They also come just 10 days before a keenly contested general election in Israel.
The demonstrators are calling for Palestinians to be allowed to return to land their families fled in the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of Israel.
Demonstrations are expected to peak on Saturday afternoon.
Atia Younis has attended almost all of the weekly protests in Gaza since they began 12 months ago. Abed ZagoutThe Electronic Intifada Sarah Algherbawi -29 March 2019
Atia Younis has been a regular participant in Gaza’s Great March of Return since it began on 30 March last year.
He has attended all but one of the protests held each Friday. The sole time Younis missed a demonstration was in July – after he inhaled tear gas sprayed by Israeli forces. Being exposed to this chemical weapon left the 67-year-old unwell for a week, during which time he endured muscle spasms.
The incident was frightening.
Younis had brought 14 of his grandsons with him to a tent erected about 500 meters from the fence separating Gaza and Israel. They were singing patriotic songs and playing a game to see who knew the most Palestinian placenames, when the Israeli military began firing in their direction.
“My grandsons started to scream and run,” said Younis, who lives in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
Amid the panic, Younis left the tent and tried to locate his grandsons. Initially, he was only able to find four of them.
“I felt helpless, everyone was running from the smoke and it was a big mess,” Younis said. “I kept calling the names of my grandsons. I was praying to God not to lose any of them.”
It took approximately 30 minutes before it was possible to see through the thick white fog of tear gas. Luckily, all of Younis’ grandsons were safe.
“For a moment, I felt it was wrong to take the children [to the protests],” Younis said. On further reflection, Younis came to the conclusion that he had not sought to put them in harm’s way.
Like most people in Gaza, Younis is a refugee. His family hails from Barbara, a village in historic Palestine that was ethnically cleansed by the Israeli military in the last few months of 1948.
The weekly protests assert that Palestinian refugees have a right return to towns and villages from which they and their relatives were expelled. The right has been recognized by the United Nations.
Younis points to how the march has continued despite Israel’s extreme violence as evidence of its effectiveness. “But Gaza still needs the support of the West Bank and Arab countries,” he said.
Reading for rights
Mustafa al-Zatma, 28, another Rafah resident, is an engineer in the private sector.
“I have a good job here and have ambitions to work in an international engineering company,” he said. “I love my life but this doesn’t prevent me from participating in the march – like all my people to demand the right of return.”
His family is originally from al-Majdal, a village which was captured by Israeli troops in November 1948. Ashkelon – a city in Israel – has been built on the village’s remains.
Mustafa al-Zatma (wearing black jacket) has organized reading chains during the Great March of Return.
Abed ZagoutThe Electronic Intifada
During one of the weekly protests al-Zatma joined a number of his friends to organize a reading chain. It involved sitting in circles and opening books around 700 meters from the boundary fence.
“This event was a message to the world that the people participating in the Great March of Return are educated people, who are aware of the Palestinians’ rights,” he said.
The distance from the fence and the fact that the activity was clearly peaceful did not stop Israel from firing tear gas towards the readers.
Insisting that he is “totally with” the march, al-Zatma nonetheless thinks that the protests’ organizers should prevent children from taking part. “Children are widely targeted by Israeli snipers,” he said.
Almost 200 Palestinians have been killed during the weekly protests since their launch at the end of March 2018. More than 40 of them were children.
“I saw Azzam fall”
Twelve-year-old Iyad Barbakh disagrees with suggestions that children should not be allowed to take part.
“If I was prevented from participating in the march, I would find a way to do so,” he said. “I go to the march to demand the same rights as any other child in the world.”
Iyad Barbakh was hospitalized after he was injured by Israeli troops.
Abed ZagoutThe Electronic Intifada
By far the worst thing that happened to Iyad in the past year was that his friend Azzam Oweida was shot by an Israeli sniper. He died shortly thereafter.
“I saw Azzam fall to the ground with blood on his face,” said Iyad. “I will never forget him.”
