Israel at War Watch: Hezbollah Web Site Booted From Texas
San Antonio Express-News: Hezbollah Web site booted in Austin
The fight between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, so visible with bombs and rockets, has moved in less obvious ways into cyberspace, where it has cast a shadow over an unlikely locale this week: Austin.One of the war’s hottest targets popped up in the state’s capital and then disappeared under cyber-fire Monday. It was the Web site of Hezbollah’s much-hunted propaganda arm, the satellite television operation known as Al-Manar, which is outlawed in the U.S.
With Israeli planes striking at its transmission facilities in Lebanon, Al-Manar set up its Web site on the servers of Austin-based Broadwing Communications as an alternative for Hezbollah to stream a message that warplanes have been trying to stop since Israel started its counteroffensive.
Broadwing’s deal, however, was problematic because the U.S. government in March declared Al-Manar a terrorist entity, making it illegal for any U.S. firm to do business with it.
After a San Antonio Express-News inquiry about the deal Monday, a Broadwing Communications spokeswoman confirmed it had sold server space to Al-Manar through a third party in Beirut and decided to take the site down.
“We did not know that we had a customer that had a relationship with Al-Manar,” Laura Borgstede said Monday night.
On Tuesday, Al-Manar’s Web site popped up again, this time on an India-based server, Brainpulse. But when contacted by the Express-News on Tuesday, company officials there said they too had severed relations with Al-Manar.
Al-Manar’s Web site was tracked to the Austin company’s servers by a private group in Illinois called the Society for Internet Research. It bills its mission as combating Islamic extremist use of the Internet and regularly tracks radical Web sites that raise money and recruits for violence in hopes of hounding them out of cyberspace.
The organization’s founder, Aaron Weisburd, said the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East hasn’t been kind to more than 20 other Hezbollah Web sites, many of them carried by U.S. companies, as activists like himself and probably Israeli government hackers target them, especially Al-Manar.
“Of all the Hezbollah sites, Al-Manar is like ‘It,'” Weisburd said. “It’s well known among Arabs throughout the world, and because they’ve been booted off a number of satellites, particularly in Europe, their way of getting content out is going to be online, and so that makes this Web site important. It gets heavy traffic.”
The U.S. State Department long ago declared Hezbollah a terror organization. The group says it is dedicated to the elimination of Israel but broadcasts a strident anti-American message.
Interesting…..and fancy that……Islamofascist sponsored anti-America propaganda websites popping up in the USA.
It sounds to Flap, it is about time that the FBI start investigating some of these companies and the federal U.S. Attorneys get over their asses and prosecute.
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john Carey
Securing a Nation’s Life
By John E. Carey
For: flap’s blog
August 2, 2006
In the next few days, one of two things will happen. Either the United Nations Security Council will pass a resolution demanding that the Israelis accept a cease fire plan and stop the bloodshed or the war in Lebanon will continue.
We think the war in Lebanon continues.
There are a myriad of reasons why resolutions pass or don’t pass at the UN. A resolution’s passage or failure before the august international body does not necessarily mean the ideas underlying the resolution are good or bad. Sometimes, as in any political system, a bad idea gets accepted by everybody or a good idea ends up on the floor.
And sometimes nations act like children at the UN, slowing progress. Diplomatic efforts faltered at the UN, with France saying it will not participate in a Thursday U.N. meeting that could send troops to help monitor a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
So France, which is so concerned about the lives of the innocent civilians, won’t go to a UN meeting on the subject now.
Our own Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned from Jerusalem to Washington on Monday saying a cease fire resolution in the UN could be just a few days off. Israel, it seemed, had mistakenly bombed Lebanese women and children at Qana, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to a 48 hour cessation of air attacks and bombing in that part of Lebanon near Israel.
Hezbollah took that olive branch and broke it over its knee.
Secretary Rice reiterated her belief in a UN cease fire resolution Tuesday evening on the PBS Newshour, saying about the timing of a resolution, “This week is entirely possible. Certainly we are talking about days not weeks.”
We just don’t believe it.
Israel has stated that it needs time to create a new situation whereby Hezbollah’s missiles cannot reach into Israel again. They launched a ground assault into Lebanon to assure everyone that this objective was more than talk. More than 10,000 Israeli’s are now in Lebanon.
For Israel, this is an imperative. They are serious and they are not going to stop until their strategic security needs are met.
Israeli soldiers tell me they are fighting for the future existence of Israel. They are fighting for the life of their nation.
And using Churcillian words, “pain, tears and blood,” Israel’s Olmert reaffirmed Israeli resolve after the abbreviated “48 hour†air bombardment semi-cease fire.
The losers in that miscarried idea, an idea created after the regrettable deaths at Qana, were Secretary of State Rice, Hezbollah and Olmert himself.
Israeli pilots we were able to reach said they were shocked by the brief cessation of the air campaign. One pilot was positively frantic on the phone, saying, “Stopping now violates every sound principle of war. You cannot give the enemy opportunities to rearm, move around and regroup.â€
This was not one man’s voice but the sound of the collective shout of the Israeli people. What Mr. Olmert heard during the air bombardment cease fire was not the silence due to the lack of exploding bombs. He heard the deafening roar of objections from his military planners and the public at large.
So Mr. Olmert cancelled the cease fire and ordered the ground assault.
Ephraim Sneh, Labour MP and a former general said: “This war must not end in a draw.”
Over the course of two days we made contact with and had discussion with one of Israel’s smart experts on counter-terrorism, Hezbollah and war. Boaz Ganor told us the priorities of Israel’s military campaign and combined diplomatic initiatives were as follows: (1) Destroy Hezbollah’s rocket forces, (2) Dismantle Hezbollah, (3) Cut the physical connection between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran (via Syria), and, (4) Rescue the Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah.
We scrambled to phone our editor at The Washington Times to get Boaz’s remarks in print on Tuesday. But we are not sure Secretary Rice, or for that matter the French, believe his analysis.
We certainly do.
Israel is now fighting to achieve its top two priorities: the destruction of Hezbollah’s rockets and the destruction of Hezbollah itself. The soldiers capture by Hezbollah remain priority four. And the notion of isolating Syria seems not to have gotten off the ground, at least not diplomatically.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad mobilized his military, saying, “We must understand that every effort and each drop of sweat put into training now will save a drop of blood when the hour comes.â€
So nobody misunderstood his position, he added, “The fight will continue as long as our land is occupied and our rights are violated. Victory will be ours, with the help of God.”
When nations talk like this, they are not likely ready for a note from Kofi Annan that says, “Knock it off.â€
But if the leaders of the world and the leaders of the world organization, the UN, cooperate and work together and pass a smart resolution and get to Lebanon quickly with a respected peacekeeping force, we still have time to save a lot of lives.
Skipping meetings isn’t going to save one life.
Mr. Carey is the former president of International Defense Consultants, Inc.