Dragonfly vs. America, Courtesy of Russia

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Can you live without electricity for a day or two? Yes of course if you in advance right? Can you live without power for a week or so? Yes of course with advanced notice right? Can you live without power for a month, 4 months or 18 months? NOPE. It is time to not only think about preparations, but to get prepared and then to practice procedures for short term and long term power outages and the reason is Russia.

There is a sad truth to what is below, the United States is not prepared and what is worse we are not declaring war to stop Russia either. Russia has hacked into U.S. government sites, hacked into corporate sites and hacked into the financial industry all without so much as a whimper as a U.S. reply. We have no countermeasures, we have no offensive measures and have not even written a strongly worded letter.

 

Russia has gone to the dragons against America, well actually to the Dragonflies and this is what you need to know and do. Remember the entire infrastructure is tied to SCADA, that includes water systems, transportation systems, water, hospitals, schools and retail.

Dragonfly: Western Energy Companies Under Sabotage Threat

Cyberespionage campaign stole information from targets and had the capability to launch sabotage operations.

An ongoing cyberespionage campaign against a range of targets, mainly in the energy sector, gave attackers the ability to mount sabotage operations against their victims. The attackers, known to Symantec as Dragonfly, managed to compromise a number of strategically important organizations for spying purposes and, if they had used the sabotage capabilities open to them, could have caused damage or disruption to energy supplies in affected countries.

Among the targets of Dragonfly were energy grid operators, major electricity generation firms, petroleum pipeline operators, and energy industry industrial equipment providers. The majority of the victims were located in the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and Poland.

The Dragonfly group is well resourced, with a range of malware tools at its disposal and is capable of launching attacks through a number of different vectors. Its most ambitious attack campaign saw it compromise a number of industrial control system (ICS) equipment providers, infecting their software with a remote access-type Trojan. This caused companies to install the malware when downloading software updates for computers running ICS equipment. These infections not only gave the attackers a beachhead in the targeted organizations’ networks, but also gave them the means to mount sabotage operations against infected ICS computers.

This campaign follows in the footsteps of Stuxnet, which was the first known major malware campaign to target ICS systems. While Stuxnet was narrowly targeted at the Iranian nuclear program and had sabotage as its primary goal, Dragonfly appears to have a much broader focus with espionage and persistent access as its current objective with sabotage as an optional capability if required.

In addition to compromising ICS software, Dragonfly has used spam email campaigns and watering hole attacks to infect targeted organizations. The group has used two main malware tools: Backdoor.Oldrea and Trojan.Karagany. The former appears to be a custom piece of malware, either written by or for the attackers.

Prior to publication, Symantec notified affected victims and relevant national authorities, such as Computer Emergency Response Centers (CERTs) that handle and respond to Internet security incidents.

Background
The Dragonfly group, which is also known by other vendors as Energetic Bear, appears to have been in operation since at least 2011 and may have been active even longer than that. Dragonfly initially targeted defense and aviation companies in the US and Canada before shifting its focus mainly to US and European energy firms in early 2013.

The campaign against the European and American energy sector quickly expanded in scope. The group initially began sending malware in phishing emails to personnel in target firms. Later, the group added watering hole attacks to its offensive, compromising websites likely to be visited by those working in energy in order to redirect them to websites hosting an exploit kit. The exploit kit in turn delivered malware to the victim’s computer. The third phase of the campaign was the Trojanizing of legitimate software bundles belonging to three different ICS equipment manufacturers.

Dragonfly bears the hallmarks of a state-sponsored operation, displaying a high degree of technical capability. The group is able to mount attacks through multiple vectors and compromise numerous third party websites in the process. Dragonfly has targeted multiple organizations in the energy sector over a long period of time. Its current main motive appears to be cyberespionage, with potential for sabotage a definite secondary capability.

