World Jewish Congres Analysis claims, a secret connection between Muhammad Dahlan and the Saudi royal family

The ongoing rivalry between PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas and his young challenger Mohammad Dahlan is an open secret on the Palestinian street. What may, however, come as a surprise, is the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the internal Palestinian struggle for power.

By Pinhas Inbari

Recently, the kingdom has dramatically decreased its subsidies to the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, Abbas is almost never invited to visit any of the Gulf Emirates or Saudi Arabia. Dahlan, on the other hand, is known to have a home base in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as a special relationship with Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Why have Saudi Arabia and the UAE chosen to ally themselves with Dahlan instead of the Muqata'a in Ramallah? An analysis published last weekend in the London-based newspaper 'al-Quds al-Arabi' concluded that Israel and Saudi Arabia share the sense of urgency about the Iranian nuclear threat and may secretly work together to face their joint regional challenge. The article further claims that Iran is set to focus on subversion activity in the Arabian Peninsula in order to tilt the balance against the Sunni countries in the Middle East and shape the result of the Arab Spring in favor of the Shia against the Sunna. 

Accordingly, it is likely that the Saudis and the Gulf States are siding with Dahlan because they perceive the Palestinian problem as irrelevant and distracting in the context of the real priorities and challenges they face, preferring to cooperate with Israel against Iran rather than with Ramallah and Gaza against Israel.

The Saudis’ support of Dahlan serves as a signal to Ramallah to give due respect to the challenges and concerns of their fellow Arabs instead of promoting its own agenda above all else.  Additionally, both Israel and Saudi Arabia are worried that in the event that President Obama is reelected in November, he will focus on the resolution of the Palestinian problem instead of tackling Iran.

The government in Riyadh has been carefully reading articles published in Washington by former US defense officials, including Stratfor CEO George Friedman and former CIA operative Robert Baer, which suggested that the United States may choose Iran as its Middle Eastern ally over other countries in the region. In addition, America’s perceived weakness in deterring Iranian actions in the Gulf -  inability to react to the threats to shut down the Hormuz Straits and President Ahmadinejad’s provocative visit to the disputed Island of Abu Musa - triggered speculations in the Gulf that Iran is about to announce a Persian Gulf Province that would include Bahrain. In fact, only a few days ago Iran launched a seminar in Bushehr to reinforce its legal and historical claims on its side of the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.

Another reason behind Saudi Arabia’s support of Dahlan is the development of an alliance between Hamas and Iran. Saudi efforts to reconcile Fatah and Hamas – the so-called Mecca Accords – were an attempt to sever the ties between Hamas and the regime in Tehran. The failure of the Accord resulted in Hamas’ becoming a de facto satellite of Iran. When reports spread that Hamas politburo leader Khaled Mash'al chose the patronage of the Muslim Brotherhood over Iran, the Saudis issued a highly muted reaction, as Hamas has lost its credibility further to the failure of the agreement.

The Saudis were further angered by Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, who promised the Iranians to turn a blind eye to the phenomenon of Sunnis converting to Shia in Gaza. In light of the failure of the Mecca Accords and Gaza’s friendship with Iran, Riyadh did not welcome the recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation efforts sponsored by Qatar.

Instead, the Saudis distanced themselves even further from Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’ leadership. As such, Hamas and Fatah’ enemy – Dahlan, gained higher status with the Emiratis and the Saudis almost by default.

Major UK food retailer boycotts 4 Israeli companies

Britain's fifth-largest food retailer, the Co-operative Group, announced over the weekend that it would stop doing business with four Israeli companies accounting for £ 350,000 worth of trade over the companies ties to and operations in the West Bank.

The four companies the the Co-op is severing ties with are Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, according to a statement. Going forward, the statement added, "we will additionally no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements."

The food retailer clarified that the "position is not a boycott of Israeli businesses, and we continue to have supply agreements with some [20] Israeli suppliers that do not source from the settlements."I t added that it  will "continue to actively work to increase trade links with Palestinian businesses."

Israeli helicopters get missile shield

Israel's military plans to arm its helicopter fleet with a protective system against shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles it says are in the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

The system, known as Fliker and developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, fires an interceptor at an incoming SAM and is designed to minimize debris to avoid
shrapnel hitting the aircraft.

