The Front Page Cover
2016 The truth will set you free
Featuring:
Cyber-city rises from the desert in Israel
by Ellen Nakashima & William Booth
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What to Make of liar-Trump's Justice League
The 2016 election is a four- or maybe eight-year proposition. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is a generational one. And that makes the stakes quite high in choosing a president, because the next one will pick as many as four new justices. No pressure.
We know liar-Hilly Clinton will nominate only leftists to the bench, just as Barack nObama has. We also know that the Republican Senate is gambling by not confirming Merrick Garland, because if the GOP loses the chamber and Garland is not yet confirmed, nObama or liar-Clinton may yank his nomination in favor of someone even further left.
Which brings us to Donald liar-Trump. The type of judges liar-Trump would nominate has been the subject of question and speculation. Until now. On Wednesday, he took the unusual step of releasing a list of 11 solid conservatives he would consider nominating. It may go a long way toward uniting the party behind its presumptive nominee.
The list is as follows:
Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Hardiman
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Steven Colloton
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Gruender
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals William H. Pryor
Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid
Michigan Supreme Court Associate Justice Joan Larsen
Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice David Stras
Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett
Utah Supreme Court Associate Justice Thomas Lee (brother of Sen. Mike Lee)
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Steven Colloton
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Gruender
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals William H. Pryor
Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid
Michigan Supreme Court Associate Justice Joan Larsen
Minnesota Supreme Court Associate Justice David Stras
Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett
Utah Supreme Court Associate Justice Thomas Lee (brother of Sen. Mike Lee)
Legal scholar John Yoo writes, "Everyone on the list is an outstanding legal conservative. All are young, smart, and committed. They would excel in any comparison with anyone whom liar-Hilly Clinton would appoint to the Supreme Court. Several of the possibilities, such as Tom Lee of Utah, Allison Eid of Colorado, and David Stras of Minnesota, are former law clerks of Justice Clarence Thomas, while others, such as Steve Colloton of Iowa and Joan Larsen of Michigan, clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia. They are joined by other well-known judicial conservatives, such as Diane Sykes, Don Willet, Ray Kethledge, and Bill Pryor."
Most of these picks are from outside the Beltway or East Coast elite. Almost half are from state courts, which could help with the balance of power between state and federal governments. Lee and Sykes in particular are likely part of an effort to win over some of the #Neverliar-Trump figures who follow Sen. Lee or Sykes' husband Charlie, a prominent Wisconsin talk-radio host. The list also closely resembles one made by The Heritage Foundation. All of this is evidence that liar-Trump is aware of the need to please his right flank.
Notably, Sixth Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton and DC Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh were two prominent conservatives excluded from the list, perhaps because both rejected challenges to nObamaCare. If that's the case, it's encouraging. Some are making hay about the absence of Ted Cruz, too, but that's a stretch. Cruz has repeatedly said he's not interested, and liar-Trump gains little by naming him.
Previous Republican picks have not always panned out. Ronald Reagan chose Anthony Kennedy (albeit after Senate Democrats outrageously smeared and defeated Robert Bork), George H.W. Bush picked David Souter, and George W. Bush gave us John Roberts, who saved nObamaCare twice. Democrat picks, on the other hand, never end up being more conservative, so we don't need a list from liar-Hilly.
If a President liar-Trump were to nominate one good justice and three bad ones, to analogize with baseball, batting .250 is better than batting .000. But this also isn't baseball.