Analysis of the compilation timestamps on the malware used by the attackers indicate that the group mostly worked between Monday and Friday, with activity mainly concentrated in a nine-hour period that corresponded to a 9am to 6pm working day in the UTC +4 time zone. Based on this information, it is likely the attackers are based in Eastern Europe.

figure1_9.png
Figure. Top 10 countries by active infections (where attackers stole information from infected computers)

Tools employed
Dragonfly uses two main pieces of malware in its attacks. Both are remote access tool (RAT) type malware which provide the attackers with access and control of compromised computers. Dragonfly’s favored malware tool is Backdoor.Oldrea, which is also known as Havex or the Energetic Bear RAT. Oldrea acts as a back door for the attackers on to the victim’s computer, allowing them to extract data and install further malware.

Oldrea appears to be custom malware, either written by the group itself or created for it. This provides some indication of the capabilities and resources behind the Dragonfly group.

Once installed on a victim’s computer, Oldrea gathers system information, along with lists of files, programs installed, and root of available drives. It will also extract data from the computer’s Outlook address book and VPN configuration files. This data is then written to a temporary file in an encrypted format before being sent to a remote command-and-control (C&C) server controlled by the attackers.

The majority of C&C servers appear to be hosted on compromised servers running content management systems, indicating that the attackers may have used the same exploit to gain control of each server. Oldrea has a basic control panel which allows an authenticated user to download a compressed version of the stolen data for each particular victim.

The second main tool used by Dragonfly is Trojan.Karagany. Unlike Oldrea, Karagany was available on the underground market. The source code for version 1 of Karagany was leaked in 2010. Symantec believes that Dragonfly may have taken this source code and modified it for its own use. This version is detected by Symantec as Trojan.Karagany!gen1.

Karagany is capable of uploading stolen data, downloading new files, and running executable files on an infected computer. It is also capable of running additional plugins, such as tools for collecting passwords, taking screenshots, and cataloging documents on infected computers.

Symantec found that the majority of computers compromised by the attackers were infected with Oldrea. Karagany was only used in around 5 percent of infections. The two pieces of malware are similar in functionality and what prompts the attackers to choose one tool over another remains unknown.

Multiple attack vectors
The Dragonfly group has used at least three infection tactics against targets in the energy sector. The earliest method was an email campaign, which saw selected executives and senior employees in target companies receive emails containing a malicious PDF attachment. Infected emails had one of two subject lines: “The account” or “Settlement of delivery problem”. All of the emails were from a single Gmail address.

The spam campaign began in February 2013 and continued into June 2013. Symantec identified seven different organizations targeted in this campaign. The number of emails sent to each organization ranged from one to 84.

The attackers then shifted their focus to watering hole attacks, comprising a number of energy-related websites and injecting an iframe into each which redirected visitors to another compromised legitimate website hosting the Lightsout exploit kit. Lightsout exploits either Java or Internet Explorer in order to drop Oldrea or Karagany on the victim’s computer. The fact that the attackers compromised multiple legitimate websites for each stage of the operation is further evidence that the group has strong technical capabilities.

In September 2013, Dragonfly began using a new version of this exploit kit, known as the Hello exploit kit. The landing page for this kit contains JavaScript which fingerprints the system, identifying installed browser plugins. The victim is then redirected to a URL which in turn determines the best exploit to use based on the information collected.

Trojanized software
The most ambitious attack vector used by Dragonfly was the compromise of a number of legitimate software packages. Three different ICS equipment providers were targeted and malware was inserted into the software bundles they had made available for download on their websites. All three companies made equipment that is used in a number of industrial sectors, including energy.

The first identified Trojanized software was a product used to provide VPN access to programmable logic controller (PLC) type devices. The vendor discovered the attack shortly after it was mounted, but there had already been 250 unique downloads of the compromised software.

The second company to be compromised was a European manufacturer of specialist PLC type devices. In this instance, a software package containing a driver for one of its devices was compromised. Symantec estimates that the Trojanized software was available for download for at least six weeks in June and July 2013.

The third firm attacked was a European company which develops systems to manage wind turbines, biogas plants, and other energy infrastructure. Symantec believes that compromised software may have been available for download for approximately ten days in April 2014.

The Dragonfly group is technically adept and able to think strategically. Given the size of some of its targets, the group found a “soft underbelly” by compromising their suppliers, which are invariably smaller, less protected companies.