The rotating system "is designed to serve as the second layer of defense for helicopters and will be activated when automatic flares fail to divert an incoming missile," The Jerusalem Post reported Friday.

The unveiling of the system, which recently successfully underwent testing, is the latest in a string of new weapons the Israeli military has announced amid growing concerns that a new regional conflict is simmering.

This war, with Iran, Syria and their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza the likely adversaries, is expected to focus largely on a sustained missile and rocket bombardment of the Jewish state on an unprecedented scale.

Israel's principal response would be airstrikes by its 227 ground-attack F-15 and F-16 jets, built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and its 80-plus attack helicopters, including 48 Boeing AH-64A/D Apaches and 33 Bell AH1-E/F Cobras.

Israel also has some 200 transport helicopters, including 73 twin-engine Sikorsky Black Hawk craft of various designations.

Israel has the Middle East's most formidable air force and has long maintained aerial supremacy over its Arab neighbors and Iran.

But Hezbollah, which is reputed to have in excess of 42,000 surface-to-surface missiles and rockets that can be unleashed on the Jewish state, is now reported to have an array of Russian-built SAMs. These weapons, supplied by Iran and Syria, could challenge Israel's mastery of the skies over Lebanon for the first time.

The Jerusalem Post recently reported that Shiite guerrillas, who have underground missile depots across their heartland in the Bekaa Valley of northeastern Lebanon along the Syrian border, now possess the SA-8, a Russian mobile SAM system with an estimated range of around 20 miles.

Hamas is believed to have received SAMs from Iran, as well as an unknown number of Soviet-era weapons plundered from Libya during and after its civil war in 2011.

Israel says it has spotted some of the 480 shoulder-fired Russian Igla-S 9K-338 SAMS, which NATO calls the SA-24 Grinch, that Western counter-terrorism officials say are missing from Libya.

The SA-24, built by Russia's KBM design bureau at Kolomna, outside Moscow, is one of the most potent surface-to-air missiles in service these days.

It's effective up to 19,000 feet and is resistant to most electronic countermeasures.

However, Israeli AH-54 gunships operating over Gaza were reported to have been able to defeat SA-24s sold to Iran and apparently passed on to the Palestinians in Gaza, as well as Hezbollah.

The Israelis haven't commented on these reports.

The Israeli air force, equipped largely with U.S.-made aircraft and weapons systems, is capable of countering the SA-8 with electronic jamming systems and precision-guided munitions.

It displayed these capabilities Sept. 6, 2007, when seven F-15I Boeing Raam fighters destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor being built by North Korea in Syria at Deir al-Zor 80 miles from the Iraqi border.

The warplanes in Operation Orchard were able to evade Syrian air defenses during the nighttime raid because an electronic warfare aircraft accompanying them blinded Syrian radars and missiles defenses.

However, if Hezbollah has SA-8s in sufficient numbers to hurl multiple missiles at Israeli aircraft it could impede airstrikes aimed at destroying surface-to-surface missile storage and launch sites that would likely be heavily defended.

In the first 36 hours of the 2006 war, Israeli warplanes destroyed most of Hezbollah's long-range missiles before they could be used but they were unable to stop a non-stop 34-day barrage on northern Israel that lasted until the final moments of the conflict.

With enough SA-8s, and the large quantity of Russian shoulder-fired SAMs Hezbollah is believed to have received from Syria over the last two years, the battle-hardened guerrillas could blunt Israeli air operations for a time to a degree not seen since the invading Egyptians drove off Israeli jets in the opening days of the 1973 war.

 U.P.I.

Obama lifts ban on $192 million aid support to PA

Washington - US President Barack Obama has lifted a ban on financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), stating that the aid was "important to the security interests of the United States".

The US Congress froze a $192 million aid package to the PA and released only $40 million after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, defied US pressure and sought to attain UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood last September.

All but stateless, Palestinian man with dementia waits in hospital for travel documents

By Becky Schlikerman, Chicago Tribune reporter

April 29, 2012

For nearly a year, Wasef Ibrahim has been living at Rush University Medical Center — a man without a country that will claim him.

The undocumented immigrant says he wants to leave the U.S., and relatives in the Middle East say they want to welcome him home.