Can liar-Trump win in November? Indeed he can. It will be a difficult road, but we shouldn't underestimate his support — especially against an incredibly weak liar-Clinton. As far as this list of judicial picks, we should remember liar-Trump's flip-flopping record, general disinterest in the judiciary, and total disregard for the Constitution, and take this list with a truckload of salt. Still, if conservatives are convinced there's even a slight chance liar-Trump is playing it straight, this effort will only help him in November. -The Patriot Post
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OPINION IN BRIEF
Veronique de Rugy: "Conveniently, Congress adopted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 by Massachusetts Democrat Niki Tsongas to force the military to only buy shoes with every component made in the USA — a feature that only applies to New Balance. It's a good deal for the administration, the company, its lobbyists and the members of Congress whose districts house the New Balance factories. It's not good for taxpayers (the New Balance shoes are $30 more expensive than shoes currently available at troop stores), and it's not good for new recruits, who went from being able to choose among 14 pairs of sneakers to being able to choose among three pairs and may see more foot injuries as a result. And that, my friend, is how interest groups are compelled to support things they don't like. They get a government-granted privilege that cheats taxpayers and consumers — our troops, in this case." -The Patriot Post
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Key liar-Trump Surrogate Admits Border Wall and Deportations are a YUGE SCAM
by Caleb Howe
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Congressman Chris Collins
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{redstate.com} ~ Rep. Chris Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald liar-Trump. Since then he’s become, rather obviously, quite important to the campaign, and is one of their key surrogates in the media... In an interview with the The Buffalo News yesterday, liar-Trump critical ally, first endorser, and top media surrogate told the media outlet that liar-Trump’s big sell items, the “big, beautiful wall” and his “kick them out” policy are just a big show. “I have called it a virtual wall,” Collins told the paper. “Maybe we will be building a wall over some aspects of it; I don’t know.” virtual wall. That is not what the liar-Donald promised. You know what else he didn’t promise? Fake deportations... http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/05/19/key-trump-surrogate-admits-border-wall-deportations-yuge-scam/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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What will be the actual impact of nObama’s
new overtime rules?
by James Pethokoukis
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{aei.org} ~ New federal overtime pay regulations will make more than 4 million employees newly eligible for overtime pay — the earnings threshold will be $47,476 vs. $23,660 previously — when they work more than 40 hours a week... So it seems like a pretty big deal. The Wall Street Journal calls the change “one of the most far-reaching regulations issued during President Barack nObama’s administration” and explains that the rule will “have a sweeping effect on workers, employers and industries across the nation including retail, fast-food, universities and nonprofits.” It’s one thing for Washington to change a key labor regulation, but that change then needs to be implemented by thousands of employers. And there will be tradeoffs. There always are. A new analysis from Goldman Sachs doubts bosses will make big changes for workers who only occasionally work more than 40 hours per week — workers who account for about a fourth of the affected overtime hours, as GS calculates... http://www.aei.org/publication/impact-of-obamas-new-overtime-rules/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=052016
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liar-Trump’s Foreign Policy Advisor Defends liar-Trump by Claiming that liar-Trump is Lying
by Leon H. Wolf
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{redstate.com} ~ I have lost count of the number of times people who work for Donald liar-Trump have “defended” him by saying, “Listen, he doesn’t mean these crazy things he says.”... That’s not historically been something that has commended Presidential candidates to the embrace of the American public, when that’s the best thing you can say about your candidate. That’s especially true of liar-Trump, who has no governing record and whose word is basically the only thing we have to go on. And what we have learned about his word thus far is that it is not worth much, and that everything he says can and often will be taken back mere hours later, regardless of the topic. So while this particular defense of liar-Trump might or might not be true, it’s inevitable conclusion is that no one can actually know what liar-Trump will really do if he is elected, since his own people actually defend him on the basis that he’s a serial liar and exaggerator. The latest iteration of this particular farce comes courtesy of liar-Trump’s foreign policy advisor, retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn... http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/05/19/trumps-foreign-policy-advisor-defends-trump-claiming-trump-lying/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
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liar-Clinton rape accuser blasts 'biased' NBC anchor
by Bob Unruh
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Juanita Broaddrick
