Kyiv says Russia is looking to leverage the Israel-Hamas war to dampen support for Ukraine, while Moscow is calling it a failure of the West.
Day: October 21, 2023
cairo —
Egypt and Jordan harshly criticized Israel over its actions in Gaza during a summit on Saturday, a sign that the two Western allies that made peace with Israel decades ago are losing patience with its 2-week-old war against Hamas.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who hosted the summit, again rejected any talk of sending Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula and warned against the “liquidation of the Palestinian cause.” Jordan’s King Abdullah II called Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza “a war crime.”
The speeches reflected growing anger in the region, even among those with close ties to Israel who have often worked as mediators, as the war sparked by a massive Hamas attack enters a third week with casualties mounting and no end in sight.
Egypt is especially concerned about a massive influx of Palestinians crossing into its territory, something that it fears would, among other things, severely undermine hopes for a Palestinian state. Vague remarks by some Israeli politicians and military officials suggesting people leave Gaza have alarmed Israel’s neighbors, as have Israeli orders for Palestinian civilians to evacuate to the south, toward Egypt.
In his opening remarks, el-Sissi said Egypt vehemently rejected “the forced displacement of the Palestinians and their transfer to Egyptian lands in Sinai.”
“I want to state it clearly and unequivocally to the world that the liquidation of the Palestinian cause without a just solution is beyond the realm of possibility, and in any case, it will never happen at the expense of Egypt, absolutely not,” he said.
Jordan’s king delivered the same message, expressing his “unequivocal rejection” of any displacement of Palestinians. Jordan hosts the largest number of displaced Palestinians from previous Mideast wars.
“This is a war crime according to international law, and a red line for all of us,” he told the summit.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the Palestinian Authority, a government exercising semi-autonomous control in the occupied West Bank, called for Israel to stop “its barbaric aggression” in Gaza. He also warned against attempts to push Palestinians out of the coastal territory.
“We will not leave, we will not leave, we will not leave, and we will remain in our land,” he told the summit.
Israel says it is determined to destroy Gaza’s Hamas rulers but has said little about its endgame.
Israel’s three-stage plan
On Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant laid out a three-stage plan in which airstrikes and “maneuvering” — a presumed reference to a ground attack — would aim to root out Hamas before a period of lower intensity mop-up operations. Then, a new “security regime” would be created in Gaza along with “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip,” Gallant said.
He did not say who would run Gaza after Hamas.
Meanwhile, Israel has ordered more than half of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to evacuate from north to south within the territory it has completely sealed off, effectively pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians toward the Egyptian border.
Amos Gilad, a former Israeli defense official, said Israel’s ambiguity on the matter is endangering crucial ties with Egypt.
“I think a peace treaty with Egypt is highly important, highly crucial for the national security of Israel and Egypt and the whole structure of peace in the world,” he said.
Gilad said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to speak directly with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan and say publicly that Palestinians will not be entering their countries.
Two senior Egyptian officials said relations with Israel have reached a boiling point.
They said Egypt has conveyed its frustration over Israeli comments about displacement to the United States, which brokered Camp David Accords in the 1970s. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Egypt worries that a mass exodus would risk bringing militants into Sinai, from where they might launch attacks on Israel, endangering the peace treaty.
Arab countries also fear a repeat of the mass exodus of Palestinians from what is now Israel before and during the 1948 war surrounding its creation, when about 700,000 people fled or were driven out, an event Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Those refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million, were never allowed to return.
‘It is a war crime’
At Saturday’s gathering, the anger extended beyond the fears of mass displacement.
Both leaders condemned Israel’s air campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 4,300 Palestinians, including many civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza. Israel says it is only striking Hamas targets and is abiding by international law.
The war was sparked by a wide-ranging Hamas incursion into southern Israel on October 7 in which more than 1,400 of Israelis were killed, the vast majority of them civilians.
Abdullah, who is among the closest Western allies in the region, accused Israel of “collective punishment of a besieged and helpless people.”
“It is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. It is a war crime,” he said.
He went on to accuse the international community of ignoring Palestinian suffering, saying it had sent a “loud and clear message” to the Arab world that “Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones.”
