[HN Gopher] Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spywa...
___________________________________________________________________
Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal
Author : graderjs
Score : 401 points
Date : 2021-08-02 07:52 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com)
| [deleted]
| oars wrote:
| Do the timings of this increased scrutiny have anything to do
| with the current conflict with Palestine?
| simonh wrote:
| I think there's always been scrutiny. It's been clear for a
| long time that Israel has very sophisticated IT
| security/intelligence capabilities and that in addition to
| using them for it's direct national security and military
| goals, these capabilities have been commercialised.
|
| The ugly truth is that offering these capabilities to whoever
| will pay for them is a good business to be in. In addition to
| getting paid for it, Israel also gets access to all the
| intelligence gathered by their services for these clients. It's
| a win-win for them.
|
| The only way to stop them doing this would be to make the costs
| of these activities greater than the benefits. I'm not sure how
| that can be done.
| dang wrote:
| You started a vile flamewar with this comment. Obviously,
| that's largely the responsibility of the commenters flaming
| each other and crossing into religious and other forms of
| nastiness, but still--dropping a lit match at a gas station is
| negligent if not trolling.
|
| As for the commenters downthread: posting personal attacks,
| religious attacks, nationalistic attacks, and similar kinds of
| things is utterly against both the letter and the spirit of the
| rules here, and if you keep it up we will ban you. Please read
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the
| intended spirit of this site to heart. If you can't do that,
| please don't comment until you can.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The "current" conflict has been going on for over 100 years
| emacsen wrote:
| I know that this is probably an innocent comment on your part,
| but the wording of "with Palestine" implies that there are two
| places in a fight, one called Israel, the other called
| Palestine.
|
| This is a simplified explanation of why this label is not
| correct.
|
| Palestinians are in fact three distinct groups of people who
| all self-identify the same way. There are the group of people
| who are Israeli citizens. They used to identify as Israeli
| Arabs, but they've recently (in the last five or so years)
| begun to self identify as Palestinians.
|
| Then there is the group in the West Bank formerly Jordan. This
| is land that Israel captured in the 1967 war, when there was a
| unified effort by the neighboring nations to attack/destroy
| Israel, but Israel won. It returned a majority of the land it
| captured (more than two thirds), kept some. But Jordan did not
| allow citizens living in this land the ability to return to
| Jordan, and they became refugees, being neither Jordanian
| (according to Jordan) or Israelis (according to Israel).
|
| The situation is similar in Gaza, except there is is Egypt, and
| is on the other side of the country. The refugees there are
| former (or descendants of) Egypt.
|
| Both places have had the opportunity to petition the UN to be a
| recognized country, but they've not done so.
|
| You may ask why these three groups call themselves the same
| thing. Why "Palestinian"- because for many of them, this
| unified label also implies in it the idea that Israel should
| not exist and the land should be reverted back to Palestine,
| the name that Israel (and Jordan) had before it was split and
| allocated as Israel.
|
| The PLO, the governing body of the West Bank, would like to see
| the destruction of Israel and it to be returned to Palestine,
| but they're also pragmatists and some (many) believe they would
| accept a two-state solution.
|
| The governing body of Gaza, however, is Hamas, an
| internationally recognized terrorist organization which is on a
| religious mission to kill all non-Muslims (and by Muslim they
| mean a very specific sect/belief system) from the land- no
| Jews, no Christians, etc. They're very similar in ideology and
| methodology to ISIS, but ISIS and Hamas don't get along either
| due to differences in their own philosophies.
|
| Lastly, there are Israeli Arabs, that is fully Israeli citizens
| who were part of or descendants of the land from when Israel
| was formed (or who migrated to Israel) have grievances due to
| the way Arabs are treated in Israel. There are legitimate
| grievances on their part for sure, and there are a wide variety
| of solutions- from political reform, new laws about equality,
| or funding (think US inner-city poverty) to the destruction of
| Israel, and everything in between.
|
| There are problems with creating a two state solution because
| there's no land border between the West Bank and Gaza. They're
| on opposite sides of the country, essentially. It's a bit more
| complex, but look at it on a map and you'll see the issue. It
| would be unreasonable for a unified people to have Israel
| sitting in the middle of its country, or for Israel to give up
| a huge swath of land and be split into two.
|
| And Israel, under the previous government, allowed
| 400,000-500,000 people to create settlements in disputed land
| that was supposed to be kept free of people in an agreement
| founding the demilitarized zone.
|
| If you're an American, that's basically the population of
| Washington, DC. Now what the heck do we do with _those_ people?
|
| But my point is there's no single "conflict with Palestine"-
| there are separate conflicts, each with their own peoples,
| issues, grievances, etc.
| zd123 wrote:
| Have you got a citation that Hamas is on a religious mission
| to "kill all non-muslims".
|
| From what I have read and understood, it's primary focus is
| to resist the Zionists which repeatedly encroach on
| Palestinian land.
|
| Imo, making a comparison to ISIS is a tad bit lazy given the
| historical buildup to the problems in Israel. Just because a
| bunch of guys have big beards and shout in Arabic doesn't
| really make them equivalent in their aims.
| pelorat wrote:
| The goal of Islam is 100% conversion of humanity, and death
| for those who resists. That's literally why it was invented
| 1500 years ag; World peace when everyone's a Muslim. The
| central idea behind the faith.
| tremon wrote:
| As was the military goal of the Roman empire 1000 years
| before that. There's a reason pacificare is alternately
| translated as "to pacify" and "to subdue", the Romans
| didn't make that distinction either.
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
| instead._"
|
| a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| You can't do religious flamewar on HN and if you do it
| again we will ban you. No more of this, please.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| emacsen wrote:
| > Have you got a citation that Hamas is on a religious
| mission to "kill all non-muslims".
|
| Read their own literature, read Wikipedia, read any source
| on Hamas. This isn't a hidden agenda, this is their stated
| goal.
|
| > it's primary focus is to resist the Zionists which
| repeatedly encroach on Palestinian land.
|
| I addressed the issue of "Palestinian" in the previous
| comments. There are extreme Zionists and there are people
| like me who support the idea of a safe place for Jews even
| if we don't support the previous Israeli government- the
| current one is too new to have an opinion on. And we're
| Zionists too. I want to see peace and equality for all the
| people.
|
| > Imo, making a comparison to ISIS is a tad bit lazy given
| the historical buildup to the problems in Israel. Just
| because a bunch of guys have big beards and shout in Arabic
| doesn't really make them equivalent in their aims.
|
| It would be lazy _if I were doing that_ , but I wasn't.
|
| I was explaining their ideology, explaining why it's
| different than the PLO. As for have big beards- Jews have
| big beards too, and some of the Jews with big beards in my
| family speak Arabic as their native language, so what's
| your point?
| dang wrote:
| Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this
| to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on
| or how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| azth wrote:
| > support the idea of a safe place for Jews
|
| Make a "safe space" for them in America or Europe. Don't
| occupy and rape foreign lands.
| jessaustin wrote:
| But... it's in the bible! John Hagee wants to see
| Armageddon! Never mind the fact that most modern Israelis
| (and all of their leaders) are of European rather than
| Semitic descent...
| seoaeu wrote:
| ...actually most Israelis are of middle eastern descent
| azth wrote:
| No they're not. Most came from Eastern Europe.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this
| to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on
| or how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this
| to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on
| or how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| zd123 wrote:
| > Read their own literature, read Wikipedia, read any
| source on Hamas. This isn't a hidden agenda, this is
| their stated goal.
|
| Interesting you say that. I read around and nowhere does
| it say their aim is to "kill all non-muslims". From what
| I have read, it says the organisation wants to resist the
| Zionist occupation.
|
| Looking at the Wiki (perhaps the most easily available
| source of information), it references a book on the
| conflict:
|
| "To evoke the spirit of Jihad (Resistance) among
| Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims; to defend Palestinians
| and their land against the Zionist occupation and its
| manifestations; to liberate Palestinians and their land
| that was usurped by the Zionist occupation forces and
| settlers" [0]
|
| Personally, that to me does not sound like "kill all non-
| muslims". In fact, there are several christian groups
| living under Hamas controlled areas.
|
| > I addressed the issue of "Palestinian" in the previous
| comments. There are extreme Zionists and there are people
| like me who support the idea of a safe place for Jews
| even if we don't support the previous Israeli government-
| the current one is too new to have an opinion on. And
| we're Zionists too. I want to see peace and equality for
| all the people.
|
| That's admiral, and I also would like the same thing. But
| do you think that this is realistically going to happen?
| The government of Israel seems pretty adept at pushing a
| "existential-crisis" narrative. I went to a wedding of a
| my friend whose Grandpa is Jewish and at the wedding he
| was making a speech along the lines of "Israel is for
| God's chosen people (the Jews)". This was an educated
| dude who had lived in different countries. How can
| someone see themselves as God's chosen people, yet want
| complete equality? This problem also effects other
| religions mind you, so not a rant at Zionist Jews only.
|
| > I was explaining their ideology, explaining why it's
| different than the PLO. As for have big beards- Jews have
| big beards too, and some of the Jews with big beards in
| my family speak Arabic as their native language, so
| what's your point?
|
| My point is there is no equivalence in the two
| organisations aims, beyond the somewhat superficial one
| of them speaking arabic and having big beards. ISIS was
| killing countless of Shia muslims in Syria/Iraq. Hamas on
| the other hand is backed by the de-facto Shia state,
| Iran, via another Shia organisation in Lebanon.
|
| 0.[Source](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=icV4k__xMm
| gC&pg=PA106&re...)
| poisonarena wrote:
| What about Hamas's charter?
|
| https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818.htm
|
| " Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a
| Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims. "Let the
| eyes of the cowards not fall asleep." "
|
| I posted it above and was downvoted. This quote, and the
| rest of their charter is filled with crazy stuff.
| zd123 wrote:
| I already replied to your comment above:
|
| Article Thirty Six
|
| "It will never set out against any Muslims or against the
| non-Muslims who make peace with it, here or anywhere
| else. It will only be of help to all associations and
| organizations which act against the Zionist enemy and
| those who revolve in its orbit."
|
| It's clear you are pushing some sort of narrative here,
| rather than objectively looking at the facts. I would
| encourage you to stop blindly following whatever other
| people are telling you and make your own decision
| (whether that agrees with my points or not).
| poisonarena wrote:
| Ignoring that you are being patronizing and everything
| you wrote above could be said about you, but the
| difference, is I am not feigning "objectivity" like you
| or pretending to be neutral. Also your out of context
| quote doesn't magically cancel mine. I didn't write
| Hamas's charter, and why you are defending it, is all too
| obvious.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| You can deny it, but there is a severe problem with
| antisemitism among Hamas and the Palestinian population.
| Even in kids because they learn it in school.
| emkoemko wrote:
| but its okay for the other side to do the same? if not
| worse because they have the power and control.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > I went to a wedding of a my friend whose Grandpa is
| Jewish and at the wedding he was making a speech
|
| Sorry what the hell does this prove? Is this anecdote a
| theory that all Jews think that and somehow implement
| this thinking regarding Palestinians? ?
| zd123 wrote:
| Let me break it down for you.
|
| Do you know what the concept of Gentile[0]? It refers to
| a pretty clear distinction between a jew and non-jew.
|
| Zionists have used this concept in the past to make a
| distinction between the "souls" of Jews and non-Jews.
| This has led to very discriminatory views towards
| minorities in Israel (just look at the polls/surveys for
| independent data).
|
| This has led to a two-tier system in the minds of many
| Israelis, whereby they are the "chosen" people, and that
| Israel is their land, and their land only.
|
| Now if you deny this to be case, explain why the
| treatment of Palestinians is so bad, that Israel
| blatantly violates international law to build
| settlements, and so on. I haven't seen any mass
| demonstrations in Israel against the government. Given
| Israel is a democracy, this must imply that a lot of
| people agree with this state of affairs, is it not?
|
| [0][Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentile)
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Well I think Jews learned the hard way they are
| different, so it makes sense to have a word for someone
| who isn't Jewish. The settlements are a controversial
| topic in Israel, a fact is all of Gaza's settlements were
| dismantled and besides a very vocal minority no one in
| Israel gave a damn.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this
| to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on
| or how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| There are Catholic priests and nuns, and some 1100
| Christians in total living in Gaza which as far as I know
| is controlled by Hamas.
| poisonarena wrote:
| how many jews?
| yellowbanana wrote:
| They all fight for one goal, having a nation named palestine,
| calling them palestine/palestinians makes sense.
| jjgreen wrote:
| > Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization
|
| Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan and the United
| States have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
| Australia, New Zealand, Paraguay and the United Kingdom have
| designated only its military wing as a terrorist
| organization. It is not considered a terrorist organization
| by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria
| and Turkey. In December 2018, the United Nations General
| Assembly rejected a U.S. resolution condemning Hamas as a
| terrorist organization.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas
| noduerme wrote:
| And who could deny the benevolent intentions of Turkey,
| Syria, Iran, Egypt, China, Qatar and Russia? (I have no
| idea what the Norwegians are thinking).
| emacsen wrote:
| They are religious extremists who believe that the entire
| land should be free of anyone whose religious beliefs do
| not match theirs and they don't mind killing innocent
| people, including their own people- women, children, etc.
| to further that goal.
|
| The fact that some countries such as Russia and Turkey
| won't label them as terrorists doesn't change their
| beliefs, nor does it change how dangerous they are not only
| to Israel, but to their own people. They take the "long
| view" that if they need to sacrifice a few dozen, hundred
| or thousand of their own people to achieve their goal, even
| if it takes centuries, they're willing to do that.
|
| It hurts not only Israel, but the people of the Gaza strip
| as well.
|
| I don't want to split hairs about who calls labels them
| what. As I said, my explanation is simplified.
| noduerme wrote:
| Well stated. Not for nothing, people said the same thing
| about the Irgun - and they were right. There were some
| important differences. Point is, terrorism is not a
| solution. Yet "pacifists" are now willing to back
| terrorists here. Why don't they back freedom fighters in
| Kurdistan - no condemnation of the Turkish government for
| labeling _them_ terrorists?
