Jewish Chronicle, London-Based Newspaper, Attacked By Hackers

LONDON — Turkish hackers attacked the Web site of Britain's flagship Jewish newspaper, replacing the main page with a Palestinian flag and anti-Semitic writings, the paper's editor said Monday.

The Web site for the Jewish Chronicle – the world's oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper – was defaced for a "couple of hours" on Sunday, editor Stephen Pollard said Monday.

"It did no damage, as far as we can tell," he said. The site was back online by midday Monday.

The hijacked version of the site cached by Google shows a large Palestinian flag against a black background. In a message posted in English and Turkish, a group calling itself the "Palestinian Mujaheeds" quotes from the Quran and attacks Jews in anti-Semitic terms.

The paper said "early indications" were that the cyberattack's perpetrator or perpetrators were operating from a computer in Turkey. It comes a week after the eruption of a damaging diplomatic feud between Israel and Turkey.

Ankara was outraged when Israel summoned its ambassador to express anger over a Turkish television drama that depicts Israeli agents kidnapping children and shooting old men. Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, denied the ambassador a handshake and forced him to sit on a low sofa as the cameras rolled.

Israel has since apologized for the incident, which threatened to poison relations between the traditional allies.

Asked if he thought the hacking incident was related to the spat, Pollard said: "It's a conclusion one could draw. I don't want to speculate."

The Chronicle, founded in 1841, has a weekly circulation of about 30,000.

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On the Net:

http://www.thejc.com/

Comments

[Oleg1]

03:16 PM on 01/20/2010

Hacking of a European paper to protest Israeli policies is not any different from the practice of vandalizing McDonald's in Pakistan to protest Danish cartoons.
The way of ignorance ( especially religiously preoccupied) is ever outside of realm of logic and rationality.

[Matthew]

05:08 AM on 01/20/2010

If the newspaper supported the illegal acts of the state of Israel then it has no right to be published, let alone to be not hacked.

[Oleg1]

03:11 PM on 01/20/2010

Mathew, this is not Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia. We in the West have other ideas about democracy and freedom of the press.

[Ergon]

05:34 PM on 01/20/2010

We also had ideas about apartheid South Africa, and acted upon it.

[Matthew]

09:47 PM on 01/20/2010

Media is not allowed to support and encourage war crimes. Look at the prosecution of radio personalities in Rwanda for encouraging the genocide there. If this London paper supports and encourages any of the acts of occupation that Israel commits then it is supporting illegal war crimes and should be shut down. There is no right to support murder, occupation, illegal theft of land and property, repression, collective punishment, etc.

[semorg]

08:29 PM on 01/19/2010

I'm confused I thought most English papers were Jewish based :P

[hemara]

11:21 AM on 01/19/2010

So Monday night I'm watching an interview with Helen Thomas and after thought I'd see if she had a website, she does, helenthomas.org - and it had also been hacked by a Palestinian/Turkish group complete with photos of burning US flags, rockets, armed militants etc.

There's a logic in a pro-Palestinian group hacking a jewish newspaper, but Helen Thomas' website? I don't get it.

[Ergon]

11:57 AM on 01/19/2010

You know, hemara, back when the Iraq war had just started, a lot of 'jihadi websites' were set up, which thanks to Whois was found to be hosted on US servers based in Los Angeles and Plano Texas (go figure)
Nowdays the propaganda's gotten marginally better, so they're all anonymous or in US ally UAE (go figure)

[hemara]

01:05 PM on 01/19/2010

I remember that Ergon, not surprising, but deeply disappointing.

[mommamia526]

01:59 PM on 01/19/2010

Well, I do not get it either. Other than that, whoever did it, saw an English (American) name, and looking @ her picture, saw a ME face. Just as I look Arabic, or Indian, or whatever, someone else might look like something, or someone, she is not too. And, the U.S. is considered pro Israel by *some*. So, again, I do not get it either, and hacking is a nuisance, but I, too, can give the news item a twist that suits me at this time. We must look and read closely, sothat we are not fooled, time and time again. I did not see Palestinian/Turkish group mentioned.

[Ergon]

10:56 AM on 01/19/2010

This was after they'd been hacked by the Venezuelan Mujahedeen, soon to be followed by the Iranian and the North Korean Mujahedeen :)

[Rand]

11:25 AM on 01/19/2010

As this is an ENGLISH Jewish newspaper, rather than Israeli, they were targeted for simply BEING Jewish

That's pretty much the definition of anti-Semitism

Buy you have no problem with that because...

[CigarGod]

11:58 AM on 01/19/2010

Not sure we have enough information to say that.

But, we do know that hackers, hack. That is just what they do. Just for the sake of hacking.
Anarchists hack to achieve anarchy. That is their only goal.

If hackers only...or even mostly...hacked Jewish sites. you might have a point.

[GZLives]

01:41 PM on 01/19/2010

Of course not

[hemara]

11:35 AM on 01/19/2010

:) Don't forget the original and the best, the infamous Taliban Mujahedeen hack , followed shortly after by the Iraq Mujahedeen attack. And the Yemen Mujahedeen attack, you forgot about that!

It gets even better Ergon: the "Palestinian" hackers apparently don't speak Arabic too well, they use Mujaheeds as plural for Mujahid, not Mujahedeen.

Haaretz dutifully report on the hack:

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143396.html

[shotei]

11:49 AM on 01/19/2010

Hemara, the hackers were Turkish and as you know, don't speak Arabic. Nobody said they were Palestinians. RAND is absolutely right and "There's a logic in a pro-Palestinian group hacking a jewish newspaper" actually sounds like support for anti-semitism.

[juicyju]

11:33 PM on 01/19/2010

Thanks for the link, I would say that the hackers didn't have a very good English translator either.