Israel Warns Hamas Leaders Not to Run in Elections in West Bank
MEMO | January 28, 2021
Israeli intelligence services have started to warn Hamas officials in the occupied West Bank not to participate in the upcoming Palestinian elections, sources within the movement revealed on Wednesday.
According to the sources, the Israelis first summoned senior Hamas official Sheikh Omar Al-Barghouti to speak with intelligence officers at Ofer Detention Centre. While he was there, Al-Barghouti, who lives in the Ramallah neighborhood of Coper, was “asked” not to take part in the presidential, legislative and National Council elections. The Hamas leader was only released from prison a few weeks ago.
Several other Hamas officials and senior members have also been “asked” the same thing by the Israelis. The sources said that some were asked on the telephone and others were also summoned to detention centers or military bases to be interrogated on this issue.
Al-Barghouti has spent a total of 30 years in Israeli prisons. He is the brother of Nael Al-Barghouti, who has been held by Israel for more than 40 years.
In 2018, the Israeli occupation forces arrested Al-Barghouti and his wife. During the same raid, they not only killed his son but also demolished his house.
Previous warnings from Israeli intelligence to Hamas have included telling officials not to get involved in reconciliation talks with Fatah.
In 2006, Hamas won the parliamentary and municipal elections in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel, Fatah, Arab states and the West, including the US, refused to accept the victory before going on to help Fatah oust Hamas in the West Bank and impose a strict siege on Gaza.
A Domestic Terrorism Law? War on Dissent Will Proceed Full Speed Ahead
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2021
President Joe Biden has already made it clear that legislation that will be used to combat what he refers to as “domestic terrorism” will be a top priority. That means that his inaugural speech pledge to be the president for “all Americans” appears to apply except for those who don’t agree with him. Former Barack Obama CIA Chief John Brennan, who is clearly in the loop on developments, puts it this way in a tweet where he describes how the new Administration’s spooks “are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about [the] insurgency” [that includes] “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
The United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which includes freedom of speech and association, has been under siege for some time now. Government has always used its assumed powers conferred by a claimed state of emergency to deprive citizens of their rights. During the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln imprisoned critics of the conflict. Woodrow Wilson’s First World War administration brought in the Espionage Act, which has since been used to convict whistleblowers without having to present the level of evidence that would be required in a normal civil trial. During the Second World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt erected concentration camps that imprisoned Japanese Americans whose only crime consisted of being Japanese.
But perhaps the greatest attack on the Bill of Rights is more recent, the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts that were passed into law as a consequence of the “Global War on Terror” launched by President George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11. Together with the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which includes a court designed to speed up the warrant approval process, ordinary citizens found themselves on the receiving end of surveillance for which there was little or no justification in terms of probable cause. The FISA process was even notoriously abused in the national security apparatus attempt to derail the campaign of Donald Trump. The tools are in place for ever more government mischief and no one should doubt that the Democrats are just as capable of ignoring constitutional safeguards as the Republicans have been.
What makes the current state of war against “terrorism” so dangerous is that the national security apparatus has been politicized while the government has learned that labeling someone or some entity terrorist or even a “material supporter of terrorism” is infinitely elastic. That is precisely why Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has frequently called out opponents and attached to them the terrorist label, since it then permits other steps that might otherwise be challenged.
And there is also the fact that the playing field has changed since the First and Second World Wars. The government has technical capabilities that were never dreamed of in most of the twentieth century. Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers have demonstrated how the government routinely ignores constitutional limits on its ability to interfere in the lives of ordinary citizens. Not only that, it can monitor the lives of millions of Americans simultaneously, giving the police and intelligence agencies the power to mount “fishing expeditions” that literally invade the phones, computers and conversations of people who have not been guilty of any crime.
The authorizations that already exist will be further weaponized to go after dissidents as identified by the new regime. A bill introduced by House intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff “would take existing War on Terror legislation and simply amend it to say we can now do that within the U.S.” It would be combined with previous legislation, including former president Barack Obama’s infamous 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the military to indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of terrorism without a trial. Obama and Brennan also assumed an illegal and unconstitutional right to act as judge, jury and executioner-by-drone of American citizens overseas. Given those precedents, a bill like Schiff’s would free the national security community’s hands even more.