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Yes, but those people aren't Jews.
| zd123 wrote:
| " they don't mind killing innocent people, including
| their own people- women, children, etc. to further that
| goal."
|
| I guess the only difference with the Israeli government
| is that the Israeli government manages to successfully
| avoid killing their own citizens.
|
| Let's be real, they're both as bad as each other, just
| one side has a prettier face.
| nindalf wrote:
| Ah, "both sides bad". Classic. Do you have any other
| novel thoughts you'd like to share with us?
| zd123 wrote:
| What exactly do you disagree with?
|
| I don't need novel thoughts to be stating facts.
|
| Let's see, 2+2=4. Classic (well at least since arithmetic
| was invented). Do you take that to be false?
|
| Bring counter-arguments, not sarcasm please. If anything
| the recent revelations show my point was hitting a little
| too close to home.
| seigando wrote:
| This is insane, antisemitic moral equivalency.
| azth wrote:
| > They are religious extremists who believe that the
| entire land should be free of anyone whose religious
| beliefs do not match theirs
|
| False.
| poisonarena wrote:
| Its true, and have you READ the Hamas Charter?
| https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818.htm Here are
| some quotes:
|
| " Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a
| Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims. "Let the
| eyes of the cowards not fall asleep." "
|
| Article 27 talks about how the PLO(another terrorist
| organization) must be rejected because it is secular.
| zd123 wrote:
| Did you bother reading the exact article you linked?
| Because it literally says the following (and directly
| contradicts your claim):
|
| ______
|
| "Article Thirty Six
|
| ...There is nothing of that at all. It will never set out
| against any Muslims or against the non-Muslims who make
| peace with it, here or anywhere else. It will only be of
| help to all associations and organizations which act
| against the Zionist enemy and those who revolve in its
| orbit."
|
| ------
|
| I mean come on, lazily copying and pasting something you
| spent 3 minutes reading is poor form.
|
| I would encourage folks in this thread to bring a bit
| more objectivity to the issue.
|
| I am not saying Hamas are good or bad (frankly that is
| besides my point here), but I am just stating this recent
| phenomena of painting any muslim organisation as some
| kind of "non-believer" killing machine as ridiculous.
| poisonarena wrote:
| So not only are you doing the _exact_ thing you are
| accusing and criticizing me of doing(because you don 't
| like it), but you didn't address the very clear quote I
| posted, which is not out of context at all. And then you
| finish your attack by pretending you are neutral.
|
| >> mean come on, lazily copying and pasting something you
| spent 3 minutes reading is poor form.
|
| Exactly what you are doing
|
| >> I would encourage folks in this thread to bring a bit
| more objectivity to the issue.
|
| Obvious pandering trying to make your self seem neutral
| when you are not even responding to my quote to your
| comment, but another comment as you are combing the
| thread making sure "your side" is winning.
| noduerme wrote:
| Good condensation. Aside from that, to the parent, it has
| nothing to do with the recent hostilities in Gaza and the
| West Bank. The leak of phone numbers from NSO to the press
| happened in 2020.
| kota2 wrote:
| I long for the day when someone will stand up to Israel always
| bullying and terrorizing helpless people.
|
| At least curb their incessant spying...
| byteman wrote:
| Isn't it a bit weird that all of the criticism is pointed at the
| state in which a private company made this technology and none of
| the criticism is pointed at the actual states that bought and
| used it?
| poisonarena wrote:
| Not weird at all, given the recent uptick in anti-israel
| sentiments in the left, and uptick of antisemitism worldwide
| croes wrote:
| I get it.
|
| Calling out chinese, russian and north korean hacking =
| fighting cyber terrorism.
|
| Calling out israeli hacking = antisemitism
| seigando wrote:
| lol as if those are comparable governments.
| croes wrote:
| I bet the targeted journalists and oppositionists feel
| much better because countries like Saudi Arabia spied on
| them with software from good governments, just like the
| people in Mexico are glad they get shot by good german
| weapons instead of evil russian ones.
| seigando wrote:
| ...wait why are you leaving the u.s. out of any of your
| examples?
| poisonarena wrote:
| you're missing the point, and putting words in my mouth.
| Israeli hacking criticism is not anti-semitism, and thats
| not what I meant. But the thousands of articles coming out
| every week criticizing Israel are largely motivated to
| destroy the countries image. The antisemitism is related
| and undeniable as a side to all of this.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this
| to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on
| or how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| poisonarena wrote:
| I am Israeli, and when I see blatant misinformation being
| brigaded in the tech community that I am a part of, about
| my country, I feel the need to respond. It is actually
| stressful to respond, but I feel the need to because I
| don't think the moderation on these Israeli threads is
| enough. And regarding the guidelines the posters who are
| _targeting_ my comments have no problems being rude,
| patronizing, and breaking guidelines.
| dang wrote:
| I totally get that, I understand, and I feel for your
| situation. But you still have to follow the rules here.
| Other people breaking the rules doesn't entitle you to
| break them. They aren't allowed to break the rules,
| either, and we try our hardest to be as even-handed about
| this as we possibly can.
|
| There are a lot of cognitive biases at work in these
| situations. It always feels like the other person started
| it; it always feels like they're doing worse; it always
| feels like one is being "brigaded" and so on. Mostly the
| others are feeling the same things. Everyone has good
| reasons for what they're fighting for, even if those good
| reasons aren't expressed, and even when the arguments
| they're making are wrong or distorted or one-sided. Since
| everyone is having these similar feelings and
| perceptions, we all have to be super careful about
| moderating (in all senses of the word "moderate"), or
| we're guaranteed a downward spiral. That wouldn't do any
| of us good, regardless of our views on countries or
| anything else.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| poisonarena wrote:
| You are right. I am going to not even click the links
| with the "Israel" in them to save myself anguish.
| Positive vibes only
| dang wrote:
| Thank you for the kind reply. I know it's not easy!
| Believe me I know :)
| [deleted]
| ohashi wrote:
| The article makes a pretty good reason why it's aimed at the
| state. The potentially close relationship between private
| companies and the state and how intelligence is/was likely
| shared between them. If that's true, NSO Group is acting as an
| agent of the state - thus Israel would be spying on France and
| caught doing it. Thus the anger directed at the state level, as
| well as the company and governments. A lot of the government
| you would want to be upset at, well, they don't give a shit and
| that's why people don't like them.
| havelhovel wrote:
| Yet those reasons are circumstantial and unverified claims,
| whereas we know that Morocco spied on France. If, and that is
| an if, Israel received intelligence as a result, Morocco is
| still the country that crossed that line. The framing makes
| no sense. Why is a third party, Israel, limiting fallout
| instead of Morocco?
| mthoms wrote:
| Because Israel is generally thought of as an _ally_ to the
| west.
| sangnoir wrote:
| If it's clearly not a big deal, can you explain why the
| Israeli defense minister is in France?
|
| An Israeli company made a weapon, assembled it, loaded it
| and acted as a spotter for Morocco, who's the party that
| selected the french targets and then pulled the trigger.
| Even if the intelligence wasn't shared, the Israeli
| government should be held responsible for its arms exports.
| wilde wrote:
| There's plenty of criticism for those regimes at baseline. The
| goal is to reduce the amount of surveillance. It is cheaper to
| convince the NSO group to raise its customer standards or to
| provide more direct oversight than to convince each regime to
| stop these activities. Obviously we should try both, but I
| suspect pressure on NSO will reduce more harm in the short run
| because they have more to lose.
| helge9210 wrote:
| Export of cyberweapon is regulated by the state.
| seoaeu wrote:
| And import by those other countries isn't?
| tremon wrote:
| If a nuke sold by the US would be detonated over the heads
| of EU politicians or journalists, you can be sure that the
| US would be blamed for that.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| As if Israel would be the only country selling weapons to the
| Saudis and they even have a tactical excuse aside from making
| money. It is not an excuse and they perhaps shouldn't, but it
| is the reality of weapon deals today.
| [deleted]
| nindalf wrote:
| I'm not surprised that all statements from the Israeli government
| are filled with nothing. "We need to understand what happened"
| means "sorry not sorry".
|
| This spyware is invaluable for the Israeli government because
| they have something that repressive Arab regimes want. These
| regimes can't be bought with money, because some of them like
| Saudi Arabia and UAE have plenty of money. Israel needs friends
| and this is a great way to start and maintain friendships -
| provide a way for these tinpot dictators to cement their power.
| Sure, some people might be annoyed they were spied on but the
| news cycle will move on soon, while Saudi and UAE will remain
| staunch allies. MBS still loves them because Khashoggi remains
| dead.
|
| Israel would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for
| the meddling kids at Amnesty International.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > provide a way for these tinpot dictators to cement their
| power.
|
| That and also have backdoors into their clients' intelligence
| gathering. Knowing who is a good potential enemy of a state is
| always handy.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Some of the "incidentally collected" intelligence may be more
| valuable to Israeli intelligence than it is to Morocco, say,
| a Macron text with his opinion on the JCPA, or what he knows
| about a mysterious explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility.
| They have plausible deniability in that a client state
| performed the targeting, with a "private company" executing,
| and the are _shocked_ to learn of this spying and "need to
| get to the bottom of it".
|
| Having a hot mic on a world leader 24/7, and being able to
| blame someone else for it is invaluable.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| > Sure, some people might be annoyed they were spied on
|
| I think it should be mentioned that other countries spy on
| citizens too. I fail to see what is the difference for Israel
| now. We have ample evidence from multiple whistleblowers that
| governments like to surveil their population.
|
| Furthermore, Israel hasn't had the support it has today.
| Especially at the time multiple countries tried to attack it.
| At the time it basically got its weapons for defense on the
| black market. So scrutinizing questionable defense contracts is
| a weak accusation, especially since all other countries do sell
| weapons to regimes as well.
|
| What you are really criticizing is the success. Making that
| clear might not really helpful, but is factual.
| nindalf wrote:
| > What you are really criticising
|
| I wasn't criticising them at all. I was merely pointing out
| where their interests and incentives lie.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Sorry, it wasn't meant as an objection. Didn't mean you
| with 'you'.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| > I think it should be mentioned that other countries spy on
| citizens too. I fail to see what is the difference for Israel
| now. We have ample evidence from multiple whistleblowers that
| governments like to surveil their population.
|
| And all of them should be called out, every time. "But
| _those_ guys get away with it " isn't a defense.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Well from an Israeli point of view how is this wrong then?
| Maintaining a good relationship with Saudi Arabia is a game
| changer for Israel.
| detcader wrote:
| Is the current world any different from Skyrim or Game of
| Thrones? Do you think it should be? Real, not facetious
| questions I'd be curious to discuss.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Not sure what you're asking. I think from the dissident's
| point of view it's a tragedy. From Israel's point of view
| it's business and maintaining good relationships with
| people who can become an enemy in a heartbeat. How is this
| different from Western countries selling arms by the
| billions? That's also not always about money but about
| diplomacy.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I think it should be different. I don't think people should
| expect Israel to start because it is one of the few
| countries that doesn't just sell arms for profit, but for
| specific strategic interests.
|
| If you want Israel to start for some reason, I think it is
| fair that you need to call them Gods chosen people at the
| minimum, because your heightened expectations would warrant
| that.
| ohashi wrote:
| It could become wrong if they lose the support of the west.