Two additional links are below for more information and key use.

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/Large%20Power%20Transformer%20Study%20-%20June%202012_0.pdf

http://www.fgdc.gov/usng/

 

 

 

Terror War, the Generational Future

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Terror did not begin on September 11, 2001 with the attacks in America. The real war began however soon after that. But terror goes back many decades as early perhaps as 1982 with the founding of Hizbullah a terror network with global cells and founded by Muslim clerics. Iran financially supports Hizbullah and the leadership is trained and led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to kill or manage all apostates in the Middle East and eventually globally beginning with Jews.

So, pulling out of Iraq did not end the war there and leaving Afghanistan will not end the war there. Hostilities against the enemies of the West have long since been concluded under the Obama administration but those enemies have not ceased their hostilities against any non-Muslim globally. There is no mission to defeat the enemy, there is no rules of engagement to win ,there is no objective to seek victory.

Terror is IN the future and the next generations are being trained today.

It was earlier this year during the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza where it was determined that Hamas hold summer camps and training for as many as 1000,000 child soldiers. These children even in regular schools are taught to hate Jews and Christians, they are taught twisted history, they are taught to build tunnels, to build bombs and to use weapons larger than their own body size.

Do you ever wonder where the United Nations is on this? The United Nations Relief and Works Agency knows and has been part of the program funding camps.

 

Today fighters hired and trained by al Qaeda, al Nusra and Daesh (ISIS) are as young as 12 years old, as their own older family members have already been in the fight and died. The family needs to money to live so younger fighters can earn $500.00 per month to support the home. Loyalty has vanished between fighting for al Nusra or Daesh, it is a matter of only safety and money.

So what comes next in terror is future recruits, a new and constant crop of not only female fighters but the never-ending flow of adolescent trainees.

 

NBC News reports

On the streets of Syria and Iraq, ISIS militants are building a small army — literally. The use and recruitment of child soldiers is a war crime. It’s also a practice which ISIS has boasted of in photos and videos splashed across the Internet with titles such as the “Cubs of the Islamic State.” 

Instead of archery and merit badges of Cub Scouts, these boys learn how to clean, disassemble and shoot machine guns. While their peers in the U.S. build campfires, ISIS’ diminutive devotees go from Quranic recitation drills to the front line of battle.

“They teach them how to use AK-47s,” one Iraqi security official told NBC News on condition of anonymity. “They use dolls to teach them how to behead people, then they make them watch a beheading, and sometimes they force them to carry the heads in order to cast the fear away from their hearts.”

Some graduates of the camps are used as human shields and suicide bombers. Other wee warriors man checkpoints, hoist heavy weapons and act as enforcers. Beyond the additional fighting power, analysts and experts say brainwashing young recruits is a strategic move aimed at ensuring the militant group’s longevity by providing a ready-and-willing next generation of jihadis.

“It’s being done for the same reasons that Hitler had the Hitler Youth,” explained Charlie Winter, of the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based anti-extremist think tank. “That’s effectively what we’re seeing here — military training and ideological training.” 

The potent blend of military training with ideology is especially dangerous for impressionable minds, which is exactly why ISIS is targeting the young.

“There’s no term better suited to it than brainwashing,” Winter said. “These children won’t have any point of reference other than jihadism so the ideology will be a lot more firm in their heads and a lot more difficult to dislodge.”

While the use of child soldiers in Syria is not an abuse unique to ISIS, it is “most prominent” with the group, according to Winter, and billed as a necessary “education.”

“It’s something to be expected because we know that they have and are trying to be a state — which means they have to have an educational system,” he said. “Obviously though it’s not going to be secular — teaching evolution and stuff — but going to be teaching the principles of jihad.”

Read more here and see the videos.

 

Circuit Court War over Marriage?

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Slowly state by state, laws are being passed allowing gay marriages and throwing the Defense of Marriage Act into ignored and obscure history. Well that was actually easy as the Supreme Court rendered a decision to do that in 2013.