The new body of legislation would mean increased secret legal surveillance, suppression of free speech, indefinite incarceration without charges, torture, and perhaps even assassination. If it sounds like totalitarianism it should. There ought to be particular concern that the plan of the Biden Administration to go after so-called domestic terrorists will be this generation’s version of either Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The incident that took place at the Capitol Building on January 6th (already being referred to as 1/6 in some circles) has been exaggerated beyond all recognition and is now being regularly referred to as an “insurrection,” which it was not, by both politicians and the mainstream media. The language used to vilify what are alleged to be “right wing” and “white supremacist” enemies of the state is astonishing and the technology is keeping pace to turn the United States and other countries into police states to ensure that citizens will do the bidding of government.
To cite only one example of how technology can drive the process, Biden has several times threatened to initiate and enforce something like a nationwide lockdown to defeat the coronavirus. Can he do it? Yes, the tools are already in place. Facial recognition technology is highly developed and deployable in the numerous surveillance cameras that are being installed. Wrist bands are being developed overseas that are designed to compel compliance with government dictates on pandemic measures enforcement. If you have been told to stay home and are instead walking the dog your wrist band will tell the police and they will find and arrest you.
And, as the old saying goes, the Revolution is already beginning to devour its own children. Universities and schools are insisting that teachers actively support both publicly and privately the new “equity and diversity” order while police departments are purging themselves of officers suspected of being associated with conservative groups, meaning that something like a loyalty test might soon become common. Recently the Defense Department has begun intensive monitoring of the social media of military personnel to identify dissenters, as is already done in some large companies with their employees. The new Director of National Intelligence hardliner Avril Haines has already confirmed that her agency will participate in a public threat assessment of QAnon, which she has described as America’s Greatest Threat.
Haines has also suggested that intelligence agencies will “look at connections between folks in the U.S. and externally and foreign” while Biden on his first full day in office has pledged to thoroughly investigate claims about Russian hacking of U.S. infrastructure and government sites, the poisoning of Putin critic Alexei Navalny, and the story that Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It could be Russiagate all over again, with a claimed foreign threat being used to conceal civil rights violations being committed by the federal government at home.
And, of course, the new policies will reflect the biases of the new rulers. Right wing “terror” will be targeted even though the list of actual right-wing driven outrages is embarassingly short. Groups like Black Lives Matter will be untouchable in spite of their major role in last year’s rioting, arson, looting and violence that caused $2 billion damage and killed as many as thirty because they are in all but name part of the Democratic Party. Antifa, which rioted in Portland last week, will also get a pass – the media routinely describes leftist violence as “mainly peaceful” and only sometimes concedes that some “property damage” occurred.
It is Trump supporters and conservatives in general who are being shown the exit door, to include calls for “deprogramming them”. The Washington Post’s Zionist harpy Jennifer Rubin recently declared that “We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.” She also echoed calls for making them unemployable, “I think it’s absolutely abhorrent that any institution of higher learning, any news organization, or any entertainment organization that has a news outlet would hire these people.”
As the notably clueless Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in 2006 while Lebanon was getting bombed and shelled by Israel, “We are seeing the birth pangs of a new Middle East…” so too are we Americans seeing something new and strange emerging from the ruins of Trumpdom. It will not be pretty and after it is over Americans will enjoy a lot fewer liberties, that is for sure.
NATO Secretary General sounds alarm over ‘Russian aggression’, encourages members to increase military spending
RT | January 28, 2021
NATO’s top official has warned that its member states face existential threats to their safety, democracy and way of life from both terrorism and nations like Russia and China.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the remarks at a meeting of the bosses of the bloc’s armed forces on Wednesday. His comments were reported in a statement by Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the British chairman of NATO’s military committee.
According to the communique, Stoltenberg “urged Allies to continue to increase defense spending, invest in modern capabilities and to ensure our military remains ready to deal with challenges such as Russia’s aggressive actions, terrorism and the risks posed by the rise of China.”
He also stressed that “our democracies, our values, and the rules-based order are being challenged.” Stoltenberg’s rhetoric, however, failed to account for the fact its members include five nations that the US government-funded Freedom House says are not democratic states: Albania, Hungary, Montenegro, Macedonia and Turkey.