| Imagine the US and EU giving up on Israel. It's a multi
| dimensional issue and playing nice with their neighbors may
| be advantageous if nobody knows (publicly). But if they do
| and there are bigger more important relationships (namely US)
| start to be put at risk, it could be the wrong move.
| radycov wrote:
| No chance, AIPAC, BICOM and various lobby groups ensure
| politicians are in the pockets of the Israel lobby. This
| isn't to say other countries don't have corrupt lobbying
| practices. But the unilateral multibillion dollar IDF
| funding raies questions.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > Imagine the US and EU giving up on Israel
|
| That could happen regardless of what Israel does. I mean if
| the U.S or EU decides that Israel is a colonial entity like
| Apartheid SA, that's not going to be because some Israeli
| cyber startup selling a tool. The hard left doesn't really
| care what Israel does now, the very idea of Israel of
| Israel existing is a cross between colonialism and white
| privilege to them. But in the mean time Israel gain actual
| strategic relations with countries like Saudi Arabia that
| mean a lot.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Israel had such a relationship with the Saudis for a while,
| it just wasn't public.
| nindalf wrote:
| It isn't wrong or undesirable from their point of view.
| That's my point.
| stunt wrote:
| We put hackers in jail for building spyware! even those that
| don't use it themselves to hack a target. Why is it legal for NSO
| to sell Pegasus?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| If they had any sense they would shutdown this company selling to
| hostile foreign dictators to track, imprison, and kill
| journalists and politicians.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| What I find funny is this:
|
| "Our clients only use the software against terrorists and
| criminals, so it can't be used the wrong way"
|
| "We made sure that it doesn't work against US phone numbers".
|
| That is straight out of "A Few Good Men":
|
| If Colonel Jessup ordered the soldier should not be touched, and
| soldiers follow orders, why was the victim scheduled for a plane
| ride off the base?
| [deleted]
| dhx wrote:
| According to an old product manual[1], NSO would have most
| likely have been aware of whom was targeted and the content
| being retrieved because NSO would generally run the anonymising
| nodes on the Internet and seemingly insist on installing and
| maintaining the servers hosted at the client site where data
| eventually ends up. There is a note saying that customers could
| set this up themselves but I suspect the countries involved
| wouldn't have the expertise to do so. Thus to a country such as
| France which has been targeted, they would have to assume it is
| actually Israel spying on France via proxy countries. The proxy
| countries in return got access to spying tools they'd never be
| able to build themselves to spy on dissidents and rival
| politicians.
|
| Per [2], US and UK officials were also targeted. Perhaps this
| was less commonplace though because the scheme had a greater
| chance of being figured out (example means: [3]) and would then
| give the US and UK access to the target lists of Israel and
| proxy countries, and the exploits used. Perhaps this is the
| reason 'soft targets' (countries without big ICT spying
| budgets) topped the target list?
|
| [1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/4599753/NSO-
| Pegasus.p...
|
| [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/20/heads-of-
| sta...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstream_collection
| htek wrote:
| "NSO would generally run the anonymising nodes on the
| Internet and seemingly insist on installing and maintaining
| the servers hosted at the client site where data eventually
| ends up. There is a note saying that customers could set this
| up themselves but I suspect the countries involved wouldn't
| have the expertise to do so. Thus to a country such as France
| which has been targeted, they would have to assume it is
| actually Israel spying on France via proxy countries. "
|
| I would be shocked if NSO wasn't feeding intel its 'clients'
| acquired spying on their targets to Israel.
| dotcommand wrote:
| We can't handle the truth.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Genuinely kind of surprising they thought such a transparent
| lie would still work.
| pulse7 wrote:
| "Our clients only use the software against terrorists and
| criminals" => So this means that French PM Macron is a
| terrorist or criminal - for somebody who built this software...
| tasogare wrote:
| Given he wasted millions years of living from the population
| by locking them down, heavily damaged the economy by doing so
| and he's now discriminating the population around a medical
| variable, calling him a criminal isn't that far-fetched. And
| before you jump on me with "it was necessary", no it wasn't,
| as shown by Japan, Korea and Taiwan way of dealing with the
| pandemic. (He also sold national strategic interests to
| foreign powers)
| noduerme wrote:
| You know, Israel was the first country to require a vaccine
| passport to go to the gym. However they simply made it so
| difficult to avoid vaccination that everyone did it. I'm
| pretty sure the Israeli government is not in the business
| of sterilizing Jews, so, I would say it's probably safe.
| Take the vaccine and get the passport and go out. It's a
| benefit of living in a first world country.
| refurb wrote:
| Everyone did it? According to the NYTimes 64% of
| Israeli's have had one shot, while many countries like
| Canada are 72%.
|
| Israel seems behind?
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| > canada is over 81% of the eligible
|
| Cries in American.
| katbyte wrote:
| canada is over 81% of the eligible
| Guthur wrote:
| Sounds more like autocracy to me. Whether or not you want
| to have a vaccine or not is irrelevant to the fact that
| wanting a government to coerce people into a medical
| treatment is a Pandora's box I'm not sure we should
| really be so keen on.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Requiring a vaccine isn't a "Pandora's box", if that were
| true we would have been a dictatorship decades ago when
| other vaccines were required. People have no perspective
| on anything these days or general knowledge about
| history.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You can't assess these things (or anything in real world)
| alone, but in context of what's going on in the whole
| world (and what isn't). After that, its on everybody how
| they view their personal freedom and themselves vs the
| averaged good of the whole nation/civilization.
| Guthur wrote:
| Who gets to define the greater good? We had share morals
| at one time with religion but that's been tore down
| relentless so what are those shared ideals now.
|
| The fact of the matter is that eradication is impossible
| so what are we actually trying to achieve here. Reduce
| impact on health care? Maybe we should ban smoking and
| alcohol then or maybe MacDonalds, where is the line?
| cutemonster wrote:
| > Who gets to define the greater good?
|
| One answer is the voters and the government they choose
| (if it's an okay functioning democracy)
| fidesomnes wrote:
| No wonder it's a disaster.
| nybble41 wrote:
| Well that's certain _an_ answer. Voters and non-voters
| alike are, of course, free to define "the greater good"
| for themselves provided they refrain from harming others
| while putting their definition into practice, but what
| moral justification do the winners of an election have to
| enforce their definition on anyone else or harm others to
| implement it just because they were backed by an
| arbitrarily small majority of the voters? Which is a
| subset of the eligible voting population, and (perhaps
| more importantly) an even smaller subset of those who
| will be affected?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Religion should be torn down given its history of
| violence and support of ignorance and general attitude
| towards reality and science. Not violently of course but
| through education and critical thinking skills because it
| cannot survive under the light of the actual truth about
| the reality of things.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _The fact of the matter is that eradication is
| impossible_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderpest
|
| And in-progress:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_eradication
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_dracunculias
| is
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaws
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria
|
| Your claim is empirically false.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| >Japan, Korea and Taiwan way of dealing with the pandemic.
|
| Which is extremely strict rules, everybody wears masks and
| socially distances. In Korea you can't even have more than
| 4 people get together without using the government website.
| southerntofu wrote:
| I can assure you as a French person the economy is the
| least of our worries. Yes Macron is a criminal, but not for
| the reasons you say. We live in the 5th richest nation on
| Earth, that profits from pillaging its neocolonies all
| across the planet, so there is an abundance of resources to
| feed and house everyone if the government wanted it.
|
| Of course the government, as any government ever, is an
| enemy of the people and wants to wage-enslave its
| population to benefit those who are already privileged.
| bengalister wrote:
| France is not the 5th richest nation, it is 7th ordered
| by GDP.
| classified wrote:
| Circular arguments are so convenient. And apparently
| "terrorists" and "criminals" (by whose definition?) have no
| rights whatsoever, so whatever you do to them _cannot_ be
| wrong.
| DSingularity wrote:
| The problem is it kind of works. Israeli propagandists
| describe anyone who opposes Israeli war crimes or anyone
| that critiques their continued colonization of Palestinians
| as terrorist sympathizers. Guess what seemingly everyone in
| media/politics avoid?
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
|
| Who avoids it? Israel is written about, almost always
| negatively, on a daily basis on all major newspapers.
|
| Care to say which media outlet avoids "criticizing"
| Israel other than a few unimportant right wing outlets?
| skinkestek wrote:
| I have the same observations as you from Norway. From
| what I hear from those who have been here longer than me
| it has been like this since the 60ies or 70ies so it is
| not a new thing either.
| HappyDreamer wrote:
| GP:
|
| > > Israel is written about, almost always negatively, on
| a daily basis on all major newspapers
|
| You could say that about the CCP (Chinese Communist
| Party) as well or the dictators in Saudi Arabia.
| Sometimes there's a well founded reason for criticizing
| the state in a country.
|
| That does not mean the ones who criticize the Israeli
| state or the CCP, would think that everyone in Israel or
| China are bad people.
|
| P:
|
| > same observations as you
|
| There's a cognitive bias to notice negative sounding
| things written about one's own "soccer team", but not
| notice positive or neutral things so much.
|
| Let's say there's 1 article about settlers taking land, 1
| about the Israeli state selling suicide bomber drones to
| Azerbaijan, and 15 articles about vaccination, tech
| companies, the Pride Parade, other things -- maybe you
| wouldn't remember the 15 latter, only keep the 1 + 1
| former in mind.
|
| (This is as expected b.t.w. thinking about evolution and
| hunter gatherer tribes long ago)
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Let's say there's 2 articles about settlers taking
| land, and 10 articles about startups and tech companies
| in Israe
|
| I'm talking about almost every news outlet writing
| "Israel bombed Gaza" and only one being nuanced enough to
| mention "Israel bombed Gaza after n hundred rockets
| crossed the border during the last 24 hours."
|
| Settlers taking land is also interesting. It took quite a
| while before someone (and none of the big ones) cared to
| mention that the latest dispute was over Jewish owned
| land that was stolen by Jordan during their short
| management of east Jerusalem and sold to Arabs.
| RobertoG wrote:
| >>"Settlers taking land is also interesting. It took
| quite a while before someone (and none of the big ones)
| cared to mention that the latest dispute was over Jewish
| owned land that was stolen by Jordan during their short
| management of east Jerusalem and sold to Arabs. "
|
| I think I remember reading about that. Are those the
| properties acquired by an extremist Jewish organization,
| from the original Jewish owners, in order to be able to
| legally evict the non-Jewish people living there?
| skinkestek wrote:
| That might be yet another twist to this story.
|
| I'm not _that_ into it. I probably only appear
| knowledgeable because I have read a bit beyond the
| headlines and because I am as biased as many others.
| bjourne wrote:
| > I'm talking about almost every news outlet writing
| "Israel bombed Gaza" and only one being nuanced enough to
| mention "Israel bombed Gaza after n hundred rockets
| crossed the border during the last 24 hours."
|
| It goes both ways. I haven't seen the headline
| "Palestinian militias shell Israeli targets in response
| to Israel's attempts to ethnically cleanse illegally
| occupied Palestinian territory" either.
|
| > It took quite a while before someone (and none of the
| big ones) cared to mention that the latest dispute was
| over Jewish owned land that was stolen by Jordan during
| their short management of east Jerusalem and sold to
| Arabs.
|
| Has anyone of them mentioned the massive irony in Israel
| returning lands stolen from Jews while at the same time
| keeping all the land it itself stole from Palestinians?
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > Palestinian militias launched rockets at Israel in
| response to its attempts to ethnically cleanse illegally
| occupied Palestinian territory
|
| What ? That was what Western media wrote over and over
| again last few months.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Where were you were media wrote this?
|
| Preferrably with links. I'm stubborn but prefer to become
| right over believing I was always right (but actually
| being wrong the whole time.)
