WikiLeaks

'Israel has destroyed Iran's bomb'

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:12:16 +0000

A remarkable claim about Israel's clandestine campaign against Iran's nuclear programme, published this week by WikiLeaks, has been dismissed out of hand by Israeli officials.

In one of millions of internal emails obtained in a hack attack on US strategic intelligence company Stratfor by the Anonymous collective, a Middle East "source" claimed that Israel had wiped out Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

In the email exchange, dated November 2011, Stratfor analysts discuss the explosion at an Iranian missile base near Tehran and quote a source who "was asked what he thought of reports that the Israelis were preparing a military offensive against Iran. Response: I think this is a diversion. The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago."

Some of the Stratfor staff expressed the opinion that Israel had sent commandos into Iran, with the assistance of Kurdish fighters or Iranian Jews.

One security official said that "it is less credible than Arabian Nights. An unknown source, talking to an unreliable private company and then quoted by WikiLeaks, you can't get something less credible than that."

Why West can expect less hostile Al Jazeera

John R Bradley — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:24:31 +0100

Al Jazeera, the hugely influential, Qatar-based, Arabic-language satellite news channel, has replaced its high-profile news director, Wadah Khanfar, on the back of WikiLeaks revelations that he toned down the station's Iraq coverage in 2004 and 2005 in direct response to criticism from American officials.

Copies of critical reports of the station's coverage, drawn up by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, were, according to the cables, frequently handed over to an apparently all-too-compliant Mr Khanfar.

However, for anyone who has closely followed Al Jazeera's output over the years, the latest revelations merely confirm what has long been known.

Back in 2003, just after Mr Khanfar was appointed, I reported that Al Jazeera agreed to pull two cartoons from its Arabic- and English-language websites that had been deemed "inflammatory" by US officials.

One was of young Latino men shown going through an immigration tunnel to emerge from the other side ready to leave for military service in Iraq. The other was of the Twin Towers imploding, and two giant fuel pumps rising to replace them.

There has been a steady leak of similar stories since, giving ammunition to critics of the station's claims to objectivity. But Mr Khanfar's position had never before appeared to be under threat.

So why has he now been deemed expendable? The timing of the WikiLeaks cables was everything. Al Jazeera was launched in 1996 with one aim: to put Qatar on the map. While ultimately run by the island's ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamir Al-Thani, its coverage of regional issues was bolder than anything seen before in the Arab world.

But now it has served its purpose. Qatar is known internationally. It will host the World Cup in 2018, and has used its huge gas-generated income to gain leverage, from Libya to Egypt, in the fallout from the Arab Spring.

Al Jazeera has also been crucial to the success, or otherwise, of the regionwide uprisings. Its coverage of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions proved crucial in the ousting of both countries' dictators. Its tamer coverage of unrest in Bahrain and Yemen, in keeping with a Saudi-Qatari counter-revolution in favour of the status quo, has helped keep those the revolts out of the headlines.

In short, Al Jazeera's often sensational, but always powerful and unpredictable, coverage of Arab affairs has become a hindrance to Qatar's efforts to ingratiate itself with Western powers and contain further revolts.

The replacement of Mr Khanfar as news director by a member of the Qatari ruling family, rather than an attempt to restore the channel's reputation for objectivity and professionalism, actually marks the abandonment of any such pretensions.

That will be music to the ears of the US and its regional ally, Israel, whose strategic interests are threatened by continuing unrest in the Arab world. But it is yet more bad news for the spread of democracy in the region.

'After the Arab Spring' by John R Bradley is forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan

WikiLeaks outs ex-NIF director

Simon Rocker — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:19:42 +0100

The New Israel Fund has dismissed criticism after WikiLeaks published controversial remarks made by a senior official.

Hedva Radanovitz, the then NIF grants director, told a US embassy official in Israel in February 2010 that she believed in a hundred years Israel would be "majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear".

Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said that the remarks - reported in an embassy cable - raised "serious questions regarding NIF's commitment to Jewish self-determination and Israel as a Jewish state".

NIF said that Ms Radanovitz's views did not reflect those of the organisation and that she had left a year ago largely over disagreements with its position.