As well as rival states in the East, the missive also pointed to the evolving threat of terrorism as evidenced by the rise of IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS), as well as conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It urged its members to step up the funding for their armed forces, adding that “NATO is the world’s most successful military alliance because we adapt.”
Russia has previously warned that NATO activity near its borders has increased in recent months. In December, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told local media that there had been a number of close calls when vessels and warplanes came close to the country’s borders.
“In 2020, the activity of [NATO’s] air and naval forces has increased significantly, and situations that can lead to serious incidents are increasingly emerging,” Fomin said. “These actions were openly provocative. The incidents were avoided only thanks to the high level of professional training of Russian pilots and sailors.”
The month before, a US-led exercise in Romania that saw missiles land in the Black Sea caused alarm on the Crimean Peninsula. American troops airlifted in M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket (HIMARS) launchers from their bases in Germany specifically for the drills. The deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament claimed at the time that it had created an impression that NATO was preparing for “an armed invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Late last year, the bloc said that it had set its sights firmly on Russia. An analysis published by Stoltenberg’s office argued that Moscow engages in “assertive policies and aggressive action,” which has “negatively impacted the security of the Euro-Atlantic area.”
“In the long term until 2030, Russia is likely to remain the main military threat to the North Atlantic Alliance,” the authors of the report said.
DOJ & EPA to get ‘Climate Justice’ offices under Biden’s executive orders
Biden’s Executive Order echoes the agenda of activists seen here during Amazon’s ‘Climate Strike’ in Seattle, Washington, September 20, 2019. © REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
RT | January 27, 2021
Declaring his commitment to “environmental justice” for “disadvantaged communities,” US President Joe Biden has ordered the creation of new enforcement offices in two departments and a regulatory agency.
As part of a sweeping executive order signed on Wednesday, the new or expanded “climate justice” offices will be established at the Department of Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“We know the communities who are being hurt, and we know we have to start enforcing the standards today in ensuring that they are part of the solution,” Gina McCarthy, Biden’s newly minted climate adviser, told reporters on Wednesday.
McCarthy, who ran the EPA between 2013 and 2017 during the Obama administration, praised the Biden-Harris administration for its “most ambitious climate vision” ever and said the new orders recognize the “intersectionality” of climate with the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and “racial equity.”
“Science is telling us that we don’t have a moment to lose,” added McCarthy.
Biden’s executive orders direct the US government to “develop programs, policies, and activities to address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic, and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities,” according to talking points released by the White House.
Among its provisions is the establishment of a “Justice40 Initiative,” which aims to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of federal investment to “disadvantaged communities” and establish an Environmental Justice Scorecard to track its progress.
The newly established White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council will “prioritize environmental justice and ensure a whole-of-government approach to addressing current and historical environmental injustices,” the White House said.
It wasn’t immediately clear what qualified one as “disadvantaged” or what “environmental justice” might mean in practice. The order establishing these new bureaucracies was part of a broader push for “renewable” energy that Biden promised during the presidential campaign, while insisting this was not the ‘Green New Deal’ promoted by some Democrats.
A third French lockdown could drive fed-up French away from Macron towards rising Le Pen
Marine Le Pen at an end of summer annual address in Frejus, France September 15, 2019 © REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier
By Rachel Marsden | RT | January 28, 2021
A new poll shows that if the French presidential election was held today, populist National Rally leader Marine Le Pen would beat French President Emmanuel Macron – at least in the first round of voting.
While there’s no reason for Macron to start panicking, he’s nonetheless at a critical crossroads as he faces a decision over whether to lock down the country once again and risk triggering chaos.
Much is being made in the worldwide press of the new Harris Interactive poll indicating that Le Pen currently leads Macron by a score of 26-27 percent to 23-24 percent in a head-to-head, first-round presidential matchup.
It’s not exactly a shock poll, and closely mirrors the first round of the actual faceoff between Macron and Le Pen in 2017 that saw Macron lead Le Pen by only three percent. Macron still won massively in the second round, 66 percent to 34 percent, as voters who favored candidates in the first round all held their noses and voted for Macron in order to block Le Pen. And because of that phenomenon, conventional wisdom suggests that Le Pen simply can’t ever win a French presidential election.