On October 7, the world as we know it changed. In the early hours of the morning, hundreds of armed Hamas operatives broke into Israel, launching a surprise attack on the IDF headquarters in the South of Israel in order to neutralize resistance for several hours. They set out to perform premeditated and meticulously planned crimes against humanity, sent by Iran.
The terrorists proceeded to massacre innocent and unarmed civilians, inhabitants of the Israeli villages bordering the Gaza Strip. Mothers were raped in front of the gaping eyes of their children. Babies and infants were tied together and shot in front of their parents. People were burnt alive. Young women were gang raped until their limbs were dismembered. Babies were beheaded.
Simultaneously, other Hamas operatives raided a peace festival in which hundreds were executed, gang raped, and burned. All these atrocities were documented by the perpetrators themselves and proudly posted on social media.
The meticulously laid plans were found, in Arabic, on the bodies of those operatives who were later killed and/or captured by the Israel Defense Forces. This was the beginning of a war that has little to do with Israel. It has everything to do with humanity.
People call on the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in Gaza, outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, October 18, 2023. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Iran is using the hate against the Jewish state
The Iranian plan to dominate the region and spread its hegemony has begun with Israel because of their knowledge that it is easy to galvanize hatred, incitement, and fury towards Israel and the Jewish people. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hezbollah are pawns in the grand plan which calls for the involvement of Jihadists throughout the world to join the religious extremist Islamic battle against the “disbelievers” – that is everyone who is not of their kind. As I write these very words, similar hate crimes are conducted in several European capitals in the name of this so-called “holy war.”
Hamas, funded and trained by the mullah regime in Iran, was encouraged to set forth and begin its unholy crusade in the South of Israel while its members laid out, loudly and clearly, in Arabic, that the next step in their plan was to galvanize support amid Palestinians in the West Bank.
IN THAT arena, the Iranian backing of Hamas and PIJ has been long and systematic, working its way amidst the disillusioned population, vastly disappointed and disenchanted with its corrupt Palestinian secular Fatah leadership.
The Israeli government’s longtime weakening of Palestinian rule in the West Bank, while allowing Qatar to stream in funding to the Hamas in return for quiet on Israel’s Southern border, has also backfired. The current Palestinian Authority – far from being an innocent bed of roses itself – is currently trying to quench the growing fury of its own Palestinian inhabitants as they are encouraged by Hamas and Iran to take up arms and join the fight against Israel and the Jews. The Palestinian Fatah leadership in the West Bank, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, know that the Hamas will not allow them to continue their rule over the Palestinian people.
They most certainly understand what Hamas is — and what a threat it poses to them, recalling that their own officers were lynched and thrown off rooftops by Hamas and its people, when the they took over the Gaza Strip in 2005. The next step in the Iranian roadmap is the Northern front, where Hamas is also present, and Hezbollah has become the long arm of Iran. Slowly, but surely, Hezbollah had taken power over Lebanon, disintegrating the beautiful Swiss-like country into a ruined, destitute, and failed state, while arming themselves with approximately 150,000 precision artillery provided for and funded by Iran. Syria, too, has long ago been turned into an Iranian backyard in which despite the Israeli bombardment of constant shipments of weapons from Iran, significant strength and capabilities have been concentrated in it for the opportune moment to attack Israel.
A war against the Jewish people
Meanwhile, Iran is calling Iraqi Shi’ites to join in the “holy” war against Israel on the Northern front, while Hezbollah is attempting infiltration after infiltration into Israeli territory and shooting rockets at Israeli cities and towns in the North.
The idea is that a Jihad will be launched, worldwide, first against Jewish institutions and Jews, and then against all those who are not Muslim, including those who are not the “right” kind of Muslims, similarly to what ISIS did to Muslims in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Indeed, this is a clash of civilizations of completely different proportions than an Israel-Hamas war. The very understanding of the magnitude of these events is perhaps the first step towards beginning to create the international coalition and the solutions needed to quell it.
