Israel and Gaza: Another War Possible?

After twenty rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel from Gaza in the past week, three Palestinian militants were killed in an Israel Air Force strike in Gaza. "The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will not allow any attempts to attack Israel and will continue to forcefully foil any such attacks," a military spokesman said following the strike.

The IDF operation came hours after an Israeli cabinet meeting and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration, "I view this very seriously. The government's policy is clear, any shooting at our territory will receive an immediate and powerful response." Former Israeli commander Major-General Yom Tov Samia went farther, asserting another war against Hamas is needed and on the way:

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We are before another round in Gaza. I am very skeptical about the possibility that Hamas will suddenly surrender or change its ways without being hit much more seriously than it was during Cast Lead.

We must create a situation in which Hamas runs out of oxygen...[including] a more focused strike with long-lasting results...taking control of certain areas in Gaza.

Samia's words followed those of the current head of Israel's Southern Command, Major-General Yoav Galant. Galant said, "It's true that we are after the first rains and the sun is shining --- but one can see dark clouds in the distance."

Israel: Netanyahu's Post-Cabinet Declarations on Gaza, Settlements, Egypt Fence

On Saturday night, a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office declared: "It is the Palestinian Authority that needs to change its ways --- certainly not the Israeli government." On the following day, Netanyahu made his mark at the Cabinet meeting.

Concerning the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu asserted, "I view this very seriously. The government's policy is clear, any shooting at our territory will receive an immediate and powerful response." His tone did not change in discussion on settlements. While claiming that the 10-month moratorium on construction has been implemented, he said the freeze on West Bank settlements is only temporary: "In another eight months, we'll start building again."

Israel and Gaza: Another War Possible?
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Lastly, Netanyahu ordered construction of a fence, at a cost of $1.5 billion, along two segments of Israel's border with Egypt, in an attempt to stem the infiltration of migrant workers as well as terrorist elements into Israel. The Prime Minister said, "I took the decision to close Israel's southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel's Jewish and democratic character."

Iran & Twitter: Myth v. Reality of Security and "Deep Packet Inspection"

The minor storm over Telegraph journalist and blogger Will Heaven's recent posts on social media and the ongoing unrest in Iran, has brought much discussion of the pros and cons of reposting Iranian activists' comments on Twitter and Facebook. To get to the heart of the issue, however, one needs to take a look at Heaven's assumptions regarding Deep Packet Inspection.

On his blog post of 29 December Heaven stated:

It is now thought that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is using Deep Packet Inspection to check Facebook messages and tweets for “anti-regime” keywords. Once this is done, they are able to pinpont the location of online protesters using their IP addresses. Then it’s just a knock on the door and a confiscated laptop for evidence.

But is the use of DPI to punish dissent really this simple?

• Firstly, Heaven bases his comments about the IRG's use of Deep Packet Inspection --- provided by Nokia Siemens Networks --- on a Wall Street Journal article which actually says (possibly after amendment), "It couldn't be determined whether the equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks is used specifically for deep packet inspection".


• In a press release issued in response to the article, Nokia Siemens Networks stated that they have "not provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship, or Internet filtering capability to Iran."


• Nokia Siemens Networks' head of media relations Ben Roome has followed up, for example with this comment in The Huffington Post in which he says that the WSJ "clarified its original report" and re-asserts, "We have not provided any Internet technology, let alone DPI to Iran".


• Further research  turns up a blog post which points out that, with Roome's denial of the original claim, the WSJ article is left to rely on an anonymous Iranian engineer who says, "We didn't know they could do this much ... Now we know they have powerful things that allow them to do very complex tracking on the network" and Bradley Anstis, CEO of an internet security company, who says "Iran is now drilling into what the population is trying to say ... This looks like a step beyond what any other country is doing, including China."  Neither of these comments are anywhere near as specific or certain as Heaven's contention that IRG can search for keywords then "pinpont the location of online protesters using their IP addresses. Then it’s just a knock on the door and a confiscated laptop for evidence." (The blog post raises many other interesting questions and is well worth a read.)

So the question for me is: what does Will Heaven know about Deep Packet Inspection that we don't? He states in his Telegraph article of 29 December:

Using a state-of-the-art method called "Deep Packet Inspection", data packages sent between protesters are now automatically broken down, checked for keywords, and reconstructed within milliseconds. Every Tweet and Facebook message, in other words, is firmly on the regime's radar.

This dramatic conclusion is now based on a single article which was corrected over six months ago after refutation by one of the key actors. Even if this wasn't the case, there is nothing in the article which indicates that Deep Packet Inspection provides the "knock on the door" capability that Heaven portrays.

On Friday Heaven described the Iranian regime's use of DPI as "prolific" but linked only to his article of 29 December, which in turn linked to his blog post of December 29, which linked to the WSJ. Perhaps Heaven knows far more about Iranian use of DPI than he has up to now revealed, but so far he is repeating a a single, hazy assertion as fact.

Israel: The Reaction to A "More Committed" Washington

Last Wednesday, its ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, rebuffed Washington's "two-year time frame": "In the past, attempts to impose time frameworks have not proved either realizable or helpful."

For Oren, the framework of talks should include security for Israel, recognition of the nation as a Jewish state, and an end-of-claims conclusion to the talks. Oren said this would be "a statement of what Israel's goals are and what the Palestinians' goals are, even if the assumption is that they wouldn't be immediately confluent". Referring to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement following PM Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement of a 10-month construction freeze , Oren stated that "these goals can be reconciled through good-faith negotiations."

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Clinton had said: "We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

Latest Iran Video: Military Commander Mullen on US Options (10 January)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSWNFp2mSC0[/youtube]

The Latest from Iran (10 January): “Middle” Ground?