Unless, of course, all hell breaks loose and voters decide that their priority is to get rid of those they perceive as destroying France, at any cost. It’s the same kind of sentiment that swept Donald Trump into the White House and has left permanent marks on American society in Trump’s wake via the radicalization of those who feel that the establishment spent his entire four-year term refusing to accept their electoral choice to the point that it wasn’t a stretch for them to believe that the same establishment would have rigged Trump’s reelection.
Macron finds himself staring down the possibility of what the French call a general “ras-le-bol” – that is, the French being totally fed up with him and his team, to the point of casting whatever vote would be required to replace him in the second round. That would still require a massive shift of 30 percent of Macron voters in the last election’s second round to choose Le Pen. But, given the increasingly dire economic and social crisis facing the country, anything seems possible.
A lot will depend on the next few weeks. Macron is under pressure from sanitary advisers who are encouraging him to adopt a preventative lockdown to avoid hospitals from being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients. A third lockdown would mean that the economy would take yet another hit, while the French are growing increasingly fed up with nearly a year of government-imposed restrictions on their lives and livelihoods. Already under a 6pm curfew and with some businesses by now closed for months, Macron apparently feels that there’s a growing possibility of civil unrest. And he has good reason to fear, as 38 percent of French citizens are against a third national lockdown, according to an Elabe poll.
Macron can’t keep asking all of French society to fall on their swords for a virus that kills mainly the elderly and people with preexisting problems, all while watching the government roll out the vaccine at the pace of an escargot. The fact that hospitals still risk being overwhelmed a year into the pandemic is a sign of government ineptitude. They could have built hundreds more hospitals within the past year. Instead of offering any other solution, they prefer to just keep downloading their failures onto the backs of the citizens by asking them to lock themselves up at home and tolerate going broke and mad so the government can save face.
Into this breach storms Marine Le Pen, saying on FranceInfo this week: “Lockdown is the last solution when you’ve failed with all the others. Why did the government not take advantage of the last lockdown, which required a lot of sacrifices from the French, to test massively and get ahead of the epidemic?” She added: “We have the feeling that the government has nothing under control, that it spends its time chasing the virus. To be ahead of the game, certain systems need to be generalized, in particular the massive analysis of wastewater, or even sequencing.”
Le Pen echoes the frustration of the French with the government’s go-to solution to its own insufficiencies being repeated lockdowns. When the government handouts dry up – and they soon will – businesses that have been forced by the government to close for months under pandemic pretext will simply fail, and along with them so will the livelihoods of many voters.
And while Macron clearly has a sense that he’s needed to move further right to block a Le Pen rise by adopting measures to better control immigration and Islamist extremism, those measures will amount to pointless window-dressing if he allows the lockdown bulldozer to destroy the social and economic foundation of the country.
So Macron has a choice to make in the coming days. And it may very well decide his presidential fate.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com
Universities Threaten To Cut Off Students’ Internet Access If They Fail To Comply With COVID Restrictions
By Steve Watson | Summit News | January 28, 2021
Universities in the US are threatening to completely cut off basic services, including internet access for students if they do not fully comply with all COVID restrictions on campus, according to a report.
Campus Reform notes that several universities are cracking down on students who are not following strict lockdown policies.
The University of Arizona has stated that students will only be able to use the internet if they have tested negative for coronavirus.
The University of Illinois has also threatened to restrict internet access, as well as the tools students need to study and submit assignments.
A January 20th email to students from the Chancellor Robert Jones warned that students who flout the mandates “face university disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.”
“Please note that this semester, students who are out of compliance may also lose access to university Wi-Fi, Zoom, Compass and other technologies,” the email read.
Boston University also threatened to remove internet access and place blocks on ID cards, which are used for all university services, if students do not get coronavirus tests and report symptoms.
Baylor University in Waco, Texas also announced that internet access will be suspended for the entire semester if three test appointments are missed. If just two appointments are missed then students “will not be allowed to participate in University or student organization activities (All University SING, athletic events, student organization events, campus recreation sports, access to the Student Life Center for recreation, etc.).
Baylor student Charlie Letts told Campus Reform “I find the punishments put in place by Baylor to be a little extreme.”
