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On the Eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Anonymous Conducts Massive Cyberattack on Israel

Photo Credit: AP

Hackers launched a coordinated cyberattack on Israel over the weekend in an attempt to “wipe Israel off the map of the Internet,” defacing some 20,000 Israeli Facebook accounts and nearly 2,000 Israeli websites.

The anarchist hacking collective known as Anonymous formally launched “Operation Israel” on Sunday, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The stated goal of the attack was to wreak havoc on Israeli servers, government websites, and Internet users.

The hackers penetrated and defaced multiple Israeli websites including government, schools, banks, and a website for children with cancer, according to regional media reports.

Among the government websites breached were the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Government Publications Office, the Haifa Sewage Treatment Plant, and the National Insurance Institute, which provides social security benefits to Israelis, according to a list of hacked websites posted on Hackers News Bulletin.

The hackers brought Israel-based web traffic to a crawl on Saturday and leaked the personal information of more than 1,700 Israeli credit card users, according to Hackers News Bulletin, which reported the Jewish state had lost some $2 billion as a result of the attack.

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Israel Strikes It Rich: Enormous Natural Gas Field Begins Production

Photo Credit: AP

Natural gas began to flow into Israel over the weekend from a large offshore field, ending Israel’s status as a dry patch in an oil-rich region.

The flow came from the first of two enormous gas fields discovered off Israel’s coast in the past three years. The two fields, known as Tamar and Leviathan, are sufficient to supply Israel for 150 years, according to Bloomberg Business Week.

The Bank of Israel estimated that the flow this year from Tamar, the smaller of the two fields, would contribute one percent to Israel’s gross domestic product. Overall, the bank expects Israel’s economy to grow 3.8 percent this year.

The field is located 56 miles west of the Haifa port. The Leviathan field is slated to come online in 2016. The long-term value of the fields at today’s prices has been estimated at about $240 billion. More than half of profits are to be paid in taxes to the Israeli government.

“This is the beginning of a new era,” Isaac Tshuva, controlling shareholder of Delek Group Ltd., which holds a major stake in Tamar, told Business Week. “The Israeli economy will be able to exploit natural gas environmentally, geopolitically, socially and economically.”

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‘Most Palestinians Hate Obama’; US President Gets Heated Reception In West Bank

Photo Credit: AP

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, hit the red carpet first, followed by Barack Obama. The welcome ceremony lasted five minutes, with time for only solemn-faced handshakes and a reedy rendition of the Star Spangled banner before presidential entourage disappeared into Muqata’a building. The red carpet rolled up promptly behind them.

The pageant of love Mr Obama has engaged in with Benjamin Netanyahu may have won over several Israeli hearts, but it may have caused considerable damage to his relationship with the Palestinians.

The first 24-hours of Obama’s visit was marked with early morning rocket fire from Gaza towards Sderot, violating ceasefire agreed with Israel in November.

In Ramallah, empty streets were dotted with truculent Palestinian soldiers deployed to prevent violent protest at the president’s visit. Ramallah’s major thoroughfare, running from the presidential compound to Qalandiya checkpoint, was lined with posters censored with black paint. Their slogans had read: “Mr President, don’t bring your smart phone to Ramallah, there is no 3G in Palestine!”

Just 100 metres away from the Muqata’a, a small crowd of angry demonstrators gathered outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken, contained by flanks of riot police. “Obama get out”, they chanted in the direction of the president.

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Obama Quotes Alinsky, is Heckled in Israel; Huckabee Says Palestinians Don’t Want Peace

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Obama Heckled in Israel

By Susan Crabtree. President Obama was heckled Thursday during a speech to an audience that included scores of university students in Jerusalem.

About 15 minutes into his remarks, a man standing in the crowd started shouting in Hebrew. Citing a reliable Hebrew speaker, the White House pool reporter said the shouting was about Jonathan Pollard, an American who was found guilty of spying for Israel and is serving a life sentence for the crime.

Mr. Obama took the interruption in stride.

“This is part of the lively debate we talked about,” he said. “This is good.”

As the shouting continued, Mr. Obama added: “You know, I have to say, we actually arranged for that because it made me feel at home. You know, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least one heckler.”

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Huckabee to Obama: Palestinians Have ‘Zero Interest’ in Mideast Peace

By Jim Meyers. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Newsmax that President Obama won’t succeed in restarting peace talks in the Middle East because the Palestinians have “zero interest” in negotiations.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate also says the administration’s dealings with Mohammed Morsi and Egypt are “foreign policy gone wild,” and warns that the United States will be viewed as a “toothless tiger” if Obama doesn’t respond as promised to the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Huckabee is now the host of “The Mike Huckabee Show,” broadcast on 227 radio stations in 48 states, and a Fox News contributor. His latest book is “Dear Chandler, Dear Scarlett: A Grandfather’s Thoughts on Faith, Family and the Things That Matter Most.”

President Obama is making his first official trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories this week. In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Huckabee was asked if Obama will be able to get the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

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Obama Quotes Alinsky In Speech To Young Israelis

By Aaron Klein. In his address in Jerusalem today, President Obama channeled Saul Alinsky, citing the radical community organizer’s defining mantra as he urged young Israelis to “create change” to nudge their leadership to act.

Obama told a crowd of college students at Jerusalem’s main convention center that Israel “has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be.”