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Has anyone of them mentioned the massive irony in
| Israel returning lands stolen from Jews while at the same
| time keeping all the land it itself stole from
| Palestinians?
|
| To the degree that land has been stolen recently except
| by Jordan it was by UN and the British I think.
|
| Israeli land was either bought, traded, given by UN, won
| in defensive wars (and most of that have been given back
| in return for peace).
|
| You could say that the land that was gained in defensive
| wars is stolen even if it was a defensive war, but I
| think that becomes unreasonable - especially since Israel
| has proven that they are willing to give back such land
| for a real, lasting peace agreement, and also since some
| of the land represents a massive advantage for a hostile
| neighbor.
| bjourne wrote:
| During the 1948 Palestine war, Jewish troops ethnically
| cleansed the territory that became the State of Israel of
| Arab Palestinians. The land and property owned by those
| Arab Palestinians was confiscated by the state and handed
| out to Jewish immigrants. Israel does not believe that
| any of the land or property it confiscated should be
| returned to its former Arab Palestinian owners.
|
| At the same time, property owned by Jews in the West Bank
| was confiscated by Jordanian authorities and given to
| Arab Palestinian refugees. In 1970, three years after
| Israel had taken the West Bank from Jordan, it enacted a
| law which stated that all property confiscated by Jordan
| should be returned to their original Jewish owners.
|
| This is what I meant by "massive irony" but maybe it is
| just hypocrisy or racism.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > During the 1948 Palestine war, Jewish troops ethnically
| cleansed the territory that became the State of Israel of
| Arab Palestinians. The land and property owned by those
| Arab Palestinians was confiscated by the state and handed
| out to Jewish immigrants.
|
| And this is why there is so many Arabs living happily in
| Israel today. /s
|
| Quite on the contrary I've read that Israel asked Arabs
| to stay in Israel during the 1948 war - for selfish
| reasons - but still.
|
| Surrounding Arab countries asked Arabs in Israel to leave
| temporarily to make "shoveling the Jews into the ocean"
| easier. Those who left "temporarily" are the ancestors of
| those who live in refugee camps today. Those who stayed
| are the ancestors of Arabs living good lives in Israel
| today. More or less.
|
| edit: Confiscating the homes of those who left to make it
| simpler to wipe you into the sea is a bit different than
| bulk killing people (genocide) and taking their homes.
| endedit.
|
| Also remember that far more Jews were forced out of
| surrounding countries and into Israel than Arabs out of
| Israel.
|
| If Arabs from what is today Israel should get their homes
| back I suppose Jews should get their homes and shops back
| in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq etc?
|
| edit: Or can we finally accept that it was botched by UN
| and actively sabotaged by neigbouring countries? That the
| sad fate of the Arabs from Israel is less the fault of
| Israelis and that the ones to blame are neighbor Arab
| states and the UN? end edit
|
| If any of this is news to anyone just think how much more
| biased news organizations hide from you.
|
| Everyone should start reading.
|
| PS: I'm not saying Israelis are innocent. I'm saying that
| media has massively misrepresented the situation for a
| few decades, selectively presented only the things that
| makes Israel look bad.
|
| Many of them are true, but as shown above the full story
| is a bit more nuanced...
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
|
| We discussed the other day as well. We clearly live in
| different realities which might explain why we couldn't
| come to an agreement.
|
| For the reference here is what my reality looks like:
|
| Around here there are exactly two major outlets that I am
| aware of that is pro Israel: "MIFF - Med Israel For Fred"
| (With Israel For Peace) and the conservative newspaper
| document.no.
|
| The rest of known media outlets are more or less deeply
| anti-Israeli:
|
| Public broadcaster NRK is probably the biggest
| hatemongerer (publishing "funny" skits about "jewish
| swines", telling that Israeli soldiers "shoots at
| everything that moves", having a radio host saying on air
| (yes, on air) that he hope the vaccine doesn't work on
| them and they die from COVID etc.)
|
| On the other side you have vg.no who will always end
| their pieces about Israelis bombing something with a
| sentence or two to balance it somewhat: "The Israeli
| attack happened after n hundred rockets had been fired
| over the border the last 24 hours."
|
| The rest falls somewhere in the middle: not calling
| Israelis Jewish Swines like NRK but simultaneously only
| reporting whenever Israel strikes back, completely
| ignoring why.
| seoaeu wrote:
| I'm sure the "terrorist sympathizers" label has
| _absolutely nothing_ to do with the same people leveling
| those criticisms also being rather sympathetic towards
| the people committing terror attacks against Israelis...
| boomskats wrote:
| So just to be clear, your response to the criticism that
| 'Israeli propagandists describe anyone who opposes
| Israeli war crimes or anyone that critiques their
| continued colonization of Palestinians as terrorist
| sympathizers'... is to label anyone criticising those
| Israeli propagandists a terrorist sympathizer?
| seoaeu wrote:
| No, plenty of critics aren't terrorist sympathizers. Some
| critics are openly sympathetic to Hamas and Co.
|
| Barring any context to the contrary, I'm naturally going
| to assume anyone complaining about being accused of being
| a terrorist sympathizer as belonging to the latter group.
| (It seems easy enough to clear up confusion by just
| saying "I oppose Hamas")
| will4274 wrote:
| > Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
|
| Would you be referring to the most-discussed conflict of
| all time? It's always funny to me when I hear on Reddit
| that "nobody talks" about Israeli war crimes. We're
| talking about it right now. Go look at Wikipedia's page
| of active conflicts - how many of them do you hear about
| the war crimes being committed? Coverage of Israeli war
| crimes is disproportionately *large* compared to other
| conflicts, not disproportionately small.
| jessaustin wrote:
| "Terrorist sympathizer" is a milder slander than the one
| they really like to use for critics of Israel's actions,
| "antisemitic".
| pulse7 wrote:
| Aren't Arabs also "semitic people" [1]? (Since Ishmael
| and Abraham are also descendants of Shem...). In this
| case "antisemitic" would also mean "against Arabs"...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
| seoaeu wrote:
| Sometimes words don't mean exactly what their etymology
| suggests. So I'm sorry but, objecting to using the world
| 'antisemitism' to refer to "anti-Jewish racism" comes
| across as trying to deny Jews the ability to describe
| their own oppression
| bjourne wrote:
| Hanlon's razor applies: "Never attribute to malice that
| which is adequately explained by stupidity." Many or most
| people incorrectly assume that anti-Semitism has
| something to do with Semitic people because the words
| (but not their meanings) are similar.
| will4274 wrote:
| Hard disagree. One of these (anti-Semitism) is far more
| common than the other (references to Arabs as "Semitic").
| It's like saying that you've only heard of "negro" as a
| color. In a culture and a place (the United States) where
| that is absurd, assumptions of malintent and bad faith
| are a better heuristic.
| raincom wrote:
| The point you bring up is an example of "fallacy of
| equivocation".
|
| Yes, words are polysemic. In this case, 'anti-semetic' is
| seen as "anti-jewish". That's one sense of 'anti-
| semetic'. You can also add another sense of that word:
| "against speakers of Semetic language or people". This
| sense is not used when people use 'anti-semetic'.
|
| In Europe, there has been centuries of discussion about
| jews: it was called "the Jewish question". Anyway, this
| anti-semitism started as a product of religious rivalry
| (which religion is True? Christianity or Judaism). Then
| extra features were added, etc.
| wchar_t wrote:
| Yes, they are also a Semitic group, but "Anti-Semitic"
| has come to refer to hatred specifically against
| Israelis.
|
| Maybe because that hatred is more widespread than hatred
| against all Semitic people...?
| olivierduval wrote:
| Actually, "anti-semitic" is against "jewish" person (as a
| religion) and not against "israeli" citizen (as a
| nationality). The last one is called "anti-sionist"...
|
| The fact that Israel is a nation "home for jews" doesn't
| help, as some people think that every critic against
| Israel politic is the mark of "anti-semitism" even if
| religion has nothing to do with. Sometimes it might be
| the indicator of "anti-sionism" and sometimes... just the
| indicator of political difference! After all, you can
| criticize any country for its politic without critizing
| the counrty "per se"
|
| Moreover, a lot of people in Israel are not jewish but
| muslims.
| tempodox wrote:
| You are right, there are Jews who aren't Semites an there
| are Semites who aren't Jews. The term "anti-Semitism"
| came up near the end of the 19th century [1] when it was
| all the rage to find scientific-sounding words for
| whatever you do or sell. "Anti-Semitism" sells better
| than plain "hatred of Jews". I for one wouldn't give
| racists the satisfaction of using their own choice for
| cloaking their prejudice and stupidity in pseudo-science
| but the term seems to have taken hold everywhere.
|
| [1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/anti-Semitism
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| Languages are Semitic, people are not. These categories
| are outdated to the extreme.
| bashinator wrote:
| Isn't "Caucasian" a specific ethnicity of the region
| between eastern Europe and western Asia?
| fidesomnes wrote:
| This is embarrassing.
| jessaustin wrote:
| I don't mean to imply that the word makes any sense in
| this context. However, if one chooses to complain about
| Israeli abuses of Palestinians, it is a fact that one
| will be called "antisemitic".
| seoaeu wrote:
| Seriously? "...the one (((they))) really like to use..."?
|
| Whenever the topic of Israel comes up, there's always the
| handful eager to accuse Jews about always crying wolf on
| antisemitism. Makes you wonder why they're so eager to
| preempt any honest discussion of antisemitism
| fourier1234 wrote:
| You know exactly why, because of how anti-semitism is
| used as an excuse to ignore all the Israeli and/or Jewish
| terrorism.
| seoaeu wrote:
| > and/or Jewish terrorism.
|
| Rather curious who you think all these Jewish non-Israeli
| terrorists are
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| "They" being "Israeli propagandists" as referenced in the
| previous comment.
|
| What you're doing is exactly what we're talking about.
| Trying to shut down _any_ criticism of the Israeli
| government as antisemitic bigotry. It 's no different
| than the 50 Cent Army
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Army) dismissing
| all criticism of the CCP as sinophobia.
| seoaeu wrote:
| Clever. By labeling anyone who alleges antisemitism as an
| "Israeli propagandist" you can shut down any discussion
| of antisemitism without having to engage with whether
| there may be any bigotry or prejudice in play
|
| But seriously, ask yourself if there is any way a Jew
| could tell you "Hey, what you're saying about Israel is
| kinda racist because XYZ" without you immediately
| dismissing them. (And maybe there is! I haven't gotten to
| know you in real life)
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| I don't know about others, but when I said "Israeli
| propagandists" I meant literally the Israeli government's
| official public relations, e.g. the people who did this:
| https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/23/my-zionism-
| isra... I might disagree with random internet posters,
| but I wouldn't generally call them "propagandists".
|
| > But seriously, ask yourself if there is any way a Jew
| could tell you "Hey, what you're saying about Israel is
| kinda racist because XYZ" without you immediately
| dismissing them.
|
| I'd be willing to listen to their argument. It's gonna
| depend on what the initial statement was.
|
| There are plenty of people who criticize Israel and are
| also antisemitic, and they often try to cloak it in
| reasonable-sounding arguments. That does not mean that
| all reasonable-sounding arguments against Israeli
| policies are automatically racist. If someone says
| "Israel is bombing Palestine again, you know how those
| Israelis are," that would sound like it could be a dog
| whistle. If someone says "Israel is bombing Palestine
| again, they're just perpetuating the cycle of violence,"
| that seems reasonable enough--but I have seen more than a
| few people who would call even that antisemitic.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The opposite is a much more common occurrence. By
| reflexively labeling any criticism of Israel as
| "antisemitic", people shut down discussion without having
| to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or
| apartheid.
|
| Frankly, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of
| my experience as a diaspora Jew: having to constantly
| point out that Israel != Jews in response to people who
| want to exploit my religious identity for their own ends.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > people shut down discussion without having to engage in
| the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid
|
| The apartheid bit can and should be engaged and
| eventually solved with a Palestinian state beside Israel.
| The settelr colonialist bit is mostly said to try and
| ruin the Zionist state by dismantling Zionism. No one
| calls the U.S a settler colonialist country. No one
| demands California to be returned to Mexico (it's
| rightful owner btw) or that the Indians get the right to
| their lands back (so what if not many of them are left?
| if we wanna dismantle colonialism let's start with it's
| founders). These are requirements specific to Israel. The
| hard left knows very well the chances of "one democratic
| state" surviving are close to zero, and that the endgame
| is immigration of most Jews out of Palestine, to become
| hated refugees everywhere they go yet again. But that's
| the hard left's plan, and not everyone like to engage
| with that.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| > _No one calls the U.S a settler colonialist country_
|
| What? The US is the ur-example of settler colonialism. We
| are the end stage, the model for the ultimate fate of the
| original inhabitants under colonialism: decimated and
| pushed back into whatever worthless land none of the
| settlers wanted.
|
| > _or that the Indians get the right to their lands back_
|
| People do demand that, yes.
|
| Personally, I would love to see Native American tribes
| given better land than the shitty deserts they've been
| stuck in, but two wrongs don't make a right; no one has a
| right to force people off of land they've been living on
| for decades or centuries just because their ancestors
| used to live there.
|
| That means the British had no right to unilaterally carve
| Israel out of Palestine in the first place, and also that
| Palestine shouldn't get to force Israelis off of land
| they've been living on for nearly a century, however
| wrong their ancestors were to take it; nor does Israel
| have the right to keep taking more Palestinian land to
| build new Israeli settlements.
|
| There will always be Arabs who won't be satisfied with
| anything short of total hegemony. They would have a lot
| less support, resources, and manpower if Israel would
| treat Palestinians as equals and stop air-striking
| innocent men, women, and children because they happen to
| be within the blast radius of a suspected terrorist.
| Killing innocents to achieve political goals is no better
| when Israel does it than when Hamas does.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| People do talk about all of those things though? Israel
| and the US _are_ both settler colonial states.