Iyad himself has been injured twice during the protests.
On the first occasion, he was hit by a tear gas projectile. He required treatment for burns as a result.
On the second occasion, Iyad was shot in the arm and leg during February this year. He has kept joining the protests despite these additional injuries.
Bearing witness
Two women and one girl have been killed in the weekly protests.
Malina al-Hindy participates in the demonstrations, along with her husband and children.
“Women have always been side by side with men in all areas of Palestinian resistance,” she said. “It’s our duty to participate in the march.”
Malina al-Hindy has been injured on a number of occassions while protesting over the past year.
Abed ZagoutThe Electronic Intifada
Al-Hindy has paid a price for her defiance. She has been injured three times with tear gas projectiles and twice with live bullets while protesting over the past year.
One killing to have gained international attention was that of Razan al-Najjar. A volunteer medic, she was shot dead by an Israeli sniper in June as she was treating wounded protesters.
The killing proved that health workers operate at extreme risk.
Alaa al-Ajramy is among those medics who has been busy during each of the weekly protests. The 34-year-old admitted that he feels a sense of great tension during the eight-hour shifts he works on Fridays.
“I’m not afraid of death or of not seeing my four children again,” he said. “But I can’t imagine being in the place of one of those young people, who lost their ability to use an arm or a leg again.”
More than 100 amputations have been carried out because of injuries to protesters, Gaza’s health ministry has stated. Around 25 of those requiring amputations were children.
The most harrowing experience which al-Ajramy went through was to witness the killing of his colleague Mousa Jaber Abu Hassanein in May.
“My friend bled for 15 minutes,” said al-Ajramy. “And during that time we were not able to reach him because of the heavy fire around him. We couldn’t intervene to save his life.”
Journalists are also in danger at the demonstrations. Two have been killed while covering the protests.
Their deaths have not deterred colleagues from chronicling the full extent of Israel’s cruelty.
The only protection which one particular journalist has been given is that the news agency for which he works publishes his video reports without naming him.
The journalist explained that his worst day was when Israel massacred about 60 protesters last year on 14 May.
The journalist was working in eastern Gaza when Israeli troops opened fire. “Suddenly, everyone around me started falling to the ground,” he said. “Some were shot in the head, others in the arm or leg. It was very difficult. I turned on my camera and crawled among the crowd.”
Admired among colleagues for his bravery, the journalist has kept on venturing to within 100 meters of the boundary fence. “I get close to the fence, so that I can be close to the demonstrators,” he said. “I try to document Israel’s crimes against these people.”
Sarah Algherbawi is a freelance writer and translator from Gaza.
It was 4pm when Hala al-Najjar received a phone call, asking her to come visit her son, Bilal, at the hospital in Khan Younis.
“I was shocked and could not identify the caller. I ended the call immediately and collapsed. I lost consciousness for a couple of minutes and when I woke up I found my house full of relatives and neighbours and everyone was crying,” Najjar, 38, told Middle East Eye.
'It was the first time I looked at him and he didn’t look at me. My heart is burning'
- Hala al-Najjar, 38, mother of Bilal al-Najjar
Bilal was one of three 17-year-old boys shot and killed during protests across Gaza on Saturday that drew tens of thousands of Palestinian demonstrators marking the first anniversary of the Great March of Return.
Mohammad Saad, 20, was also killed by wounds caused by shrapnel from Israeli shooting before the demonstrations started. More than 300 others were wounded. Adham Amara was shot in the face, Tamer Abu al-Kheir was shot in the chest and Bilal was shot in the abdomen.
According to Save the Children, the boys’ deaths brought the total number of children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the protest movement began to 52, with some 200 Palestinians slain overall as Israel has cracked down on protests that have been a weekly occurrence.
The UN has accused Israeli soldiers of intentionally shooting at civilians, warning they may have committed war crimes in their response to the protests. Doctors working on the frontlines have told MEE that wound patterns show snipers are intentionally shooting to maim a generation of young Palestinians.