One of Alinsky’s major themes was working with the world as it “is” to turn it into the world as “it should be.” In his defining work, “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to “the first rebel,” Lucifer, Alinsky used those words to lay out his main agenda. He asserted radical change must be brought about by working within a system instead of attacking it from the outside.

“It is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system,” wrote Alinsky.

Obama related his Alinsky quote to a suggestion that “peace” begins with the people and not just the leadership – a statement some may relate to community organizing.

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Jerusalem Post Editor: ‘We Can’t Figure Out What He’s Doing Here’ (+video)

Photo Credit: breitbart

Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor of the Jerusalem Post said the Israeli people consider President Obama “a hostile president overall,” on “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL-FM in Washington DC…

Appearing with Brian Wilson and myself Wednesday morning, Glick said the Israeli people “can’t figure out what he’s doing here,” when asked about the mood in Jerusalem as the President’s plane touched down for the first time in his presidency.

Watch video here:

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Nice. Obama Apparently Flips Off “Incorrigible” NBC Reporter In Israel (+video)

Photo Credit: No. Nein

Don’t look now but it looks like Barack Obama just flipped off an “incorrigible” NBC reporter for asking a tough question. NBC’s Chuck Todd went rogue today and asked Obama why he was so unpopular in Israel. Obama went rogue and flipped him a bird.

Watch video here:

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Backup Presidential Limo On Its Way For Obama In Israel After Fuel Filling Failure

Photo Credit: Getty Images

One of the limousines in Barack Obama’s fleet has broken after reports that it was mistakenly filled with the wrong fuel at the start of the US president’s visit to Israel.

Another limo is on its way from Jordan, according to Ma’an News agency, citing Israel’s Channel 10, reportedly after a mixup over whether the vehicle ran on diesel or gasoline.

Ma’an reports:

Hebrew-language websites described the malfunctioning limo, brought from Washington specially for the visit, as the first unforseen incident during Obama’s three-day visit to the region.

Obama is scheduled to leave the airport to Jerusalem in a helicopter. A parade of Black Hawk helicopters will follow the presidential helicopter carrying his delegation.

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Hussein In Jerusalem

Photo Credit: Muhammad غفّاري

No, not the Mufti al-Husseini of Jerusalem, but Obama. Close enough.

Why is Obama going to Israel? The Muslim Brotherhood advocate in the White House has refused to speak to the Knesset. He caved to Muslim threats and supremacist demands and is not going to the Temple Mount with an Israeli escort. And an Obama administration official has said that Obama will not bring any new Middle East peace plan with him, because he doesn’t think the Israelis are interested in peace. Not the “Palestinians” with their calls for blood and genocide, but the Israelis.

So what is he doing there? He is going on the offensive against Israel, and he is doing it from Israel. Expect the notorious leftist Israel press to applaud Obama’s land confiscation policy.

And Obama is not going over there empty-handed. He brings a cash infusion of 500 million smackers for the jihadists, aka the Palestinian Authority. No money for White House tours or military tuition – but half a billion for the terror statelet and billions and F16s to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Yet the more he prostrates himself before the Palestinian jihadists, the more contempt they have for him. I wonder how much this will cost the American taxpayers, not to mention Israeli blood and land … and 3G technology. No joke: Muslims in Bethlehem were burning pictures of Obama and protesting, among other things, the absence of 3G communications technology.

And the Times of Israel reported that Israeli Knesset member Nachman Shai “called on students to skip U.S. President Barack Obama’s planned speech to the Israeli public, scheduled for Thursday night, citing the White House’s exclusion of Ariel University from a program to allow students to attend the Jerusalem address.”

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Israel PM Warns Of ‘Enormous Threats’ In Region On Eve Of Obama Visit

Photo Credit: Gali Tibbon

The new Israeli government will use Barack Obama’s visit to Jerusalem this week as an opportunity “to show our gratitude to the American people”, said Binyamin Netanyahu before being sworn in for a third term as prime minister on Monday.

“Obama’s visit will be an opportunity to thank him,” Netanyahu said after warning that Israel faced “enormous threats” in the region and pledging to “guarantee the future of the Jewish people by guaranteeing the future of the state of Israel, the root of our existence”.

The government was sworn in almost eight weeks after the election on 22 January, and just two days before Obama is due to arrive in Israel for his first visit as president.

Complex negotiations over the composition of the coalition resulted in a government characterised as more centrist than its predecessor. However, it is still highly resistant to concessions to the Palestinians in order to reach a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict.

The defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, said he opposed making any gestures to the Palestinians, such as a freeze on settlement construction or the release of prisoners, to encourage a return to talks. The conflict must be “managed” rather than brought to an end by the creation of a Palestinian state, he argued.

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Hundreds Of Palestinians Riot On Temple Mount, As Talk Of ‘Third Intifada’ Grows

Photo Credit: Muhammed MuheisenIsraeli police used stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Palestinians who rioted on the Temple Mount following Friday prayers.
Rioters threw rocks and at least two Molotov cocktails at police, injuring nine, The Times of Israel reported. Four Palestinians were arrested, and dozens complained of injuries, a police spokesman said.

The Temple Mount is one of the most contested holy sites in the region. Beneath the al Aqsa Mosque are the ruins of the biblically-based Jewish Temple, and riots over ownership of the area are common.

But in recent weeks, tensions between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank have been especially hot. Talk of a mass uprising — a “Third Intifada” — has been growing louder, The Times of Israel reports.

Read more from this story HERE.