The press has noted that Israel launched a new generation of “communications” satellite into orbit this week: the Amos-4. Built by Israel Aerospace Industries at a cost of $365-million, it was successfully launched in Kazakhstan.
What is less known is that the Amos-4 has an important military payload aboard. In fact, the Ministry of Defense is one of the most important customers for this project. The defense minister watched the launch from a live feed in Israel. The satellite contains advanced spy gear allowing Israel to surveill military and/or nuclear facilities in Iran and Syria.
If the IDF is to operate far outside Israel’s borders (places like Iran, for example) it needs the military capabilities offered by Amos-4, which will provide reliable and encrypted command and control for advanced weapons systems. IAI’s CEO even eerily characterized such systems as the “eyes of the State.” Somehow in Hebrew, this phrase sounds warm and patriotic, while in English it sounds like it comes right out of Orwell (or Snowden).
Two months before the IAF strike that destroyed a reputed Syrian nuclear reactor, Israel launched Ofek 7, which spent much of its time monitoring the site. One may presume that Amos-4 will similarly patrol extremely sensitive operations by the Iranian and Syrian authorities including chemical weapons and nuclear installations like Arak and Fordo. If history is a guide, this launch may presage another Israeli attack, this one on Iran. Israeli political-intelligence circles expect Bibi to decide on whether to attack Iran sometime in 2014. My source says the launch “is thought to be connected to the possible attack.“ That being said, I wouldn’t use this development alone as evidence proving one is imminent.
Though I’ve heard no other media site suggest this, Israel is deeply anxious about the security of the off-shore gas projects it is developing in the Mediterranean. It faces competing claims from Lebanon, Gaza and Turkish Cyprus about infringment of territorial sovereignty. I’d certainly see the satellite offering defensive monitoring of the exploration sites and any military preparations or similar threats to them.
Though the news report again doesn’t state this, following from Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s ability to intercept and monitor much of the e-mail and telephone traffic in the U.S., we may presume that projects like Amos-4 could enable Israel to do the same to virtually all its enemies, including some countries like Russia which are nominally not enemies.
An Israeli friend alerted me to this story, based on a Channel 2 news segment reporting the intelligence function. But the report was censored and the cleansed version doesn’t mention any of this.
A confidential Israeli source also told me that all the Amos-series satellites are devoted to SIGINT-gathering and are affiliated with the ECHELON network, which:
…Is capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of…satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links…
My source added that Israel is the 6th – unofficial and undeclared – member of Five Eyes. This means that the original trusted members of the intelligence alliance–the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK–decided to open their ranks to Israel, a nation not known particularly to play by the rules when it comes to intelligence matters.
Amos-4 follows from Israel’s pioneering series of space satellites, called Ofek. First launched 25 years ago, they offered the IDF its first capability to begin spying on Iran and the military activities of other hostile nations (like Syria’s nuclear reactor in its eastern desert). The news report notes that Israel’s satellites travel in a westerly orbit that counters that of the earth, which would diminish the likelihood that it would fall on the territory of a hostile state.
So if you’re an Israeli reading about the impressive commercial communications achievements expected from this piece of hardware, you’ll know what Israel’s intelligence apparatus is hiding from your countrymen (and women).
dear richard lacking your sources this is a general inquiry
…….as i said before the ofeq 7 satellite[according to aviation week & space technology] was launched expressly for the raid on the syrian ‘reactor’ which in my opinion was a ‘hot’ cell setting up for the assembly of a nuclear warhead……israel’s red line
the ‘reactor ‘ had no cooling towers and no power transmission lines and the stike that destroyed it resulted in the debris being completely bulldozed over and covered with earth…….all that scattered plutonium a bit embarrassing perhaps ????
north korean scientists were also reported killed in the strike……..not even a diplomatic protest of note
the ofeq 7 sat was able to beam down to attacking fighters on approach the complete picture of the terrain in front of them …the on board computers on the fighters matched this data to a electronic path in front of them received by their sensors…a totally passive approach ….presumably ‘terrain’ includes radar and other military transmission….
