Kilroy was here

The gates of Jerusalem have many and varied associations, some ancient some new. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to verify an anecdote/legend related to the Jaffa Gate. Just inside the gate behind a wall

topped by a railing are two graves dating back to the sixteenth century.

Most tour guides are too pressed for time to mention them, however the few guides that stop their groups near the graves tell a fascinating story.

In the mid sixteenth century the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dreamt he was being eaten by lions. On waking from the nightmare he consulted the equivalent of what we call an analyst (shrink). The Ottoman interpreter of dreams told him that Jerusalem was unprotected and unless he rebuilt its walls he would be devoured by lions. Suleiman famed as a lawmaker, skilled military tactician and builder commissioned the construction of a fitting wall to protect the Holy City. In 1538 the wall was completed and on inspection Suleiman was shocked to discover that Mt Zion and King David’s tomb were not enclosed by the new wall. He summoned the two architects responsible for the oversight and had them executed. Although they had left David outside the walls Suleiman nevertheless appreciated the hapless architects’ impressive work and decided to bury them inside the city near the Jaffa Gate.

Another version of the story claims that Suleiman hanged them to prevent them from ever again building anything as magnificent as the walls of Jerusalem.

If you like an urban legend take your pick, perhaps embellish it a bit.

On the other hand if you want to know what really happened take the whole dubious account “with a very large pinch of salt.”

Without a doubt Suleiman built the walls of Jerusalem but the dream of the lions eating him and the fate of the architects are fanciful figments of the Ottoman imagination. The two tombs by the gate bear no inscription so there is no way they can be identified.

Four hundred and sixty years later Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem.

Depending on who the tour guide is visitors to Jerusalem are told one of two versions of how the Kaiser entered the city.

Wilhelm and his wife Augusta-Victoria arrived with a huge entourage. Their host the Sultan Ahmed Hamid hard put to accommodate the German court and its attendants arranged to have a magnificent pavilion erected for them opposite the Jaffa Gate. Since the Jaffa Gate is the only gate that doesn’t face directly outwards but faces the north at a 90˚ angle, the Sultan breached the wall next to the gate in order give his honoured guests direct and unimpeded access to the city. Some say the real reason for the breach in the wall was that an old tradition predicts that all the armies conquering Jerusalem will enter the city by way of the Jaffa Gate. So the Germans were diverted through the newly opened gap.

Many tour guides mention that Wilhelm entered Jerusalem on horseback and if he passed through the Jaffa Gate he would have to stoop or at least have to remove his helmet. Others insist that Wilhelm and Augusta Victoria were driven in a carriage that was too wide to pass through the Jaffa Gate.

Fortunately these contradictions can be resolved. There are eye witness accounts of the momentous occasion and at least one photographer recorded the event.

Theodore Herzl met the Kaiser twice during imperial visit to the Holy Land. They met the first time when Wilhelm was en route to Jerusalem. Three days later they met outside the pavilion just before the entourage entered the city. According to Herzl and his biographers Wilhelm was mounted on a white horse. It seems that the colour of the horse adds confusion to the narrative. In the photograph of the historic meeting between Herzl and the Kaiser the horse is dark brown or black. On closer examination it’s clear that the photograph is a fake. In the original photograph the excited photographer left Herzl out of the frame. Later on when he realised what he had done and not wanting to miss a photo-op he performed a primitive piece of late nineteenth century “Photoshop” with a photomontage of Herzl in the picture and the Kaiser cut and pasted on another horse.

As for the people who insist that Wilhelm and Augusta Victoria drove into Jerusalem in their carriage, reliable eye witnesses attest that he was on horseback.

Nineteen years later General Edmund Allenby accompanied by a small entourage of officers and diplomatic representatives entered Jerusalem as a conqueror through the Jaffa Gate. Out of respect for the holy status of the city Allenby and his men dismounted outside the gate and entered on foot.

The haughty Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t get off his high horse but the humble General Allenby saw fit to dismount.

He is also more controversially alleged to have said, "Today the crusades have ended.”

Maybe Allenby fulfilled the prophesy regarding Jerusalem’s conquerors. Maybe not, fifty years later the IDF burst through the Lions Gate when it conquered Jerusalem. If you are still clinging to Suleiman’s dream by somehow linking it to the Lions Gate, forget it, the lions sculpted on the gate’s masonry look like and probably are leopards.