The next step is preventing the dissemination of this pure hatred and incitement, which is deeply entrenched in school books funded by European, Canadian and American tax payers’ hard-earned cash. Once these caviats are realized, then perhaps the international community can begin to create a new world order in which a much-needed coalition will be established for the purposes of ridding itself of extremist terrorist regimes such as Hamas and creating a real opportunity for growth for the region.
The writer is a former MK from the Blue and White party, a former adviser to president Shimon Peres, and past deputy ambassador in Cairo.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has commented on a recent statement by US President Joe Biden which drew parallels between Putin and Hamas.
Peskov, speaking at a briefing for journalists on Oct. 20, stated that the Kremlin does not accept such a tone in relation to the Russian president, stressing that the current international situation is ‘tense and potentially dangerous’.
“There are a lot of emotions in the speeches of various politicians, including high-ranking politicians. But it is unlikely that such rhetoric is suitable for responsible leaders of states, and it is unlikely that such rhetoric can be acceptable to us,” Peskov said.
“We do not accept such a tone in relation to the Russian Federation, in relation to our president,” he added.
Speaking further, he said that Biden’s comments suggest that the US will keep on exerting pressure to constrain Russia, adding that such efforts have been “historically ineffective and will remain so in the future.”
President Biden on Oct. 19 made an impassioned call to his nation to show global leadership by backing Israel and Ukraine, saying in a speech from the Oval Office that defeating Hamas and Russia was a vital US interest.
Biden made clear who he thinks the bad guys are, saying that Hamas and Putin “represent different threats” but that they share in common a desire to “completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.”
Russia continuing to sow instability within democratic societies and to undermine trust in election integrity.
Biden added: “We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win. I refuse to let that happen.”
He also warned: “If we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won’t limit himself just to Ukraine.”
You can read “5 Things You Need to Know from Joe Biden’s Big Oval Office Address” here.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., broke down in a fit of rage Friday aimed at President Biden and Democrat leadership over their support for Israel amid the war with Hamas.
Her angry comments came during a press conference held outside the U.S. Capitol alongside a few fellow members of the far-left “Squad” calling for a ceasefire in the war.
“How is it that we have a president who is talking about releasing hostages, who is talking about getting American citizens out of Israel, but could not get himself to say, I want to save and work to save the hundreds, thousands of Americans stuck in Gaza. What is wrong with you?” Omar said after claiming Israel had dropped more bombs on Gaza in the last 10 days than the U.S. did across an entire year in Afghanistan.
‘SQUAD’ DEMOCRAT DECLARES ‘ALL LIVES DO MATTER’ WHILE CALLING FOR CEASEFIRE IN ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
“How is this possible? Wait, so [are] certain Americans’ lives [more] important than another? Is the American that is living in Gaza less important than the one living in Israel? How is it that you’re telling American citizens to go to the south of Gaza, but you can’t tell Netanyahu not to bomb the south because there are Americans there?” she said.
Omar claimed it was “painful and scary” to work alongside other Democrats who she said were blaming all Muslims for the violence. It was unclear who she was referencing, but progressive Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., had taken aim at members of the “Squad” last week over what he called a “reprehensible and repulsive” response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
“And not a single condemnation comes from our caucus leadership or any member of Congress,” she said. “How is it — how is it that we are serving in a body, serving in a body where there are members who condemn us for asking for a peace, for cease fire, the most simplest thing?”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for comment.
Prior to her appearance at the press conference, Omar was pressed by Fox Business reporter Hillary Vaughn over her support for a ceasefire against terrorists whose aim is to wipe out the existence of Jews.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ADMITS DOXXED US SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIERS IN ISRAEL, APOLOGIZES
Omar ignored the questions before saying, “Ignore this crazy lady, don’t worry about her,” as she boarded an elevator.
On Thursday, Omar was forced to walk back comments blaming Israel for the Gaza hospital explosion that U.S. intelligence determined was not from a projectile launched by the Israeli Defense Forces. However, she failed to offer an apology.
STANFORD, California, Oct 17 (Reuters) – The Five Eyes countries’ intelligence chiefs came together on Tuesday to accuse China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying against the nations, in a rare joint statement by the allies.