WikiLeaks exposes rabbi's Iran talks

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:17:28 +0100

A London rabbi spoke this week of his deep regret that his secret negotiations with the Iranian regime had been published by WikiLeaks.

For the past 16 years, Rabbi Herschel Gluck of Stoke Newington has been involved in back-channel shuttle diplomacy with a variety of governments on a plethora of subjects, not always on specifically Jewish issues.

He has had a number of successes during his negotiations but this week Rabbi Gluck described WikiLeaks' decision to publish unredacted details of his discussions with Iranian leaders, said to have been held with the knowledge of both Israel and the United States, as "deeply irresponsible".

The WikiLeaks material relates to a series of talks that Rabbi Gluck had with the Iranians in 2009. They were held with Ayatollah Syed Salman Safavi, brother of the military adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Rehman Safavi, and related specifically to the fate of Israeli hostages thought to be held by Hizbollah or Hamas.

The talks are understood to have taken place with the blessing of the Israeli government, and were designed to try to establish what may have happened to the airman, Ron Arad, and to the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

The content of the talks is detailed in cables from a diplomat at the American Embassy in London and sent to the US State Department in Washington.

Rabbi Gluck, who refused to confim the accuracy of the material, said that the publication of the unredacted cables by WikiLeaks was very disappointing.

"There is no way that this type of material should be allowed into the public domain," he said. "I understand the argument about transparency but when people's lives are at stake, that is a totally different ballgame."

Asked what would be the effect of the publication of the material, Rabbi Gluck sighed. "It is certainly not helpful," he said. "It is certainly far from ideal. And it will certainly impede open and frank discussions in the future."

Once described as "the ambassador of peace", Rabbi Gluck has an international reputation forged by his ability, as an Orthodox Jew, to reach across religious and political boundaries. Chairman and founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum, he has negotiated with both sides in the Sudan conflict and with all sides in former Yugoslavia.

His hard-won good relations with the Muslim community have allowed him unprecedented access to people and places not available either to the mainstream Jewish community or, as in this case, the Israeli government.

But this time, Rabbi Gluck fears, WikiLeaks have gone too far.

The leak is wrong

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:15:04 +0100

There can be no starker demonstration of Wikileaks' profound irresponsibility than its publication of the leaked cable we report this week. Rabbi Herschel Gluck's back-channel negotiations with the Iranians over the release of Israeli soldiers has been entirely humanitarian in purpose and has only been possible because it has been secret.

That secrecy has now been destroyed, for no reason other than the self-aggrandisement of Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Newspapers have an obvious interest in the dissemination of information, especially secret information. But there is also a wider public interest against which this must be balanced, and the leak of these details while the soldiers remain in captivity is simply wrong.

As Rabbi Gluck puts it: "When people's lives are at stake, that is a totally different ballgame." That is why, although we have seen the unredacted cable, the JC is not publishing the full details. As for Mr Assange: we have already had cause to question his modus operandi, such as his links with the infamous antisemite Israel Shamir. This latest example of Wikileaks' recklessness with human life is even more shaming.

Revealed: antisemite was key to WikiLeaks operation

Martin Bright — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:43:59 +0100

The notorious antisemitic journalist Israel Shamir was actively involved in developing the WikiLeaks network - and was not just another freelance writer who happened to strike up a working relationship with the website's founder Julian Assange, according to newly-revealed correspondence.

Emails seen by the Swedish anti-racist magazine, Expo, demonstrate that the two men co-operated for several years. As early as 2008 Mr Shamir was asked to recommend potential associates in Sweden. He suggested his own son, Johannes Wahlström: "He is a Swedish citizen, and lives in Sweden. Probably, he'll be able to give advice about press freedom."

Like his father, Mr Wahlström has developed a reputation for strident antisemitic views. In 2005, left-wing magazine Ordfront was forced to withdraw one of his articles, which argued that Israel controlled the Swedish media.

An email from June 2010 shows that Mr Shamir was still playing a part in the Swedish WikiLeaks network at that point. "I have a lot of good guys who can help to analyse the treasure and it would be good to start spreading the news," he told Mr Assange. "I am now in Paris, and people want to know more! Tuesday I go to Sweden, and there is a whole operation for your benefit!" Mr Assange replied: "There certainly is! Tell the team to get ready. Give them my best. We have a lot of work to do."

