[HN Gopher] Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group'...
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Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group's Pegasus
Spyware
Author : bjourne
Score : 482 points
Date : 2021-11-08 09:32 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.frontlinedefenders.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.frontlinedefenders.org)
| kryptozinc wrote:
| ITT: Israeli shills in full force.
| [deleted]
| jedimind wrote:
| Low karma doesn't make him or anyone a shill (+ it's a old
| account from 2019, NOT a newly created account just for this
| thread), some people just don't like commenting on political
| stuff with their main accounts. You have been heavily
| brigading this thread tho and your higher karma doesn't give
| you immunity to the shilling classification.
| starik36 wrote:
| From reading this thread, you could have easily put "ITT: Anti-
| Semites out in full force" as well.
| paulcarroty wrote:
| Seriously, every Pegasus-related news slightly killing the Apple
| "privacy" myth. And this is good 'cause we deserve better mobile
| solutions than the strange duopoly, where one company pays $9B to
| another for the right to mining private data.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| People have warned against paternalistic OS from the start. It
| might be too late for now.
|
| You have an advertising ID on your phone and it scans your
| images because you are a suspect with limited control over you
| device.
|
| To be honest, on bad days I just think people don't deserve
| anything better. The amount of free work people have put into
| alternatives is incredible, but there certainly was a refusal
| to think ahead.
| [deleted]
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| You may be right, but I don't see how this is relevant here. I
| hate shady tracking practices too, but we're talking about
| human rights violations, which is a far bigger issue and has
| nothing to do with how much Apple tracks you. Even if it didn't
| track you, nothing stops malware with arbitrary kernel
| privileges from tracking you anyway. Security vulnerabilities
| will always exist. It happens on Android too, it just doesn't
| make headlines that often because iOS is (or at least claims to
| be) more secure.
| stef25 wrote:
| Slightly OT - Isn't it obvious that NSO must be able to control
| every "copy" of Pegasus it sells?
|
| They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it
| wouldn't be used against its own people and they have no problem
| selling to their arch enemies.
|
| NSO's defense has always been "we just sell the tech and can't be
| held responsible for what our clients do with it" (this was clear
| from the Darknet Diaries episode).
|
| If you consider they must be able to control it, and are
| therefore perfectly capable of monitoring it, then they become
| much more complicit in what's being done with it. Same story if
| somehow 1 license = 1 target. This is something that I don't
| think was explored enough in DD.
| q1w2 wrote:
| > "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what
| our clients do with it"
|
| This should not be put in quotes - as it is not a quote.
|
| Also, they issued a statement saying the opposite - that they
| review the uses of the tech, and sign agreements with nations
| buying it that they will act in a certain way.
|
| Enforcement those agreements is obviously complicated.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think it is pretty clear from the context that this is not
| a direct quote. The usage of quotes online has evolved -
| language is not prescriptive.
|
| Have a great day :)
| macinjosh wrote:
| My assumption is that what they have full control over is the
| admin/CRUD interface that is on top of the database that their
| malware is feeding. They tightly control the access to that
| data which is probably encrypted on the target device. That
| admin interface probably also is where the targeting is done so
| they could easily put anything they don't want targeted behind
| a disallow-list.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it
| wouldn't be used against its own people
|
| Why not? NSO Group is willing to sacrifice the lives of others
| for profit, so who's to say that NSO Group would shy away from
| that?
| stef25 wrote:
| If I remember correctly every sale of Pegasus requires an
| export license and is therefore subject to approval by the
| Israeli govt. They don't seem to care much for human rights
| activists and journalists but assuming every unpatched
| smartphone is vulnerable, it's very unlikely they're going to
| allow sales if it could just be pointed at any member of the
| Israeli govt or military.
| supercheetah wrote:
| Does Israel even have laws against spying on its own
| citizens? If not, or very weak one, it's hard to imagine it
| wouldn't want to spy on them, especially any political
| opposition.
| michaelt wrote:
| Ransomware will often leave computers untouched if they have
| a Cyrillic keyboard layout, because aggravating authorities
| in your own country is orders of magnitude more dangerous
| than aggravating foreign authorities.
|
| Theoretically, the NSO group might feel the same way.
| shmatt wrote:
| They do care about 1 thing and thats Pegasus source code.
|
| A Senior Engineer of theirs got caught and jailed trying to
| sell it for 50 Million Dollars[1]. I assume they don't want
| their index of exploits leaked
|
| [1]https://www.securityweek.com/ex-nso-employee-accused-
| stealin...
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| They don't necessarily need a backdoor or similar to control
| it, they just need to be able to identify if it is being used
| against them and to be able to defeat it.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > (this was clear from the Darknet Diaries episode)
|
| think that episode also mentioned it iirc ... that the
| plausible deniability goes out the window the minute they host
| their own infrastructure.
|
| also NSO Group goes through great length to obscure who they're
| selling to using shell and shelf companies. actually
| indistinguishable from how narco terrorists and organized crime
| operates: https://forensicnews.net/the-covert-reach-of-nso-
| group/
|
| Unit81, and Unit8200 FTW :(
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Not wanting to defend NSO, but I guess that is common
| business practice for any supplier of surveillance software
| for state actors. Remember how loud they cried when people
| leaked about their monitoring? Such dealing are meant to be
| intransparent and states create the market.
| vmception wrote:
| (which is because organized crime is indistinguishable from
| general business)
| stef25 wrote:
| Jack was alluding at that but afaik he didn't mention
| anything about how they ensure it's not used against their
| own citizens?
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| I also don't recall it. iirc the topic also came up in a
| tptazcek episode of "security cryptography whatever" and a
| handful of other places ... so I might be conflating things
| on who made claims when.
|
| If it were used against their own IL citizens, would it
| really matter legally? As long as the parent company (NSO)
| can plausibly claim it had no knowledge of even the
| existence of a specific SLA between a foreign spinoff (e.g.
| FloLive, Circle etc) and their clients. If you think
| yourself into a position where you want to become a global
| player in an increasingly regulated market (embargoes,
| sanctions lists etc) the only way to avoid repercussions is
| by not knowing what other parts of your affiliates are
| doing.
|
| Just because some of these shell companies have been
| unmasked must be annoying for NSO. But they can still say
| they had no idea what directors of these "independent"
| companies were doing.
|
| It would be normal military tactic to compartmentalize
| information not just on paper but also in reality to be on
| a "need to know basis". So it's double baffling to me that
| the shell companies listed as the main investors are the
| same people sitting on the NSO board of directors.
|
| sorry lots of conjecture IANAL ...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it
| wouldn't be used against its own people and they have no
| problem selling to their arch enemies."
|
| I do not follow that logic.
|
| They do not have to control every instance of their software,
| to defend against it. I certainly would not try to hack someone
| with their own tools. I would just assume they spot it easily
| and exchange the favour.
| giansegato wrote:
| I believe the OP was referring to the state of Israel, more
| in the sense that Israel wouldn't grant permission to sell a
| certain technology without being sure it cannot be wielded
| against its people.
|
| I think it's a sound argument, even if speculative.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| You can never be sure with any weapon you made, that it
| will not be eventually be used against you. But a fine
| grained hacking tool has a very unique fingerprint and
| working style, you could defend against much more easier,
| if it was you who build it all.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Can someone explain the strong ties between US and Israel, and
| why US stands behind Israel, no matter what?
| guerrilla wrote:
| Less true today, but historically:
|
| "Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world
| that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier,
| and is located in a critical region for American national
| security." -- Alexander Haig (former Secretary of State under
| Reagan and four-star general.)
|
| Today they have a lot of common economic interests and trade,
| similar to a European country.
| justin66 wrote:
| > "Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the
| world
|
| Alexander "I am in control here" Haig made that statement
| prior to witnessing Desert Storm and the three decades of
| conflict to follow. The thing that makes that statement
| ironic is that we can't really fly much from there, and at
| times had to actively lobby Israel not to fly attack missions
| in their own self-defense, because doing so would alienate
| our _other_ allies in the region.
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| I believe the point he was making was that they were/are
| the US's proxy wrt. foreign policy. Not being able to fly
| there is congruent with "does not carry even one American
| soldier." The thing about proxies is that you're not always
| in complete control of them but the benefits often far
| outweigh the costs. You can confirm both of those
| conditions by looking at a lot of parts of the Syrian Civil
| War.
| cutler wrote:
| Large US Jewish population eg. Lubavitch Jews.
| luaybs wrote:
| AIPAC (https://www.aipac.org/)
| yyyk wrote:
| >Can someone explain the strong ties between US and Israel, and
| why US stands behind Israel, no matter what?
|
| Others have tried to explain this, but I want to note that this
| impression is a tiny bit exaggerated.
|
| The US has a strong relationship with Israel, but there are
| countries which have better ties with the US, or at least get
| more from the US - South Korea has a direct defence alliance,
| Pakistan gets (read: extorts) more money, Britain has the
| 'special relationship', Australia just got nuke subs, etc.
|
| Also, can you think of any US President which did not have a
| public fight with Israel since Carter? Excepting maybe Trump,
| all of them had some nasty public spat with an Israeli
| government.
|
| I suspect the main source of this impression is that it's
| useful for _both_ Israel and its enemies.
| skinkestek wrote:
| A more instructive question might be (warning: this is meant to
| get people thinking, but at least I'll be straight forward
| about it):
|
| Why does nobody else follow up on the UN resolution from 1948?
|
| (Just like in the case of India / Pakistan UN decided to divide
| the area into two parts, one for Jews, one for Arabs.)
|
| I can also ask: why does so few other support the single
| _somewhat_ functioning democracy in the region?
|
| Then, on to your question: After initially being supportive of
| Israel, USSR took the other side early on and propped up the
| surrounding nations with weapons so US was kind of forced to do
| it.
|
| Later on it has turned out to be a beneficial although
| controversial deal for both parts.
| bawolff wrote:
| If there was too much bad blood to make that work in 1948,
| i'm not sure how adding 74 years of additional bad blood will
| make it any more likely.
| chuckee wrote:
| > a beneficial although controversial deal for both parts.
|
| How did the US benefit? Did that benefit go to the US
| population as a whole, or to a few oil companies? Does that
| benefit exceed the astronomical cost of the many middle
| eastern conflicts the US has gotten tangled in?