| Acknowledging that should be the start of a conversation
| about righting historical wrongs, not shorthand for a
| proscribed solution.
|
| As a side note, it seems like you're using "hard left" as
| a smear, but most of the people I follow who engage on
| this topic are diaspora Jews who very much do not want to
| become "hated refugees".
| joelbluminator wrote:
| I use the term hard left as opposed to center left. AOC
| us hard left. Joe Biden is center for left. Its not a
| smear, we need a word for that. We can use progressive.
| Its nice and easy to acknowledge things when there are no
| claims. The Mexicans are not claiming California back and
| even if they were no one would take that seriously. The
| Palestinians ARE claiming the land back, and are being
| supported by growing numbers. So this whole discussion
| about history becomes very consequential to Israel.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| terrorists really don't have any right except those
| afforded to prisoners. They threw those out when they
| decided to become terrorists.
| effie wrote:
| People don't decide to become terrorists. They are
| labeled that way.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I'd just like to remind everyone that America's Founding
| Fathers would be labeled terrorists by the British Crown
| were the word in common use back then.
| [deleted]
| southerntofu wrote:
| I know it's just PR bullshit like Amesys/Qosmos execs did 10
| years ago pretending their surveillance software was only
| used to catch pedophiles and terrorists (despite human rights
| orgs being on their lists)... funny btw that 4 Amesys/Qosmos
| execs have just been indicted this month.
|
| However, as a french person i must agree Macron is a criminal
| and a terrorist. A criminal because he goes (as most
| presidents would) against the word and spirit of human rights
| declarations and constitution by promoting destruction of
| public services in a time of pandemic, immunity of cop
| murderers, abolition of taxes for the rich (ISF) while
| lowering social benefits for the poor, etc... All while
| having no respect for what would be considered "due process",
| exploiting loopholes intended for emergency situations (49-3)
| to bypass the votes of the parliament.
|
| A terrorist, because despite presenting as a reasonable face
| opposed to Le Pen on ideological ground, he introduced new
| racist laws (eg. doubling of administrative retention for
| undocumented people from 45 to 90 days) and opposed the
| Aquarius crew coming into France (despite Corsica welcoming
| them, the government placed a veto). A terrorist, because the
| people opposing his government had to face the most brutal
| repression France has known since may 69 and/or the anti-
| colonial "Algeria war".
|
| A grandma (Zyneb Redouane) killed in her home by cops aiming
| at her during a demo is unprecedented. So is a young man
| (Steve) murdered by the cops on Music Day 2019, or the one
| who got his hand blown up by "non-lethal weapons" this year
| when over 1500 grenades were fired at a peaceful free party.
|
| So is the thousands of mutilated people from just attending a
| demonstrations: bruises and deaths were quite common a few
| decades ago (even though the 80-90-00's were a lot more
| calm), but now proper mutilation and handicap awaits you,
| mostly caused by police grenades (yes they contain actual
| military explosives). If you wanna see what that looks like
| (CONTENT WARNING) -> http://lemurjaune.fr/ (that's only from
| the gilets jaunes protests).
|
| So yes, Macron is a terrorist. We are terrorized of him and
| his militias. And while he says anarchists and muslims are
| the terrorists in this country, most of us know not to listen
| to TV, and that the real terrorists are wearing suits and
| uniforms. See also Lowkey's take on that (content warning) ->
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
| bengalister wrote:
| Wrong and exaggerated on so many levels. What you are
| saying is caricature of the left extremist way of thinking.
|
| No the yellow vest movement was nothing but peaceful, quite
| violent actually, throwing cobbles or molotov cocktails at
| police forces, using forklifts to force their way or
| destroy public properties, burning banks, setting cars on
| fire, etc. They were even allowed to demonstrate every week
| for at least 2 years. They caused the death of at least 10
| people mostly through traffic crash by blocking highways.
|
| Also they are really not representative of the French
| people but they wanted to impose their ideas, not
| democratic at all, much like what happened in the Capitol.
|
| The Aquarius is one of these supposedly humanitarian boats
| that pickup immigrants just 50km off the Libyan coasts,
| just where the international waters start. They basically
| behave like traffic smugglers and encourage people to try
| the crossing to Sicily.
|
| Steve was not killed by the police.
| krageon wrote:
| > supposedly humanitarian
|
| If they pick up people 50km out to sea and stick them
| somewhere where they won't die, that is in fact literally
| humanitarian.
| bengalister wrote:
| The point is that Libya or even Tunisia is much closer
| than Sicilia (>200km away).
| croes wrote:
| Nice try linking the yellow vests to the capitol rioters.
|
| I doubt the Capitol rioters ever had widespread support
| like the yellow vests had. In late November 2018, polls
| showed that the movement had widespread support in France
| ranging from 73 to 84 percent.
| Craighead wrote:
| You must not read all that much or realize how large the
| population of American Trumpublicans
| southerntofu wrote:
| Wow, so much misinformation in a single comment it's hrd
| to unpack.
|
| > No the yellow vest movement was nothing but peaceful
|
| Did i claim the movement was peaceful? It's a
| revolutionary movement, of course shit is gonna burn. Now
| three important questions:
|
| 1) Who determines the level of violence of protests, if
| not the government going against the will of the people
| and deploying robocops and military-grade equipment on
| the streets to destroy any opposition? May i remind you
| teargas is internationally recognized as a weapon and
| forbidden by the Geneva convention? Let's not even talk
| about their "non-lethal" grenades and bullets, who are
| very much lethal (see Vital Michalon, Remi Fraisse...)
|
| 2) What is considered violent? Is it more violent to
| break a bank's window and set fire to the bourgeois
| restaurant where Sarkozy had dinner on his first night as
| president (Fouquet's), or to ensure that the 10 millions
| of french people living below the poverty line (not
| accounting for undocumented people) struggle every day
| for basic food and services, causing exhaustion and
| death, often leading to suicide or work-related deaths?
| Does taking part in breaking stuff (not beating people)
| justify to be mutilated for life in your view of Justice?
|
| 3) We may agree that throwing a molotov cocktail at a cop
| is violent, whether we agree or not if it's a legitimate
| action. In this specific case, a cop may preemptively
| attack as a case of self-defense. However, that's never
| what i've heard or witnessed. People throwing molotov
| cocktails at cops are a handful, out of hundreds of
| thousands protesting, and these are usually thrown as
| self-defense from the people AFTER cops have attacked
| them ruthlessly. In reality, most people getting
| hurt/mutilated by police are peaceful protesters, because
| they have less self-protection reflexes than people used
| to black block and popular self-defense tactics. In some
| cases, they're people who were not even involved with the
| demonstration, and were just passing by on the streets
| when the cops assaulted them. Do you think that's
| legitimate action by the police to just beat down random
| bystanders?
|
| > Also they are really not representative of the French
| people but they wanted to impose their ideas, not
| democratic at all, much like what happened in the
| Capitol.
|
| That's not true. It was (is?) a very popular movement
| whose primary demand is popular democracy through
| people's assemblies, which is the opposite of "not
| democratic at all". According to your understanding, what
| kind of ideas do gilets jaunes want to impose and to
| whom? What do you think of Macron's attempted
| recuperation via his official citizen congress on climate
| change, of which he discarded all proposals when they
| were not going his way? Which side is more democratic? A
| government elected by less than 50% of the population
| (i'd like to remind you that we abstentionists are the
| biggest political party of France), or a popular movement
| which polls indicate has way above 50% of popular
| support?
|
| > They basically behave like traffic smugglers and
| encourage people to try the crossing to Sicily.
|
| That's bullshit. They didn't take money from people, for
| starters. Then we may wonder how rescuing people at sea
| when they have great chances of drowning is encouraging
| anyone to try and cross the sea. If due to humanitarian
| there were 0 deaths from crossing the sea, that COULD be
| an argument. However, there's thousands of deaths every
| year so that hardly stands scrutiny. Moreover, we could
| argue facilitating people to cross in good conditions is
| actually a good thing: why do some people enjoy travel
| visas and first-class tickets while others get neither?
| How is that fair? Especially when the former are from the
| richest countries on earth, whose wealth is built on the
| colonial and/or neocolonial exploitation of the latter?
|
| If you want to talk about scandals in the mediteranean
| see, you should take a look at Frontex (european coastal
| guard agency), and its budgets and actions. How can "cost
| guards" with now half a billion euros yearly budget and
| over 10,000 employees leave so many people to drown? You
| may understand more if you take a look at their scandals
| (see Wikipedia) including european law violation
| (attempting to create an armed militia despite european
| regulations not allowing it), international law violation
| ("pushbacks"), and corruption (undeclared meetings with
| undeclared lobbyists from the weapons/surveillance
| industry is illegal for european institutions). See also
| this CCC talk from a few years ago about Frontex's
| surveillance tech: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10994-no_r
| oborders_no_nation_or_...
|
| > Steve was not killed by the police.
|
| What's your source? There's very compelling testimonies
| and arguments in favor for that case, so much so that
| even the prosecutor had to indict some cops for
| "manslaughter", which is really unusual, as cops are
| rarely prosecuted in France when they kill someone.
| Despite the police initially claiming noone fell into the
| water during its muscled intervention, they later
| acknowledged at least 14 people had fallen into the river
| (not all during police intervention), of which 7 have
| been "fished" by the firefighters and 4 by a local safety
| association. One of those 4 people testified that there
| was a fifth person who actually drowned, which is why
| some people from the rescue teams testified they were
| already aware one person had potentially drowned.
|
| That the police initially communicated that nobody fell
| into the river, despite everyone knowing otherwise, is a
| good sign that they knew what happened and were trying to
| cover up, as they often do. For example, that's also what
| happened when they killed Remi Fraisse: First they
| claimed someone had died somewhere they were not at the
| time where no police intervention was going on, and they
| had nothing to do with it. Then they claimed they threw a
| grenade at him but death was caused by molotov cocktails
| of him (in his backpack) taking fire. Then the analysis
| proved that the only explosives/flammables found on his
| body and backpack were from the grenade thrown by the
| gendarmerie. And now they're in a limbo of conflicting
| testimonies were the only things sure is that safety
| training has been ignored (such grenades MUST be rolled
| on the floor, not thrown in the air), the police warnings
| ("sommations") were not done properly (no loudspeaker),
| and the officers who gave order to throw the grenades had
| no authority to do so (requires a certain grade in the
| military).
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| As a French this is bullshit. Others have reacted before
| with facts.
|
| It would be great to mention that the gilets jaunes
| (initially a reasonable oppositiin movement, it became full
| of antivax and destroyers if common property) are typical
| of such rethoric, up until the moment they get power and
| realze that their claims do not hold water.
|
| Most of you, as you call your minoritary folklore mivement
| should get down to earth.
| southerntofu wrote:
| > initially a reasonable oppositiin movement, it became
| full of antivax and destroyers if common property
|
| What's your source?
|
| About direct action and sabotage, of course some of the
| movement engages in such tactics, as most
| protest/revolutionary movements have over the years,
| because that's the only way to get the message across
| when nobody in power wants to listen to your reasonable
| requests. That's the only way i know of the make the
| nationwide media talk of social issues and popular
| protests... If you have other ideas, i'm sure plenty of
| people are interested.
|
| Specifically about direct action, as the name implies,
| the action itself is the objective. Burning trashcans and
| blocking streets sends a message, but attacking the
| institutions (eg. banks) directly responsible for our
| suffering, whether we agree with it or not, is a relevant
| political strategy that has been part of revolutionary
| and anti-colonial struggles since as long as history has
| been written, and arguably longer. Do you think the
| resistance movement from the 40s blowing up trains and
| assassinations of nazi officers was illegitimate? Or do
| you think the situation is possible, and the endless
| destruction of our planet along with deteriorating social
| conditions for the global populations does not warrant
| being angry and attacking those directly profiting from
| this situation?
|
| About anti-vaxxers in the gilets jaunes movement, from
| what i could see it was pretty divided. Moreover, i would
| argue the government's lies and coverups all along the
| pandemic has greatly helped anti-vaxxing conspiracy
| theories. People don't trust the government, because the
| government doesn't have our interests at heart. Moreover,
| there is a growing distrust of the scientific community,
| which i personally credit to key institutions from
| academia and media giving scientific credit to many
| discredited ideas: downplaying the seriousness of climate
| change, advertising for urbanization as "progress"
| despite medical evidence pointing to inherent problems in
| the modern way of life, or pushing for the "green
| revolution" since the 50s despite solid scientific
| evidence that mechanized monoculture is damaging the
| environment and not sustainable yield-wise (we are
| already witnessing in Europe the first signs of
| desertification such as land dry, due to such
| techniques).