However, States have their own legislatures, their own Constitutions and much of the time the ethos of ‘separate but equal’ and been redefined. So, very little has been mentioned about Circuit Court rulings on marriage. The Sixth Circuit comes into play with their recent decision,  a good one. Question is, how will this play with the other Circuit Courts and what will the Department of Justice do to interfere?
The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) played an instrumental role in a ruling issued late yesterday afternoon in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to preserve traditional marriage, stopping the homosexual juggernaught that had been sweeping the nation.   In its 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit upheld marriage laws from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote the opinion joined by Judge Deborah Cook. 
The Thomas More Law Center played a significant role in crafting Michigan’s constitutional amendment upheld by the Court.  TMLC also filed an amicus brief (friend of the court brief) on behalf of a Coalition of Black Pastors and Christian leaders supporting traditional marriage.
Responding to yesterday’s ruling, Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President and Chief Counsel commented, “This opinion is an historic and elegant defense of the principle of judicial restraint and deference to democracy and the voice of the people.  It could well become the catalyst for the US Supreme Court to finally take-up the issue as well as the basis of an ultimate Supreme Court decision to allow the individual states to decide the definition of marriage.”

The Sixth Circuit ruled that laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman were constitutional, even in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in U.S. v. Windsor, which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”).  The Sixth Circuit held that deference must be given to the individual states to regulate marriage, and that defining marriage between a man and a woman—as it has been for “thousands of years,” “span[ning] almost every society in history”—is a constitutional and rational act of the states.
TMLC played an intricate part in this crucial victory.  In 2004, TMLC crafted the Michigan Marriage Amendment which was upheld by yesterday’s decision.    TMLC cautiously ensured that the Marriage Amendment served no discriminatory purpose and explained its reasoning in the amendment itself, stating:
To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.
Mich. Const. Art. I, § 25.
Michigan’s Marriage Amendment was passed by fifty- nine percent of Michigan’s voters.  Supporters of “homosexual marriage” have not tried to pass their own legislation through the usual channels of democracy, but have tried to use judges to bypass the ballot box. Their strategy has proven successful in several courts across the county. It failed in the Sixth Circuit.
Instrumental to the Sixth Circuit’s decision was TMLC’s amicus brief that provided a full legal analysis explaining why marriage amendments that protect traditional marriage are constitutional.  The brief was submitted as part of TMLC’s national strategy to defend laws protecting traditional marriage and to enlighten courts on why traditional marriage is the only sound response to the approximately 90 cases filed in the past year by pro-homosexual activists.  TMLC has filed several briefs nationally as an answer to this assault on Christianity and traditional family values. 
TMLC’s amicus brief was filed on behalf of a Coalition of African-American pastors and Christian leaders to reflect the voice of a majority of African-Americans that discrimination because of one’s sexual preference is not the same thing as racial discrimination and that tradition and morality should not be discarded as a basis of the law as the pro-homosexual judges have done in their opinions.
A legal team consisting of TMLC’s senior trial counsel, Erin Mersino, and Co-counsels William R. Wagner and John S. Kane of Lansing, MI, has been filing briefs in significant cases dealing with traditional marriage. 
Coalition member, Pastor Danny Holliday of Victory Baptist Church, of Alton, Illinois reacted to yesterday’s ruling, “I am grateful to God because the Sixth Circuit overturned the decisions, concluding the definition of marriage should be left to the voters — not judges — and that voters should be allowed to decide whether gay marriage is a good idea or not.”
Coalition member, Minister Stacy Swimp, of Greater Bibleway Temple, stated, “I thank God that the U.S. 6th Circuit Court has lived up to its appointed responsibility to interpret law rather than create new laws. The ruling is indeed a major victory for traditional marriage and a strong affirmation of our nation’s Judeo Christian values and culture.”
Janet Boynes, another Coalition member reacted, “This is a great victory for those of us who believe in the sanctity of marriage, but we know the fight isn’t over. We pray for Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton and his family as they might have to face the rage of those with opposing views.
The Sixth Circuit adopted many of TMLC’s legal arguments including its point of view that preservation of our Nation’s tradition and morality should not be replaced with the trendy, moral relativism of only the last decade.  The brief states, “Some truths are self-evident. Among them are that men and women are different. In fact, it is clear from our very existence that men are made for women, and women for men. None of us would be here but for that truth. Another self-evident truth is that it is best for children to be raised by their parents whenever possible. There have been many theories to the contrary throughout history, but they have all proven vacuous at best. Public policy that recognizes and acts on these truths is not unfairly discriminatory. In fact, the only way to have sound public policy is to build on such truths.”