| skinkestek wrote:
| Intel has a significant presence there as has probably a
| number of other American companies and since they stay
| there despite the logistic and PR issues there must be some
| advantages.
|
| A whole lot of other products and tech originate in Israel
| it seems, so much that every boycott Israel campaign only
| get so far before everyone figure out it isn't worth the
| trouble.
|
| Besides Israel has been invaluable in getting intelligence
| about Russia, which as far as I have understood was the
| reason why the US military became so close friends with
| Israel in the first place.
| chuckee wrote:
| > Intel has a significant presence there
|
| That's a bit tail wagging the dog, isn't it? Intel has no
| trouble getting engineers to immigrate to the US when it
| comes to other countries.
|
| > boycott Israel
|
| There's a lot of room between "unquestioning military
| support" and "boycott".
| skinkestek wrote:
| > Intel has no trouble getting engineers to immigrate to
| the US when it comes to other countries.
|
| For some reason Intel keep a significant presence in
| Israel. I'm not an Israeli and not an Intel employee so I
| can only guess that they find it beneficial somehow.
|
| > There's a lot of room between "unquestioning military
| support" and "boycott".
|
| Yes?
| chuckee wrote:
| > For some reason Intel keep a significant presence in
| Israel.
|
| A great many US companies have a significant presence in
| a great many countries, that receive far less in military
| aid and support.
|
| > Yes?
|
| Meaning that boycotts against Israel are irrelevant to
| what the US gains by supporting Israel - I assume that's
| why you brought them up?
| skinkestek wrote:
| > A great many US companies have a significant presence
| in a great many countries, that receive far less in
| military aid and support.
|
| I think you are replying to something you think I said,
| let me explain below.
|
| > Meaning that boycotts against Israel are irrelevant to
| what the US gains by supporting Israel - I assume that's
| why you brought them up?
|
| No, the reason I brought it up is that if what I heard is
| correct we are very dependent on Israeli technology and
| products.
|
| My point is that there are some strong rational reasons
| why Israel is an interesting partner for the US.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > I can also ask: why does so few other support the single
| somewhat functioning democracy in the region?
|
| In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an
| army, have control over borders, or even control of travel
| around the West Bank. So they are made to nit have their own
| country (which Israel opposes) but to be part of Israel. So
| can they vote for Knesset candidates? No. (Yet an orthodox
| Jew from Brooklyn who has never been to the Middle East can
| make aliyah to a West Bank settlement and vote for Knesset
| candidates immediately).
|
| Some "democracy".
| skinkestek wrote:
| > > I can also ask: why does so few other support the
| single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?
|
| > In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an
| army, have control over borders, or even control of travel
| around the West Bank.
|
| Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") isn't officially part
| of Israel as far as I understand. Naturally they don't have
| voting rights in Israel.
|
| The democracy inside Israel is as I said above somewhat
| functioning, at least compared to the rest of the region.
| rob74 wrote:
| Er... you mean the UN resolution which produced this map: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
| ? Well, today Israel opposes the _current_ "two state
| solution" proposal which would give the Palestinians a much
| smaller territory than on that map, so I kind of understand
| why the proposal from 1948 is not on the table anymore...
| [deleted]
| skinkestek wrote:
| Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted.
|
| Please also keep in mind that Israel have occupied far more
| land - and promptly given it back as soon as a lasting
| peace agreement with the country in question was signed
| (more or less the entire Sinai. And the country who signed
| a lasting peace treaty and never had trouble with Israel
| again is Egypt).
|
| Also, please keep in mind that significant more Jews has
| been chased out of surrounding Arab countries than Arabs
| from Israel so anyone asking if UN really divided it in a
| fair way should also have a good case if they weren't up
| against almost the entire western world, especially
| academia and journalists who by now have a deep and vested
| interest in keeping such facts of the table.
|
| Edit: my point in the second paragraph is that I don't
| think it is fair to demand that Israel retreat from hard-
| to-attack positions that gives enemies significant
| advantages (especially Golan) without a lasting peace
| agreement.
|
| Edit 2: as for Judea and Samaria which constitute a large
| part of the remaining "occupied territories" they were
| first captured by Jordan (which was supposed to be the Arab
| part of the British mandate from the start and which got
| 70% of the land before the UN resolution which cut the
| remaining 30% into a Jewish and an Arab part.)
|
| Israel then took it from Jordan in the 1967 war and has
| been administering it since then.
| sndman wrote:
| While it may be true that Jews were "chased out of the
| surrounding Arab countries", this doesn't justify the
| ethnic cleansing of Palestine. A crime is a crime.
|
| Let's be clear, forcibly removing an indigenous
| population of over 750,000 people (this included my
| parents) is a crime. These refugees and their decedents
| have a right to return to their land. This has to be
| acknowledged and only then will the region move on.
|
| Here, South Africa is a great example of a peaceful
| coexistence: while it has its problems, the country has
| moved on after Apartheid.
|
| This is the root Palestinian problem. It's not a
| complicated story.
| skinkestek wrote:
| All you write until the part about South Africa more or
| less makes sense but you are leaving out a whole lot:
|
| Yes, forcibly removing 750 000 people can absolutely be
| considered a crime.
|
| But what then about the more than 750 000 Jews that were
| forcibly removed from their homes in the neighboring
| countries?
|
| Should they also have the right to return?
|
| Does it matter that Arab leadership encouraged your
| parents and others to leave? (In addition to the barbaric
| actions of certain Israeli groups.)
|
| Because both sides are displaced, only your side was on
| top of that also betrayed by their own leadership and
| used as a pawn while the Israeli side took care of its
| own people including to a large degree Arabs who chose to
| stay.
|
| When it comes to South Africa I have close friends and
| even relatives there. A fellow sysadmin friend of mine
| got knocked to the ground there by a gun (used to hit,
| not shoot) just last year in a robbery. People have to
| use guns, barbed wire and more to protect themselves.
| Politics is more or less crazy as far as I understand.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| "Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted."
|
| This is always presented with the implication that they
| should have accepted the plan.
|
| I think if someone, even the UN came to you (and by 'you'
| I mean group of people of multiple religions living in
| your state / country etc ) and said "I've got a wonderful
| plan that I want you to accept. You people who currently
| live in the whole of this land will get to live in less
| than half of the land. What do you think about that?"
|
| I'm not sure many people would accept this.
| skinkestek wrote:
| You bring up good points. I don't want to undermine them.
| I think I understand the people on the ground somewhat.
| My country was occupied for five years and it stuck
| around into well into my childhood ("Germans" were our
| natural enemies and the bad guys in pulp literature as
| well as war comics until well into my childhood at
| least.)
|
| That said:
|
| Want to hear a joke? The UN. [1]
|
| Have you ever seen me defend the UN on this site?
|
| But, when the UN is responsible for todays situation to
| such large degree, and when someone pulls out that map,
| then the fact that only one part agreed to that map
| becomes a point.
|
| [1]: This however is not a joke: You know why there are
| so many resolutions from the UN against Israel compared
| to the other way around? Because USSR used its veto power
| to block almost every single proposal that suggested
| condemnation of Arab states while USA allowed a number of
| those who condemned Israel to slip through.
| bawolff wrote:
| Geopolitically they both hate iran.
|
| Culturally both are fairly similar - both are "western"-style
| democracies (e.g. representative democracies with constitutions
| that value rule of law, independent judiciary, etc)
|
| And, the following might be controversial - but many of
| americas strategic allies do much worse shit than israel, they
| just get called out on it less. Hell, Saudi arabia is literally
| murdering people in embasies and still seems to have a good
| relationship with the usa somehow.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Israel would have had zero issues with Iran if Iran wasn't on
| a quest to destroy Israel. In fact the two had normal
| relations until the Iranian Islamic revolution.
| bawolff wrote:
| Ultimately the reasons why israel and iran are at odds
| don't matter much. Both are competiting to be regional
| powers in the middle east, and its the lines which
| alliances are being drawn around.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Don't matter to you maybe ... to many people finding
| reason is important.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Don 't matter to you maybe_
|
| The point is swap out the people in those geographies,
| rerun the timeline, and you'll find them in conflict. The
| reasons they each come up with in this iteration is
| dressing.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| > The reasons they each come up with in this iteration is
| dressing
|
| What reasons do you think Israel "has come up with"? To
| me it's quite clear there's one side that's bent on
| destroying the other, there is no symmetry.
| Quanttek wrote:
| it'd also be good to mention that there exists a strong,
| largely right-wing and evangelical, pro-Israeli lobby in the
| US that make it politically very costly to not demonstrate
| unequivocal support
| Banana699 wrote:
| I'm not the brightest bulb in American politics, but the
| trope of right wing evangelicals single-handedly being
| responsible for America-Israel bizarre parasitic
| relationship is tired and false IMO. If it were true,
| progressives and their allies would drop into this new
| fertile frontier of the culture war, and if _that_ was
| true, we would see a lot more struggle and conflict than
| the meek 'meh' and shoulder shrug that the congress does
| every time an Israel-related issue is being discussed.
|
| Look at abortion for example, do right wing evangelicals
| value this issue less than their support for a
| 10-thousand+-kilometer-away country? did they manage to
| make it controversial and costly to not adopt their
| position on it?
|
| Right wing evangelicals do performatively praise Israel
| more often, but actual lobbying is strongly bipartisan and
| cuts across the conservative-progressive divide.
| 1shooner wrote:
| >Look at abortion for example, do right wing evangelicals
| value this issue less than their support for a
| 10-thousand+-kilometer-away country? did they manage to
| make it controversial and costly to not adopt their
| position on it?
|
| Being anti-abortion is a political litmus test in many
| parts of the US.
| Banana699 wrote:
| It's vastly different scale. Yes it's costly and
| contraversial to say you're pro-abortion in _parts_ of
| the US, but not all of US. And not the congress, not the
| white house. Look at the sheer amount of flak the supreme
| court got when it decided to let the Texas law slide
| temporarily, even though they cited standard legal
| procedure.