Samir Zaqqout, deputy director of the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, told MEE on Sunday: “If the international community remains unable to deal with these increasing violations, this will double the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and will increase the number of victims among them.”
Bilal al-Najjar is carried to his burial on Sunday (MEE/Loai el-Agha)
The risks, however, did not deter protesters from coming out on Saturday, calling for the right of return to homes from which their families fled in 1948 and an end of a grueling 11-year-old siege.
The blockade has left Gaza with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, economic circumstances with which the slain boys were intimately aware.
'A mature man, not a boy'
Both Bilal and Tamer had left school early in order to support their families, their parents told MEE.
Hala al-Najjar said Bilal was a talented student, but stopped studying at the age of 12 to work in a clothing shop. He saved money from his job to buy a cart and donkey and went out on his own.
“He collected rubble from the streets, sold it and paid the money for us. He told me, ‘I want to help you see my brothers and sisters completing their schools’,” Najjar said.
Relatives and friends mourn with Hala al-Najjar at her home (MEE/Sanad Abu Latifa)
“I saw him as a mature man, not a boy. I never thought he would come home dead and lying on a stretcher.”
Tamer was very ambitious, his parents said, but his aspirations had been crushed by the poverty of the refugee camp where he was born, like his father, Hashem, before him.
“I am very sad that I lost my dear son, but I do not imagine that we would stop the demonstrations before we get at least our urgent demand – breaking the siege and lifting the restrictions imposed on Gaza,” he told MEE. “We do not have work and we are unable to buy the basic needs of our children.”
Like Bilal, Tamar left school at an early age because his family could not afford related expenses, said his mother, Subhiyeh Abul-Kheir.
In pictures: How the Great March of Return changed five lives
“He told me that he wanted to work and save his money in order to build an apartment and get married,” she said. “However, he worked and paid his money for us because his father is unemployed.”
Last year, the family was selected to receive an apartment in Hamad City, a housing project funded by Qatar. “We thought that we were near to achieving our son’s ambition, but in one minute, everything is gone,” she said.
Hala al-Najjar refused to visit Bilal in the ICU at Naser Hospital, hoping he would recover. Instead, he succumbed to his wounds and his body was brought to the family home.
“They brought him before me. It was the first time I wanted to stand up, but my feet didn’t work. They lowered him down and I bent over him. I hugged him and kissed him all over his face,” she said, sitting on an old mattress laid on a concrete floor, using a wall as a back rest. A dozen women surrounded her, trying to relieve her pain.
“It was the first time I spoke to him and he remained silent. It was the first time I looked at him and he didn’t look at me. My heart is burning.”
In yet another blow to international law, the United States President Donald Trump, with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his side, on Monday signed a proclamation, officially recognising Syria’s Golan Heights as Israeli territory.
There is hardly a whimper of protest from any US politician; after all they brag about their country as a promoter of human rights, democracy and justice.
The majority of the American politicians apparently see no wrong in Trump’s disdain for international law. Even in the Democratic Party, which is quick to pounce on him after almost every tweet he writes, most politicians make no criticism of Trump’s policy on Israel.
In May last year, when Trump binned international consensus and recognised the whole of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, there was little opposition within the US, though the move dashed the freedom hope of millions of Palestinian people and earned international censure. No wonder, Trump had to fear none when he signed the Golan Heights declaration.
The Golan Heights region belongs to Syria. It had been an Ottoman territory before Britain and France, just as two thieves would split their loot, shared the Middle-Eastern region between them in terms of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement during World War I. This criminal deal, along with the Arab tribal sheikhs’ betrayal of their Ottoman Sultan, is the root cause of almost every problem besetting the region today.
Israel captured the Golan Heights during the 1967 war and has since built settlements for its Jewish people. Israel annexed the territory in 1981, but neither the United Nations, nor any country, had recognized the annexation until Trump on Monday did so. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 497 condemned the annexation, stating “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect”.