according to aviation week israel reached deep into its technological quiver to carry out the raid ….no offeq 7 no air strike………..priority one target ?????
then israel ‘lost’ a satellite………offeq 8 !!!!!
it was supposed to be lauched from india then was hastily removed from the launcher
the nexrt launch was offeq 9 in ‘retrograde’ orbit over the mediterranean using a jericho missile as its launcher
what happened to the hastily withdrawn offeq 8 ????
and why kazakstan instead of india ???? for the new series of satellites
my guess is that the reports that offeq 8 was secretly launched in a classified US launch are correct
the inference is that to over come the ‘inverse’ problem of transmitting to a fast moving fleet of missiles bearing down on their target was solved by putting on board a small reactor [plutonium] possibly experimental technology demonstrator
offeq 8 was to have enough power to send signals that were stronger than say easily jammable GPS and also across a wider band to the missiles …not the aircraft that launched them…..offeq 8 was to take command of air lauched missiles [like the spice series which have electro optical guidance] letting the bombers get out of dodge quickly
the technology for a reactor in a satellite comes from the current series of landers on mars[courtesy NASA]
it may be as small as only 2-3 kilos of plutonium on an experimental basis………but of course the public have no right to know this do they ?????no of course not keep up the good work richard
@Peter Dawson: Can you provide those links to those Aviation Week, etc. articles. They sound most interesting.
@ Richard
” calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of…satellite transmission”
If you’ll look at the back side of your phone, fax machine or computer, there is a phone line / cat 5 cable, that leads to a jack in the wall. If you’ll open the jack in the wall you will see there is a cable leading to the phone company / internet company hub. In short most of the worlds communication traffic is conducted via physical lines. How can a satellite tap on those line’s ?
@ H. Mor: Read the Wikipedia links which describe how Ofek, Amos & ECHELON satellites work. I offered the links precisely to avoid the sorts of questions you’re asking. The information is right there. As Hillel said: “Now go and study.”
@ Richard
Satellite can pick radio wave signals, they can’t pick phone or internet transmission which aren’t radio wave based. Most telephony in the world isn’t radio wave based.
since the US has physical access to the PSTN’s there is no reason to develop a multi-billion dollar satellite to achieve what A. Can’t be done. B. one could achieve much cheaper connecting to the PSTN’s.
no please adopt your own suggestion and go learn. You may know something about the middle-east but technology isn’t your forte.
@ H. Mor: Since you appear to be thick & either haven’t read the article to which I linked or you did read it and missed out on the content. Here is the passage on ECHELON:
ECHELON can clearly do precisely what you claim it can’t. Amos 4 is part of ECHELON. I don’t know precisely how it fits into the program, but it does. So whether or not Amos 4 itself can intercept communications on a massive scale is immaterial since the raison d’etre of ECHELON is to do so. Israel, as a secret partner in FIVE EYES, will have access to the intelligence produced by ECHELON. ECHELON partners will presumably have access to the spy data collected by Amos 4.
Any questions? Hillel said: Now go & study. You didn’t.
@ Richard, and you call me thick ?
Look at what you quoted “dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communication” shall i make it bold so it would be easier for you to comprehend ?
Satellites can intercept radio waves and all radio wave based communication. Period. They can’t communicate with PSTN’s unless they are radio wave based (and there are many PSTN’s which handle wireless communication for example)
Think at it this way, when you want to tap wire someone’s land line you need to physically have access to his line.
Echelon was / is a huge program, it consist of much more then satellites. Parts of it involved interception of PSTN communication.
@ H. Mor: As with so many Israeli men, you swagger and think your swagger substitutes for substance. You haven’t refuted the Wikipedia article which makes very clear that ECHELON (and Amos 4 as part of it) gives Israel access to all the methods of communication mentioned in the quoted passage.
As part of ‘5 Eyes’ does this mean Israel can do NSA-type intercepts on American civilians, without having to get authorization (let alone FISA Court authorization) from the US?