Instead the Palestinian man is stuck in a Chicago hospital, caught in the complexities of immigration policy and Middle East politics. As a result, Rush is left paying for his care at a cost of more than $300,000 so far, the hospital said.

Though he suffers dementia and needs supervision with basic tasks, the 64-year-old is healthy enough to leave the hospital, but Rush can't release him without a custodian ready to help.

A daughter living in the southwest suburbs said she can't care for her father, but relatives in the Middle East have said they will.

Hospital officials have tried for almost a year to reunite Ibrahim with his family abroad, but the process has been fruitless. To date, no country has issued him a passport.

"Mr. Ibrahim is caught up in some sort of political wrangle," said Joe Gonzales, a consultant to Rush who has been working to obtain Ibrahim's documents.

Because of his condition, it is unclear whether Ibrahim fully understands his circumstances, though his caretakers said he frequently asks about returning to his home overseas.

"My blood becomes refreshed," Ibrahim said of returning to the Middle East one day.

Ibrahim immigrated to the U.S. from Atara, a mountainous village in the West Bank, more than 20 years ago on documents that have since been misplaced and expired, family said.

Ibrahim at one point had a temporary Jordanian passport, but that has been expired for decades. Over the years, the governments of Jordan, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries have supplied some Palestinians with travel documents, but in many cases no country offered citizenship. Many Palestinians are considered stateless.

Experts said no one formally tracks how many Palestinians are stuck in the U.S. Though Ibrahim has not been ordered deported, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics obtained by the Tribune offer a glimpse into the larger problem of foreign nationals stuck in the U.S. From late 2008 through spring 2012, nearly 17,000 immigrants ordered deported have been released from detention because their purported countries of origin failed to issue travel documents, records show.

"If the U.S. government can't even convince these various consulates to issue passports … it must be infinitely harder for private entities to get that done," said Polly J. Price, a professor of immigration and citizenship law at Emory University in Atlanta.

Chicago attorney Reem Odeh said she has represented dozens of Palestinians caught in the bureaucracy of multiple governments.

"For millions of Palestinians there is just no way home," said Odeh, an American-born Palestinian. "Most of them remain stateless or refugees."

Ibrahim, who also uses the last name Abu Rejaleh in some legal documents, came to the U.S. in 1989 to see his oldest daughter get married, family said. He overstayed a temporary visa and made a living working in convenience stores on Chicago's South Side, he said.

Nearly 10 years later, he married a customer he met while working at a store in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, but he never looked into becoming a legal resident, said his now ex-wife.

"I don't think it was important to him," said Gladys Jenkins, 34, who was married to Ibrahim for about five years until their 2003 divorce.

The lack of documents didn't pose problems for Ibrahim until last year, when he was admitted to Holy Cross Hospital with weakness in his legs, according to court records.

Palestinian government cracks down on critics

The Associated Press

JERUSALEM -- The government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has moved to silence critics, raising new concerns about freedom of expression in the West Bank.

Abbas' communications minister, Mashour Abu Daqa, said late Thursday that the attorney general's office ordered several websites shut down over the past six months. The sites belong
to an Abbas rival, former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan.

Security forces have also arrested four journalists and an anti-corruption activist who have criticized Abbas and other Palestinian officials on Facebook. The Abbas government has also sued two of the journalists and the activist on charges they defamed the president and other senior officials.

Palestinian media in the West Bank are for the most part official or sympathetic to the Palestinian Authority, forcing West Bankers to voice their dissenting opinions on Facebook. But the government fears Facebook's power because of the role it has played in energizing revolts that have toppled long-entrenched regimes in the Arab world.

The West Bank crackdown has been criticized within the Palestinian Authority and in Washington, too.

"We are concerned about any uses of technology that would restrict access to information," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday. "We've had these concerns in other parts of the world, and we wouldn't want to see the PA going in the direction that some of those regimes have gone in."

Abu Daqa, the communications minister, said the shutdown of the websites was "bad for the image of the Palestinian Authority in the modern world."

He also predicted it would ultimately be ineffective because the websites could continue to reach readers by switching to other domains in a cat-and-mouse game with authorities. Abu Daqa is leaving his post, reportedly for personal reasons.

The man behind the websites, Dahlan, has been feuding with Abbas for the past year, calling him a weak leader and accusing him of allowing his sons to profit financially from his rule. Abbas took away Dahlan's bodyguards and expelled him from the Fatah Party, which the president heads.