The annexation also violates Resolution 242, which emphasises “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”.
Emboldened by the endorsement of the majority of Americans through their silence and enthusiasm to mollify the Israeli lobby, Trump displays no qualms over his disrespect for UN resolutions and international law. Sadly, only a few realise that such disdain is a feature of Fascism.
Trump, the most pro-Zionist president in US history, would not mind being a Fascist to placate Israel, for it will win him the pro-Israeli white evangelical votes at the 2020 presidential election. Monday’s proclamation is seen by most political analysts as a gift from Trump to Netanyahu to bolster his chances at next month’s general elections, when he is facing corruption charges at home.
"It appears that Trump’s action on Monday was part of Israel’s Plan B after its Plan A came a cropper. Plan A was to create a civil war in Syria, help the insurgents through overt or covert measures, overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, balkanize the country and install puppet rulers who will cede Golan Heights to Israel"
Electoral prospects apart, the question now is: What will Trump do next to serve Israel? After Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, will he declare the entire West Bank as part of Israel – as demanded by the hardcore Zionists? Is this Trump’s much-touted Middle East peace plan?
It appears that Trump’s action on Monday was part of Israel’s Plan B after its Plan A came a cropper. Plan A was to create a civil war in Syria, help the insurgents through overt or covert measures, overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, balkanize the country and install puppet rulers who will cede Golan
Heights to Israel.
The entry of Iran, Hezbollah and Russia to the Syrian war to prop up President Assad scuttled the plan, forcing Israel to set in motion its Plan B.
Why is the Golan Heights, Syria’s western territory, so important to Israel? Israel has built more than 30 Jewish settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. Some 25,000 Israelis live there, in addition to the original inhabitants, the Syrian Druze people. The security of the Jewish settlers is one reason.
Another reason is water. The Golan Heights is fertile and rich in water resources such as the Jordan River basin, the Yarmuk River and underground aquifers. One third of Israel’s water requirement is met by Golan water sources.
The Golan Heights also has military and strategic value, as it is a high altitude plateau that overlooks low lying areas in Syria
and Israel.
Besides, security and water, the Golan Heights has another important asset – OIL. Israeli and US companies have plans to commercially exploit this oil discovered only a few years ago. But Israel is prohibited from selling the Golan oil in the international market because under international law, an occupying nation cannot profit from resources of an occupied area. With the US now recognising the Golan Heights as part of Israel, US companies such as Genie Energy which is connected with the George W. Bush era Vice President Dick Cheney and media mogul Rupert Murdock will now face no legal obstacles to extract Golan oil and ship it to the US market.
Trump’s outlandish declaration has been renounced by the United Nations, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Arab world. At the United Nations, European countries refused to endorse Trump’s proclamation, which came at a time when US politicians in a bipartisan show of support paraded to the AIPAC -- America Israel Public Affairs Committee a.k.a the Jewish Lobby -- conference in Washington DC to give their oath of allegiance to the state of Israel.
Trump’s fascist action came also at a time when the Gaza Strip was bracing for an Israeli attack after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory hit an Israeli village, injuring seven people, including two infants. But there was little mention in the mainstream US media that the rocket attack came after Israel during the past 12 months killed nearly 300 Palestinians, including children, disabled people and medics. The protesters were taking part in the Great March to demand that they be allowed to go to their villages in the occupied West Bank.
In the pro-Israeli US media, including the CNN, the fact that Trump violated international law was hardly discussed. Their argument seems to be if Russia could annex the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, Israel could annex Syria’s Golan Heights. A helluva argument! If this is the line the US media are taking, shouldn’t they keep their mouths shut when China proclaims the nine-dash line or the so-called cow tongue in the South China Sea as Chinese
sovereign territory?