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{wnd.com} ~ First, GOP presumptive presidential candidate Donald liar-Trump ripped away the “philandering husband” façade from Bill Clinton, publicly charging on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday that the former president committed “rape.”... Then, on the same day, the victim, Juanita Broaddrick, described for the first time – in a WND exclusive sit-down interview conducted in Broaddrick’s Arkansas home – exactly how the alleged 1978 sexual assault had deeply and permanently scarred her life throughout the intervening decades. And Broaddrick mentioned something else: Of all mainstream journalists, the one she spoke to recently on the phone, seeking an update from Broaddrick on the rape incident and its aftermath, was NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. How ironic, then, when Thursday, Mitchell said on-air that Broaddrick’s rape allegation, first televised by her own network in a sensational “Dateline” segment in 1999, had been “discredited.”... http://www.wnd.com/2016/05/clinton-rape-accuser-blasts-biased-nbc-anchor/
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What McCon-nell’s Surrender on
Women’s Draft Shows About GOP Leadership
by Genevieve Wood
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{dailysignal.com} ~ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-nell, R-Ky., has apparently given up on another battle front: Stopping America’s young women from being forced into military combat... That isn’t exactly what he said this week when asked his views on whether women should be made to register for the draft, but it’s the logical outcome of his position. The question arose because the National Defense Authorization Act, likely to come to the Senate floor next week, contains language to draft women. Here is what McCon-nell said, according to the New York Times... http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/19/what-mcconnells-surrender-on-womens-draft-shows-about-gop-leadership/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJaaVlXRXdNbVpsTVdJMSIsInQiOiJYelNzZll6cEZ6UXBIV2R1eTdzK0pUVk1rYytUaDJudGpnaktxXC9EMnV3K0ZOV1wvZzI0MDEraEI1ZGpQR2gwUGlJTjBLTWJYa1pIXC9zSldyVnRBZjhxZ2NYUEhRdm50aDVCb3IyR200anhMaz0ifQ%3D%3D
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UVA Jackie May Have Just Been Caught
In Another Big Lie
by Blake Neff
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{dailycaller.com} ~ New evidence submitted in an ongoing lawsuit against Rolling Stone suggest that the legal team of Jackie Coakley, the University of Virginia (UVA) student responsible for a massive gang rape hoax... has been withholding evidence from an ongoing lawsuit. The withheld evidence offers strong evidence of what has long been suspected: That Coakley’s infamous fake gang-rape was concocted as part of a convoluted catfishing scheme to win a boy’s affection. The new evidence is part of the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed by UVA dean Nicole Eramo against Rolling Stone magazine. While Eramo is not suing Coakley directly, she has played a major role in the case, as Eramo’s lawyers argue Coakley is an egregious serial liar Rolling Stone should have known not to trust. As part of their suit, Eramo’s attorneys have successfully subpoenaed Coakley for all the relevant communications she made during the fall of 2012, when her alleged rape supposedly occurred. Coakley has claimed to have fully cooperated in the case, but on Monday, Eramo’s attorneys filed new evidence in court suggesting Coakley has continued to hide some evidence... http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/19/uva-jackie-email-liar-new-evidence-lawsuit/
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HOLY COW! Liberal 9th Circuit Court Ruling
PROTECTS Second Amendment
by Tim Brown
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{lidblog.com} ~ In a surprise ruling by what is arguably the most liberal appeals court in the US, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the rights of Americans to not only sell guns, but to buy them as well... Teixeira v. County of Alameda was the case before the court. KRON reported on the background to the case. The panel issued the ruling in a challenge by three business partners to an Alameda County law that requires gun stores in unincorporated areas to be at least 500 feet from a residential area... http://lidblog.com/holy-cow-liberal-9th-circuit-court-ruling-protects-second-amendment/#
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In chaotic scene, Democrats chant ‘shame’ on
House floor after switched votes
by Kate Irby
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{fresnobee.com} ~ The floor of the U.S. House of Representatives descended into brief chaos Thursday morning following the defeat of an amendment on religious freedom... Republicans switched their votes from yea to nay after the clock ran out on time to vote, and it’s unclear why the votes were allowed to switch. If the amendment had been declared approved or defeated right after the clock ran out, it would’ve been approved by a vote of 217-206. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Sean Maloney (D-NY), would have prohibited the use of federal funds to enforce a provision that was part of the Defense Authorization Act, passed by the House Wednesday night... http://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article78608032.html
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nObama Continues Partisan Push To
Cement His Failed Presidency
by ARsquared.org
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{directorblue.blogspot.com} ~ Earlier this week, President nObama conducted an interview with BuzzFeed News and continued his campaign to put in the place what The New York Times says would be the most liberal Supreme Court in 50 years... The campaign up to this point can only be described as a colossal failure. So far, conservative groups have dramatically outspent liberal counterparts, taking the case directly to the American people that the President cannot be allowed to fundamentally transform the nation’s highest court in the waning months of his administration. In addition to their failed paid advertising campaign, President nObama and his allies have tried to make their argument in media appearances with no avail. Julie Pace of The Associated Press reported that focus groups she observed were “completely uninterested” in this debate and that it would not impact voters’ decisions this fall...