|
| Of course, most vaccines are good. But to be honest, most
| people i met who you would probably label "anti-vaxxers"
| are not anti-vaccines, but rather skeptical of the
| results and side-effects, which is a good critical
| posture. Many people who were skeptical at first are now
| getting vaccinated and that's a good thing. Of course,
| the government trying to actually force people to get
| vaccinated is not helping the situation. Instead, making
| the vaccine widely available for free, even for those who
| don't have social security, would help it reach more
| people, and would probably help convince those who are
| still skeptical.
|
| After all, the government never has our best interests at
| heart. In this specific case of Covid vaccines, its
| actions are not _against_ our best interests (no hidden
| chip or autism serum in there), but for the financial
| interests of the pharmaceutical industry it 's
| subsidizing through this scheme. Once again, if the
| government forced nobody but made the vaccine widely-
| available, requisitioning the pharmaceutical industry to
| produce it at cost, more people would be inclined to get
| vaccinated.
|
| > up until the moment they get power and realze that
| their claims do not hold water.
|
| So this is a divisive issue in the gilets jaunes movement
| since of course not everybody is an anarchist. However, a
| lot of people in the movement want to destroy power, not
| seize it. There is a strong anti-party sentiment across
| the gilets jaunes movement: elections are rightfully seen
| as the opposite of democracy (giving power away from the
| people), and many components of the movements advocate
| explicitly for decentralization of power through local
| assemblies, even holding "Commune of the Communes" (or
| assembly of assemblies) conferences to federate those
| smaller initiatives without centralized power.
|
| As a conclusion, i'm not saying i feel sympathy for the
| entirety of the movement as we have our disagreements.
| For example, i don't have any sympathy for royalists and
| neo-fascists infiltrating the movement, and i'm glad they
| were kicked out of demos by the protesters themselves in
| some cities. However, your talking points appear to be
| regurgitated from government propaganda. Are you actually
| talking with people who identify with the gilets jaunes
| movement?
| l33tbro wrote:
| The genie might be out of the bottle here for them. A lot of
| investigative journalism now coming out (1) which shows that
| Pegasus is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
| Israeli spyware.
|
| (1) https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-toka-the-most-
| dangerous-i...
| emacsen wrote:
| As others have mentioned, the source you're citing is _at best_
| highly questionable. The amount of leaps the article makes is
| just out of this world, mostly that this Israeli company has
| Israelis involved, and that Israelis who have experience with
| mathematics and computer work also serve their mandatory
| military service in an intelligence unit of the military rather
| than as foot soldiers and that an Israeli company has Israeli
| investors.
|
| Israel is a tiny country the size of New Jersey, the fact that
| there will be overlap of people and connections between them is
| always the case- there's nothing nefarious about it.
|
| Anyway, looking at the author's twitter gives one a good look
| into what this looks like if taken outside the context of
| Israel:
|
| https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb?lang=en
|
| She's an anti-vaxxer talking about how the "ruling class" of
| using COVID to gain control over the population, about hidden
| FBI assets, and a ton about how the anti-Defmation League, a
| group that collects data on antisemitism is really a massive
| spy network.
|
| If it weren't so scary that people believe in it, it might be
| funny.
|
| There's no reason to put any more credence in her
| briefcomment wrote:
| So Pegasus is a non-story right, since she's been reporting
| on that for years now?
| noduerme wrote:
| The really scary part is that Q nuts like this are now
| running the Republican party, and they have no love for
| Israel. The second most egregious mistake Netanyahu made,
| after bowing to the settlers, was staking Israel's future on
| an alliance with the American right. Only the four people at
| Commentary Magazine believe there's still a non-crazy
| conservative movement in the US who wouldn't turn on Israel
| in a heartbeat... although they have a point that the
| progressives already have done so.
|
| The penning of this article really closes the circle of
| right/left conspiracy theory. If there's one thing all
| conspiracy theorists can agree on, it's the Jews. I think
| that's what you're seeing that's disturbing.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Mmm, I think at the end of the day, Israel is probably the
| only reliable strategic partner in a resource-rich region
| full of basketcases. At worst, they'll have to tone it down
| a bit. If the US ceases to back them, they can always find
| a new backer.
| stevenjohns wrote:
| That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on
| racist.
|
| Let's bomb all of Israel's infrastructure, arm various
| militias in the country and put economic sanctions on
| them for 20 years that limits the country to a grain-for-
| food programme and you'll quickly see Israel join in as a
| regional "basketcase."
| DSingularity wrote:
| It's not "bordering" on racist - it is racist! It is sad
| to see this dehumanization towards Arabs from this
| community. Posters like this show that they believe that
| maintaining and increasing US hegemony at the expense of
| third world peoples is moral.
| jamra wrote:
| Israel consists largely of Arabs as well. Half of the
| Jewish population is Arabic just like me.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I never said I agreed with US policy. I just think this
| is the main reason why US policy is how it is. If you
| don't understand why people do things, you can't convince
| them to do otherwise.
| luffapi wrote:
| So what's your suggestion for ending US support of
| Israel?
|
| We can start by recognizing that under no context was
| what has been done by the US and Israel in the Middle
| East (and beyond) ever acceptable.
| yyyk wrote:
| > That's ridiculously short sighted and bordering on
| racist.
|
| Now, here's a true, actual, case of using accusations of
| racism to avoid criticism. The post you responded to said
| nothing about guilt.
|
| You could (absurdly) blame the West entirely for the
| region's state - but most ME countries are still
| basketcases regardless of who's fault it is (and plenty
| of it obviously goes to the locals, e.g. Lebanon being a
| great example of a country mostly ruined by local and
| regional actors).
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Actually that's what was done to Israel since its
| inception. Steel forged in fire.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Oh yeah Israel's / Jewish people history was super
| pleasant, no we had a good time with the West for sure.
| pasabagi wrote:
| This is the other thing: the US backed Israel because
| Israel was strong; Israel was not strong because the US
| backed them.
|
| At the end of the mandate period, Israel was the only
| country in the region with a real military, because the
| UK had just spent the last decade training and arming
| that military.
|
| At the time, the US was virulently antisemitic (see
| McCarthy era stuff for examples), as was most of europe.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| In 1948 Britain armed the Arab armies(or just left the
| equipment). Israel had to procure some crappy weapons
| undercover all around the world, but even that was not
| enough. Their airplanes didn't even have enough bombs,
| dropping bottles(or was it sacks) to scare away 10
| countries strong army.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Any sources for that claim? That's a super complicated
| issue and saying "because Israel strong!" seems a bit
| simplistic to me.
| pasabagi wrote:
| Well, the CIA released a report that said very clearly
| Israel would win the 6 day war[1] without any real
| trouble, and this is largely considered the point at
| which the US started backing Israel seriously.
|
| Obviously, it's very complicated, but I think the basic
| picture of the middle east at the time is a bunch of
| states that were dysfunctional by design, with borders
| drawn up by powers like the UK who had the colonial modus
| operandi of creating states that were fraught with ethnic
| and sectarian tension, so these states would rely upon
| them for support.
|
| When the mandatory period ended, the Israelis had two
| massive advantages: they had a classic, european style
| 'nation', not some post-colonial territory that had
| literally never worked as a nation ever; and they had an
| army that had been fighting a civil war against the
| palestinians for its whole existence, with british
| support and training. So it's not really surprising they
| win the first Arab-Israeli war. Then after that, they
| basically can build on this to secure more support and
| more weapons, and build stronger military institutions,
| etc.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/05/30/the-
| cias-ov...
| joelbluminator wrote:
| I am not saying it had nothing to do with it but there
| were multiple factors for sure.
| stevenjohns wrote:
| No, sorry, you don't get it to lump the Jewish people
| into this. It's incredibly dishonest on your part to even
| go in that direction and you should feel embarrassment
| for trying to steer it towards that.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Steer what to where? Are you saying Israel's history and
| present are not connected to Jewish history and the 20th
| century atrocities? That's an extremely bizarre position
| to hold.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| What _isn 't_ connected to Jewish history? Let's see...
| Christianity's out, as is everything influenced by that.
| Same with Islam. Considering conquerers, trade,
| settlement - even just the impact of the United States -
| that leaves... not very much.
|
| The atrocities of WWII are more recent than the start of
| Jewish history, but it's called "World War II" for a
| reason. Think of the impact of the Geneva Conventions,
| for just _one_ example.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| A lot of things are not connected to Jewish history,
| especially not recent Jewish history. We are not that
| important.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They would've happened very differently if Judaism wasn't
| a thing, so I'd say they were connected. Judaism is at
| about as important as the Roman empire, or the people who
| introduced horses to the Americas - though perhaps less
| important than the people who crossed the Beringa land
| bridge.
| luffapi wrote:
| The Balfour Declaration was well before WWII. Israel was
| always a colonization project.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| Anti-semitism, including of the extremely violent
| variety, did not start with WWII. The Balfour Declaration
| was a response to Jews wanting to get the hell out of a
| Europe that hated them and liked to go kill them every so
| often.
| luffapi wrote:
| The Balfour Declaration was a request from a banker so
| powerful that he could order the British government to
| create a new colony. It has nothing to do with anti-
| semitism.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
| bzbarsky wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with anti-semitism.
|
| Anti-semitism has nothing to do with the movement to
| create a homeland for the Jewish people (which then tried
| to garner the support of various governments, which is
| where the Balfour Declaration comes in)? It has
| everything to do with it.
|
| Were there various colonialism-related issues involved
| too, of course. But pretending like that's the entire
| story is quite disingenuous.
| luffapi wrote:
| > _create a homeland for the Jewish people_
|
| This is clearly colonialism by definition. It's the
| entire story because there is no justification for
| oppressing and colonizing others, even if the people
| doing it also face discrimination. It's not an excuse and
| shouldn't be part of the conversation.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| I think there's an interesting argument to be had here
| about the point at which "self-determination" becomes
| "colonialism". A group that is sufficiently
| geographically diffuse does not have a right to self-
| determination (ipso facto, because it's not the majority
| anywhere). Your position seems to be that an attempt by
| such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in
| order to exercise the right to self-determination is
| fundamentally illegitimate because any such attempt is
| "colonialism".
|
| Is that an accurate representation of your views? If not,
| what is?
| luffapi wrote:
| > _Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a
| group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to
| exercise the right to self-determination is fundamentally
| illegitimate because any such attempt is "colonialism"._
|
| If that relocation involves creating a new state or
| otherwise taking power over the region, then yes that's
| my definition of colonialism.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| > If that relocation involves creating a new state
|
| Creating a new state is what the right to self-
| determination is all about, yes.
|
| It sounds like we have some fundamental disagreements on
| definitions here, though I would be interested in your
| take about how you feel the right to self-determination
| can be meaningfully exercised by a geographically
| dispersed group, if at all.
| luffapi wrote:
| I don't think a new state can ethically be created
| without a democratic choice to do so by the existing
| population of a region.
|
| I think a humanitarian route would be to lobby for open
| immigration in existing democracies. For instance, I
| think we all would have been a lot better off if instead
| of creating the state of Israel, we offered US
| citizenship to anyone who needed it after WWII. I'm also
| a proponent of a modern day open border policy for the US
| (where I'm a citizen).
| bzbarsky wrote:
| I don't see how open immigration solves the self-
| determination problem, unless the premise is that:
|
| 1) You allow open immigration.
|
| 2) You then allow a democratic vote, including by the new
| immigrants, to partition the existing state (the essence
| of self-determination).
|
| which comes back to pretty much my original premise: that
| the only way for a geographically dispersed population to
| have self-determination is to be able to move to a single
| area where they can them democratically vote to have that
| area become autonomous or sovereign...
|
| Needless to say, the pre-existing population of that area
| would likely not perceive this process favorably.
|
| The other option I see is to posit that in modern
| democracies the principle of self-determination is
| unnecessary. I suspect a number of people in Catalonia
| and Scotland would disagree...
| luffapi wrote:
| > _The other option I see is to posit that in modern
| democracies the principle of self-determination is
| unnecessary._
|
| For geographically dispersed people? Yes, sovereignty is
| impossible and undesirable as you'd have to take it from
| the locals wherever you were getting the land from.
|
| For people living under an oppressive regime (or one they
| view that way), it's a different story. They _are_ the
| locals and thus should have a government that fits the
| local population.
|
| You can't create sovereignty out of thin air. You have to
| take it from someone if you're going to give it to
| someone else. All the land on this planet has been
| accounted for for some time now.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Its really not though, the declaration never went into
| specifics on what parts will become Jewish exactly for
| this reason. It said a Jewish home IN Plaestine, not that
| all of Palestine will become Jewish. And even if it is
| "the definition of colonialism", what does it have to do
| with anything now?
| luffapi wrote:
| A colony is the establishment of a new state on or _in_
| territory occupied by someone else. This is as textbook a
| case of colonialism as there is.
|
| > _And even if it is "the definition of colonialism",
| what does it have to do with anything now?_
|
| It's literally the basis for every problem we're
| discussing. Israel didn't magically become not a colony,
| it's enforced its apartheid state since it was created by
| western superpowers.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > A colony is the establishment of a new state on or in
| territory occupied by someone else
|
| That's you interpreting Balfour / Zionism the way you see
| fit, there were movements in Zionism that wanted to split
| the land, in fact the main movement wanted to split the
| land since 1937 for sure (agreeing to the Peel committee
| split plan) and maybe even before that. But the
| declaration itself just says - a national Jewish home in
| Palestine. There were unoccupied territories in Palestine
| 100 years ago. In fact there still are, even when this
| tiny land inhabits 15 million people and not just 1.5
| millions like 100 years ago. If Balfour wanted to say
| explicitly that all of Palestine is to become Jewish he
| would have said so. It doesn't even say a state or a
| country, just a "national home". You're attributing to
| Balfour more than what was written.
| luffapi wrote:
| Those territories weren't "unoccupied" though. They were
| occupied and not consulted in the formation of Israel. It
| really is the root of the issue:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balfour_Declar
| ati...