Rafi Eitan, who was a member of the Mossad team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, waves to photographers during an exhibition at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 12, 2011, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the verdict against Eichmann, who was instrumental in the planning and execution the Holocaust. (GALI TIBBON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Rafi Eitan, the legendary Israeli master spy who died on March 23 at age 92, was the antithesis of the James Bond spies of public imagination. He was short and heavy, with thick glasses and hearing problems.
He rose to fame for being one of the Mossad operatives who captured and kidnapped the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 by pulling him off a Buenos Aires street and getting him drunk before smuggling him back to Israel on a passenger flight. Eichmann was the senior Nazi official in charge of the Final Solution—Hitler’s plan to exterminate European Jews. He was later tried and executed in Israel.
But Eitan had many lesser-known operations under his belt that were no less important for Israel’s national interests. He was involved in enhancing Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities, cultivating clandestine relations with Arab countries, and spying on the United States.
Eitan’s life parallels the story of Israel. He was born in 1926 in British Palestine. In his youth he joined Palmach, the underground fighting force of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during British rule. In 1946, at the age of 20, he was part of a hit team that killed two members of the Templers, a German Protestant community in Palestine that had sympathized with the Nazi regime. The successful operation, he told me 50 years later, enhanced his self-confidence and taught him that “if you are determined and creative everything is possible, even the most seemingly crazy plans.” This belief fueled his later endeavors in the Mossad.
After serving in Israel’s 1948 to 1949 War of Independence, in which he was wounded in his foot and ear, he joined the Israeli intelligence services. He was recruited in 1951 by another mythological figure, Isser Harel, who served as chief of both Mossad and Shin Bet, the domestic security service.
In one of our long conversations over the years, I asked Eitan how and why Harel had recruited him. He looked at me with a mysterious smile. “We had a very brief conversation,” he said.
“Isser pointed at a third-floor balcony in a building opposite the cafe where we were sitting and said, ‘I want to see you there.’ ‘No problem,’ I replied and left the table. I inspected the building and decided to climb the drainpipe. I was then lean and strong and in no time reached the balcony and waved to Isser. When I got down he told me I was accepted.”
Telling his story, Eitan was visibly elated. “You want me to demonstrate how I climbed? I still can do it,” he offered. He was then 85 years old.
Eitan served in the Mossad until 1972. During that period he participated personally or in his capacity as chief of operations in some of the agency’s most daring undertakings. In the 1950s and 1960s, he and his colleagues in the unit focused on counterespionage, following and chasing Soviet bloc diplomats and spies, and breaking into their embassies and installing bugging devices.
In 1965, as Mossad chief in Europe, he was involved in the murky operation of abducting Mehdi Ben Barka, a Moroccan dissident. At that time surrounded by enemies led by Egypt, Israel was seeking to form secret ties with moderate pro-Western Arab regimes. Morocco was one of them. Its monarch, King Hassan II, and his security chiefs offered Israel a deal. Help us to locate Ben Barka, and the king would upgrade relations and allow you to spy on your Egyptian and Arab enemies from our soil. Israel gladly agreed.
Three years later, Eitan’s services were needed in another complicated mission. Israeli intelligence registered a front company in Europe. The firm bought 200 tons of uranium from a Belgian company that was eager to get rid of it. The uranium was loaded on a ship that Eitan and his colleague had purchased posing as foreign businessmen. The cargo was transferred at sea to another vessel and then unloaded at an Israeli port and shipped to fuel the Dimona reactor in order to produce nuclear bombs.
That same year, he visited the U.S. Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania, which dealt which recycled uranium waste for the U.S. Department of Energy. The plant was owned by Zalman Shapiro, a Jewish American who was an ardent Zionist and contributed money to the Israeli intelligence charity. Eitan never admitted what he did at the plant, but it has long been suspected that he facilitated the theft of uranium for Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
In 1972, disappointed that he was not appointed as Mossad chief, he retired from public service only to return nine years later to lead another secret unit in charge of technological and scientific espionage. But managing Lakam, the Hebrew acronym for the Scientific Liaison Bureau, in his typical uninhibited manner eventually led to his downfall.