“The wifi is something students pay for and they need in order to be successful as students,” Letts said.
He continued “I realize that Baylor is trying to enforce the testing protocol, but taking something away that hinders being a productive student maybe isn’t the best option. Especially when everyone has different views about Covid like how compliant to be with social distancing, mask wearing, etc.”
As we have previously reported, colleges are being used as testing grounds for technology to enforce draconian distancing, mask and lockdown measures:
Universities are also threatening to suspend students who dare to leave pre-determined ‘bubble’ areas around campuses, or visit non “approved businesses” without permission.
Other colleges have suggested that students who want to have sex with each other should ‘consider’ wearing face masks while doing so.
It is no longer a stretch to imagine this prison-like model of coercion being implemented in the wider world, indeed it is already being widely touted and in some instances put into place.
Fines for failing to comply with lockdown restrictions. Police given powers to enter your home or place of business to conduct COVID patrols. No internet for you if you fail to take and submit test results. No access to basic services unless you take the vaccine.
Revving Up US War on a Free and Open Society
By Stephen Lendman | January 28, 2021
It’s disappearing in plain sight with Big Media support.
The NYT supports what demands exposure and denunciation.
Sticking with the official narrative, it perpetuates the myth of a January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection — ignoring the orchestrated anti-Trump false flag, its disturbing aftermath playing out in real time.
It backs the phony DHS claim about a growing US threat posed by “violent domestic extremists” emboldened by what happened on Capitol Hill.
The only internal threat to the nation and its people is state-sponsored.
What the Times should explain, it suppresses. Instead it reported the following rubbish:
Homeland Security’s “terrorism alert did not name specific groups that might be behind any future attacks, but it made clear that their motivation would include anger over ‘the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.’ ”
No “presidential transition” threat occurred, no evidence of violence against the state coming ahead.
The DHS falsely expressed concern about so-called “drivers to violence… remain(ing)” active (sic).
Yet the department admitted having no evidence that indicates a “specific, credible plot.”
Instead it dubiously warned of unexplained terrorism trends, nothing that indicates an imminent attack.
An unnamed DHS official was quoted claiming the department is concerned that Biden’s peaceful inauguration could create a false sense of security because “the intent (sic) to engage in violence has not gone away (sic).”
In the run-up to, during, and after January 20 inauguration ceremonies, there was no violence or known threat of it occurring in the nation’s capital.
The city resembles a war zone with no ongoing hostilities.
It remains militarized and occupied by thousands of National Guard troops and other security forces over nothing.
A DHS “terrorism advisory” is fear-mongering mass deception about nonexistent domestic terrorists — except for dark forces in the halls of power.
Americans are repeatedly lied to by government officials and press agent media like the Times.
The 9/11 state-sponsored mother of all false flags to that time was and remains all about waging endless war on humanity at home and abroad.
Since seasonal flu was renamed covid last year and all that followed, what remains of a free and open society is being eliminated entirely for our own good.
Police state enforced totalitarian rule is in place and being hardened.
The undemocratic Dem controlled White House and Congress are heading the nation toward full-blown tyranny — to arrive wrapped in the American flag for mass deception.
What’s coming may include mandatory mass-vaxxing with hazardous vaccines for access to public places, for work and education, for an illusory return to normalcy ahead that’s long gone without mass resistance against diabolical harshness.
The scheme includes elimination of remaining freedoms as once existed on the phony pretext of protecting public health, welfare and national security.
Instead of sounding the alarm against what no one should tolerate, the Times and other Big Media support the transformation of America to a brave new world dystopia unfit to live in — except for its ruling class at the expense of most others.
The choice is clear.
Resist or endure dark forces “stamping on a human face — forever,” with attribution to Orwell.
Life as once experienced will no longer exist if dark forces get their way.
I’m in the twilight of my life. I’m concerned about younger generations that’ll have none of the advantages I had growing up long ago.
That’s the disturbing state of things today — what I won’t be silent about, what I’m committed to resist against through my activist writing.
I urge mass activism from others to save what otherwise will be lost with no turning back.
Russia’s Ombudswoman Gets Requests to Protect Baltnews, Sputnik Latvia Reporters
Sputnik – 28.01.2021
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova has received requests from journalists who work with Baltnews and Sputnik Latvia media outlets, asking to protect their rights to freedom of speech, Moskalkova’s office told Sputnik on Thursday, adding that work on the requests is already underway.