|
| Contrast that with majorities that pro-Israel laws always
| get in congress. Trump even recently complained outright
| that "Israel used to control the congress" and he didn't
| even mean it in a bad way, the ADL shat its pants and
| quickly tore into him saying that it's AntiSemitic (^TM)
| to say that. Nobody in the Democrats is willing to
| approach criticising Israel with an INT_MAX foot pole
| except possibly old-school anti-imperialism marxists, and
| they are fringe.
| swiley wrote:
| This is due to the mistaken belief that modern Judaism is
| somehow related to Christianity when it's much more similar
| to National Socialism if you look more carefully.
| iddan wrote:
| Israel and the US have deep strategic and economic relations.c
| Tel Aviv is one of the hottest startup hubs in the world
| targeting mainly the US. The US sells military technology to
| Israel and vice versa. Most of Israel's enemies are hostile to
| the US as well: Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas to name a few. Not sure
| it is relevant but historically the Jewish-American community
| was pro Israel and lobbied for Israel in the US and in Israel
| there is a significant amount of American-Israeli citizens in
| diplomacy and power positions (e.g. prime ministers, ministers
| of foreign affairs). Culturally, Israel is the closest state to
| the US and Europe. Also, most people in Israel's big cities
| have a good grasp of the English language.
| redwood wrote:
| Nuanced question with answers more appropriate to long form
| articles or books, but some reasons: deep cultural links on the
| left (Jewish Americans plus a history of socialism and kibbutz
| culture that captured the imagination of many boomers) and the
| right (religious Christians in particular), foreign policy geo
| political alignment during the cold War, deep economic ties
| "startup nation", personal ties for many Americans, the fact
| that many simply love the idea that there could be an ultra
| liberal "Berlin by the beach" in the heart of ultra
| conservative middle east.. the list goes on.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I think it is a fair question, but asking questions and
| hypothesizing reasons will get you labeled as antisemitic.
|
| My guess is at some point Israel infiltrated high levels of
| government and got compromising information, and used that to
| continue to exert influence and control in American politics
| with access to confidential national security information and
| technology.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I think this is quite a reach and of course completely
| unsubstantiated.
| stef25 wrote:
| Israel is just better friends with the US than Middle Eastern
| states are. Nothing antisemitic or sinister. No need to get
| all conspiratorial about it.
| yyyk wrote:
| If getting compromising material was enough to set US policy,
| USSR/Russia would have been controlled American politics by
| now.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I believe there was an explicit project by the Israeli
| government to do this called the Hasbara project. There is a
| wikipedia page about it which goes into some detail about the
| (successful) implementation in the United States
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_of_Israel
| jonyt wrote:
| Where in the linked article does it say "Israel infiltrated
| high levels of government and got compromising
| information"?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| alignItems wrote:
| There are biases on all sides, and it's often hard to extricate
| oneself from them to see the facts as they are.
|
| You could flip the question and ask why is so much of the world
| anti-Israel, no matter what?
|
| The data on this is that in 2020 the UN adopted 17 resolutions
| condemning Israel and 6 for the rest of the world.
|
| Now it's possible that Israel is so much worse than the rest of
| the world, and the US is biased. Or perhaps there's a lot of
| anti-Israel bias globally and the USA is actually closer to
| neutral.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > The data on this is that in 2020 the UN adopted 17
| resolutions condemning Israel and 6 for the rest of the
| world.
|
| > Now it's possible that Israel is so much worse than the
| rest of the world
|
| According to Israel itself, it launched 50 bombing raids in
| Syria in 2020. Many of the UN resolutions condemning Israel
| were due to those bombings and other actions Israel has taken
| vis-a-vis Syria. Including Israel's occupation and settlement
| of Syrian territory since 1967, which the UN condemned then,
| and upheld in 2020 along with the other resolutions.
|
| The reason the UN condemned Israel in 2020 and not Bhutan, is
| Israel decided to bomb Syria many times in 2020, and Bhutan
| did not.
| alignItems wrote:
| This isn't a comparison of Israel vs Bhutan with regards to
| Syria.
|
| The is comparing Israel with the rest of the world
| _combined_ , across all global conflicts and human rights
| violations.
| ktownsend wrote:
| Historically, this hasn't always been the case, and the US were
| actively opposed to Israel's covert Nuclear program, for
| example, which was built with French support against the wishes
| of the US government at the time. The world has change
| significantly since then, including the French and American
| governments alignment of interests and weighing to pros and
| cons. I'm sure other people here can provide more nuance than
| I'm able to on the 'why', although there is a lot of emotional
| nonsense and baggage that comes with this particular topic, so
| you need to take it with a healthy dose of skepticism that
| there are NO blanket right and wrong people here and there is
| blood on everyone's hands.
|
| Essentially, though, ignoring conspiracy theories and set in
| stone agendas, Israel simple represented a palatable partner in
| an incredibly complex, hostile part of the world and there is
| simple more in common between the two countries, despite their
| own at times competing interests. But US interests align far
| more with Israel, or politically moderate countries like Jordan
| than some others in the region.
|
| I'm sure there is an element of playing to your electoral base
| TODAY, but honestly, I think it's just pragmatism at the end of
| the day in a region where the math can be brutal and bloody,
| and there are no easy choices of solutions, and real
| partnerships are fleeting in the region since the powerbrokers
| in one country or region today maybe be out of the picture
| tomorrow. Despite internal politics in Israel looking like a
| bloodsport from outside, they are at least a consistent voice
| in a highly turbulent region.
|
| That's just my relatively uninformed, I'm sure biased opinion,
| but I don't have a fixed opinion on who the good and bad people
| here are, and thing there's a lot of blame in every direction,
| and no real will to change that on any side.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > Historically, this hasn't always been the case
|
| The second largest political party in the first Knesset was
| Mapam, which had ideological ties to the Soviet Union (the
| largest party was the center left Worker's Party or Mapai).
| The USSR was the first country to recognize Israel, followed
| by future Warsaw Pact members Czechosolvakia and Poland. Then
| Hungary and Romania recognized Israel. The next year, the US
| decided to recognize Israel. So Israel initially had better
| diplomatic relations with the future Warsaw Pact than the
| USA.
|
| With the 1967 war, these Warsaw Pact countries all broke
| diplomatic relations with Israel (except Romania, which was
| in the process of breaking away from the USSR). Relations
| between the US and Israel improved dramatically in 1967. In
| 1973 Israel had an ill-fated war with Egypt, whose Sinai
| peninsula was occupied by Israel since 1967, and in 1977,
| Likud took over the Knesset for the first time.
|
| So 1967 was an important year in the relationship shift.
| pmyteh wrote:
| I agree that it's mostly interests rather than electoral
| politics, though there's a certain amount of the latter as
| well (and Israel have invested heavily in public diplomacy
| programmes to try to keep their stock high in that regard).
| It's worth noting that one of the other closest allies of the
| US/UK in the region is Saudi Arabia, who nobody would
| describe as 'politically moderate' or close in values.
| _djo_ wrote:
| It's not just the US and UK supporting Saudi Arabia (and
| other Middle Eastern dictatorships like the UAE), but
| pretty much all of the EU as well. Look at the sort of
| military tech they're able to get quite easily from Germany
| (despite the occasional temporary freeze after bad press,
| later quietly lifted), France, the Netherlands, Belgium,
| etc.
|
| It's all geopolitics in the end, and Saudi Arabia not only
| has influence by virtue of controlling so much of the
| world's energy supply but because it's a relatively stable
| and consistent power and its regional aims are in line with
| the US and Europe's desired strategic outcomes.
|
| There isn't a single European government that would rather
| Saudi Arabia be a democratic country right now.
|
| Russia, China, and others aren't any different.
| ktownsend wrote:
| There clearly aren't a lot of good bedfellows to be had in
| the region. US engagement in ME politics is rife with
| contradictions and blind self-interest, as are political
| calculations in the EU, China, or anywhere else with enough
| reach to matter. When you have to weigh blood, oil,
| military projection, and short-term regional influence in a
| unpredictable region, it's hard to see anyone as being on
| the right side of anything. At least the Russians aren't
| even pretending otherwise, which is sadly refreshing!
|
| Anything involved Israel just has a depressing tendency to
| quickly degrade into double standards, name calling and
| selective vision from otherwise intelligent-seeming people
| I would normally respect. That's what really depresses me:
| the inability to have an intelligent rational discussion on
| anything involving Israel.
|
| Be mercilessly critical if it's justified! I certainly am,
| and don't think oil is worth so much blood. But it's as
| necessary with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Palestine as
| it is with Israel. Just be lucid, honest and fair about it,
| and willing to admit you don't have all the facts or
| answers. Why that's so damned hard baffles me, especially
| from people like engineers who trade in complexity and
| nuance and edge cases days in and day out.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| > But it's as necessary with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran,
| and Palestine as it is with Israel.
|
| If Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine have
| reasons to hate each other, then why intervene? It's not
| like backing one side will stop the conflicts and bring
| peace as recent history showed us.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| The Iraqi prime minister just escaped a bomb attack a few
| days ago. No friend of Saddam, but I believe the US has
| responsibilities now. Well, that would be true for Iran
| as well...
| rob74 wrote:
| > _But US interests align far more with Israel, or
| politically moderate countries like Jordan than some others
| in the region._
|
| funny though that Saudi Arabia, which I would definitely
| _not_ describe as "moderate", is also a very close US
| ally...
| yonixw wrote:
| The enemy of my enemy (Iran), is my friend.
| Banana699 wrote:
| Comparing the blood on the conquerer hands and the blood on
| the conquered hand is always a strong indicator of either
| misinformation or bad faith.
|
| It would be like saying 'Sure, the USA did a lot of terrible
| things in Afghanistan, but did you know that Taliban recruits
| child soldiers? There are blood on everybody's hand', well
| yes detective it's called a war, nobody is innocent in a war.
| The relevant issue is who let the first blood flow, who broke
| into a land not theirs and started the whole deadly
| recursion. Certainly not the people who lived there for 2000+
| years.
| seoaeu wrote:
| Wait, you're just outright saying that you are OK with the
| Taliban to committing human human rights abuses?