In 1985, Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew who worked as an analyst for the U.S. Navy counterintelligence center, was caught spying for Israel by FBI agents. Pollard said that he was recruited by Eitan, whom he admired.
Taking full responsibility for the intelligence fiasco, Eitan resigned, but he did so with his typical in-your-face approach. When then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the Pollard affair had been a rogue operation, Eitan contradicted the boss and declared he had acted under instructions from the government. He was wanted in the United States for questioning and claims that after that point he never again set foot on U.S. soil.
One year ago, I asked him if he had any remorse for recruiting and running Pollard. In his soft voice, he answered bluntly: “No, why should I? I worked in a high-risk business. You win some, you lose some.”
The Mossad and the broader Israeli intelligence community have undergone a major transformation. The way Eitan was recruited and the way he operated are long gone. New candidates are no longer recommended by the old boys’ network, and they are not required to prove their skills by climbing drainpipes. Instead, their character is evaluated and scrutinized by psychologists and other professionals. Technology and cyberwarfare have sidelined the old traits of human intelligence. Nevertheless, new Mossad recruits are still taught the legacy of Rafi Eitan and his creative and cunning lessons on how to be a successful spy.
Yossi Melman is an Israeli journalist who specializes in security and intelligence matters and the co-author of Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars.
Cybersecurity is often a significant concern for organizations of all sizes. According to recent research by Accenture, companies could incur up to US$5.2 trillion in costs and loss of revenue over the next five years, due to cyber attacks, as the development of sufficient security measures lags behind the growth of internet-enabled business models.
Businesses of all sizes are vulnerable to cyber-threats, and the ones with more data have more to lose in the event of a cybersecurity incident.
Smaller organizations make for a desirable target for hackers because there are many of them, they are typically unprepared to face a sophisticated attack and perhaps most importantly, they let their guard down by assuming that they’re not targets.
More prominent organizations, which seem to have adequate protective measures in place, are still not impervious to breaches. As they continue to grow digitally, large companies gather and manage an unprecedented amount of customer data, while at the same time increasing numbers of end-points, making them more vulnerable to attack.
Moreover, increased connectivity means their systems are only as secure as the weakest link within their network, which may include numerous accesses by smaller third-party vendors and suppliers.
But rolling back digital initiatives is not the answer. Technology drives customer experience in the modern economy. Organizations should be able to focus on leveraging emerging technology and tap into the interconnected market without being worried about cybersecurity risks. Therefore, finding the right partner in the market to provide comprehensive, one-stop Security-as-a-service or SECaaS solutions to all their cybersecurity needs is crucial.
This is where Foregenix stands out like no other. Its Managed Detection and Response services (MDR) powered by its Serengeti offering enables companies to quickly identify and mitigate even some of the most sophisticated attacks, including previously unknown threats.
Upon deployment, the solution will allow the Foregenix Threat Intelligence Group to monitor critical security telemetry across an organization’s IT space, rapidly sniffing out multi-stage attacks that typically wouldn’t be detected by industry standard cybersecurity solutions.
Beyond that, with Serengeti‘s “Single Pane of Glass” visibility and analytics capability, Foregenix can easily sweep through a company’s extended data sets for swift diagnosis.
For example, when a ransomware attack brought the operations of Welgevonden Game Reserve in South Africa to a halt and put the organization’s sensitive data on its anti-poaching efforts at risk, Foregenix quickly sprang into action with a two-step approach.
Upon assessing the incident and the Reserve’s IT profile, a security expert from Foregenix guided the Welgevonden team to secure their network and brought it back up and running again. After that, Foregenix MDR was deployed, which activated the Threat Intelligence Group to monitor key security telemetry across the whole IT system to scan for ongoing threats.
