Mohammed Mar’i RAMALLAH: A group of Israelis yesterday hacked into three websites linked to the Israeli-Arab and Palestinian causes, and embedded on their pages40of the Israeli flag and the symbol of an outlawed ultra-rightist movement.
The perpetrators hacked into the website of the Arab Balad party, Arabs48.com, an Arabic-language site and Mahsom.com, which is written in Hebrew.
In addition to the Israeli flag and the words of Israeli anthem "Hatikva," the hackers embedded the symbol of the Kach movement, an ultra-rightist organization founded by the Jewish Rabbi Meir Kahane that was banned from the Knesset in 1988 and later deemed a terrorist organization by Israel. The symbol appeared with the words "Kahane was right."
Pictures were also embedded on the sites showing Palestinian children strapped with explosives under the words "murderers from birth."
In a statement also printed on the site, the rightists wrote, "This site was hacked due to its blatantly anti-Zionist contents. Israel is not interested in people like you who are burdens on the process of proper decision-making in the government. If you oppose what you call the 'Israeli occupation' then there's no place for you here."
Arabs48.com, which is popular in Arab states and in Israel, prints news on Israel and the Middle East from a pro-Palestinian, pan-Arabist perspective. Mahsom.com is a self-proclaimed alternative media source that monitors the Israeli measures on hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank and is meant for a primarily Jewish audience.
The manager of Arabs48.com, Izz Al-Din Badran, said that the "hacking of the site is intended to sabotage a media outlet, which provides a critical and different look at everything concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict. It seems that the popularity enjoyed by the site, in Israel and in the Arab world, drives the right-wing crazy."
Badran added in a press statement that "the site is constantly suffering from repeated hack attempts, which have interfered in the past with the regular maintenance of the site, but not to this extent. We view with great severity the attempt to silence the site, which reflects factual and analytical loyalty to the Arab and Palestinian perspective in the ongoing conflict. The Kahane terrorists and their followers from the Israeli-Zionist right will not weaken our power, like they haven't in the past."
The group also broke into the sites of Ezzeddine Al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas' military wing.
*Source: Arab News
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