“There are such [requests]. We are already working on them”, the office said.
In December, several Russian-speaking journalists working in Latvia, including those who wrote articles for the Baltnews and Sputnik Latvia outlets, have been accused of violating EU sanctions.
Their apartments were searched, with them being put under the condition to not leave the country. Sputnik Latvia and Baltnews are part of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, whose director-general, Dmitry Kiselev, is on the EU sanctions list.
The Russian Foreign Ministry says that the EU sanctions are individual and concern only Kiselev and thus could not apply to all individuals and entities that work with the agency, especially those who work as freelance journalists. According to Moscow, Latvia uses EU sanctions as an excuse to justify its “punitive campaign” against Russian media.
Biden’s top cyber adviser donated a lot to Israeli lobby AIPAC, say leftist reporters – and get accused of anti-Semitism
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses AIPAC conference in Washington, DC on March 26, 2019. © REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
RT | January 28, 2021
An investigative report about ties between President Joe Biden’s pick for cyberwar adviser Anne Neuberger and AIPAC has unexpectedly landed two Democrat-friendly journalists in hot water with the Washington establishment.
Neuberger is supposed to become Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology on the National Security Council. A “rising” star at the NSA, Neuberger got promoted to cybersecurity chief in 2019, after overseeing “a preemptive strike” at Russia during the 2018 election, reveals an investigative piece by David Corn of Mother Jones and Ken Dilanian of NBC News, published Wednesday.
However, Corn and Dilanian also revealed that Neuberger used her family foundation to channel substantial donations to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The Anne and Yehuda Neuberger Foundation has donated “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to AIPAC in recent years, according to Dilanian and Corn. The donations increased starting in 2015, when the foundation received a $93 million gift from the Chesed Foundation of America, a charity run by George Karfunkel – described as a “billionaire investor,” who also happens to be Anne Neuberger’s father.
Meanwhile, her husband Yehuda Neuberger chairs AIPAC’s Baltimore executive council, and lobbied against the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. The latter point may be the reason behind the piece, as Corn specifically argues that “AIPAC has been widely seen as a supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right and hardline policies,” incompatible with the Obama administration line that Biden has been busy trying to restore over the past week.
“While Israel is a close American ally, it operates in its own interest and aggressively spies on the US, including using cyber capabilities, current and former officials say,” Dilanian wrote.
Meanwhile, Corn lets former CIA official John Sipher phrase it instead, saying that “In her world, when people think of cyber-threats, Israel is always there, even if it’s an ally. It is surprising that someone in cyber who understands Israeli capabilities would not want to steer clear of these politics.”
Sipher characterizes Neuberger’s donations to AIPAC as “unwise at best.” Corn and Dilanian cite unnamed intelligence officials as saying that while the donations are “probably” not disqualifying, they’re “not good.”
Even so, the duo spent much of Wednesday defending themselves from accusations of anti-Semitism from groups and individuals. For example, the American Jewish Committee insisted that Neuberger is owed an apology, because “questioning the loyalty of a public servant for supporting [AIPAC] is not just offensive, it reeks of bigotry.”
Rabbi Michael Adam Latz said Corn was “intimating dual loyalty & claiming AIPAC is foreign-implying that Jews are foreign,” to which Corn replied that he never said either.
“It’s about policy,” Corn said, citing Barack Obama’s recent book saying that AIPAC is ”aligned with the Israeli right” and sided with Israel when it “took actions that were contrary to US policy.”
Some of the arguments used in the back-and-forth were by themselves revealing, such as Defense One executive editor Kevin Barron saying that the US “officially is 100% biased toward Israel” and the Pentagon maintains a policy of backing Israeli “qualitative military edge,” presumably in cyberspace as well.
“No argument on that. This is complicated,” replied Dilanian.
Corn was one of the first reporters to publicize British spy Christopher Steele’s claims about “ties” between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia, which were put together on behalf of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US presidential election.
Dilanian also took part in the ‘Russiagate’ reporting, and has a reputation of getting his stories vetted by the CIA – something that became part of the court record in the UK trial of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.