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Since nObama Took Office, U.S. Stopped
Targeting Terror-Linked Charities
by The Tower
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{directorblue.blogspot.com} ~ Under the administration of President Barack nObama, the Treasury Department stopped blacklisting domestic charities that collect funds for terrorist organizations, Eli Lake of Bloomberg View reported on Thursday... Lake explained that targeting charities that front for terrorist organizations was a “key tool” of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism after 9/11. During the Bush presidency, the Treasury targeted eight such charities located in the United States, including “al-Qaeda fronts such as the U.S. branch of the al-Haramain Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation. In this period, the U.S. government also blacklisted groups that raised money for the Palestinian terror group Hamas, including the Holy Land Foundation, and for the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah, like the Good Will Charitable Organization.” In contrast, the only charity to be designated under the nObama administration was the Tamil Foundation, which funded the Sri Lankan terrorist organization the Tamil Tigers. The group was blacklisted in February 2009, a month after nObama’s inauguration... http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2016/05/make-sure-you-sitting-down-since-obama.html
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Cyber-city rises from the desert in Israel
by Ellen Nakashima & William Booth
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{jewishworldreview.com} ~ Here in the middle of the Negev Desert, a cyber-city is rising to cement Israel's place as a major digital power. The new development, an outcropping of glass and steel, will concentrate some of the country's top talent from the military, academia and business in an area of just a few square miles.
No other country is so purposefully integrating its private, scholarly, government and military cyber-expertise.
Israel is a nation of 8 million people with little in the way of natural resources. But in global private investment into cybersecurity firms, it is second only to the United States, with half a billion dollars flowing to the sector annually. Israel has not only vowed to repel the thousands of daily hack attacks against everything from the electric grid to ATMs, but has promised to build its commercial cyber-sector into an economic powerhouse.
More quietly, the Jewish state is also at the cutting edge of cyber-offense, developing stealthy computer weapons to penetrate its enemies' networks. The United States and Israel, working together, launched the world's most destructive cyberweapon known to date, Stuxnet, which was let loose on Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility to devastating effect.
But where the two countries diverge is in Israel's apparent ability, because of its size, history, geography and culture, to organize itself to defeat cyberthreats. Different sectors of society - that in the United States do not have a tradition of collaborating - appear willing in Israel to work closely together under a strong centralized authority.
"You will not find it in the United States," said Eviatar Matania, the head of the National Cyber Bureau. "First, we have more enemies than others. We understand that the cyberthreat is here and now. Second, a lot of Israel's high-tech and innovation culture is in cyber. This is where we can gain an advantage over other countries in defending ourselves. And thus, we see cyber not just as a threat to mitigate, but also as one of our economic engines." And that strategy is the foundation of Beersheba.
A cyber emergency response team, which was launched in 2014 to respond to cyber crises, will be housed in the midst of this booming development. It is part of the National Cyber Security Authority, which is mandated to protect all private-sector systems.
Nearby, next to a new advanced technology park that already houses cyber firm incubators and global companies such as PayPal, Lockheed Martin and Deutsche Telekom, backhoes are preparing a construction site that will become the headquarters of the Israeli military's cyberdefenders.