The telemetry gathered was significant in helping Welgevonden to detect potential threats in its systems and subsequently mitigated the malware attack. The analysis also proved invaluable in preventing a future attack. The team at Welgevonden can now have peace of mind that their infrastructure, and more importantly, their research data and customer information is being monitored and protected by the Foregenix MDR service.
Foregenix also has extensive background in retail. A leading specialty footwear retailer witnessed increasing cyber attacks to their point of sales systems, and decided to be proactive in securing data from compromise in line with its PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance status.
It deployed Foregenix Serengeti IR across its entire POS infrastructure, alongside industry standard anti-virus tools that it had been running for several years. Within minutes, Serengeti received telemetry from across all of the retailer’s POS devices. Initially, no threats were detected. But after two weeks, Serengeti picked up on unusual activity on one POS in the network – an installation of a suspicious application via Team Viewer – and not long after, outbound communication to an IP in Eastern Europe was detected.
The threat profile indicated a new variant of NewPosThings was active on the system and the industry standard anti-virus tool, despite being up-to-date, was unable to detect it. Serengeti IR alerted the Foregenix DFIR (Digital Forensics Incidents Response) team to shut down the attack immediately. Thanks to the quick detection and prompt response by Serengeti IR, no customer payment card information was sequestrated.
With more than ten years’ of experience in DFIR, Foregenix boasts the largest independent QSA in the world with an extensive background in PCI compliance services, coupled with a robust financial services industry knowledge.
The company dominated the P2PE (point-to-point encryption) testing market in 2017/2018 and has dedicated itself to supporting and protecting private and public sector organizations, financial institutions, retailers, digital businesses, utilities, and government departments all over the world.
Organizations – both big and small – need to realize that no one is safe from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and to deploy the right solutions to keep customer data safe. Business leaders that want to focus on serving their customers better, instead of losing sleep over cybersecurity concerns, should immediately reach out to Foregenix, to learn more about its services, and neatly avoiding the risk of becoming the next victim.
Ali Abunimah-29 March 2019
The Israel lobby in Australia is trying to block Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi from receiving a visa to speak in the country.
Kanazi is scheduled to participate in the annual Marxism conference in Melbourne next month and to undertake a performance tour in Australia.
Kanazi told The Electronic Intifada that on 27 March he applied for an Electronic Travel Authority – an online authorization to travel to Australia.
Within hours he received an email informing him: “An automated assessment has been made. Unfortunately your application is one of a small number of applications that cannot be approved due to checks required by the Australian Government.”
Kanazi said he plans to follow the instructions contained in the email in order to continue his application through an Australian consulate, and hopes to visit the country as planned.
Yet as Kanazi goes through the process he faces a campaign of defamation and pressure by anti-Palestinian activists smearing him as an anti-Semite and a supporter of “terrorism” – standard tactics of Israel and its lobby groups seeking to silence Palestinians and those who advocate for their rights.
Widely published, Kanazi has in fact used his poetry and political commentary for years to convey a strong anti-racist message and to express solidarity with peoples’ liberation struggles in Palestine, the United States and around the world.
More than 1,200 people have responded to the smear campaign by signing a petition urging the Australian government to grant Kanazi’s visa.
The website news.com.aureported that the Anti-Defamation Commission had written to immigration minister David Coleman to highlight “a number of Mr. Kanazi’s social media posts and statements supporting terrorists and demonizing Israel.”
The pro-Israel group also boasts on its website about its “bid to stop visa” for “BDS supporter”
Kanazi – a reference to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
Pro-Israel lobbyists also sought to exploit the massacre of 50 people by a white supremacist at two mosques in New Zealand to advance their agenda.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich said that Kanazi “has no business being here spreading his toxic agenda” in the “aftermath of the Christchurch massacre.”
The anti-Palestinian group cited Kanazi’s support for Rasmea Odeh, the Palestinian who in 1969 survived torture and sexual assault in Israeli military detention before she signed a forced confession for alleged involvement in two bomb attacks in Jerusalem, one of which killed two civilians.