| Banana699 wrote:
| No, I'm saying that the US also committed human rights
| abuses, so it's not very useful to look at human rights
| abuses as a measure of who's more evil. You have two
| tools, both run on linux and windows, so portability is
| not a useful measure of which tool is better, remove it
| from both sides of the equation and look at what's left.
|
| If you remove human rights abuses from the side of
| Taliban, you get a bunch of people defending their home
| lands. If you remove human rights abuses from the side of
| USA, you get an empire willing to violate the sovereignty
| of an entire nation because it's government didn't
| cooperate enough with them in chasing down one outlaw.
| Compare those two and decide who's more at fault in the
| war.
|
| Applying the same procedure to the case of the Arab-
| Israeli conflict is left as an exercise for the reader.
| rStar wrote:
| that's one you're gonna have to figure out for yourself.
| LogonType10 wrote:
| Because if Israel loses a war they will use nukes. When they
| ask "please help us" we support them... because of the
| implication.
| vadfa wrote:
| I could tell you, but I would get banned.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I don't think you would if you don't rely on vulgarism, so
| please shoot.
| Leparamour wrote:
| > I don't think you would if you don't rely on vulgarism,
| so please shoot.
|
| Define vulgarism in this context?
|
| The non-PC answer would be ethnic nepotism and corrupting
| influence through AIPAC and ADL. Jews are heavily
| overrepresented throughout every circle of power and
| influence (media, academia, business, politics) and trying
| to reign in Israel would mean going against that entrenched
| jewish power block which any prospective US presidential
| candidate relies upon. Call it a 'deep state' if you will.
|
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/all-the-jews-biden-has-
| tapped-...
| vadfa wrote:
| Thanks. This is what I meant. I didn't make my point
| because, at least to me, this is clear and well known, so
| I dismiss anybody who says not to know it as
| disingeniuous.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I always wondered who nibbled off the foreskins of
| Americans...
|
| But seriously, I somehow expected such an answer and I
| believe it to be heavily misinformed. It is the old
| formula, Jews are somehow responsible for it all. Can you
| give an example for a policy or public influence that was
| made in favor of Jews?
|
| I find them often very disagreeable. 2 Jews in a room can
| net you 5 different opinions. That is just a stereotype
| of course, but of what should this influence consist off?
| Israel? A large part of diaspora is often quite blunt
| with its criticism of Israel in a way that many Israeli
| don't hold back criticism themselves. Doesn't sound like
| effective collusion to be honest.
| wara23arish wrote:
| Does the public policy saying that in order to receive
| aid due to hurricane harvey you must vow not to boycott
| israeli products count?
|
| https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/texas-city-tells-
| people-...
|
| There are countless many examples like this.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| That is indeed quite a weird restriction. Sure that law
| was made by Jews? I think many would oppose such a move.
| On the other hand some feel compelled to enact such laws
| because there are groups tell funny stories about Jews or
| Israel. Any more examples?
|
| Help for hurricane relief, as weird as it may be, doesn't
| indicate political influence, although many states have
| special protections for minorities of all kind.
| wara23arish wrote:
| You asked for public policy that favors Jews.
|
| This one favors them but is not targeted to American Jews
| rather Israelis.
|
| Boycotting Israel is not about telling funny stories
| about Jews. I suggest you read a little about why the
| boycott exists in the first place if you truly want to
| know.
|
| I had no idea Israelis thousands of miles away are
| considered minorities in states like Texas and Georgia
| and many others.
|
| There is also a restriction on working for the state that
| you must not boycott Israel.
|
| This is as clear as day that its a violation of free
| speech by gov actors.
| vadfa wrote:
| I can show you lots of policies that were made against
| whites.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I assure you that there are Jews that are very critical
| with the recent focus on skin color, quotas for access to
| education and narratives surrounding white people being
| the root of evil. There are Jews that support them too,
| sure, but just as many or probably even more white people
| do so.
| pron wrote:
| White men are also overrepresented throughout every
| circle of power and influence in America (and their
| corrupting ethnic nepotism is well-established), and
| Jewish people don't use whatever power they have any more
| than any other ethnic, social, or religious group. Just a
| reminder, antisemitism is the belief that "the Jews"
| secretly pull the levers of power:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Definition
| pron wrote:
| Unlike the myth, called antisemitism, that Jews control
| the world, the US actually is ruled by a minority group
| -- white men: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2021/may/26/white-male-m...
|
| While Jews are overrepresented, their numbers are so low
| that even with that overrepresentation they don't hold
| much power in absolute terms. Moreover, Jewish people are
| more diverse politically than other groups, and so cannot
| be considered as a cohesive unit. For example, in
| America, white men lean Republican at about the same rate
| as Jews lean Democrat, but Christian Evangelicals lean
| Republican more strongly than Jews lean Democrat.
| vadfa wrote:
| >White men are also overrepresented throughout every
| circle of power and influence in America
|
| In terms of % of population, no they are generally not.
| Jews are.
| [deleted]
| skinkestek wrote:
| I've done so a number of times and even though it goes
| against the grain here on HN it usually only cost me a few
| stupid points.
|
| Just stick to the facts:
|
| - UN resolutions
|
| - Well known and well covered history
|
| - Be aware that the Israelis have a rather nasty history too,
| even if it is rather bland compared to their neighbors
|
| - etc
|
| and you should be fine.
|
| Edit: what I mean is for you and me and everyone who has
| studied this for a while it is obvious that this is very
| complicated.
|
| Most people however isn't too interested in it and then the
| explanation closest at hand is mainstream media who correctly
| tell them that the Arabs in Gaza are suffering badly and
| correctly point out that recent Israeli moves has worsened it
| somewhat - while conveniently leaving out that most of the
| suffering in Gaza is caused directly by their own
| administration and the rest of it is created indirectly by
| them by not only allowing bit also sponsoring and even
| directing attacks from their territories.
| stef25 wrote:
| FWIW, didn't the US just blacklist Pegasus?
| josh_fyi wrote:
| And at the same time, blacklisted a Russian and a Singaporean
| company -- which are treated as far less newsworthy.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-blacklists-four-
| compan...
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I dunno anything about these particular organizations so can't
| judge who is right here but the fact any country government can
| declare anybody they don't like a terrorist or another kind of
| criminal and have them cancelled or hunted in the whole world has
| long baffled me.
| koheripbal wrote:
| One major function of a government is the monopoly on
| "cancelling" or really the use of force.
|
| The nice thing about western countries is that they require due
| process of law. ...which was followed in this case.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Due process is great but it isn't magic; in a democracy it's
| still a tool a majority can use to persecute a minority. It's
| certainly possible that's what is happening here.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| There is no monopoly on this in the world, quite contrary.
| Known oppressive and corrupt regimes (I don't mean Israel)
| can forge whatever cases they want and create a lot of
| problems for their citizens abroad abroad.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > The nice thing about western countries is that they require
| due process of law. ...which was followed in this case.
|
| Israel routinely skirts "routine operation of law"
| assassinating innocent civilians abroad and refusing to
| apologize.
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _assassinating innocent civilians abroad_
|
| care to provide a source or evidence for this allegation?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
|
| Not to include the 4 innocent bystanders on the street
| killed by a Mossad car bombing (they're only terrorist
| attacks when they're not perpetrated by state security
| services I guess) when they actually found the right guy.
|
| And to include civilian nuclear scientists are also that:
| civilians.
| vxNsr wrote:
| lillehammer I didn't know about, but that looks like a
| case of mistaken identity. The actual target wasn't by
| any means innocent.
|
| which innoncent civilian nuclear scientists have the
| israelis killed?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Perhaps if they actually had due process of law they
| wouldn't go around killing Norwegian citizens because of
| mistaken identity.
|
| Working in weapons research does not make you a
| legitimate target of warfare. Given that Iranian nuclear
| scientists weren't involved in active combat operations,
| they should not be murdered without due process either.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| What is this group?
|
| _Front Line Defenders was founded in Dublin in 2001 with the
| specific aim of protecting human rights defenders at risk (HRDs),
| people who work, non-violently, for any or all of the rights
| enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
| Front Line Defenders addresses the protection needs identified by
| HRDs themselves._
|
| How do they identify and vet a qualifying "Human Rights
| Defender"? Do they have a membership roster?
| asadlionpk wrote:
| I feel like many pro-Israel commentators here are a coordinated
| low quality effort to derail conversation using "tactics". I feel
| this happens on the daily bases online.
|
| I remember reading about it; Israel's strategy to train their
| online citizens to do this.
| jjcon wrote:
| Not everything is a conspiracy, some people might just disagree
| with you
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Being online for decades, I think I can differentiate when a
| comment disagrees or just low-effort derails.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Here's some research(2018) on the topic that involved a lot
| of countries. While this place is pretty tame is comparison
| with others, I wouldn't be suprised if that would actually be
| true. https://demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/93/201...
| pthread_t wrote:
| There's an app for that:
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/act-il/id1141853455
| throwaway879080 wrote:
| Oh wow, thanks for this
|
| we must defend Israel against existential threat, online and
| offline
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Insane that Apple allows this!
| jjcon wrote:
| Do you really want Apple to ban more apps based on
| political actions? The HN can be really regressive
| sometimes =/
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Depends on what you call political action. If Talibans
| published a similar app would Apple allow it?
|
| Why is Israel allowed to have an app to censor their
| victims? That's bias.
| jjcon wrote:
| I would hope so - its not their job to play world
| government
| worik wrote:
| That's politics!
| worik wrote:
| Would it be OK to have an app like that that coordinated
| support for spamming social networks for...
|
| * Iran. Defend their actions
|
| * North Korea Every bodies favourite pariah state
|
| * Drugs Drugs are good, we all know that. Tell the
| world...
|
| * The subjectification of women - uppity sheilas are a
| problem the world over
|
| * COVID vaccine - unite the tribes against this poison!
|
| Where are the limits?
| [deleted]
| throwaway879080 wrote:
| that's awesome, hunt the terrorists down via software
| 2rsf wrote:
| Something is changing in the US though.
|
| > The US Commerce Department is unequivocal that the new
| sanctions against NSO Group and Candiru is connected to their
| software being used to government officials, journalists,
| activists and business people.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/AlexMartin/status/1455892710586519553
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Putting them on the entity list just limits what US exports can
| go directly to them. Basically I can't sell a zero day to the
| NSO group, but I can buy one from them.