 

Obama subervient to Iran and Russia

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America has been caught up in Ebola, the midterm elections and the DACA executive order allowing tens of thousands to come across the southern border. We have been horrified by a handful of beheadings of Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq.

Now the real work begins for Americans to get engaged as some very nefarious events could occur between now and the time the 114th Congress is seated in January of 2015.

It is important to look at the Middle East with particular emphasis as a 3rd Intifada is brewing there again in Israel. Meanwhile, we cannot ignore Vladimir Putin any longer and his aggression on Ukraine and the handful of Baltic States.

The community organizer, Barack Obama cannot compete in any arena with other world leaders that include those of China, Russia and Iran.

On the Denise Simon Experience Radio show hosted by Cowboy Logic Radio, Alex Holstein spend almost two hours putting into perspective matters of geo-politics and the future implications.

Alex Holstein is the Director of Corporate & Government Relations for Geopoliticalmonitor Intelligence Corps.  He holds a BA from the University of Southern California and an MSc. in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics, where he wrote his thesis on the Soviet KGB. Through years of extensive research and worldwide experience, Alex has developed a strong grasp of foreign affairs, maintaining a particular interest in espionage, terrorism, special operations, border security and international relations. A former Executive Director of the Republican Party of San Diego County, he has managed communications and stakeholder engagement for major statewide and national political and issue advocacy campaigns in both California and Washington D.C., including the California Recall 2003 and the US Presidential Election 2004. He is currently a contributing expert for International Security and Intelligence issues at the SUN News Network in Canada. Geopoliticalmonitor Intelligence Corp. GPMGlobalSolutions.com / Geopoliticalmonitor.com

As a subject matter expert with well placed and selected placeholders, Alex explained in layman’s terms the implications of Syria, Iran, Iraq and what the near future holds. To hear the show, click here.
 

Most disturbing is the actions of Putin as noted here:

(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with top security chiefs on Thursday over a “deterioration of the situation” in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russian rebels there accused Kiev of launching a new offensive in violation of a ceasefire.

Sporadic violence has flared since the Sept. 5 truce in a conflict that has cost over 4,000 lives; but the ceasefire has looked particularly fragile this week with separatists and the central government accusing each other of violations.

Andrei Purgin, deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said the Ukrainian army had launched “all-out war” on rebel positions, Russian news agency RIA said.

Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov denied this, saying the army remained in agreed positions.

“We refute these allegations…we’re strictly fulfilling the Minsk memorandum (on a ceasefire),” he said by telephone.

A Kremlin statement said the presidential Security Council, which groups key security and defense officials under Putin’s chairmanship, discussed among other things a “deterioration of the situation in the Donbass due to repeated violations of the ceasefire by the armed forces of Ukraine.”

It did not say what decisions, if any, had been reached over the conflict that broke out in the industrialized east after the overthrow of Ukraine’s Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich in February and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea.

A Reuters witness in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk said there was no sign the conflict was escalating.

Representatives of the separatist regions earlier put out a joint statement calling for a redrafting of the Minsk deal, which established a ceasefire in exchange for Kiev granting “special status” to eastern territories.

Rebels say Ukraine has violated the deal by seeking to revoke a law that would have granted eastern regions autonomy. Kiev says this was a consequence of Sunday’s separatist leadership elections which it says go against the agreement.

The Ukrainian military said three soldiers had been killed on Thursday, reporting a total of 26 separate artillery clashes with separatists.

In summary, make no mistake that the adversaries of America, Iran, Russia and China are working in cadence for their own agendas and completely against America, hence our State Department, National Security Council and the White House and willfully allowing this. Question is to what end?