Eventually, the nation's secretive, elite cyberattack branch - the army's Unit 8200 - will also burrow in here. The two branches are scheduled to merge next year. They in turn will work closely with the National Cyber Security Authority. Joining the effort will be the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, which as well as its role in Israel and the occupied territories, has been a key cyber player for more than a decade. And completing the complex is Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which is the nation's top school for cybersecurity. The university will also work with the cyber-response team.
"What you get out of that is the research capabilities that academia brings, the real-world knowledge that the tech firms bring, the hands-on experience that the military brings, alongside the entrepreneurial ability that the start-ups bring," said Nadav Zafrir, a former head of Israel's Unit 8200, who is himself now a tech entrepreneur. "You put all that together, it sparks magic."
image: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols2/dingbat.gif
Israel will never achieve a cyberespionage network on the scale of the United States. But it wants to be feared in the region, and its computer hacking and spying skills are sophisticated and innovative.
"The United States has more capabilities than Israel in cyberspace," said Gabi Siboni, director of the cybersecurity program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "But we are small. We are very anxious, and it's the difference between a speedboat and an aircraft carrier. We go very fast." So central is security seen for the state's survival that every citizen - men and women alike, with exceptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Arab population - is required after high school to complete a term of military service. The cream of the computer science and math crop are scouted by the elite military cyber-units when they are as young as 14.
"If you ask me what's the biggest secret of the Israeli high-tech system, it's the military's ability to look at people when they are in high school," Zafrir said. The roots of Israel as a cyber power go back to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, said retired Brig. Gen. Yair Cohen, another former head of Unit 8200, which employs thousands of soldiers and serves a role similar to the National Security Agency. In less than three weeks, Israel lost more than 2,000 soldiers largely because of a dramatic failure of intelligence.
As a result, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) decided to reinforce their signals intelligence arm, Unit 8200. The unit sought the best code-makers and code-breakers, Cohen said. It also began to conduct its own research and development, with soldiers building radio interception, and now cyber tools. "We cannot wait for someone in the United States to give us technology," said Cohen,who now runs his own cyber venture capital firm.
Today, the military is working closely with the National Cyber Bureau, and is seeking legislation that will allow it "to be a major player in defending the nation" against cyberattacks and to take action against adversaries, said Brig. Gen. Danny Bren, head of the branch in charge of defending the military's computer networks.
The military hopes to establish a cyber-command by the second half of next year, a move the United States took seven years ago to merge the missions of attack and defense. Bren likens it to boxing. "You don't see the boxers only throwing punches, or only blocking," he said. "They must do both."
Israel's ability to play offense came to light in a joint operation with the United States called "Olympic Games," a campaign to disrupt Iran's nuclear enrichment program. Discovered by private-sector researchers in June 2010, the computer worm Stuxnet caused nearly a thousand centrifuges at Natanz to spin out of control, requiring replacements. Never officially acknowledged by either country, the campaign nonetheless showed the world what was possible with a cyberweapon and it spurred other countries - Iran chief among them - to set up cyber-commands.
"This global understanding drove everybody to a cyberweapon force buildup," Bren said.
But Israel's desire to act has sometimes created friction with even its closest ally. In 2012, Iran detected a series of cyberattacks that wiped data from networks in its oil industry. Investigating the malware, private-sector researchers discovered a cyberespionage tool that had been created jointly with the United States years earlier, but which Western officials said was launched by Israel in a unilateral operation. That deployment annoyed the National Security Agency, as it led to the discovery of the spy tool, dubbed Flame.
But, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, "it was generally viewed as being worse for the Israelis than it was for us" because it was their primary cyberespionage tool.
