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| The logo of HAMAS from the Russian based website |
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On October 18 the Kremlin's press service published a message from President Vladimir Putin to Israeli and Palestinian colleagues. In both documents he expresses the need for them to accept the aspirations of Russia for active participation in the further settlement of the Middle-Eastern conflict. Putin reminds them of his April initiative to convene a conference in Moscow devoted to this problem.
In a conversation with the AIA Israeli section expert, a high-ranking representative of the Israeli Staff on The Struggle Against Terrorism (LUTAR) accused the Kremlin of a policy of double standards. As he said, on the one hand Putin calls for settlement of the conflict and emphasizes "inadmissibility of terrorist actions " in his message to the President of Israel, but on the other hand Russia permits members and activists of radical Middle-Eastern organizations, such as Hezbollah, HAMAS, the Palestinian groups of "Islamic Jihad" to continue operating freely inits territory. LUTAR's expert noted that these organizations conduct struggle not only against Israel, but also against the official Palestinian leadership to which Moscow traditionally renders public support.
As solid proof of his words, AIA's informer tells about the October report of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S.) which functions out of the Heritage Center Of Israeli Secret Services (MALAM). This report is devoted to the Internet infrastructure of HAMAS. The report proves that most of the major websites of this organization function via Russian Internet servers, and use Russian Internet companies. Moreover, MALAM discovered that a representative of HAMAS supervising the Internet issue operates out of Russia…
Ex-Directors of Mossad Preserve the Heritage
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| Efraim Halevi |
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| Meir Amit |
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| The Heritage Center of the Israeli Secret services |
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The Heritage Center of the Israeli Secret services (MALAM) is located north of Tel Aviv, near the Glilot military base. This center was established in the summer of 1985 with the active participation of Meir Amit the third head of Israeli Mossad, between1963 and 68. He is president MALAM, and its chairman is the previous chief of Mossad, Efraim Ha-Levi, who headed this intelligence structure from 1998 to 2002.
Initially the center was planned as a memorial complex, to commemorate those employees of the Israeli secret services who died protecting the country. Numerous monuments were erected there; museum and library were created. Gordon Thomas, author of the monumental book, Gideon's Spies, which is about Israel’s Secret Service writes, that the memorial complex of the Center "immortalizes the memory of 557 men and women of the intelligence community, 71 of whom served in Mossad." In the book it is noted that the private files of all the Israeli agents and counterspies, who died performing confidential missions are kept in the archives of the Center.
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (MAMLAL) headed by Colonel (res.) Reuven Ehrlich of Military Intelligence was established on the basis of MALAM. The materials of this Center are published in MALAM's quarterly, which is distributed among the representatives of the academy, experts, former and working employees of the secret service. Center’s reports are devoted to the actual daily problems of terrorism and are periodically published via the Internet. They are based on documents of Palestinian organizations, acquired by the Israelis as a result of army and General Security Service (SHABAK) operations. MAMLAL's experts pay significant attention to monitoring Arab mass media, in particular, the Islamic one. On some of the issues the Center cooperates with the Staff on Struggle Against Terrorism, which is a part of the Israeli National Security Council.
The Israeli Intelligence Informs
Since last year MAMLAL has been specifically tracing the activity of Internet sites connected with radical Islamic organizations. The analysts of the Center use data from http://www.whois.net and www.haganah.org.il. The latter is managed by Aaron Weisburd, a web developer from New York City, and specializes in gathering information on the Internet about the activities of radical Islamic movements. Experts of MAMLAL note that "the international and Palestinian terrorist organizations widely use the Internet as an important vehicle for transfer of messages encouraging terror. The main advantage of this communication consists, first of all, of the absence of any control and restrictions of censorship. The Internet is used for contacts between the organizations and their headquarters, and also local branches of the organizations and their target audience. According to the Center’s analysts the value of the Internet in the activity of terrorist organizations increased considerably after September 11. The Internet allows them to overcome rather easily all the obstacles administered by the governments of different countries and in particular by the USA.