Who Applauds the Brewing Intifada?

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In recent days, there has been protests, conflicts, murders and explosions in and around Israel. It is important to list these attacks as they demonstrate what may lay ahead.

The following report was released by the Israel Foreign Ministry on Thursday, 13 Marcheshvan. The Palestinians have carried out three terrorist attacks in Jerusalem in less than two weeks and instigated numerous riots on the Temple Mount since the summer. Incitement and the glorification of terrorists have played an important role in triggering the violence and in encouraging further attacks. Rioting on the Temple Mount document.

The past weeks have been marked by a series of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem: One Israeli man was killed and 14 injured, some seriously, in Jerusalem on Wednesday, November 5, when a Palestinian deliberately rammed his commercial van into two separate crowds of Israelis near a light-rail train station and then attacked passers-by with a metal pole. A nearly identical attack took place exactly two weeks earlier (Wednesday, October 22) when a Palestinian steered his car into a light-rail station killing an Israeli-American baby and a woman originally from Ecuador and injuring eight. On Wednesday, October 29, a Palestinian terrorist attacked Yehuda Glick, an American-born Israeli, as he was departing from a conference in central Jerusalem. The terrorist shot Rabbi Glick multiple times and he remains in critical condition. Rioting on the Temple Mount: In the past few months, Palestinian radicals have been trying to breach the status quo by preventing Christians and Jews from visiting the Temple Mount. Palestinian rioters – incited by Hamas and the radical branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel – have attacked visitors as well as the police with stones and fireworks, using the al-Aqsa Mosque as their base of operations.

On November 5, several dozen masked Arabs again rioted on the Temple Mount. As the Mughrabi Gate for non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount opened as usual, the rioters came out of their prepared positions inside the al-Aqsa mosque and launched stones and fireworks at police stationed at the gate. The police responded with non-lethal measures to prevent injuries. The rioters then returned to the al-Aqsa mosque, positioning themselves behind barricades they built the night before. They targeted the police with the hundreds of fireworks, rocks and iron bars prepared beforehand, all from within the mosque itself. Several police officers were injured. Although as a matter of policy, the police never enter the mosque, following the escalation of attacks from inside the mosque, the police had to take a rare step. A small number of officers walked a few steps into the mosque’s entrance, for a short time, to remove the barricades that were preventing the mosque’s doors from being shut. By closing these doors, the police separated the rioters from their targets, thereby restoring calm to the Temple Mount and enabling peaceful visits to the plaza. A video filmed by the Israel Police clearly shows the Palestinian rioters at the entrance to the mosque, which they have taken over and desecrated as a launching base for their attacks. It is important to note that contrary to a number of media reports, the Temple Mount is not synonymous with the al-Aqsa mosque. Rather, this mosque is one of several structures located within the Temple Mount plaza (called Haram al-Sharif/the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims). Israel places the highest value on freedom of religion and worship. In contrast to Palestinian claims, Israel has made no move to change the decades-old status-quo on the Temple Mount, to which the Government of Israel is committed. Israel is reacting with maximum restraint to Palestinian violence on the Temple Mount. Its goals are to allow Muslims to pray peacefully and for Jews and others to visit safely. The police, despite being targeted, use only non-lethal measures against rioters, such as sponge-bullets and concussion grenades. In contrast, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his “unity government” partner Hamas are operating to undermine the status-quo on the Temple Mount, inciting riots to enflame tensions. Islamic extremists are endangering the safety of the al-Aqsa mosque by transforming it into a base for attacks and using flammable weapons. They store fireworks, Molotov cocktails and other dangerous objects inside the mosque and launch violent attacks from within the structure they claim as their third holiest site. While instigating riots on the Temple Mount, PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself, as well as Hamas, have engaged in incitement to terrorism and violence in Jerusalem.

