Palestinian Teenager Hacks IDF Drones
Late last month, a 23-year-old Gazan man named Majad Awidah was making his way to a meeting with some singers. As the Palestinian casting director for Arabs Got Talent, the Middle East’s equivalent of American Idol, and the chairman of the Palestinian Talent Club, an organization for aspiring musicians and performers, Awidah spent most of his days holding auditions in a small room in an unassuming hotel in the center of Gaza City. It was important to him, he told a TV interviewer last year, to have Palestinians represented in talent shows on TV stations across the Arab world, proof that his beleaguered people were resilient and proud. But his artistic endeavors were interrupted: In an operation whose details have not yet been published, he was arrested by agents of the Shin Bet and sent to Israel to stand trial.
The charges against Awidah, detailed in an indictment filed yesterday to an Israeli court, read like the script of a fast-paced Hollywood movie. Side by side with his artistic endeavors, Awidah attended a local university and graduated with a dual degree in electrical engineering and computer science. Walking around town, he looked every bit the nerd, a gangly youth with a baby face, neatly cropped hair, and unfashionable oval glasses, always carrying around whatever discarded bits of hardware he managed to find. Classwork came easily for Awidah, and so he began to tinker, amusing himself and his friends with his crafty inventions. From time to time, he would display his creations, like a durable fire-fighting robot, in local electronics shows, trying to get someone to pay attention. And because Gaza is governed by murderous theocrats who snuff out all freedom and enterprise, the people Awidah was most interested in impressing were the bearded zealots who despotically command all of Gaza’s resources. If the mullahs paid attention, Awidah believed, they could help him further his career and he, in turn, could help them fight Israel.
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