WikiLeaks and Mr Assange have always played down their links to Mr Shamir, for obvious reasons.

The Russian journalist was born in Siberia to Jewish parents, but later renounced his heritage and wrote widely of his belief that Israel has an agenda of world domination. He has since acted as WikiLeaks' representative in Russia.

Freedom of speech campaigners Index on Censorship have also raised concerns about Mr Shamir's dealings with the authorities in Belarus, where opposition figures are thought to have been put at risk by revelations in leaked WikiLeaks cables.

WikiLeaks: extent of US-Israel ties laid bare

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:11:58 +0100

The early publication of part of the WikiLeaks US State Department cables regarding Israel reveals a startling degree of openness between senior Israeli officials and their American counterparts.

As part of an agreement between WikiLeaks and Israeli newspapers Ha'aretz and Yediot Ahronot, some of the 6,000 cables regarding Israel that the whistleblowing website plans to publish were revealed last weekend.

The cables record detailed accounts of meetings between American politicians and diplomats and the heads of Israel's military security organisations in which the Israelis offered their assessments of developments in the region.

According to the cables, as early as 2005 the heads of Mossad, IDF Military Intelligence, the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency and Shin Bet were warning of the precariousness of the Syrian and Egyptian regimes and of the inherent risks to Israel's security surrounding Hamas's imminent takeover of the Gaza Strip. It emerged that some senior generals actually saw this as a positive development because it allowed Israel to position Gaza as an official enemy state.

Other interesting insights came from former Deputy Director General of the Atomic Energy Agency Ariel Levita, who told the Americans that it would be almost impossible to take out Iran's nuclear programme with a military strike as the various installations were too widely dispersed.

It also emerged that in 2007, long before the outbreak of the current wave of Arab revolutions, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan identified the Al-Jazeera news channel as "the reason for the next war in the Middle East".

The cables also contained a clutch of revealing quotes from Israeli politicians, such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's recommendation that Palestinian financial adviser, Mohammed Rashid, become the next Palestinian Authority president and the admission by chairman of the settlers YESHA Council, Danny Dayan, that many of the settlers would agree to leave their homes in the West Bank in return for appropriate financial compensation.

The breadth and depth of contacts held by the American embassy in Israel is interesting. They include Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinisch, who explained to the Americans the rationale behind the court rulings on Palestinian human rights issues; and Trade Union Secretary General, Ofer Eini, who boasted of his powers to "switch off the country".

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gave his first interview to the Israeli media this week. In the article, spread over eight pages in Yediot Ahronot's weekend magazine, Mr Assange denied allegations made in Private Eye last month that he had blamed a cabal of "Jewish" journalists for conspiring against him.

WikiLeaks 'disgraceful' for antisemite links, says Guardian writer

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:02:03 +0100

A Guardian journalist has rounded on WikiLeaks as "disgraceful" and said Julian Assange and his colleagues should be ashamed of themselves for giving documents to "known antisemite and crook" Israel Shamir.

David Leigh, the newspaper's non-Jewish deputy editor who last month was accused by the WikiLeaks founder of being part of "a Jewish conspiracy" out to get him, made the comments at a media debate in Norway.

During the discussion he challenged the WikiLeaks' spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson on the organisation's claim that cables were only leaked to "trusted journalistic sources".

Mr Leigh, who has written a book about WikiLeaks, said this was untrue and that there was evidence that Russian cables had been given to the "antisemite propagandist" Mr Shamir.

The same claim was made in a book by former WikiLeaks staffer Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who said that Mr Shamir and Mr Assange maintained close ties.

Mr Shamir was once described by anti-fascist campaigners as a Holocaust denier and has faced criticism for his support of the authoritarian regime in Belarus. His personal website hosts a collection of anti-Zionist articles.

Later in the debate Mr Hrafnsson confirmed cables were given to Mr Shamir but he argued that this was because he was a journalist who had contributed to Russian media.