|
| This can hardly be considered a sign something is changing,
| it's the bare minimum that can be done for PR purposes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's the bare minimum that can be done for PR purposes_
|
| This is an edgy dismissal from an armchair, but it's wrong.
| Functionally, this designation cuts the company and its
| employees off from the American financial system.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| How? There's no restriction on buying from the NSO Group,
| I'm unaware of there being any restriction on using US
| banks. The Entity List just bars exports of certain items
| to that company. What US good are they dependent on?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'm unaware of there being any restriction on using
| US banks_
|
| Most institutions won't open an account for someone with
| an OFAC hit. They legally can. But it involves a _lot_ of
| extra legal, compliance and other costs. As a result,
| most don't.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The Entity List isn't an OFAC hit, it's done by the
| Bureau of Industry and Security and is much less severe.
| It only bars certain exports, and the financial industry
| isn't exporting anything.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Entity List isn 't an OFAC hit, it's done by the
| Bureau of Industry and Security and is much less severe.
| It only bars certain exports, and the financial industry
| isn't exporting anything_
|
| Have you implemented a BSA, AML and OFAC program? Or
| worked at a financial institution that had? Because I
| have. You are as incorrect as your are adamant.
|
| In case you're arguing in good faith, no, the Entity List
| isn't administered by OFAC. But it is a sanctions list,
| and as such, colloquially, generates an "OFAC hit" in
| compliance terms. If you work, or have worked, for an
| Entity List firm, you're going to have a hard time
| obtaining and maintaining bank or brokerage accounts, or
| buying insurance, from U.S.-regulated or interacting
| firms.
| mach1ne wrote:
| It's rather difficult to say what prompted this. First
| intuition would be that it has something to do with NSO not
| giving backdoor access to certain US organizations, but it
| could be an actual political shift away from supporting stuff
| as murky as this.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| It could also just be a distraction from domestic apps that
| do the exact same thing. Good to have a fall guy and it
| creates a pretense that these apps cross a line which is
| ignored by domestic actions anyway.
| bogwog wrote:
| > Front Line Defenders investigated 75 iPhones and found that 6
| devices were hacked with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware
|
| Hacked iPhones?! I bet they were side loading apps! /s
|
| (relevant: https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/03/apple-craig-
| federighi-side...)
| zibzab wrote:
| I think "the fappening", xghost and NSO have already clearly
| demonstrated that mobile security is just PR.
| thrashh wrote:
| Security has always been like this. If you've ever tried to
| hop a fence or bypass a system, you know that it's heavily
| stacked against the defense.
|
| Defense needs to patch every hole. Offense just needs to find
| one hole. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying to
| defend, it just means that you need to be realistic.
| friehe wrote:
| According to Wikipedia "the fappening" was a phishing attack.
| I don't think that is a mobile specific problem.
| zibzab wrote:
| That is not correct.
|
| It was actually a distributed campaign with multiple
| hackers with different methods but the main leaks were due
| to the following problems:
|
| 1. Bug in some Apple services allowed unlimited login
| attempts
|
| 2. Bug in Apple backup restoration function allowed
| bypassing multi-factor authentication (or was it
| confirmation email?)
|
| This is all from memory, I might be wrong about the
| details. Anyway, that Apple initially blamed this on weak
| passwords and now phisihing clearly demonstrates what kind
| of PR circus this field is.
|
| Just think about this: when Apple closed these holes
| (silently), attacks had been going on for 1-2 years.
| Towards the end there were fairly cheap and reliable hack-
| my-exs-iphone services on the darknet.
| stef25 wrote:
| According to the link below it clearly was phishing
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_l
| eak...
| zibzab wrote:
| From your own link:
|
| " ... such as phishing and brute-force attack guessing
| ..."
|
| Just take a moment to think about the brute force attack
| and whether that should have worked at this scale in the
| properly secure environment.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| They caught the people responsible, and convicted them,
| as the Wikipedia page describes in detail at the end. The
| actual perpetrators acknowledged they'd sent phishing
| emails to gain access.
|
| Whether or not there was brute force rate limiting
| available at the time (which seems unclear), that's not
| related to the specific events you brought up.
| ccouzens wrote:
| I think they're all iPhones because they have a reliable way of
| detecting it on iPhones (perform a backup and look at the
| backup on a computer).
|
| But at one point side loading was how the Android version was
| installed
|
| https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/04/an-investi...
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sounds like they bypassed the need for that altogether.
|
| While I get the whole 'sideloading is a security threat'
| arguement, it really doesn't hold up to scrutiny when you can
| send malware to any phone via invisible SMS parsing bugs.
| Apple might have a leg to stand on if their history of threat
| mitigation wasn't so rocky[0] in the first place. The simple
| fact of the matter is that they're fighting an infinite war
| of attrition that's not in their favor. State actors and even
| private interests are now overwhelmingly capable of buying
| and implementing zero-day exploits, so a more logical
| security effort would aim to strengthen the kernel and, you
| know, _actually mitigate these threats_. Enforcing type-
| safety and memory safety at a lower level would be a good
| start, but Apple knows that isn 't very marketable (and they
| have enough zombie XNU code in MacOS and iOS to constitute an
| new operating system altogether).
|
| By this point, most people call me a security nihilist,
| paranoid schizophrenic, or an architecture astronaut. Maybe
| so, but modern threat models are built around pragmatism, not
| idealism. Apple can wave as many flags as they want, but
| seldom does that actually effect the overall security of
| iPhones. NSO will just reach into their catalog of stockpiled
| vulnerabilities and spin up a new build overnight. If Apple
| doesn't recognize this before it's too late, I reckon their
| OSes will become the modern Windows: confusing abstractions
| of well-understood concepts, with a dead-set focus on how the
| user perceives the OS, not how it actually functions.
|
| [0] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/08/bahrain-hacks-activists-
| with-n...
| [deleted]
| oytis wrote:
| Kind of OT, but are there Palestinian human rights organizations
| that are focused, or at least cover human rights violations by
| Palestinian government?
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| Does this really matter? Australia passed the "Identify and
| Disrupt" Law, which allows them as well as any government in the
| The Five Eyes (FVEY) international security pact to access and
| modify all digital communications - so why would this story even
| be important? This is our new world, where any government can
| access and modify any digital information.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| 1984 looking more and more like an instruction manual everyday.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| calling them "defenders" of human right implies that there is a
| war being fought (by Israel) against human rights. I don't
| believe that this has been adequately demonstrated, therefore i
| think the title is inflammatory and misleading. Please can you
| change it, Dang
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| wow. my preceding comment got flagged despite having 6 upvotes.
| all I said was that Palestinians live in an apartheid state and
| that it constitutes a human rights issue.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| That's Israel's forward-deployed cyber warfare units for you.
| djanogo wrote:
| Disagree, I think title is correct, Israel's forced
| displacement is human rights issue.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| Palestinians live in an apartheid state so I'd argue very much
| that this is a human rights issue.
|
| (I know I'll get lots of downvotes for this and I accept that)
| jjcon wrote:
| > Palestinians live in an apartheid state
|
| I'm not sure that means what you think it does
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| they can't leave their tiny allocated stretch of land.
| their economic opportunities are completely restricted by a
| foreign government that they have no representation in.
| They live under a constant threat of violence from an
| occupying force. What am I missing here?
| jjcon wrote:
| > they can't leave their tiny allocated stretch of land
|
| That is how country boundaries work - there are lots of
| disputed territories in Israel - pretending it is as
| simple as 'allocated land' is completely disingenuous
|
| >their economic opportunities are completely restricted
| by a foreign government that they have no representation
| in. They live under a constant threat of violence from an
| occupying force.
|
| You mean Hamas? They elected Hamas and all that came with
| it, and I agree it has lead to a very sad state of
| affairs. (Unless you are referring to Israel in which
| case again, that is just how country boundaries work. I
| don't get to vote in the French elections when I reside
| in the UK.)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| To address your points, we must first make a distinction
| between the different groups: the ones who live in Israel
| proper are full citizens and none of the above applies to
| them. The ones who live in West Bank can move freely in
| Israel with a work permit. The ones in Gaza live in a
| huge prison and that is truly regrettable. Unfortunately
| allowing them free movement will vastly increase the
| powers and abilities of Hamas and will endanger every Jew
| in Israel, and many Arabs, i might add. Surely you can't
| expect Israel to take any other course of action given
| the very real risks involved. As for representation, you
| make me laugh. Their autonomous government hasn't allowed
| any elections in 15 years. Please don't apply double
| standards here. Also, it's an interesting kind of
| apartheid which gives every privilege to legitimate arab
| citizens and where an arab party is part of the current
| government.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Is there a tool to scan your devices for Pegasus?
| upofadown wrote:
| You can look at Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT):
|
| * https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt
| LogonType10 wrote:
| Probably no effective ones, but you can packet sniff and look
| for traffic to known C2 servers.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Such a tool would be outdated very soon after it's published
| because these companies check their hacks against known
| antivirus and detection tools before they deploy them.
| crhutchins wrote:
| Yes, this makes sense. It will become outdated soon,
| technologies are evolving rapidly.
| ledoge wrote:
| Yes, see here:
| https://github.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/tree/master/20...
| throughaway1388 wrote:
| This topic always needs to be view with a cautious respect
| towards history. Anti-semitism is the worst when it rears its
| ugly head through passive aggressive implications.
| aritmo wrote:
| Which nation would benefit from those infections?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Israel most likely.
| bawolff wrote:
| This type of analysis is kind of hard, because you could also
| say that Israel's enemies would benefit a lot from this sort
| of thing being discovered.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| False flags pretty much never happen irl, they are much
| more popular in the minds of internet commentators.
| pthread_t wrote:
| Then you may find this article interesting:
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/13/false-flag/
| whimsicalism wrote:
| That was Israel financing attacks against Iranian
| officials.
|
| I was using it in the modern usage, as in:
|
| > The term today extends to include countries that
| organize attacks on themselves and make the attacks
| appear to be by enemy nations or terrorists, thus giving
| the nation that was supposedly attacked a pretext for
| domestic repression and foreign military aggression.
