Israeli RADAR Jamming Disrupting Satellite TV?

Millions of Israeli satellite television subscribers haven't been able to get service for the past month, according to FlightGlobal.com. While the Israeli government is denying it has anything to do with the jamming that was (probably) done before the September 6th air strikes on Syria—the technique that Israel used to spoof Syria's radar is still unknown, which is troubling to many countries, to say the least—the dates line up.

The interference began shortly after the 6 September Israeli air raid on Syria, which, according to US and UK press reports, was made possible by Israeli use of an electronic warfare system that "blinded" Syria's state-of-the-art Russian-supplied air defence radar.

Some reports linked the satellite TV interference to the Israeli military activity, but this theory was discounted because the interference has continued. The Israeli Government seems as clueless as Yes as to the cause of the problem.

A second theory linked the interference to intelligence ships of different nations sailing in the Mediterranean, but governments quizzed by Israel deny that their intelligence-gathering could be causing the interference.

Finally, Israeli experts said on 9 October that the interference is caused by "a very strong source" the Israeli minister of communications says ministry experts hope to know the source of the interference in "a few days".

That's the first rule of modern democracy, Israel: You can bomb whoever you want, but don't fuck with your citizens' television.

Electronic warfare may have blitzed Israeli TV signals [FlightGlobal.com via Danger Room]

[#1 posted by Tubman , October 12, 2007 9:35 AM]

"the technique that Israel used to spoof Syria's radar is still unknown, which is troubling to many countries, to say the least"

I'd imagine it's pretty troubling to Syria.

Are other countries supposed to know how Israel's secret military tech works?
Maybe the NSA has gone open source too and I never got the memo.

[#2 posted by Isaac , October 12, 2007 10:22 AM]

An annonymous "Senior Military Source" quoted in a Hebrew news story by the Muqata blog seems to think that the ongoing jamming is coming from the Russians:

http://muqata.blogspot.com/2007/10/electromagnetic-terror-attack-against.html

[#3 posted by Joel Johnson , October 12, 2007 10:40 AM]

Obvs. not all military or intelligence tech is public, but this one was an especially big head scratcher for people. We usually have an idea of what's going on -- and someone in the U.S. gov. probably does! -- but this one was a bit of a surprise. (Like all good bombings should be!)

[#4 posted by Anonymous , October 12, 2007 1:39 PM]

Actually the cause for the jamming seems to be a Dutch ship's radar. It apparently stopped two days ago after contacting the ship.

[#5 posted by Anonymous , October 13, 2007 8:43 PM]

Some people have guessed that Israel's very powerful* "Green Pine" radar used in the Arrow missile defense system is causing the disruptions. It makes sense for that particular radar to have been on continuously since the attack, anticipating Syrian ballistic retaliation.

(* So powerful it was once actually considered for use by itself as a directed-energy weapon.)

[#6 posted by docsharp01 , February 29, 2008 12:05 PM]

Interesting story!
I didn't know the issue of jamming satellite TV signals was this serious. I guess anything is possible in that part of the world.
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com