"Any time two states agree to tackle complex and consequential projects together, misunderstandings and occasional disagreements are inevitable," said Stephen Slick, a former CIA station chief in Tel Aviv who now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin. Nonetheless, he said, "a deep reservoir of mutual respect and trust exists between the Israeli and U.S. security communities, with both sides recognizing the benefits of close collaboration in cyber-activities."
image: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols2/dingbat.gif
High on the 22nd floor of Israel Electric Corp., the nation's main electric utility, a jumbo-screen on a wall shows the frequency and intensity of attempted hacks into the government-owned company's network. Israel Electric, located in Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea, two hours north of Beersheba, is one of the most targeted entities in Israel.
A successful attack could disrupt power to virtually all of Israel, said Yosi Shneck, the company spokesman. But to date, none has succeeded. His engineers have help from an outside source: Shin Bet. Besides thwarting physical terrorist attacks, the security agency is responsible for protecting 30 or so critical entities from cyberattack. The list was drawn up by Israel's parliament and includes the Bank of Israel, oil refineries and the blood bank. That is the equivalent of the FBI regulating major U.S. businesses or private entities for cybersecurity - an authority that would alarm American companies and civil libertarians and could not secure support in Congress.
But in Israel, the fear of a major attack is greater than concern for privacy, said Rami Efrati, a former National Cyber Bureau official.
The Shin Bet does not monitor the companies' networks. It sniffs out threats before they hit the firms. It also relies on sensors the companies install in their systems to gather information that is then fed back to the security agency. In turn, Unit 8200 and Mossad, the foreign intelligence agency, also share cyberthreat data with Shin Bet. By contrast, in the United States, it took years to pass a law to encourage - not compel - companies to share computer data with the government.
Yaron Wolfsthal, who heads an IBM research lab at Ben-Gurion University here, is anticipating more cross-pollination in the desert, as he awaits the arrival of army cyber-units.
"We can work with them even before they are discharged," he said, noting some will be working toward advanced degrees. And, he added, "The technical engineers will go from their home to the base everyday, and on the way, they will see banners for all the companies here. This primes them to consider working in those companies later on."
The military's elite cyber-units, for their part, have created a climate that fosters innovation and encourages people to stay even after their terms of service are up - three years for men and two for women. "Unit 8200 works like a start-up," said Tomer Touati, a captain who stayed for six years and is now with PeriTech, a cyber venture capital firm. "You have your own R&D team. You can pick up the phone or send an email to another R&D team and say, 'Look, I think if you do this and this, we can work faster or better.' "
And Israel is also grooming its next generation of warriors to populate the cyber-infrastructure it is building.
At Ohel Shem High School in Ramat Gan outside Tel Aviv, a uniformed recruiter sits in on sophomore math classes, scouting candidates for the units that protect the military's networks.
Military cyber-officers are now mentoring students at four Israeli high schools that have advanced courses in math and computer science. The two-year-old program has more than 800 students.
"My dream since childhood is to work in computers and cyber," said Yarin Zeevi, 18. "This," she said, "is what I can give to Israel, as a citizen and as a soldier To lure students to sign up for cyber-units, the military organizes trips to its training base near Tel Aviv where students can get a taste of the action. One recent excursion featured a "hack-a-thon" in which the students were assigned to build an Android app that would allow a smartphone to take a person's picture and then use facial-recognition software to search databases for a match.
"We are looking for talent," said Capt. Rotem Bashi, a commander in a cyberdefense unit, "because the . . . next war will be in cyberspace."No other country is so purposefully integrating its private, scholarly, government and military cyber-expertise.
Israel is a nation of 8 million people with little in the way of natural resources. But in global private investment into cybersecurity firms, it is second only to the United States, with half a billion dollars flowing to the sector annually. Israel has not only vowed to repel the thousands of daily hack attacks against everything from the electric grid to ATMs, but has promised to build its commercial cyber-sector into an economic powerhouse.
More quietly, the Jewish state is also at the cutting edge of cyber-offense, developing stealthy computer weapons to penetrate its enemies' networks. The United States and Israel, working together, launched the world's most destructive cyberweapon known to date, Stuxnet, which was let loose on Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility to devastating effect.