In recent statements, Abbas said that all means must be used to prevent Jews from going up to the Temple Mount. He called Jewish visitors to their holiest site a “herd.” In the past, Abbas has disseminated lies, claiming that Israel is attacking the al-Aqsa mosque and that Jews are “desecrating” it. The most recent terrorist attack (November 5) is a direct result of the incitement by Abbas and his Hamas partners. The acts of incitement include a condolence letter sent by Abbas (1 November) to the family of the terrorist who shot Yehuda Glick. In the letter that glorifies the shooter, the PA president wrote that he “ascended to heaven as a martyr in the course of defending the rights of our nation, its honor and holy sites.” Abbas’ Fatah movement also published materials exalting the terrorist who carried out the attack on 22 October. For example, both Sultan Abu-Aynayn (an Abbas advisor and Fatah Central Committee member) and Fatah’s official Facebook page praised him as “a heroic martyr.” The international community should strongly condemn Abbas’ incitement and call on the PA president to cease this encouragement of violence and terrorism. The inflammatory language and actions must cease so that calm can return to Jerusalem and its Temple Mount in particular.

Then there is the breaking relationship with Jordan over the mosque closing.

While facing increased Arab riots and terrorist attacks that resemble the underpinnings of a renewed Palestinian intifada (uprising), Israel is simultaneously working to manage tension in its delicate relationship with Jordan, one of its two peaceful Arab neighbors.

On Nov. 5, masked Arab rioters threw rocks and shot fireworks at Israeli security forces on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, forcing Israel to temporarily close the holy site to visitors and touching off a diplomatic spat between the Jewish state and Jordan.

Israel also temporarily closed the Temple Mount to all worshippers last week after an Arab man’s attempted assassination of activist Yehudah Glick, a promoter of Jewish access to the Temple Mount. The preventative move came against the backdrop of weeks of increased Muslim riots and assaults on Jewish residents, including the recent vehicular Palestinian terror attack on Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill light rail station that killed two people. After pressure from U.S. and Muslim leaders, the Israeli police decided to re-open the Temple Mount ahead of Muslim prayers on Oct. 31. Yet Nov. 5 saw another car-ramming attack by a Palestinian driver, this time at the Shimon Hatzadik light rail station in Jerusalem. The latest car attack killed an Israeli Druze border police superintendent and a 17-year-old yeshiva student.

Following the temporary closure on Nov. 5, Jordan threatened to undermine its relations with Israel by recalling its ambassador to the country over Israeli “violations” on the Temple Mount. Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab nations that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

After a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Judeh, accused Israel of “escalating the situation in Jerusalem” and “violations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” the Jordanian news agency Petra reported. Judeh added that Jordan would continue to counter “unilateral Israeli moves through diplomatic and legal means, especially using its vantage position as a member of the U.N. Security Council.”

Grant Rumley, a research analyst specializing in Palestinian politics and the Levant region for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS.org that he believes Jordan’s calculations “are mostly the result of domestic pressure.”

“It’s harmful for the Jordanians to pull their minister from Israel, but it’s even worse for [Jordan’s] King Abdullah domestically if he doesn’t do anything,” Rumley said. “This, combined with a complaint to be filed at the Security Council, amount to symbolic gestures that are likely to appease the Jordanian public (a majority of whom do not support the country’s peace treaty with Israel) while still not severely damaging the strategic relationship with Israel.”

Despite fighting against each other in the 1948 War of Independence and 1967 Six Day War, Jordan and Israel have always maintained a relatively close relationship, which was finally formalized in 1994 with the Israel-Jordan peace treaty.

Today, both countries cooperate in several important areas, including security, the economy, and natural resources. Jordan in September signed a 15-year, $15 million natural gas deal with Israel that was hailed at the time as an “historic agreement.” As top allies of the U.S., Jordan and Israel also cooperate closely on intelligence sharing, especially amid the threat of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in nearby Iraq and Syria. Jordan and Israel have also set up joint industrial parks, including the Jordan Gateway, whose formation was announced in late 2013.

At the same time, Israel and Jordan maintain a unique arrangement in Jerusalem. According to the 1994 peace treaty, Jordan retains custodianship over the Muslim holy sites in eastern Jerusalem, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. But since the late 1990s, Israel has gradually allowed the Palestinian Authority to assert greater control over the site, which has caused some friction with Jordan and a gray area over control.