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Define unoccupied. It was scarcely populated, definitely
| then and definitely by today's standards, and the
| Palestinian national movement was only in it's infancy.
| Most Palestinian wanted to be part of Syria back then
| afaik. It wasn't inconceivable that two people can create
| two states there then, and still isn't now. So no, I
| don't buy that everything was a colonialist plot. Some
| Zionists saw it as an expansionist enterprise and some
| didn't. We know for sure that on 1937 Zionism was seeking
| a split to the land or at least willing to make it
| happen. If the Palestinian agreed to the Peel committee
| in 1937 which offered Israel a very small state we
| wouldn't have been having this discussion now.
| luffapi wrote:
| The estimate is around 700k people, of which a minority
| was Jewish:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Pale
| sti...
|
| Just because it wasn't a dense urban area, it doesn't
| mean it was "unoccupied".
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Why is the Balfour Declaration a main point in your
| argument? It could have not happen and yet Jews would
| still have been desperate to find a state of their own. I
| am not sure how it relates to anything besides it being a
| piccant topic (a powerful banker!)
| luffapi wrote:
| The Balfour Declaration is the foundation of Israel, of
| course it should be the main point of any discussion of
| the region.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I agree. I just think if I was working for the US state
| department, and I was sizing up various countries around
| the middle east to build a partnership with, I would
| choose Israel every time. The only country that comes
| close is Turkey, and they have coups every couple of
| decades.
|
| I think the reasons why the ME is so unstable are a bit
| complex, but it's also not really relevant. If you're
| interested in a stable regional partner, the reasons why
| a given country is unstable is not really something you
| care about.
| stevenjohns wrote:
| Considering that the only metric for supporting a Middle
| Eastern group is that they have to be pro-Israel, of
| course Israel becomes the natural choice. It's not about
| stability considering that Israel is a constant powder
| keg. That in itself is just the catch-22 of US foreign
| policy in the Middle East.
|
| The right decision - if you had the best interests for
| the US and the region - is to completely withdraw. Any
| other decision leads to more conflict and hostile and
| opportunist groups (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, et
| al) growing in influence with every passing moment.
| pasabagi wrote:
| The basic goal of US foreign policy has been to maintain
| a network of US allies and partners around the world, who
| can be relied upon to protect US strategic interests,
| like access through the strait of Hormuz.
|
| Nations like Qatar or SA are fine, but ultimately they
| are dictatorships that occasionally do stuff like chop up
| journalists, so you don't invest that much into them. The
| US had a very close strategic partnership with Iran,
| which was in this mould, and it didn't turn out very
| well.
|
| Israel, on the other hand, is a western-style settler-
| colonial state that has never had a coup, has a strong
| civil society, and frankly could have gone to the USSR at
| any point in the cold war and they would have been just
| fine.
|
| Obviously, if you don't want the US to be a global
| hegemon, this policy doesn't make sense. However, the US
| state department almost always does, so this policy is
| totally rational from their perspective.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Wow! How do you lump in Qatar with Saudi Arabia? Please
| point us to one time where Qatar did something last
| heinous as Saudi thugs chopping up a Saudi journalist at
| the behest of the crown prince.
| yyyk wrote:
| >Please point us to one time where Qatar did something
| last heinous as Saudi
|
| Their treatment of "guest workers" (de facto almost
| slaves) is significantly worse than Saudi killing a
| single person.
|
| Not only due to numbers affected (the Guardian counted
| 6,500 deaths). It's that, we expect repressive regimes to
| kill their opponents but when their acts are turned
| against truly helpless and unrelated people it's even
| worse.
|
| https://www.traffickingmatters.com/the-2022-world-cup-
| forced...
|
| https://sports.yahoo.com/qatar-world-cup-unpaid-workers-
| slav...
| DSingularity wrote:
| Workers rights is a separate discussion and one in which
| the entire gulf region is shamefully criminal.
|
| I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown
| Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist.
| Remember, this is a person who we host in the White House
| to shake hands with a smiling president -- it matters
| that the whole world knows he ordered the killing and
| that the whole world continues to look the other way.
| Imagine how he will deal with dissidents for the next
| decade?
| yyyk wrote:
| >Workers rights is a separate discussion in which the
| entire gulf region is shamefully criminal.
|
| It's not. It's a human rights issue, which has led to
| many deaths. Qatar has a far worse record than the rest
| of the Gulf.
|
| >Remember, this is a person who we host in the White
| House to shake hands with a smiling president
|
| So you don't want to do any diplomacy with unsavory
| regimes? With this standard, the US couldn't even talk to
| most of the ME, not to mention Russia and China. The
| world is unlikely to survive that.
|
| >I asked about the unparalleled brutality of a Crown
| Prince ordering the dismemberment of a journalist.
|
| Well, it's a separate issue that almost the entire ME is
| guilty of. Just look at the case of Zahra Kazemi[0]. And
| we have diplomacy with those people!
|
| Sorry, just used your argument for a sec.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahra_Kazemi
|
| "was an Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer, who
| according to the medical examiner was raped, tortured and
| killed by Iranian officials following her arrest in
| Iran."
| DSingularity wrote:
| Now you are bringing in Iran?
| DSingularity wrote:
| The ME is unstable by design. Why dance around the
| subject? The US supports anti-democratic dictatorships in
| the countries it controls.
|
| Guess what comes with unpopular regimes? Perpetual
| instability due to oppressed populations. In the
| countries that are not controlled the US supports any
| group willing to fight the government -- sometimes with
| arms and other times with endless cash to fight the
| government within the framework of democracy. You think
| either of those actions support stability?
| dariusj18 wrote:
| It's ridiculous to think the instability in the middle
| east is by US design, there are thousands of factions
| vying for power and the US has to make strategic calls
| day by day. Had the US made bad decisions, sure, did they
| know those decisions were bad at the time, probably not.
| If you have countries where no group (ethnic or
| political) has a majority, then no ruling government will
| be "popular".
| DSingularity wrote:
| Oh yeah? What is your explanation for Sykes-Picot?
| dariusj18 wrote:
| Perhaps you can first explain why you think that is
| relevant? AFAIK it was an agreement that the US did not
| participate in, nor was its intent to destabilize.
| selectodude wrote:
| It had nothing to do with the United States and the
| geopolical issues it created. In fact, the Americans sent
| a commission to Syria which deduced that what the French
| and Brits were doing was very stupid, at which point the
| Brits and French told the Americans to piss off.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Crane_Commission
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| I've really noticed this. Right wing forums seem to have
| shifted significantly over the last year or 2 from the
| evangelical support of Israeli state, now increasingly to
| 'jews are the puppet master' type commentary. Also
| worryingly the general (and more to do with democrats) call
| to arms type commentary has been growing too. You like yo
| hope its a significant minority but it doesn't seem to get
| pushed down in the forums.
|
| I really dont know how society can deal with this movement
| if it grows. I suspect the best way is access to quality
| education + plentiful & reasonably paid jobs when people
| enter the workforce at all levels. Not trying to be
| political but I feel this is one of many reasons why things
| like higher minimum wages are so important and a somewhat
| egalitarian society as I think much of the discontent
| ultimately comes from people not happy with their societal
| status.
| refurb wrote:
| Dude, the old guard Democrats _love_ Israel. They have
| nothing to worry about, at all.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Not only the old guard. Pretty much anyone in power with
| very few exceptions. There is some merit to it though.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| The old guard is ... old. Their ability to hold onto
| electoral power is impressive (and annoying to me), but
| the actuarial tables are looming here.
|
| Meanwhile the new guard views Israel as an apartheid
| state, which isn't great for Israel.
| refurb wrote:
| The new guard is no different from the new guard of the
| 60's they'll either be squeezed out or conform.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Possible, but I don't see a mechanism for that at this
| point in time. It's not like these people hid their
| opinions of Israel under a bushel in order to get
| elected; a lot of the more vocal critics of Israel
| handily won re-election last year, often against vocally
| pro-Israel opponents. Their voters either agree, or do
| not view Israel as an issue sufficiently important to
| override other policy concerns and change their vote.
|
| If something will force these candidates to conform or
| leave to a pro-Israel position, it's not obvious how or
| why that would happen.
| luffapi wrote:
| > _Meanwhile the new guard views Israel as an apartheid
| state, which isn't great for Israel._
|
| It's great for everyone else though. As a US citizen, I'm
| tired of funding and being morally culpable for Israel's
| terrorism and apartheid state. Thankfully as mentioned,
| the younger generations aren't buying it anymore.
|
| Edit: Since HN has decided to throttle my replies (why?).
| Yes I also oppose _all_ US military adventurism and
| funding. We should be 100% focused on disassembling our
| nuclear arsenal and convincing others to do the same.
| This article is about Israel though, so our support of
| their crimes is the topic of my comment.
| seoaeu wrote:
| It is so weird to me that so many American citizens are
| more worried about the moral implications of the couple
| billion sent to Israel than the literally trillions spent
| on our own wars
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I think you'll find that most people concerned about
| military aid to Israel are likewise not a huge fan of US
| wars either. It's just that this thread is about Israel,
| so of course that is the subject that is discussed.
| seoaeu wrote:
| I've read plenty of threads here talking about the US.
| Very few of them pivot into discussion about military
| spending. Certainly not 100x or 1000x the number about
| Israel that pivot into military aid
| ashtonkem wrote:
| That has not been my experience. Frankly, I think it's
| just that Israel is a more polarizing issue, so it gets
| more discussion. Reducing our military adventurism has a
| much broader base of support among non-elites.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Israel also had _amazing_ bipartisan support in America. It
| seems like Netanyahu purposefully made Israel a partisan
| issue in the US in order to accomplish some short term
| goals, which was probably very short sighted.
| toofy wrote:
| I understand how messy the context surrounding this next point
| is but it's worth considering.
|
| From what Ive been seeing over the past couple weeks, the
| article is probably correct in that pegasus is just the
| beginning of what we're going to find out regarding how deep
| the rabbit hole goes with israeli malware firms, however mint
| press has a very long history of what may be questionable
| funding and there have been quite a lot of organizations who
| have done some pretty well researched investigating that
| implicates mint press in some pretty nasty propaganda.
|
| Again, I understand how complicated and messy this kind of
| thing can be, but if you at all value accuracy in your
| analysis, it would absolutely be worth looking at some of their
| history regarding incredibly questionable funding and very
| strange propaganda for certain regimes.
| adav wrote:
| That's a very questionable source. With such an overtly anti-
| Israel position, that's probably best taken with a large pinch
| of salt.
| dpwm wrote:
| Should we take the sometimes-overtly, other-times-covertly
| pro-Israel position of much of the western media with a
| similar pinch of salt?
| keewee7 wrote:
| Opinions on Israel-Palestine seem to depend on generation.
|
| Boomer journalists are pro-Israel and millennial
| journalists seem to be pro-Palestinian.
|
| In the recent conflict NYT and WaPost were pro-Palestinian
| unlike the conflict in 2014 when they were neutral. In
| 2008/2009 they were openly pro-Israel.
| dessant wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the source, but can you give us a
| reason why one should be pro-Israel in this instance? I see
| nothing wrong with condemning the actions of the Israeli
| government, nor questioning why one of the prominent exports
| of the Israeli technology sector is surveillance.
|
| I keep being contacted several times a year by established
| Israeli companies to add spyware into my projects. A couple
| of weeks ago I was offered $5000 as a sign up bonus by Bright
| Data (formerly Luminati), before that a growth specialist
| from Similarweb contacted me to gather intelligence about how
| to aquire Firefox for Android extensions, it was so slimy
| I've reported the latter to Mozilla employees.