|
| This article is clearly using false flag to mean proxy
| conflicts, which I don't think is the colloquial
| understanding of the term.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| If your goal is to hurt Israel, I doubt you would give
| money to the NSO Group to spy on Palestinian human rights
| defenders in the hopes that some day their targets list
| becomes public. As if that violation of Palestinian rights
| would suddenly turn people against Israel.
|
| And if it's their enemies are behind the hack and then are
| adding false information to hurt Israel, there are so many
| better targets. Any US journalist critical of Israel for
| example.
| bawolff wrote:
| I was thinking more if you had access to some leaked nso
| exploits somehow, not paying them. And i do think israel
| is vulnerable to bad PR, especially right now when there
| has been a lot of it recently - at least that seems to be
| its weakest point right now. Its not like anyone is going
| to win a straight up military conflict with them.
|
| > Any US journalist critical of Israel for example.
|
| But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to
| get discovered. It also fits with the narrative a bit
| better to make the target a Palestinian human rights
| activist.
|
| On the whole though, i do think its more likely that
| Israel is behind this, i'm just exploring this from the
| perspective of who could potentially benefit.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to
| get discovered.
|
| I think you're overestimating how much the NSA saying "no
| no, the NSO Group didn't spy on the US, it was planted by
| those tricksy Iranians" would diminish the story.
|
| I also disagree that Israel is particularly vulnerable to
| negative PR right now. I somewhat wonder if you're just
| noticing more stories critical of them because the latest
| event is tech related.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > On the whole though, i do think its more likely that
| Israel is behind this
|
| Not just more likely, but _overwhelmingly_ more likely.
|
| You are clearly not weighing the facts in a neutral
| manner if you think a false flag by Hamas (?) using an
| Israeli security company's exploit to hack Palestinian
| activists has any substantial possibility of being what
| occurred.
| [deleted]
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| ok, seems like a positive development if that protects the live s
| of Israel people against the terror attacks
| crakenzak wrote:
| I hope the Pegasus Spyware source code leaks sometime soon.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| This is the perfect example of such technology being used for the
| good. Despite the misleading title, these organisation are
| probably terrorist groups. The wonderful thing about palestinian
| terrorist is that they can rely on well meaning fools to white
| wash their image for them. In this case it's the presumptously
| named "front line defenders". There are no shortage of such
| people who will twist facts and ignore evidence and mislead the
| public in order to create the image of Israeli opression and
| palestinian victimhood. Their goal of course is to help the
| palestinian people but their methods are reprehensible.
| Ironically it's the palestinians who lose out the most by being
| kept in a state of perpetual victimhood. It's curious to note
| that the average life expectancy in the West Bank and Gaza
| improved dramatically during periods of Israeli occupation.
| Calling out human right abuses is all well and good, but to do so
| selectively is in fact abuse itself. I have rather generously
| described such people as useful idiots, and i honestly think this
| is true for most of them. But the obsession of so many
| organisations like this one on Israel, the only Jewish country in
| the world, to me hints at anti semitism in their upper ranks.
| neurobot123 wrote:
| s/defenders/terrorists
| Vervious wrote:
| To be fair, it is quite murky to what extent groups like Al-Haq
| are associated with the PFLP (which, with its history of aircraft
| hijackings and suicide bombings, is undoubtedly a terrorist
| group). There is plenty of purported evidence of financial and
| personnel links out there, and I really doubt HN is the right
| forum to decide either way (unless someone is an expert).
| VictorPath wrote:
| Al-Haq is a Palestinian human rights NGO funded by the European
| Union. Two weeks ago, Israel labeled six Palestinian NGOs,
| including al-Haq, terrorist organizations and has outlawed
| them. This was condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights
| Watch and others. The EU also funded the other Palestinian
| human rights NGOs which Israel outlawed.
|
| The US had an office in Jerusalem dealing with Palestinians
| that Trump closed down. Biden and Blinken began to reopen it
| but the Israeli government have refused permission for the US
| to reopen it.
|
| This is following Israel's throwing Palestinians out of their
| homes in East Jerusalem back in May and replacing them with
| settlers, which was followed by a mass bombing of the Gaza
| strip by Israel, including the building in which the Associated
| Press had its office, a building Israel said it purposely
| targeted.
|
| This amidst settlement of Palestine's West Bank by Israel which
| is opposed by multiple UN resolutions supported by an
| overwhelming majority of nations.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >This is following Israel's throwing Palestinians out of
| their homes in East Jerusalem back in May and replacing them
| with settlers
|
| that is a complete distortion of the facts. This was a
| perfectly legal eviction which made it's way through the
| court system over a number of years. The pa put a nationalist
| spin on it in order to distract from their failing election
| campaign and unfortunately, everyone fell for it. But it was
| never anything more than a rental dispute.
| yonixw wrote:
| > including the building in which the Associated Press had
| its office, a building Israel said it purposely targeted.
|
| Why did you omit the reason for targeting?
|
| "... because it was being used by the groups Hamas and
| Islamic Jihad and that terrorist attacks were directed from
| there"
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-has-received-
| mo...
| fzil wrote:
| That's the excuse used to bomb every hospital, school and
| press building by the Zionist regime. Hard to take anything
| that comes out of their mouths seriously.
| starik36 wrote:
| > Why did you omit the reason for targeting?
|
| I think it's obvious why he omitted it.
| koheripbal wrote:
| There are so many facts omitted in the comment you are
| replying to, there is no question it is not a comment made
| in good faith.
| bawolff wrote:
| I don't understand how people can think Israel mass bombed
| gaza. Israel has one of the largest militaries in the world.
| If they decided to mass bomb somewhere, it wouldn't be a
| place anymore. Its not the 1800s. A mass bombing is not
| something anyone walks away from in the modern world.
| [deleted]
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Gaza City has a higher density than NYC (34k per sq mi vs.
| 29k). Now imagine trying to run an anti-mafia campaign
| using only air power.
| GordonS wrote:
| Maybe don't do that then? If someone knowingly bombs
| areas densely packed with civilians, then _they_ are
| committing war crimes at best, terrorism at worst.
|
| It's incredibly difficult to have sympathy with Israel
| when their politicians and military behave with such
| little regard for human rights and human life - I really
| wish they'd take the moral high ground and just fucking
| _stop_ the evictions, abductions, torture, beatings and
| killing.
| seoaeu wrote:
| No, Hamas is committing war crimes by deliberately
| launching rockets from an area packed with civilians,
| knowing that some of them will be killed by the return
| fire. And doubly so if you consider that the rockets
| Hamas is launching are targeting densely packed cities
| (without military targets nearby)
| VictorPath wrote:
| Israel launched over 900 attacks on Gaza in May, killed
| hundreds of Palestinians, and displaced tens of thousands
| of Palestinians. The UN estimate is 461 housing and
| commercial units were destroyed by Israel's bombing of
| Gaza.
|
| I don't dispute even more could have been killed by Israel
| and more destroyed by Israel if the United Nations Security
| Council did not call for an ending to it and that if that
| did not happen "it wouldn't be a place anymore...not
| something anyone walks away from". People can go and look
| at the videotaped news reports from Gaza after the bombings
| and judge for themselves.
| starik36 wrote:
| > Israel launched over 900 attacks on Gaza
|
| This has a super simple solution. 5 minutes after Gaza
| (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, whoever is in charge) stops
| bombing Israel with missiles and rockets (which it has
| done since 2007), there will be no more conflict in Gaza.
| GordonS wrote:
| This is demonstrably false, as Israel has in the past
| completely ignored Hamas' ceasefires.
| devcpp wrote:
| You can't expect Hamas to declare ceasefire after every
| attack then violate it again and Israel to just stand
| idle.
| seoaeu wrote:
| And vice versa. At the moment, Hamas' desired strategy
| seems to be to launch a salvo of rockets and then demand
| a ceasefire until they can reload for the next salvo
| LegitShady wrote:
| there were fewer people killed than bombs dropped - it
| was a highly pinpointed affair beyond any sort of 'mass
| bombing' terminology, while at the same time the
| government of gaza WAS mass launching artillery rockets
| at israeli cities.
|
| Truly upside-down world.
| bawolff wrote:
| I'm not saying there wasn't an armed conflict or that
| people didn't die. Just when people say something was
| mass bombed it implies something very different.
| seoaeu wrote:
| A quick google search reveals that the US launched
| 2800000 ground attack missions during the Vietnam war,
| dropping 15000000000 pounds of bombs. That works out to
| an average of several hundred attacks per day for two
| decades.
|
| I also encourage you to look at Wikipedia's List of
| ongoing armed conflicts [1], which lists the Israeli-
| Palestinian conflict as a "Minor Conflict" given its
| scale in comparison to the other entries.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_
| conflict...
| antod wrote:
| Seems a bit over the top to use the Vietnam War as a
| benchmark for the size of any bombing campaign, unless
| the benchmark is going for "largest ever by quite a
| margin".
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| But they do walk away from mass bombings. I mean, heck,
| folks walked away from nukes (most later died of cancer,
| but not all). More folks survived the hindenberg than died
| in the crash. And so on.
|
| Mass bombings tend to kill folks in the blast areas, but
| there are a lot of places that aren't directly in the
| blast. If you destroy one house with a bomb, the
| surrounding houses will likely have damage but still stand
| - and the residents will know.
| LegitShady wrote:
| way fewer people died than bombs dropped. There was no
| 'mass bombing' - it was all highly pinpointed with roof
| knocking and warning of people in the area.
|
| The mass launches of artillery rockets against israeli
| cities was mass bombing, just less effective.
| tremon wrote:
| So perhaps the obvious conclusion should be that your
| definition of "mass bombing" is not what people mean when
| they use that term?
| jhgb wrote:
| Many people have no idea what they're talking about when
| speaking outside of their areas of expertise. So, yes,
| it's very possible that those people have something very
| different from mass bombing in mind.
| bawolff wrote:
| I was under the impression it was a synonym for area
| bombing - e.g. throwing a bunch of bombs at a place to
| inflict damage in a general way. As opposed to having a
| very specific target.
|
| What's your definition?