MAMLAL's first report on this subject was published in August 2004. It concerned the websites of the central group of the Palestinian "Islamic Jihad." Two months later, another report, devoted to the Internet infrastructure of the largest Palestinian Islamic organization, HAMAS, appeared. Later, the analysts of the Center came back to this issue twice in their publication, in January and in October, 2005. MAMLAL's experts established that HAMAS occupies the leading position among the Palestinian organizations in the use of the Internet. From the last three reports, it follows that most of major HAMAS sites are on servers in the countries of Eastern Europeprimarily in Russia, and use local providers.
It is evident that Russia, in the estimation of HAMAS leaders, is one of the "steadfast" countries countering foreign pressure regarding everything connected to "granting of services, closing of websites and blocking of messages with terrorist content." For this reason, all the most important sites of HAMAS function from its territory. The Russian authorities are extremely "liberal" towards the existence of such a powerful mechanism for propagation of this radical organization, which appears in Western lists of terrorists, in their territory. Even when, in October, 2004, the authorities ordered closing of HAMAS’s major Internet forum, the server for which is Moscow's Company DataForce, no practical measures implementing this decision were taken. This forum, without any obstacles, continues to function as www.palestinianforum.net.
The Eastern European Internet infrastructure has such great value for HAMAS that the leadership of this organization appointed a special representative in the region for supervising the activities in this direction. According to MAMLAL's data his name is Amur Aitashev. He operates from the territory of Russia and reports to high-ranking HAMAS operative Nizar Al-Hussein. Nizar supervises the activity of all the major websites of the organization. He conducts his activities from Beirut and belongs to the Lebanese branch of HAMAS. A propaganda bureau in the Syrian headquarters of the organization supervises his activities. In the last report of the MAMALAL it is indicated that: "The leadership of HAMAS operates its Internet - infrastructure from Lebanon for political reasons. Thereby, the Syrian fingerprints disappear…"
The Kremlin's Double Game
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| Abu-Mazen (L) and Putin. |
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The abovementioned facts testify to Moscow’s double standard, or double game. Each and every time, Russia reacts extremely rigidly to the appearance of an independent site devoted to the situation in the Chechen Republic on the servers of any European country. If the authors of the new project express solidarity with Chechen resistance, or the Caucasian radical Islamic movement, Moscow uses any method to achieve its closing. In such a cases the Kremlin puts massed political pressure on the countries of Europe, in particular the Baltics, meanwhile initiating hacker attacks against these websites. Such an extreme reaction to the Chechen websites drastically contrasts with the "liberalism" shown by the Russian authorities towards the Internet infrastructure of HAMAS.
At the same time, it is obvious that propaganda activity from territory of Russia on behalf of the largest opposition movement in Palestine causes huge damage to the legally elected president, Abu-Mazen. Since the beginning of 2005, more and more publications on sites of the "Palestine-info" group were directed not as much against Israel, as against official Palestinian leadership. On the basis of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, propagandists of HAMAS tried in every possible way to attribute this “achievement” to their organization. And they obviously did this in a counterbalance to the party in power, FATAH, headed by Abu-Mazen. In view of the upcoming municipal elections in large Palestinian cities, scheduled for December, 2005, and to the Parliament in January, 2006, activity on the HAMAS’s Russian Internet infrastructure endangers the secular wing of the Palestinian national movement. It can affect public opinion on the West bank and in Gaza, and the international coverage of pre-election campaigns. In the CIS, particularly in Russia, the websites of HAMAS publish material in Arabic, Russian, French, Persian and Urdu.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) supervising the political activity of the natives of Muslim countries in Russia must know all about that. The analysts of other state structures, in particular of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should understand that such unusual, to Moscow, liberalism in the field of freedom of speech, in the case of HAMAS contradicts the strategic interests of Palestinian leadership. As was true during Soviet times, the Kremlin expresses public support only for the leaders of the FATAH movement. However, on the basis of HAMAS's achievements in the January municipal elections and before the elections in December, 2005 and January, 2006 Moscow, by its actions, reserves the option of official recognition of the Islamic opposition to Abu-Mazen. Probably it is not accidental that during a meeting with Russian journalists in April, the leader of HAMAS, Khaleed Mashaal, especially noted that, to spite the Israelis and Americans, the Kremlin did not included his organization into the list of the terrorists…
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Russia is Ready for Dialogue With HAMAS
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