|
| I can't come up with a single country with such a
| disproportionate amount of shady companies specialized in
| online tracking and surveillance compared to the small
| population size.
| kota2 wrote:
| I didn't realize it was even that bad. Wow.
| noduerme wrote:
| >> can you give us a reason why one should be pro-Israel in
| this instance?
|
| Because when it's done in the interest of preventing
| another holocaust, which is the entire reason for the
| existence of Israel, it's not the same as when the Chinese
| government does it to terrify and imprison minorities, or
| when Russia does it to destroy Putin's personal opponents.
|
| I too question their choice of who they licensed this tech
| to, but hopefully they got plenty of useful intel on those
| governments along the way.
| anders_p wrote:
| >...when it's done in the interest of preventing another
| holocaust...
|
| Spying on journalists critical of oppressive regimes, has
| absolutely nothing to do with "preventing another
| holocaust".
|
| Arming tyrants with technology that enables them to crush
| dissent, by spying on their opposition and journalists is
| inexcusable.
|
| That Israel wants to gather intelligence on hostile
| neighbors and prevent a new holocaust is legitimate.
|
| But they shouldn't be immune to critique of their
| actions, by deflecting it with accusations of
| antisemitism and mentioning the holocaust.
| disgu wrote:
| How is that a reason? This stuff is always justified by
| claiming it ensures the safety of people. Another
| justification has never existed for any of these.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| How does selling spyware to authoritarian governments so
| that they can monitor activists and journalists "prevent
| another Holocaust"?
| joelbluminator wrote:
| It keeps up a good working relationship with many
| countries who would otherwise be pressured to be hostile
| towards Israel. It's a diplomatic tool and it worked, see
| the new Abraham Accords.
| noduerme wrote:
| Presumably, the real interest of the Israeli government,
| to the extent it's involved, is in monitoring the people
| they sold the software _to_.
| addmeaning wrote:
| Then why it is sold to oppressive regimes to spy on
| people and crush activists? No, it is done for profit and
| profit only and it is our duty to condemn lack of
| government control in that sector.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| The answer is very simple: because these capabilities
| exist in Israel. Cybersecurity is rampant in the Israeli
| security apparatus, and spawns both offensive and
| defensive companies. NSO, Cellebrite and others are
| simply the flip side of companies like Checkpoint
| ($16bn), SentinelOne ($13bn) and Imperva and countless
| others.
|
| As you get released from military duty as a 20-something
| developer with world class cybersecurity skills, you
| either go offensive or defensive (and we all know which
| one is more exciting and possibly better paying).
|
| It's not surprising that an industry develops around
| skilled workforce. Happens all the time with companies
| around universities.
| maltalex wrote:
| > I'm not familiar with the source, but can you give us a
| reason why one should be pro-Israel in this instance?
|
| No one is saying you should be pro-Israel in this instance.
| But an anti-anything stance should be reasonable and based
| on facts.
|
| The fact that a country with a very large high tech sector
| is home to some questionable companies doesn't say much
| about the country as a whole.
|
| >I can't come up with a single country with such a
| disproportionate amount of shady companies specialized in
| online tracking and surveillance compared to the small
| population size.
|
| That's probably because you're unaware of the size of the
| Israeli high tech sector, which is completely
| disproportional to the country's size. From Wikipedia [0]:
|
| > It [Israel] has the second-largest number of startup
| companies in the world after the United States, and the
| third-largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies after the
| U.S. and China. American companies such as Intel,
| Microsoft, and Apple built their first overseas research
| and development facilities in Israel, and other high-tech
| multi-national corporations, such as IBM, Google, HP, Cisco
| Systems, Facebook and Motorola have opened R&D centres in
| the country
|
| Also relevant - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Wadi,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital_in_Israel
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel
| raxxorrax wrote:
| As a EU citizen I don't criticise Israel for their weapon
| exports to much as that would be heavily hypocritical and
| it would also neglect the fact that EU officials actually
| want to implement said surveillance towards its citizens.
| That is not a fault of Israel, even if you want it to be.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Surely it _is_ a fault of Israel - and also the EU? Just
| because our lot do it too, that doesn 't stop it being a
| problem.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I would feel pretty stupid to criticise Israel when it
| comes out that my own government ordered their software.
| They supposedly didn't buy it, but it was on the table
| for negotiation.
| tremon wrote:
| Why? Were you party to that decision of your government?
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I live in a democracy so I am partially responsible for
| anything my government does. Even and especially when it
| does something I don't like.
| effie wrote:
| Yes if you voted for that government, otherwise no.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you feel stupid saying something that indirectly
| criticises your government, democracy shall soon fall.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| No. I will criticize such decision but Israel is the
| wrong address in this case.
| [deleted]
| xvector wrote:
| I cannot imagine how someone could _possibly_ be pro-Israel
| in the specific context of cybercrime and cyberwarfare. They
| are literally enabling regimes to blackmail and murder
| innocent, good people.
|
| Also, please provide actual counterarguments.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Is it Israel, the state, that is doing that?
| helge9210 wrote:
| Yes. Every sale is approved by at least to ministers.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| That's interesting. Do you have a source?
| kota2 wrote:
| Sure, there is many: https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves
| tigations/interactive/20...
|
| "The Israeli Defense Ministry must approve any license to
| a government that wants to buy it, according to previous
| NSO statements."
| 3327 wrote:
| The source may be questionable, but very likely it is the TIP
| of the iceberg...
| user-the-name wrote:
| Yes, that site bears all the hallmarks of a misinformation
| front: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News
|
| The author of the article also seems to be severely lacking
| in good judgement, since she seems to have appeared on the
| podcast of anti-vaxxer RFK Jr recently.
| Ticklee wrote:
| Wikipedia is also a misinformation front though, as far as
| all it does it consolidate media opinions on any given
| topic.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Come on, you know that's a bullshit response.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| It seems that many prominent Zionist are very friendly with
| alt-right and conservative types until it is convenient for
| them to play the antisemitism card and then suddenly they
| question their judgement.
| l33tbro wrote:
| Do you actually have counter-arguments to her findings here?
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| This spyware can install onto any iPhone or Android phone and spy
| on everything you do silently. It's a game changer for
| governments and their ability to intrude on our lives. It really
| vindicates everything Snowden has said on the topic.
| cf499 wrote:
| "It really vindicates everything Snowden has said on the
| topic."
|
| Did any of his statements really need vindication though? Have
| we not known about this forever? (e.g.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON) I suspect the real
| problem is, and always has been, our perceived inability to
| change any of it.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| India could have been outraged at the news two years ago but
| we had to reach this point.
| _kbh_ wrote:
| ECHELON is way worse then Pegasus though, cause ECHELON /
| PRISM / whatever you don't even need spyware on your phone or
| to be targeted to be scooped up in their net.
| toofy wrote:
| maybe. these are different problems existing in different
| scopes.
|
| a modern echelon dragnet would get an absolute mass of
| encrypted data so your fear will depend on whether or not
| you believe governments can break that crypto, and if so,
| at what scale.
|
| pegasus on the other hand is highly targeted, infects
| silently and completely takes over your device-the camera,
| the microphone, keyboard, etc... encryption will not help.
| nothing can save you.
|
| echelon was dragnet, pegasus is targeted. both extremely
| dangerous yet i still find something about pegasus to be
| infinitely more frightening.
|
| we've already seen very high profile journalists murdered
| from pegasus and i suspect we're going to uncover more as
| it's dug into further.
| Zak wrote:
| Mass interception over the wire affects more people, but
| it's easier to defend against using cryptography.
| pieter_mj wrote:
| I do firmly believe US government, Apple and Google have the
| patriotic duty to stop NSO and close these zero-click, zero-day
| vulnerabilities. Are they seriously allowing foreign
| governments and other unscrupulous parties to infiltrate and
| spy whomever they wish, just because it is also convenient for
| them?
| skohan wrote:
| What makes this technically possible? I.e, isn't one of Apple's
| main arguments for needing an app store so that they can
| prevent this kind of thing on a hardware and software level?
| vmception wrote:
| Naftali Bennett's first real test.
|
| Would he actually know or have a way to find out why Macron
| secrets are being traded to Pegasus clients, or even reign in the
| spyware industry at all?
|
| Would the fragile coalition be able to handle this PM doing
| anything about it, or is this so far outside of their priority
| list that it doesn't matter and there is room for real reform?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I don't find anything extraordinary in the fact that foreign
| governments spy on Macron. In fact I would expect France to do
| the same to other countries, and I'm sure they do.
|
| These things make headlines when they are found by the public
| but they really are business as usual among governments.
|
| If anything, this only reflects badly on the French services
| themselves if the President's phone (I assume, or hope, private
| phone as they are supposed to have custom, secure phones for
| official business) got owned.
| golergka wrote:
| They have an easy out: blame it on Bibi and promise change.
| google234123 wrote:
| It's also a fair out.
| peteretep wrote:
| > Would he actually know or have a way to find out why Macron
| secrets are being traded to Pegasus clients, or even reign in
| the spyware industry at all?
|
| I don't think this would pass muster as an excuse if Israeli
| industry had been selling missiles to Morocco for use against
| France.
|
| Curious to see if it ends up being treated the same.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| France and Morocco have a very close relationship, this quite
| equivalent since spying isn't treated in the same way as
| direct hostilities.
|
| If it was the EU would've fallen by now as I've lost a count
| of how many times states were caught spying on one another.
| vmception wrote:
| Right, the main benefit/issue is that spyware and exploits
| are not seen as "munitions" anywhere, and as such, escape
| regulation or meaningful export controls.
| peteretep wrote:
| I think you're right, but I think this will change
| baybal2 wrote:
| Actually, in Israel it is. Every Pegasus contract was
| cleared by the cabinet, and possibly Bibi himself.
| fmajid wrote:
| And quite possibly in secret too, without the knowledge
| of the cabinet. Bennett and Gantz may well be saying the
| truth when they say they didn't know.
| olivierduval wrote:
| This story is kind of funny: "intelligence" is a game where
| everybody cheat and everybody say that he doesn't. That's the
| basic (and maybe only) rule of the game... So when a cheater is
| caught, the main consequence is that... he has to find another
| way to cheat!!!
|
| For a long time, Israel is known to be cheating with cyber... and
| I wouldn't be surprised that France is using NSO services too!
| Same goes for Palantir...
|
| But it has to be non-public! Showing it publicly is a way to
| force everybody to find other ways... but won't change the world
| nor the game. And it's not about "terrorist"... just about
| "intelligence" and "national security"
| scoot wrote:
| Slightly OT, but a week or so ago Instagram decided that I'm in
| Israel for the purpose of targeted advertising, and their Covid
| Info Center.
|
| I've no idea why, and no idea how to fix it.
|
| It makes skipping ads easy (anything in Hebrew), but it's mildly
| disconcerting not knowing what's behind it.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| As long as dual citizens control the US supreme court and
| Congress they don't actually care.
| tester34 wrote:
| I do wonder whether FBI will hunt those reverse and software
| engineers behind those tools
|
| I do wonder how many of them are in this comment chain or
| previous big thread about Pegasus
| cbg0 wrote:
| It's an Israeli company, how exactly is the FBI going to hunt
| down their engineers?
| tester34 wrote:
| the same way they hunt Russian hackers
|
| on vacations in cool places :)
|
| src:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+hacker+caught+on+vac.
| ..
|
| 1
|
| >At noon on June 28, 2012, Vladimir Drinkman, targeted as one
| of America's most wanted cybercriminals, and his wife hustled
| into a cab pulling away from their Amsterdam hotel. They had
| just been tipped off that the police were on to them, but an
| unmarked police car blocked their getaway. The Russian was
| handcuffed and arrested on charges of helping to mastermind
| what has been called the largest criminal hacking scheme ever
| prosecuted in the United States.
|
| _____________
|
| 2
|
| >The United States has carried out a largely unheralded
| roundup of big Russian hackers over the last year, grabbing
| them on vacation in Barcelona, Prague and Greece,
|
| ______________
|
| or great talk by Adam Haertle, but unfortunely in Polish with
| English subtitles avaliable
|
| The day of cybercriminal, or how hard it is to remain an
| uncaught
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPIIILlIYXE
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, but unlike russia, Israel is an ally of the US.
| codedokode wrote:
| The difference is that US is strong and powerful and can
| arrest its enemies across the world, but Europe is weak and
| pathetic and cannot even defend itself.
| tempodox wrote:
| If anything, the "hunting down" would be for the purpose of
| hiring them.
| nottoday539 wrote:
| Dirty little zionists.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Watergate seems tame these days...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-02 23:03 UTC)