As part of the Jordan-Israel arrangement on the holy sites, Jews and non-Muslims are permitted to visit the Temple Mount, site of the First and Second Temples, on select days, but are not permitted to pray there. Yet there has been a push by some Israelis for greater Jewish sovereignty at the Temple Mount, including prayer rights.

Meanwhile, Muslim leaders, including in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, have used the Temple Mount issue to incite protests and violence. Recent Palestinian news has been flooded with speeches, articles, and cartoons featuring calls by Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas to “defend” Al-Aqsa “in any way,” Palestinian Media Watch reported.

“This is our Sanctuary, our Al-Aqsa, and our Church [of the Holy Sepulchre]. They (Jews) have no right to enter it. They have no right to defile it. We must prevent them. Let us stand before them with chests bared to protect our holy places,” Abbas said.

For Jordan, the Temple Mount arrangement is just one of the critical issues facing the country.

“Jordan has about four major areas of concern these days: the threat of Islamic State, the economy, the crisis of handling Syrian refugees, and the tensions in Jerusalem,” Rumley told JNS.org.

“Now, for Abdullah, that’s probably exactly the order he’d list these issues in importance,” he said. “For the Jordanian public, it might be the other way around. These are sensitive issues, and Abdullah made a strategic calculation in keeping this spat with Israel at the diplomatic/rhetorical levels. There are too many benefits to the relationship with Israel in regards to the other categories for the king to seriously consider severing ties.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Paul Hirschson, meanwhile, was careful not to place too much blame on Jordan for recent unrest, instead focusing on PA incitement.

“We regret the Jordanian decision [to recall its ambassador], which doesn’t contribute to calming the situation,” Hirschson told JNS.org. “We would expect Jordan to condemn the violence, deliberately instigated from [PA headquarters in] Ramallah.”

Before the news of the recall of the Jordanian ambassador and the threat of diplomatic action in the U.N., reports indicated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah met secretly in Amman on Nov. 1 to discuss the situation in Jerusalem and urge calm.

The two leaders spoke again over the phone on Nov. 6 about the importance of ending violence and incitement over the Temple Mount.

“We agreed that we’ll make every effort to calm the situation,” Netanyahu said after the phone call.

“I explained to him that we’re keeping the status quo on the Temple Mount and that this includes Jordan’s traditional role there, as consistent with the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel,” Netanyahu added, referring to claims in the Muslim world that Israel is seeking to change the status there.

Some Israeli lawmakers, however, feel that Israel is conceding sovereignty over Jerusalem and the holy sites.

“Israeli society needs to decide if it is willing to pay the price for maintaining sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the entire land,” said Member of Knesset Moshe Feiglin (Likud), who has been a leading advocate for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount and recently visited the site. “The weakness being shown in dealing with the Temple Mount reflects on the whole country.”

After the two vehicular terror attacks on Nov. 5, Netanyahu placed the blame on Palestinian incitement.

“This attack was the direct result of the incitement of Abbas and his Hamas partners,” Netanyahu said. “This front of hate wants to run over all of us. Peace will come when Abbas stops calling Jews ‘defilers’ and he stops embracing murderers.”

Last week, Abbas’s Fatah movement declared Oct. 31 to be a “day of rage” in Jerusalem, calling on Palestinian “fighters” to defend Al-Aqsa, while Hamas similarly called for further protests and violence.

While the tension continues to escalate, Rumley believes that the situation has not yet risen to the level of another Palestinian intifada.

“I think there are a lot of analysts out there eager to label this as an intifada,” he told JNS.org. “But intifadas have to have leadership at some point. The first started leaderless before local committees sprouted up. The second [Intifada] was top-down coordinated. So far, the situation in East Jerusalem is leaderless.”

“What we’re seeing instead is not so much local leadership as it is external groups attempting to steer the situation,” added Rumley. “Hamas calling for protests, Abbas calling for days of rage, etc. … Right now, these attacks and clashes appear to have a short shelf life, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way in the future.”