@ Bluto,
Does your question means that the US get the approval of Israeli courts for it’s spying activity against the state of Israel ?
“http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html”
@ H. Mor: If Israel didn’t run U.S. spies like Jonathan Pollard & scores of others over the years, then the U.S. might not need to devote tons of counter-espionage resources to tracking Israeli spies here.
Oh, & if Bibi’s planning to attack Iran unilaterally as he’s implied he would scores of times, we certainly need to engage in such spying efforts in order to fend off some of the worst damage such an attack would cause to U.S. relations with the Arab world.
@ Richard
“Oh, & if Bibi’s planning to attack Iran unilaterally as he’s implied he would scores of times, we might not need to engage in such spying efforts.”
It’s a bit off topic, but the last performance of your president shows Bibi was right. Israel should not and can not count on anyone else to solve its own problem. The west will talk itself to death before taking action.
History has a very obnoxious tendency of repeating itself.
@ H. Mor: Between talking and dropping bombs I know what I prefer. YOu apparently prefer the Samson option leading to countless deaths & destruction of the enemy of your own people. “In blood and fire will Judea fell.” It can fall again you know.
@ Richard
For you it’s a zero sum game.
For us, the saint majority, there is a lot that can be done between diplomacy to throwing nukes on a neighboring country.
@ H. Mor: That was an inarticulate comment. I think you meant “sane majority,” though I’m not sure. As for what you meant by “zero sum game,” I haven’t a clue.
BTW, if you are sane then the rest of the world has gone mad. Further, you’re not in the majority as the rest of world disagrees with practically every Israeli policy including your wish to bomb Iran.
“For us, the saint majority…”
Canonization is fast these days, isn’t it?
@ Meni Zehavi: Yes, I thought he was offering sainthood to Israeli right-wingers like himself! Considering Jews don’t have saints (at least not in the sense Catholics do) I found that slightly heretical!
@ Richard
I guess that one you can’t talk substance you will bolster your readers mistakes.
Great debate, keep up the good work.
You are missing the point of my question, conveniently.
I don’t want my government spying on me and even MORE importantly, I don’t want my government giving permission to Israel to spy on me. Got it?
Israeli apologists used the same tactics when Netanyahu was openly interfering in the 2012 presidential election as he desperately tried to get Romney elected so he could suck the US into a war with Iran. Israeli apologists would always pipe up and say, ‘well, the US interferes in ISRAELI elections’.
Who cares about Israeli elections? – it’s not an equivalence to anyone other than someone trynig to use it as a hasbara tactic
For what it’s worth:
1. I have no problem with a satelite reading my mails, listening to my calls or knowing anything and everything about me. I have nothing to hide.
2. I only have a problem if the info is misused, i.e. political persecution where no illegality is involved.
3. I have no problem with the fact that such surveilance exists and it is concealed from the public – that’s why it’s done by the SECRET SERVICE. In John Cleese’s immortal words from Monty Python, “we can’t have Russians in the secret service as it wouldn’t be secret then”.
4. I sincerely believe that the front line of every country’s defence is its secret service, and the better that service the better the defence.
@ shmuel: I disagree with every point you raised above and your willingness to compromise your own privacy & that of your fellow citizens is precisely the difference between a real democracy and whatever Israel is.
@ Richard
And you don’t think your email’s in Your democracy are being read by the NSA after your involvement with Shamai Leibowitz ? how does that makes the US less a Democracy ?
Of course my communications are of interest to U.S. & Israeli intelligence & I expect that. But the difference is that violating my privacy will raise far more alarm here than it would in Israel.
@ Richard
Not only the NSA @ Shabak read your emails, apparently they don’t need to hack your account to do so.
They can intercept it at the ISP level, use the key’s and just read everything.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security
I don’t think anyone is making a big fuss out of it.
@ H. Mor: So you think the fact that the Guardian published this information means no one is making a big fuss about it? You think the Guardian publishes information of little or no value or interest to people??