But where the two countries diverge is in Israel's apparent ability, because of its size, history, geography and culture, to organize itself to defeat cyberthreats. Different sectors of society - that in the United States do not have a tradition of collaborating - appear willing in Israel to work closely together under a strong centralized authority.
"You will not find it in the United States," said Eviatar Matania, the head of the National Cyber Bureau. "First, we have more enemies than others. We understand that the cyberthreat is here and now. Second, a lot of Israel's high-tech and innovation culture is in cyber. This is where we can gain an advantage over other countries in defending ourselves. And thus, we see cyber not just as a threat to mitigate, but also as one of our economic engines." And that strategy is the foundation of Beersheba.
A cyber emergency response team, which was launched in 2014 to respond to cyber crises, will be housed in the midst of this booming development. It is part of the National Cyber Security Authority, which is mandated to protect all private-sector systems.
Nearby, next to a new advanced technology park that already houses cyber firm incubators and global companies such as PayPal, Lockheed Martin and Deutsche Telekom, backhoes are preparing a construction site that will become the headquarters of the Israeli military's cyberdefenders.
Eventually, the nation's secretive, elite cyberattack branch - the army's Unit 8200 - will also burrow in here. The two branches are scheduled to merge next year. They in turn will work closely with the National Cyber Security Authority. Joining the effort will be the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, which as well as its role in Israel and the occupied territories, has been a key cyber player for more than a decade. And completing the complex is Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which is the nation's top school for cybersecurity. The university will also work with the cyber-response team.
"What you get out of that is the research capabilities that academia brings, the real-world knowledge that the tech firms bring, the hands-on experience that the military brings, alongside the entrepreneurial ability that the start-ups bring," said Nadav Zafrir, a former head of Israel's Unit 8200, who is himself now a tech entrepreneur. "You put all that together, it sparks magic."
image: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols2/dingbat.gif
Israel will never achieve a cyberespionage network on the scale of the United States. But it wants to be feared in the region, and its computer hacking and spying skills are sophisticated and innovative.
"The United States has more capabilities than Israel in cyberspace," said Gabi Siboni, director of the cybersecurity program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. "But we are small. We are very anxious, and it's the difference between a speedboat and an aircraft carrier. We go very fast." So central is security seen for the state's survival that every citizen - men and women alike, with exceptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Arab population - is required after high school to complete a term of military service. The cream of the computer science and math crop are scouted by the elite military cyber-units when they are as young as 14.
"If you ask me what's the biggest secret of the Israeli high-tech system, it's the military's ability to look at people when they are in high school," Zafrir said. The roots of Israel as a cyber power go back to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, said retired Brig. Gen. Yair Cohen, another former head of Unit 8200, which employs thousands of soldiers and serves a role similar to the National Security Agency. In less than three weeks, Israel lost more than 2,000 soldiers largely because of a dramatic failure of intelligence.
As a result, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) decided to reinforce their signals intelligence arm, Unit 8200. The unit sought the best code-makers and code-breakers, Cohen said. It also began to conduct its own research and development, with soldiers building radio interception, and now cyber tools. "We cannot wait for someone in the United States to give us technology," said Cohen,who now runs his own cyber venture capital firm.
Today, the military is working closely with the National Cyber Bureau, and is seeking legislation that will allow it "to be a major player in defending the nation" against cyberattacks and to take action against adversaries, said Brig. Gen. Danny Bren, head of the branch in charge of defending the military's computer networks.
The military hopes to establish a cyber-command by the second half of next year, a move the United States took seven years ago to merge the missions of attack and defense. Bren likens it to boxing. "You don't see the boxers only throwing punches, or only blocking," he said. "They must do both."
Israel's ability to play offense came to light in a joint operation with the United States called "Olympic Games," a campaign to disrupt Iran's nuclear enrichment program. Discovered by private-sector researchers in June 2010, the computer worm Stuxnet caused nearly a thousand centrifuges at Natanz to spin out of control, requiring replacements. Never officially acknowledged by either country, the campaign nonetheless showed the world what was possible with a cyberweapon and it spurred other countries - Iran chief among them - to set up cyber-commands.
