[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: This is more funny than anything else. Lefties
annoyed that Israel is using the words of the Palestinians to criticize the
Palestinians in desperation criticize the source of the information.]

Officials: Israel government and IDF outsourcing intelligence-gathering to
right-wing groups

Military intelligence diverts attention from mainstream Arab media outlets
to social media, leaving void filled by private organizations.
By Barak Ravid Haaretz Published 02:00 31.01.12
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/officials-israel-government-and-idf-outsourcing-intelligence-gathering-to-right-wing-groups-1.410082

The government and military have unofficially outsourced some of their
intelligence work to private organizations that monitor anti-Israel
incitement in the Palestinian media and are associated with right-wing
politics, according to several high-ranking government and military sources.

The situation - which the sources said stemmed from a lack of resources,
shifting priorities and years of neglect - has prompted some government
officials to ask Military Intelligence chief Aviv Kochavi in the last few
weeks to take action. Staff members in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
bureau were among the officials who complained to Kochavi.

A Military Intelligence decision to more closely monitor social media, blogs
and other online sources after the events of the Arab Spring has meant
dramatically reduced monitoring of the mainstream Arab-language media, the
IDF sources said. They said Military Intelligence has almost totally stopped
monitoring major television stations in real time, like Al Jazeera, Al-Manar
and Palestinian television.

For instance, they said, MI soldiers listen to the Friday sermons broadcast
on Palestinian television and radio stations a few days later.

The Israel Defense Forces issued a statement denying the allegations.

The Military Intelligence unit assigned to monitor the Arab-language media
does so in real time, "24 hours a day, every day of the week, in a wide
variety of fields, including the Palestinian field," the IDF said. The army
has been expanding its monitoring of open-source information - which can
include newspapers, television and social media - to include "various
platforms," said the IDF, adding that "any other claim is unfounded."

The government, meanwhile, is getting most of its information on anti-Israel
incitement from two private organizations, the sources said: the Middle East
Media Research Institute, which is based in Washington, D.C., and the
Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch.

Palestinian Media Watch provides mostly professional material on Palestinian
incitement in the media and textbooks, but is associated with the right
wing. It is directed by Itamar Marcus, who until recently served as the vice
president of the Central Fund of Israel, a New York-based right-wing
nonprofit association that donates to Israeli right-wing groups like Im
Tirtzu and helps fund various activities in West Bank settlements.

The Prime Minister's Bureau confirmed that it is one of several government
offices to subscribe to the Palestinian Media Watch e-mail list.

In the last few weeks alone, Netanyahu has cited information that appears in
the organization's media roundups. Members of his bureau said that whenever
the government wants to cite information, the source of the material and its
credibility is carefully checked.

Although it is on Netanyahu's watch that the intelligence agencies have been
cutting down on monitoring the Palestinian media, the incitement issue is
actually quite important to his government.

The Strategic Affairs Ministry is responsible for determining an "incitement
index" that shows the extent to which the Palestinian media have been
inciting against Israel, and presenting it to senior cabinet ministers every
few months. In addition, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has instructed
Israeli embassies to raise the issue regularly, and Netanyahu frequently
mentions Palestinian incitement in his public remarks.

In the past month, Netanyahu has mentioned anti-Israel incitement in at
least five press releases and two speeches. He raised the issue in
connection with several recent incidents: a meeting between Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Amana Muna, a female terrorist who was
released from Israeli prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange;
a speech broadcast on Palestinian government television in which a
Palestinian cleric called on his followers to kill Jews; and a program on
the same station that praised the terrorists who killed five members of the
Fogel family in their beds last year.

Despite the apparent importance the Netanyahu government ascribes to
anti-Israel incitement, the government and IDF treatment of the matter is
deeply flawed, two senior government officials and two IDF officers said.
They singled out Military Intelligence as particularly problematic.

The MI unit that is assigned with collecting intelligence from open sources
like the Palestinian media is called Hatzav. It is part of Unit 8200, which
deals primarily with collecting information covertly, such as through
intercepting telephone conversations. For the past few months, it has also
been responsible for cybersecurity.

In 2007 Hatzav was split up, with some members assigned to each Unit 8200
division that deals with a specific country or with the Palestinian
Authority. It was meant to increase cooperation between the departments
monitoring different sources of information, but has instead reduced
Israel's intelligence capabilities, according to the sources. They said that
over the past two years, the commanders of Hatzav and of Unit 8200 have been
attempting to improve Hatzav, with limited success.