist and the beat goes on. The only surprise is a politician actually being caught – and revealed.