Convicted by an Israeli military court, Odeh spent 10 years in prison before her release in an exchange.
Odeh herself has long been a target of the Israel lobby, and recently had her visa to speak in Germany revoked – a decision for which Israel’s government claimed credit.
“The Anti Defamation Commission weaponized the white supremacist mass murder of 50 Muslims, including at least six Palestinians, to attack me. Furthermore, groups like the ADC shamelessly back Israeli apartheid and whitewash the stripping away of Palestinian land, resources and dignity,” Kanazi told The Electronic Intifada.
“If you dare challenge Israel’s well-documented human rights abuses, which include torture and forced confessions, they will try to smear you into silence.”
“Palestinians and a growing chorus of voices who stand for Palestinian freedom will not back down in the face of these pressure tactics,” Kanazi added. “We know that millions of people in Australia and around the world stand with us, and that history is on our side.”
Covert campaign
Kanazi has previously been the target of a covert campaign.
The Israel on Campus Coalition, a group that secretly coordinates its campaign of “psychological warfare” with Israel’s ministry of strategic affairs, was revealed last year by The Forward and ProPublica to have run anonymous Facebook ads smearing Kanazi in advance of his appearances on US campuses.
The Israel on Campus Coalition’s efforts are part of a broader Israel-coordinated secret campaign exposed in Al Jazeera’s leaked undercover documentaryThe Lobby–USA.
But Kanazi is not the first Palestinian speaker to face challenges entering Australia.
In 2016, this writer was also denied an Electronic Travel Authority when invited by the organizers of the Marxism conference. He was asked by Australian authorities to apply for a different type of visa meant for speakers and conference participants.
That application faced unexplained delays, but after Australians mounted a public campaign, the visa was granted a day before departure, and the tour proceeded.
This writer also faced cancelation of a scheduled appearance at the University of Sydney, an apparent act of censorship that was reversed after a public outcry.
The following year, Australia revoked the visa of Bassem Tamimi, who at one time was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Tamimi was told in a letter from the immigration department that it “recently became aware of information that indicates there is a risk that members of the public will react adversely to your presence in Australia regarding your views of the ongoing political tensions in the Middle East.”
Bassem Tamimi is the father of teenage girl Ahed Tamimi, who in December 2017 would be imprisoned by the Israeli army for shoving and slapping armed occupation soldiers invading her family’s property shortly after soldiers shot and grievously injured her 15-year-old cousin.
The Tamimi family has faced years of violent reprisals and persecution for its nonviolent campaign of resistance to the theft of land by Israeli settlers in their occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
But the goal of Israel and its lobby has been to turn this reality on its head, by portraying victims of Israeli military occupation as perpetrators, smearing opponents of official Israeli racism, genocidal incitement and apartheid as racists, and labeling any opposition to Israel’s military occupation as “terrorism” and anti-Semitism.
“The conflation of support for Palestinian resistance with anti-semitism is a common trope,” Vashti Kenway, a Marxism conference organizer said, noting similar false accusations against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and US lawmaker Ilhan Omar.
“This is slander and operates to silence Palestinian voices,” Kenway added. “Standing up for the human right of Palestinians to resist their occupation and the war waged against them is entirely justified.”
Nasser Mashni, of the group Australians for Palestine, condemned the denial of Kanazi’s initial application: “This decision is an act of selective, politically motivated censorship. It is clear the government is deliberately silencing and preventing human rights defenders and Palestinian voices for justice, from being heard in Australia.”
March 30, 2019
Atia Younis has attended almost all of the weekly protests in Gaza since they began 12 months ago. 
Rafi Eitan, who was a member of the Mossad team that captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, waves to photographers during an exhibition at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 12, 2011, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the verdict against Eichmann, who was instrumental in the planning and execution the Holocaust. 
Remi Kanazi (