The officials from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – known as the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network – made the comments following meetings with private companies in the U.S. innovation hub Silicon Valley.
U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the “unprecedented” joint call was meant to confront the “unprecedented threat” China poses to innovation across the world.
From quantum technology and robotics to biotechnology and artificial intelligence, China was stealing secrets in various sectors, the officials said.
“China has long targeted businesses with a web of techniques all at once: cyber intrusions, human intelligence operations, seemingly innocuous corporate investments and transactions,” Wray said. “Every strand of that web had become more brazen, and more dangerous.”
In response, Chinese government spokesman Liu Pengyu said the country was committed to intellectual property protection.
“We firmly oppose to the groundless allegations and smears towards China and hope the relevant parties can view China’s development objectively and fairly,” the spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters.
The U.S. has long accused China of intellectual property theft and the issue has been a key sore point in U.S.-China relations. But this is the first time the Five Eyes members have joined publicly to call out China on it.
“The Chinese government is engaged in the most sustained scaled and sophisticated theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history,” said Mike Burgess, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s director-general.
While China’s intention to innovate for its own national interest was “fine and entirely appropriate”, Burgess said “the behaviour we’re talking about here goes well beyond traditional espionage.”
Last month, his department busted a Chinese plot to infiltrate a prestigious Australian research institution that involved planting an academic there to steal secrets, he said.
“This sort of thing is happening every day in Australia, as it is in the countries here,” Burgess said.
The Five Eyes statement follows the group’s warning in May of a widespread Chinese spy operation it said was targeting critical infrastructure and various other sectors.
The Chinese government dismissed those allegations as a “collective disinformation campaign.”
Wray said China had “a bigger hacking program than that of every other major nation combined” that together with Beijing’s physical spies and stealing of trade secrets from private businesses and research institutions gave the country enormous power.
“Part of what makes it so challenging is all of those tools deployed in tandem, at a scale the likes of which we’ve never seen,” Wray said.
The officials called for private industry and academia to help in countering those threats, chief among which they said were artificial intelligence tools.
“We worry about AI as an amplifier for all sorts of misconduct,” Wray said, accusing China of stealing more personal and corporate data than any other nation by orders of magnitude.
“If you think about what AI can do to help leverage that data to take what’s already the largest hacking program in the world by a country mile, and make it that much more effective – that’s what we’re worried about,” he said.
Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Stanford, California; Editing by Jamie Freed
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The chiefs of the FBI and Britain’s MI5 have raised concerns about the enormous and terrifying potential artificial intelligence poses for terrorists, saying the technology adds “a level of threat to that we haven’t previously encountered.”
“It’s one of those issues where no one has a monopoly of wisdom and trying to have a different form of public-private partnership and, crucially, international partnerships,” MI5 Director General said during the Five Eyes alliance conference in California this week.
The conference between the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand focused on the launch of an initiative aimed at finding innovative responses to developing intelligence threats, particularly in the face of new technology such as AI generative platforms.
“Emerging technologies are essential to our economic and national security, and America’s role as a leading economic power, but they also present new and evolving threats,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said ahead of the conference.
NOT OUR NATION’S JOB TO KEEP ALLIES ON ‘CUTTING EDGE’ OF AI DEVELOPMENT, FORMER CIA CHIEF SAYS
“The FBI is committed to working with our Five Eyes and industry partners to continue to protect emerging technologies, both from those who would steal them and those who would exploit them for malicious purposes,” he added.
Heads of the intelligence agencies of each member of the partnership gathered for the first time in a public appearance to stress the need to focus on these issues.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is shown during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on July 12, 2023.
Dr. Condoleezza Rice hosted a fireside chat with all five members, including McCallum and Wray, who both said their organizations are monitoring AI developments and need to cooperate with experts in the private sector to tackle emerging threats, The Guardian reported.
“We’ve seen AI used to essentially amplify the distribution or dissemination of terrorist propaganda,” Wray said, citing examples such as using AI to hide alarming searches – such as “how to build a bomb” – or find holes in AI-built infrastructure security.
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?