Mr Leigh said: "For you to try to talk your way out of this is disgraceful, in a hall full of professional journalists committed to free speech, honest journalism and truthfulness. You should be ashamed of yourself."

He added: "Would you like me to produce the material where he says the world is dominated by the Jews? Where he says US media is dominated by the Jews?

"Is this the kind of person Wikileaks should be associated with? Is this in the name of democracy?"

WikiLeaks papers shed light on Hizbollah's Israel plans

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:52:58 +0100

A series of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks to Israeli newspapers have revealed previously unknown information about Hizbollah's capabilities and Israel's ties with the Gulf state of Bahrain.

According to one of four US embassy telegrams from November 2009, Israeli intelligence officials believed Hizbollah could launch up to 36,000 rockets across the border from Lebanon in the event of another war between the two.

The document, the result of a meeting involving American and Israeli officials, suggested that Hizbollah had planned for a "long" two-month conflict and intended to aim 100 missiles at Tel Aviv.

The author of the telegram said: "Hizbollah was preparing for a long conflict with Israel in which it hopes to launch a massive number of rockets at Israel per day.

"The IDF and Israel Defence Intelligence argued that Hizbollah's ultimate goal during any future conflict is to launch a massive number of missiles and rockets daily into Israeli territory, including those that can reach the Tel Aviv area."

One of the other documents from the same month showed Israel's view that the head of Egypt's ruling generals Mohammed Tantawi was "an obstacle" to the prevention of arms smuggling by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Another offered details of a private meeting in 2005 between the king of Bahrain and a US diplomat, in which the king revealed that "Bahrain already has contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level (ie with Mossad) and indicated that Bahrain will be willing to move forward in other areas."

It was announced this week that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will give a rare interview to Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Last month Mr Assange provoked controversy after he allegedly told an interviewer that he believed there was "a Jewish conspiracy" working against him.

BBC producer says Assange 'ridiculous' over 'Zionist wife' claims

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:18:42 +0000

A BBC producer accused by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of trying to influence his extradition hearing because he had a "Zionist wife" has said the claim was "absolutely ridiculous".

Last month Mr Assange, fighting extradition to Sweden for alleged sexual assault, told Agoravox, a French news site: "Our relationships [with UK media] are not that great, particularly with the BBC. They are going to broadcast a show…and try to influence the judges. We finally found out that the producer's wife for this show was part of the Zionist movement in London."

He was referring to the Panorama programme. Wikileaks: The Secret Story.

Its producer, Jim Booth, said this week: "I was the producer on the programme so he can only be talking about me. I have got no idea why he said that. My wife is not Jewish, has nothing to do with Zionism or the Jewish community.

"It's absolutely ridiculous and insulting for me as a producer. I do not set out with an agenda and he gave the sense there was a Jewish agenda.

"Assange is a pioneer and Wikileaks is a tremendous thing but I wish he had got his facts right."

He said his wife, Janet, who helps disabled pupils at a sixth form college in Lancashire, received a "friend" request on Facebook from an Asian man from Blackburn after Mr Assange's claims.

"I don't want the Asian community or Muslim extremists to think my wife is a Zionist," Mr Booth said. "It's dragged my wife, who has nothing to do with the BBC, or this debate or Zionism, into this strange world. It's below the belt."

Mr Assange, in the same interview, said: "At first we did not have many files on Israel and we were afraid of attacks from the east coast of the United States. "If we had published information on 'sensitive' countries from the outset, we would have suffered attacks that would have forced us to deviate from
our path."

He claimed Jews on the east coast were given Israeli passports "to strengthen their ties with their homeland.

Mr Assange allegedly accused
Israel of torture and suggested it had an unethical rule of law, in his address to students at a closed event in Cambridge this week.

Tuesday's rare public appearance at the Cambridge Union was fronted by eight security guards, who banned journalists, and any recording.

Student Andrew Griffin, who attended on behalf of the student newspaper, Varsity, said: "One student asked what he felt about operating within and outside the law.

"Assange said : 'The rule of law is a very important thing. But when it breaks down, then it is time to operate within a system of ethics.'

"He drew attention to Israel, whose law, he claimed, permitted the use of force during torture."