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Tens of thousands of people being displaced seems pretty
| general to me.
| seoaeu wrote:
| How does that compare to other conflicts? Tossing around
| numbers without any context doesn't do anyone any good.
| There are four ongoing "Major Wars" with 10,000+
| fatalities in the last year, which undoubtedly displaced
| orders of magnitude more people
| LegitShady wrote:
| "people" are not one group. when a group uses some
| specific words, you can ask what those people mean.
| General 'people' have different definitions, and
| sometimes use words as weapons.
| Debug_Overload wrote:
| What evidence is "out there"? So far, there's no evidence, from
| what is being reported by legitimate news agencies who saw the
| supposed evidence. Example:
| https://apnews.com/article/business-europe-middle-east-israe...
| q1w2 wrote:
| In 2018 all payment processors (MC/Visa/Amex) banned payments
| to Al-Haq due to allegations that they forwarded money to
| PFLP, so this is not new news.
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-00193.
| ..
|
| This was based on testimony given in court by two Palestinian
| accountants that Al-Haq was funneling money to terrorism.
|
| It should be noted that Al-Haq does not make disclose either
| the sources or destinations of donation money.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Those allegations came from the same place this "evidence"
| did.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Since when is testimony from their own Palestinian
| accountants not considered evidence?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > The dossier relies almost entirely on the interrogation
| of Said Abedat and Amru Hamudeh, who worked as
| accountants for the Union of Health Committees, a
| separate group which was outlawed in January 2020. Both
| were reportedly fired in 2019 for embezzling funds, and
| were later detained by the Shin Bet. Their lawyers could
| not be reached for comment.
|
| Not their own accountants
| starik36 wrote:
| Why are you splitting hairs??? They worked as accountants
| through 2019. So obviously they have knowledge of where
| the funds were being funneled to.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| No one is splitting hairs; this is the very crux of the
| matter. They worked as accountants _for a different
| organization altogether_.
| starik36 wrote:
| Given that the accountants gave testimony - it would
| stand to reason they had knowledge of it.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I know you're arguing from a very partial perspective,
| but if you'd read the 972mag article it's insanely clear
| that the accounts' testimony would be thrown out as
| hearsay in any real court of law. They weren't involved
| in the supposed activity the other organizations are
| accused of doing based on their testimony, they didn't
| see it happen, they just "know" that it happened.
|
| But I feel like there is no use continuing to argue this
| with you, so peace out.
| starik36 wrote:
| > no use continuing to argue
|
| To misquote Capt Picard responding to two parties
| complaining that they they'll never find common ground:
| "On the contrary. We've agreed that there is no use
| continuing to argue".
| Quanttek wrote:
| This is undoubtedly false. Speaking of "purported evidence"
| when there is literally _no_ credible evidence submitted by the
| Israeli government for these allegations is misleading at best.
| Their whole case rests on the testimony of two Palestinian
| accountants, likely attained by torture, that worked for two
| organizations that were _not_ included in the list of six [1].
| They merely state it is "general knowledge" that these orgs
| are funneling money to PFLP _without providing any evidence_.
| These testimonies have been already partially refuted by public
| information. Multiple European governments and a large range of
| reputable international human rights organizations, incl HRW
| and Amnesty, have rejected the Israeli allegations as baseless
| and unsupported. These organizations are highly reputable and
| been supported for years by the EU, uk and other reputable
| international donors.
|
| They are targeted for their role in opposing the Israeli
| occupation and human rights violations and, in the case of Al-
| Haq, likely targeted for their role in the ICC investigation.
|
| [1] https://www.972mag.com/shin-bet-dossier-palestinian-ngos/
| yonixw wrote:
| Looking around, you can quickly find, that `Shawan Jabarin`
| the general director of Al-Haq (which was banned) was
| convicted in 1985 of recruiting and arranging training for
| members for PFLP and was called "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," by
| the Israeli Supreme Court in 2007 for being a human rights
| campaigner by day and a terrorist by night.
|
| Also, HRW statement should be taken with a grain of salt,
| since they have conflict of interest since he was appointed
| by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to its advisory board that
| oversees reporting on Arab-Israeli affairs In February 2011
| (All after his convictions)
|
| So having two accountants telling you it is "general
| knowledge" that these orgs are funneling money to PFLP are
| not statements in the void.
|
| No proof there was any kind of torture also in your article.
| Only "may". Apply your own standard.
|
| And the subject is definitely not innocent body that is
| solely targeted because of their role in the ICC
| investigation
| whimsicalism wrote:
| He was part of a student group that was associated with the
| PFLP, which is labeled a terrorist group and has done
| violent acts, and was convicted on that basis.
|
| You know who else this sort of indict applies to? Nelson
| Mandela and his involvement with the ANC.
|
| Nevermind that I don't trust the Israeli legal system that
| existed in the 80s to give a fair shake to a Palestinian
| student activist.
| kodah wrote:
| I don't have any skin in the game here, just an observers
| perspective.
|
| Just looking through these comments I understand nothing
| of the narratives at play for either side. Most of them
| don't line up with history I can find at Wikipedia, or
| they'll partially match but then deviate significantly in
| some fanciful explanation.
| nwiswell wrote:
| This is the entire conflict in a nutshell. Sometimes it
| feels like there are no good guys on either side --
| obviously not true, but the lack of any real ground truth
| can give rise to that illusion.
|
| There's more mud than honor in the Middle East, I guess
| you could say, and probably not because there's a
| shortage of the latter.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Israel, a country that terrorizes Palestinians on the daily
| accuses everyone that fights it as terrorists. Maybe some
| are, but I think our minds should be initialized to "given
| the terror you consciously and actively spread, please
| provide evidence for any terrorist accusations".
| yonixw wrote:
| > Israel, a country that terrorizes Palestinians on the
| daily accuses
|
| They don't. Sending a Police Riot control unit against a
| group of people throwing stones and molotovs does not
| qualify as being terrorized.
|
| > accuses everyone that fights it as terrorists.
|
| If they hurt bystanding civilians (and they do) or funnel
| money for it (and they do) there is nothing wrong with
| that.
|
| > Maybe some are
|
| They are, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and many more... not some
| and not maybe.
|
| > please provide evidence for any terrorist accusations
|
| They do.
|
| Israel have problems. It should solve them. Hyperbolic
| discussion will never achieve it.
| helge9210 wrote:
| > They don't. Sending a Police Riot control unit against
| a group of people throwing stones and molotovs does not
| qualify as being terrorized.
|
| But sending an army unit with an order "break the
| village" which results in shock grenades being dropped
| into a cradle with the baby inside does qualify them as
| being terrorized.
|
| Note: I'm Israeli and was working with people who got
| those orders and carried them out during their service.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Thank you for your courage to say that.
|
| It is also funny how often people forget why the riots
| start in the first place. So often it seems to be that
| the riots are precipitated by egregious abuse by
| settlers/army/police/Israeli policy. Abuse the people
| long enough and they will rage.
| helge9210 wrote:
| There was a case couple of years ago near Salfit
| (Palestinian town near the end of the road 5). First,
| someone "shot at security vehicle". I remember telling my
| wife after reading the news: "See what happens next". Of
| course, the barged into Salfit to "retrieve video
| recordings from CCTV cameras" shooting some mid-aged man
| in front of his family. It was already clear, what will
| happen next. In couple of days 19 y.o. from Salfit
| approached IDF soldiers on nearby intersection, pulled
| the knife, stabbed one of the soldiers (19 y.o. musician
| from Beer Sheva), took his rifle, shot some more
| soldiers, then grabbed a car, shot some more settlers and
| escaped. He was later found and executed on the spot by
| army forces. Two teenagers dead only because prime
| minister needed some escalation to distract population
| from the trial.
|
| Did they find the original shooter, who "attacked"
| security vehicle?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >It was already clear, what will happen next.
|
| Is it? The attempted murder of innocent people? Is that
| the sort of behaviour that should be accepted and
| tolerated? because it sounds like you are saying that.
| yonixw wrote:
| 1) You are making an hypothetical based on orders. Which
| amount to nothing.
|
| 2) Searching google for "shock grenades on a girl israel"
| will show you first a Jewish Ultra-Orthodox girl getting
| hit around a corona protest last year:
|
| https://twitter.com/almogbenzikri/status/1251004227956150
| 273
|
| So this is a police brutality issue, not a Palestine
| issue.
|
| 3) Based on your previous comments- "Hamas is an ally of
| Israel in Gaza" I'm thinking you are just out of the
| loop.
| helge9210 wrote:
| > 1) You are making an hypothetical based on orders.
| Which amount to nothing.
|
| No, my colleague actually spent time in jail for military
| crimes.
|
| > 2) Searching google for
|
| You get what you search for.
|
| > you are just out of the loop
|
| Or, what is more probable, you are just pushing Hasbara.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Hasbara Hasbara. When you're pushing Palestinian
| narrative you're progressive. When you're pushing zionist
| narrative you're an evil Jew Hasbara troll.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Yeah, except the hasbara efforts are real and well
| documented.
|
| Pretty disingenuous for you to try and present OP in such
| a way.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Every country in the world uses diplomacy and public
| relations to create a better strategic reality for
| itself, especially in times of conflict. Israel is no
| different than the U.S or Australia or the Palestinian
| Authority for that matter. It's pretty disingenuous of
| you to call it "Hasbara" when Israel does it as if it's
| some kind of Israeli phenomena.
| tartoran wrote:
| Ever wondered why those people are protesting? If you
| only follow the history of the region you'd quickly
| realize that Israel did (and does) terrorize their
| neighbors who in turn retaliated and the vicious cycle of
| vendettas on eachother continues to this day. What is
| realy cool about Israel is that they're a democratic
| country and a large part of their country denounces all
| this violence, there is a way forward towards peace. But
| before that look closely at a map, Israel has
| sistematically divided and isolated most Palestinian land
| in an obvious divide and empera plan.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| That isn't all true. Egypt was perhaps the Israel's most
| bitter enemy, yet they made peace. They have made peace
| with Jordan, SA and many others. Most of the nasty
| vendettas were removed from the cycle and do not continue
| today. Their worst enemy now is Iran who they actually
| got on with until about 35 years ago when they called
| Israel the Little satan. Above all i want you to think
| for a moment what would have happened to all the Jews
| living in Israel had they lost the first war of
| independence.