Dahlan, who has since left the Palestinian territories, has been widely blamed for the militant Hamas group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, when he was security chief there. He has also been accused of illegally enriching himself through corruption.

Atomic & GIGABYTE's OC and games night a hit, TeamAU takes global world records with left over LN2!

Atomic Magazine and GIGABYTE put on a show for its lucky readers at AtomicHQ in Sydney overnight.

The LN₂ flowed free and fast last night, at our first sub-zero overclocking event here at Atomic HQ!

We opened the doors as the rest of Haymarket's staff were leaving, after casting a rather curious eye over the mess of gaming systems being set up by Team Immunity, and at the arcane tools of the serious overclocker. As folks showed up, both youngpro and dinos22, from TeamAU, got down to the action.

After a brief safety intro from Dino (essential when dealing with stuff as chillingly cold as LN₂), our guests split into teams and got to work on two GIGABYTE boards, a UD3 and a UD5, each with a new Ivy Bridge processor, while some of the staff (ahem) got to testing out the Battlefield 3 LAN.

It's tough work!

Couple of readers warming up for an insane Battlefield3 frag off!

Dinos22 giving a quick rundown on GIGABYTE digital PWM and monster overclocking boards the lucky group was about to OC on their own (and hit some tremendous frequencies!)

 

Visit Atomic site for the event photo gallery and more on how the two competitions went with Battlefield3 playoff and LN2 OC dinos22 vs youngpro’s teams!

TeamAU boys, dinos22 and youngpro, had some extra LN2 to burn off and benchmarked 3DMARK01 with a new killer 3D01 bios and showed off nice efficiency the boards have now. Any 3DMARK01 tragic out there will absolutely love the new bios (to be released next week in beta!). Benchmarks were done on GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H and Z77X-UD3H, both solid extreme OC boards!

 

3DMARK01 > 157700points (3rd fastest global score)

3DMARK03> 245K, world record 3x GIGABYTE 7970OC GPUs

3DMARK05 > 62K, world record 3x GIGABYTE 7970OC GPUs

GIGABYTE Tweak Launcher for new 7 series motherboard OC

For those of you closely watching the 7 series motherboard launches together with Intel’s 3rd gen Core CPUs, you may have noticed in the 7 series MB OC guide that mentions the new GIGABYTE Tweak Launcher (GTL) utility.

GTL is meant as a quick and easy way to type in OC settings when inside a Windows environment. It’s not as flashy as EasyTune 6 with all it’s sliders, buttons, fan speed control, etc…, but that’s just the point: it’s for tweakers who know what settings they want to arrive at. This would be a great tool for overclocking teams who’s members are based in different locations and may be IMing settings to each other as they test common components.

GTL can be downloaded from the utilities section of the GIGABYTE website, or from the Downloads > Utilities option for each Z77 chipset based motherboard. For example, here’s the link for the Sniper M3 GTL download.

Overclocking guide to rule them all (Z77 platform)!

Good morning to you all. I want to give you heads up about an insanely detailed and well thought out overclocking guide for Ivy Bridge and Z77 platform that sin0822 put together and posted about on forums yesterday.

The guide is fit for beginners and LN2 overclockers and has some detailed information about various aspects of this new platform from voltage scaling, LN2 or water OC, voltage guidelines, digital power option setup & tweaking, RAM overclocking tips, LLC analysis, bios profiles, insulating boards for subzero, you name it….

I’ll leave a couple of screenshots but for the full story check out this link. He ends the article with a quick taste of a little GIGABYTE SniperM3 doing some multithreaded benchmarking past 6GHz. Even the little boards with 4-pin input can handle some serious grunt in case some were wondering.