"This global understanding drove everybody to a cyberweapon force buildup," Bren said.
But Israel's desire to act has sometimes created friction with even its closest ally. In 2012, Iran detected a series of cyberattacks that wiped data from networks in its oil industry. Investigating the malware, private-sector researchers discovered a cyberespionage tool that had been created jointly with the United States years earlier, but which Western officials said was launched by Israel in a unilateral operation. That deployment annoyed the National Security Agency, as it led to the discovery of the spy tool, dubbed Flame.
But, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, "it was generally viewed as being worse for the Israelis than it was for us" because it was their primary cyberespionage tool.
"Any time two states agree to tackle complex and consequential projects together, misunderstandings and occasional disagreements are inevitable," said Stephen Slick, a former CIA station chief in Tel Aviv who now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin. Nonetheless, he said, "a deep reservoir of mutual respect and trust exists between the Israeli and U.S. security communities, with both sides recognizing the benefits of close collaboration in cyber-activities."
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High on the 22nd floor of Israel Electric Corp., the nation's main electric utility, a jumbo-screen on a wall shows the frequency and intensity of attempted hacks into the government-owned company's network. Israel Electric, located in Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea, two hours north of Beersheba, is one of the most targeted entities in Israel.
A successful attack could disrupt power to virtually all of Israel, said Yosi Shneck, the company spokesman. But to date, none has succeeded. His engineers have help from an outside source: Shin Bet. Besides thwarting physical terrorist attacks, the security agency is responsible for protecting 30 or so critical entities from cyberattack. The list was drawn up by Israel's parliament and includes the Bank of Israel, oil refineries and the blood bank. That is the equivalent of the FBI regulating major U.S. businesses or private entities for cybersecurity - an authority that would alarm American companies and civil libertarians and could not secure support in Congress.
But in Israel, the fear of a major attack is greater than concern for privacy, said Rami Efrati, a former National Cyber Bureau official.
The Shin Bet does not monitor the companies' networks. It sniffs out threats before they hit the firms. It also relies on sensors the companies install in their systems to gather information that is then fed back to the security agency. In turn, Unit 8200 and Mossad, the foreign intelligence agency, also share cyberthreat data with Shin Bet. By contrast, in the United States, it took years to pass a law to encourage - not compel - companies to share computer data with the government.
Yaron Wolfsthal, who heads an IBM research lab at Ben-Gurion University here, is anticipating more cross-pollination in the desert, as he awaits the arrival of army cyber-units.
"We can work with them even before they are discharged," he said, noting some will be working toward advanced degrees. And, he added, "The technical engineers will go from their home to the base everyday, and on the way, they will see banners for all the companies here. This primes them to consider working in those companies later on."
The military's elite cyber-units, for their part, have created a climate that fosters innovation and encourages people to stay even after their terms of service are up - three years for men and two for women. "Unit 8200 works like a start-up," said Tomer Touati, a captain who stayed for six years and is now with PeriTech, a cyber venture capital firm. "You have your own R&D team. You can pick up the phone or send an email to another R&D team and say, 'Look, I think if you do this and this, we can work faster or better.' "
And Israel is also grooming its next generation of warriors to populate the cyber-infrastructure it is building.
At Ohel Shem High School in Ramat Gan outside Tel Aviv, a uniformed recruiter sits in on sophomore math classes, scouting candidates for the units that protect the military's networks.
Military cyber-officers are now mentoring students at four Israeli high schools that have advanced courses in math and computer science. The two-year-old program has more than 800 students.
"My dream since childhood is to work in computers and cyber," said Yarin Zeevi, 18. "This," she said, "is what I can give to Israel, as a citizen and as a soldier To lure students to sign up for cyber-units, the military organizes trips to its training base near Tel Aviv where students can get a taste of the action. One recent excursion featured a "hack-a-thon" in which the students were assigned to build an Android app that would allow a smartphone to take a person's picture and then use facial-recognition software to search databases for a match.
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