This lengthy preamble serves to make a simple statement, namely that narratives in the Middle East are invariably convoluted and unreliable.

The truth is often hidden under layers of anecdotes and legends.

If Kaiser Wilhelm was loath to get off his high horse Palestinians and Israelis have adopted equally lofty attitudes in their wheeling and dealing efforts to attain a peace accord. The Palestinians insist Israel extend the building freeze in the West Bank while Israel is trying to make the Palestinians define Israel as a Jewish State. You might think a skilled intercessor would be able to phrase an elegant vaguely worded document that both freezes and thaws construction carried out by a state that is both Jewish and pluralistic.

While Clinton, Mitchell, Abbas and Netanyahu are agonizing the semantics of the much needed document I want to pose another riddle.

Actually the riddle was posed this week by PC Magazine, "Who's behind Stuxnet? The American? The Israelis?" In case you haven’t heard, Stuxnet is a computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran's race for a nuclear weapon. If you are looking for motive, means and opportunity you might accuse either the US or Israel, perhaps both of them. Motive and means exist and opportunity can be created. Since we all want to see Iran’s nuclear programme come to a grinding halt let’s thank the person, persons or country that is causing the Iranians so much consternation.

Our normally loquacious politicians are remarkably reticent about Stuxnet.

“Speech is silver but silence is golden.”

PC Magazine provided an interesting chart showing the worm’s discriminating distribution. Almost 60% of the hits were in Iran and 18% in Indonesia.

New York Times journalist John Markoff says the attack was silent but not subtle. “As in real warfare, even the most carefully aimed weapon in computer warfare leaves collateral damage. “The Stuxnet worm was no different.”

PC Magazine is more generous in its assessment of the worm. “The security research world is oohing and ahhing lately at what may turn out to be the most sophisticated malware attack ever:

Stuxnet appears to be more than just another malware attack, and more than just another targeted attack. Many believe that it is a government-sponsored attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.”

Markoff believes the malware was hastily and sloppily contrived. The fact that it was detected and not totally discriminating causing damage, albeit on a smaller scale, in other places seems to confirm this. Furthermore he cites, “An even more remarkable set of events surrounded the 2007 Israeli Air Force attack on what was suspected of being a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction.Accounts of the event initially indicated that sophisticated jamming technology had been used to blind the radar so Israeli aircraft went unnoticed. Last December, however, a report in an American technical publication, IEEE Spectrum, cited a European industry source as raising the possibility that the Israelis had used a built-in kill switch to shut down the radar.

A former member of the United States intelligence community said that the attack had been the work of Israel’s equivalent of America’s National Security Agency, known as Unit 8200.” Comparing it to the Stuxnet attack Markoff says, “But if the attack was based on a worm or a virus, there was never a smoking gun like Stuxnet.”

PC Magazine concludes more emphatically, “Who has a high level of computer security sophistication and an interest in attacking Iranian industrial control systems? Some speculate it's the US, but most of the speculation centers on the Israelis. It's all just speculation, but it's intriguing so it's tempting.”

In another article John Markoff gives Stuxnet a better grade,” These events add up to a mass of suspicions, not proof. Moreover, the difficulty experts have had in figuring out the origin of Stuxnet points to both the appeal and the danger of computer attacks in a new age of cyberwar.

For intelligence agencies they are an almost irresistible weapon, free of fingerprints. Israel has poured huge resources into Unit 8200, its secretive cyberwar operation, and the United States has built its capacity inside the National Security Agency and inside the military, which just opened a Cyber Command. “ Markoff who wrote the article jointly with David E Sanger, hints that there is one clue that seems to implicate Israel. “Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran's race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment. “

It sounds a little farfetched and has led some people to revive the old “Kilroy was here” graffiti of generations ago. One of them mentioned a report from the WWII era when German intelligence found the phrase on captured American equipment. This led Hitler to believe that Kilroy could be the name or codename of a high-level Allied spy. So maybe it’s simply a red herring.

While we are searching for clues I might as well quote from an interview with Udi Shani, Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defence that appeared last month in Jane’s Defence Weekly. “Israel requires unprecedented investment in space platforms, cyber-warfare technology and missile defence to succeed in combating new strategic threats.” Shani referred again to the “cyber-world” which requires skills and expertise but has unbelievable potential.”

Have a good weekend.

Beni 30^th of September, 2010.

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