GIGABYTE UEFI BIOS: The perfect fit for Hackintosh builds

Just a few days ago, tonymacx86, (not surprisingly the chief writer for tonymacx86.com – arguably the best Hackintosh site on the web) announced to the world that GIGABYTE UEFI BIOS on our Z77 boards was offering better OSX support than previously possible, making Hackintosh building easier than ever:

“Big news! The Gigabyte UEFI on the Z77 chipset works natively with OS X power management- you don't need a DSDT to wake/sleep, and no kernel panics on power management whatsoever!!” The reason for this lies with our unique UEFI BIOS coding, which allows for an OSX install without needing a DSDT file. As LG Nilsson at VR-Zone explains:

“Normally when you build a Hackingtosh you need something called a DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) as this is how OS X can detect what kind of hardware you have in your system. Without a DSDT Hackintoshes tend to go into kernel panic mode, i.e. they're pretty much useless.…

However, the latest motherboards from Gigabyte don't appear to need a DSDT file for basic functionality, as the boards boot into OS X just fine without it….It's not entirely clear what Gigabyte has done to make this work, but it's made the life of those wanting to install an alternative OS on their PC a lot easier.”

I’m not going to divulge here exactly what we’ve done to achieve this improved support, but suffice it to say that we’re happy to make life easier for a small but dedicated band of DIYers who dare to bridge the x86 – Apple divide.

tonymacx86.com article

VR-Zone article

GIGABYTE 7 Series boards

Z77+Ivy Bridge crazy overclocking bonanza is finally here!

This must be one of the toughest couple of months as an overclocker and enthusiast to have had to go through I swear! We all had to respect the NDA until early hours this morning when it finally lifted. What an amazing new platform (for lack of a better word)! Intel has finally given overclockers the jackpot! The new king is in town and geeks call it IVY BRIDGE.

Today marks the day when just about any overclocking world record you can imagine will get smashed due to Intel’s ability to finally figure out and remove cold bug from the processors and cold scaling. We are talking 3D benching up to 7GHz on the most efficient platform in history.

I’d like to congratulate a friend, youngpro, for clinching some really nice records himself today, single card 3DMARK03 and 3DMARK05 global records using GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H and 7970OC GPU as well as 32M and 1024M Wprime multithreaded scores. Congrats James! Keep pushing!

GIGABYTE R&D team including bios guys, top management, software guys, just about everyone has started working very hard on this platform a year ago. We have a new digital PWM on the boards now. It ROCKS! Boards are very stable, bench at monster frequencies, behave great subzero, run very efficient and have some great overclocking features even on the affordable range of boards! Great effort to the whole GIGABYTE team!

PC PowerPlay gives GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5 WB 10/10!

PC PowerPlay magazine reviewed the new GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H WiFi  board and says GIGABYTE’s thrown everything in the package but the kitchen sink, calling it their new Z77 motherboard of choice! You can’t go wrong with the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H-WB.

Gigabyte really has thought of everything with this motherboard ­ it has even included its own software package that makes installing Intel’s Smart Response, Rapid Start and Smart Connect suite a breeze. The price might seem a little high at first glance, but when you realise how much you’ll save on a WiFi card, Bluetooth dongle and soundcard, it’s actually damn good value! This is our new Z77 motherboard of choice.

Source

GIGABYTE at Intel LANfest

Every year intel hosts a large (300+ gamers) weekend long LAN gaming event at the Intel office in Folsom California. This year I'm fortunate to be able to show our latest Z77 and X79 motherboards including the new Sniper 3 and Sniper M3 G1-Killer gaming motherboards. Special thanks to all the guys at Intel and Lee Harrington for the awesome case mods.

Sin0822 reviews the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H motherboard

Following up on his physical inspection of our brand new Z77X-UD5H, power user and all round motherboard expert Sin0822 has now published his full and complete performance review, covering pretty much every performance-related aspect possible.

Here’s a sample of what Sin has to say:

“If you are looking for a Z77 board without headaches and great performance and overclocking, take a look no further than the Z77X-UD5H. At $200 without Wifi & BT, and $230 with the Wifi& BT the price and performance of this proper Z77 board are hard to beat. GIGABYTE could have easily charged more, but this time I guess they are being really nice.”

You can check the full review at several forums where Sin can be found, including xtremesystems.org, overclocker.net, tweaktown.com, overclockers.com.au, overclockers.com and Sin’s very own site SinHardware.com

And don;t forget you can check out full specs and features on the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H board here.

IVY”BEACH” INVADERS–“UN”OFFICIAL AWARDFABRIK TECHDEMO!

Awardfabrik put up what they call a tech demo with some new Intel CPUs. Awardfabrik is a well known German enthusiast forum. Anyone here remember endless time and coins we wasted playing this game on the old school arcade machines?

Hah hah hah, good one boys!