“The use of AI in a way that if it’s sophisticated enough to create potential deepfakes is something that adds a level of threat to that we haven’t previously encountered,” Wray added, noting that it’s a threat the FBI continues to “look out for” since it could amplify and strengthen “existing strategy by hostile nations.”
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, CEO of Valens Global and associate fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague in the Netherlands, told Fox News Digital that he agreed on the need for cooperation with private companies to help address these issues, arguing that such a partnership would prove an “unambiguous” positive for governments.
“The trend for every company that works globally is to have at least a quasi-cooperative relationship with local authorities,” Gartenstein said.
“There’s a wide variety of reasons for that, and in some cases, it’s because the platform could face liability,” he continued. “In some cases, it’s the desire to preserve life, but most platforms have some relationship with law enforcement and intelligence for a variety of reasons. It’s the kind of outreach that they’ll normally do.”
EXPERTS SPLIT OVER WHETHER STARGAZERS SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR ALIENS OR NEW TECH
Gartenstein discussed the example of how law enforcement tried to work with social media platforms, which “obviously housed propaganda” that was “exploited by terrorist groups.” Now, he noted that everyone is aware of the potential for generative AI to serve a similar purpose, and working with the companies making those platforms is one of the most effective ways to get ahead of these issues.
He noted that there is already an “open line of dialogue” between many of the companies building AI platforms and the U.S. government.
A split image of an FBI agent in an official windbreaker and the Twitter logo on a blue screen.
Part of the concerns lie in the fact that the potential of generative AI “is only bounded by the limits of human creativity,” according to Gartenstein.
Among some uses he’s seen or heard about, Gartenstein listed identity impersonation that can copy a person’s writing style or even voice by using audio files (should they exist) and fake images of Donald Trump being arrested as generated for an experiment by investigative journalists at Bellingcat.
“The question isn’t so much what can be done as it is what can’t be done,” he said.
The FBI did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by the time of publication.
Original article source: FBI chief warns that terrorists can unleash AI in terrifying new ways
Categories
Covid groupthink was avoidable
Critics of the Covid lockdowns were treated to a barrage of ill-founded abuse. Worrying about the economy was said to be “selfish”, as if the country no longer needed to pay its bills. Disputing the efficacy of particular measures would lead to accusations that you wanted thousands to die. The public was subjected to a campaign of fear to promote compliance. It is no wonder so few spoke out at the time.
This newspaper did do so, however, questioning the proportionality of locking up the whole population to tackle a virus that was only a serious threat to the very old or very sick. We raised concerns about the impact on mental health, children, non-Covid patients and, yes, the economy. We said it was likely the costs of lockdown would be greater than the benefits. It is increasingly clear that that was right.
The Covid inquiry this week released messages from April 2020 from James Slack, Boris Johnson’s communications director, now deputy editor at The Sun. They show Mr Slack disparaging a headline in this newspaper which presciently read “No end in sight for lockdown” (that lockdown did not, in fact, fully end until July 2020). He said The Telegraph was “financially desperate and it’s making them write desperate things”.
Not only was that ignorant – The Telegraph remained profitable during lockdown, with huge growth in subscriber numbers – it was revealing of the groupthink that gripped the establishment. Perhaps Mr Slack and his colleagues would have made fewer mistakes if they had treated their critics with respect rather than contempt.
Бывшего министра юстиции Казахстана задержали по подозрению в злоупотреблении должностными полномочиями.
Как передает Report со ссылкой на местные СМИ, об этом сказано в сообщении Антикоррупционной службы.
“Антикоррупционной службой в целях исполнения поручения главы государства по поиску и возврату незаконно выведенных активов, задержан экс-министр юстиции по подозрению в злоупотреблении должностными полномочиями”, – говорится в сообщении.
По данным ведомства, экс-министр пролоббировал интересы аффилированной компании, ежегодно заключая с ней контрактов на оказание “заведомо не требующихся услуг”.
Работа по возврату активов продолжается, отметили в Антикоррупционной службе.
С 2022 года Антикоррупционная служба добилась возврата 856 млрд тенге незаконно приобретенных активов в Казахстан. До конца 2023 ведомство планирует вернуть еще около 180 млрд тенге.