| yonixw wrote:
| 1) Molotov != Protest
|
| 2)
|
| > follow the history of the region
|
| > terrorize their neighbors
|
| Counter example:
|
| 2005: Israel _unilateral_ dismantling of the 21 Israeli
| settlements in the Gaza Strip
|
| 2007: Hamas takeover of Gaza
|
| 2007: Gaza Blockade
|
| I do not think we see the history of the region in the
| same way.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > 2007: Hamas takeover of Gaza
|
| As you mention Hamas, it gives me the opportunity to
| point out that Israel bankrolled Hamas founder Sheikh
| Yassin even prior to the founding of Hamas. This was
| admitted by former military governor of Gaza Yitzhak
| Segev and other Israeli government and military
| officials. Israel wanted to undermine secular political
| Palestinians and empower Islamist political Palestinians.
| Once successful, they bemoan that the Islamists they
| funded and worked to empower, have come to power.
|
| Incidentally, the EU funded NGOs which Israel are spying
| on here are mostly secular (and even the militant groups
| which Israel is claiming the NGOs are affiliated with are
| secular as well).
| seoaeu wrote:
| > Israel bankrolled Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin even
| prior to the founding of Hamas
|
| Yes, _prior_ to the founding of Hamas, Israel was
| fighting secular terrorist groups and gave support to
| other (less violent) Palestinian factions in hope that
| those other factions could gain control and bring peace.
| That backfired miserably. But it wasn 't some sort of
| nefarious conspiracy like you are alleging.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Well Israel ended up killing Sheikh Yassin so I don't
| know about that theory - maybe we can agree Israel did
| conflicting things? Also - are you saying the
| Palestinians have zero responsibility for Hamas?
| helge9210 wrote:
| > Molotov != Protest
|
| Molotov is not only a protest, it is a peaceful protest
| without weapon which is a human right.
|
| > Hamas takeover of Gaza
|
| You do know, that Hamas is an ally of Israel in Gaza,
| don't you?
| starik36 wrote:
| > You do know, that Hamas is an ally of Israel in Gaza
|
| Now how do you argue with someone who has the very basics
| of the conflict wrong.
| helge9210 wrote:
| You ask first if this someone understands the very basics
| correctly.
| tartoran wrote:
| Not talking about Gaza, look closely at the whole map and
| how all palestinian territory is fractured, divided and
| isolated from one another. One can think its a security
| measure but it ceases to be one when they move in their
| own settlers in.
|
| Second, molotov and rocks is protest, not a peaceful one
| but it still is. You have to understand these people have
| nothing else to lose, they've been beaten down with far
| more uneven military power.
|
| I was listening to a podcast in which former Israeli
| soldiers were talking about how they were raiding
| palestinian houses at night and making arrests. They
| themselves thought it was wrong. How do you expect a
| generation that grows like that to behave, throw roses at
| the Israeli border?
| sharikous wrote:
| Molotov and rocks may be both protests and murder
| attempts.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > 2005: Israel unilateral dismantling of the 21 Israeli
| settlements in the Gaza Strip
|
| If you credit Israel for dismantling the settlements, I
| think it would make sense to also credit Israel for
| having built them. Selecting events can make any side
| seem like the good guys.
|
| This is not meant as a pro-someone or anti-someone
| argument. You can use the same technique to argue for or
| against either side.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Hamas has also initiated unilateral ceasefires (called
| "tadiyah") that Israel has broken.
|
| The actual timeline is that in 2006, Hamas won the
| elections (hence the "takeover") despite Israel
| prohibiting them from campaigning and arresting their
| candidates.
|
| Upon their election, Israel put them under sanction,
| prohibited them from traveling between the two parts of
| Palestine they had been elected to run, withheld
| governmental money owed to the PA, and sponsored a coup
| against their government (which pushed them out of the
| West Bank, hence Hamas' exclusive control of Gaza).
|
| AFAIK, elections have not been permitted in the PA since
| then.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > They don't. Sending a Police Riot control unit against
| a group of people throwing stones and molotovs does not
| qualify as being terrorized.
|
| Is it a police operation if it is conducted in occupied
| foreign territory or would that count as military action?
|
| > They are, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and many more... not
| some and not maybe.
|
| Is every Palestinian who voted for Hamas in the last
| elections permitted in Palestine in 2006 a terrorist as
| well?
| yonixw wrote:
| > Is every Palestinian who voted .. a terrorist as well?
|
| No. But at the same time, If Hamas hides military
| equipment in a news building where other civilians work,
| then Hamas is committing a war crime.
|
| And Israel has the right to attack this building while
| taking every action to minimize civilians bystanders
| casualties. As they did by giving 1hr notice.
| helge9210 wrote:
| > And Israel has the right
|
| This kind of hides the fact, that a responsibility for
| war crimes is personal. Not everyone will be as lucky as
| Ariel Sharon who died before he was tried.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Israel routinely mixes civilian and military operations,
| particularly in Mossad, and uses civilians as cover for
| their work.
|
| Israel engages in illegal extrajudicial assassinations of
| civilians, and their occupation of Palestine is a war
| crime under the geneva convention.
|
| No evidence has been presented that Hamas was actually
| hiding military equipment in this news building.
|
| https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/06/israel-says-
| ham...
| helge9210 wrote:
| > and their occupation of Palestine is a war crime under
| the geneva convention
|
| This is not true. Military occupation by itself is
| allowed, but puts certain restrictions on the occupying
| power. For example, it's forbidden to transfer own
| population into the occupied territory, which Israel
| does.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I wasn't saying that occupation in general is a war
| crime, I am saying that the Israeli occupation as it
| manifests itself right now (ie. with settlements) is.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Firstly, your source is incredibly biased - it is a
| Palestinian advocacy organization.
|
| Secondly, you make the claim that they attained the evidence
| by torture - with no evidence of such.
|
| The fact remains that two Palestinian accountants testified
| in court that these "charity" organizations were funneling
| money to the PFLP terrorist organization.
|
| HRW and AI may not think that the evidence is strong enough,
| and maybe it isn't, but given the testimony, it seems much
| more reasonable that the Israeli gov't conduct espionage on
| them if they suspect there is possible terrorist financing
| happening.
|
| Let's also remember that HRW and AI are hardly unbiased
| sources when it comes to the Israel/Palestine conflict. They
| have both repeatedly taken sides in that conflict.
|
| This also wouldn't be the first case of a "human rights"
| organization in the middle east being used to funnel money
| that ends up in the hands of terrorists, so I think espionage
| on these organizations should be expected, and is likely
| ubiquitous, whether they use NSO tools or not.
| Quanttek wrote:
| 1. it's not an "advocacy organization" but a magazine. And
| this a) doesn't change the fact that the dossier provides
| no evidence and b) other media has reported on the dossier,
| including The Intercept [1].
|
| 2. I only mentioned that torture has been alleged. Shin Bet
| has a long-standing pattern of using torture and other
| inhuman or degrading treatment to obtain confessions.
|
| 3. These two disgraced accountants only provided assertions
| on general hypotheses, no concrete evidence. Such testimony
| isn't worth much. To quote +972 [see above]:
|
| > An examination of the dossier's "evidence," however,
| along with an examination of the summaries of Abdat's and
| Hamuda's repeated interrogations, reveals that the
| accountants -- who did not work for any of the six targeted
| organizations -- based most of their accusations on general
| hypotheses, what they alleged was "common knowledge," or
| information they claimed was widely "known."
|
| > More importantly, even Abdat's and Hamuda's
| unsubstantiated testimonies indicate, at most, that some of
| these organizations were involved in civic and public
| activities such as student events, helping the sick, and
| poetry classes that form part of the PFLP's work as a
| movement in Palestinian society. A lawyer representing one
| of the accountants, Abdat, further alleges that his client
| may have been pressured to provide testimony following
| interrogation methods that could amount to torture or ill-
| treatment.
|
| Their reliability must also be questioned:
|
| > Moreover, the summaries of Abdat and Hamuda's
| interrogations reveal how poorly acquainted they were with
| the six organizations listed in Gantz's declaration. For
| example, during his interrogation on March 31, Hamuda
| mentioned the six groups but erroneously noted that
| parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar is the director of Addameer,
| an organization that defends the rights of Palestinian
| political prisoners, despite the fact that she has not
| headed the organization since 2006 (Addameer's current
| director is attorney Sahar Francis).
|
| 4. I'm not sure we should accuse AI and HRW as biased,
| simply for standing up for human rights in Israel, which,
| considering where the majority of violation lie and who the
| occupying power is, will necessarily focus on one player.
| After all, it is not the PA but the Israeli army that
| demolishes homes or holds people in indefinite
| "administrative" detention.
|
| ---
|
| In short, it is up for the Israeli government to prove
| publicly - beyond a reasonable doubt - that these severe
| allegations of terrorism funding are true and that the
| designation as terrorist associations is justified. It is
| not up to those organizations and their defenders to prove
| a negative. Innocent until proven guilty is after all the
| foundation of state respecting the rule of law.
|
| A designation based on secret "evidence", combined with the
| fact that even confidential dossiers don't offer a shred of
| evidence, doesn't make this look like a justified
| designation
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2021/11/04/secret-israel-
| dossier-pa...
| starik36 wrote:
| Seeing how they choose to manipulate the information, I
| can no longer take anything Intercept publishes
| seriously.
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-
| int...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/glenn-greenwald-
| resigns-...
| jgmmo wrote:
| This is fake news.
| pythonlion wrote:
| why Israel need to answer to EU and why everything EU does is
| automatically right?
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Exploting bugs to gain unauthorized access is a crime
| regardless of who does it. If the crime happened on EU
| grounds they have to asnwer to EU. That particular company
| should have trading sactions imposed on it just like the
| country it belongs to. We do the same for Russian hackers
| so it's only fair to apply that to everyone else.
|
| EU is the modern equivalent of Soviet Union and it behaves
| like that. They do a ton of stuff wrong and they take
| decisions without any regard for the local culture and
| people. This has nothing to do with illegal access to other
| peoples devices.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I think this is a loaded and defensive question that tries
| to broaden the scope of the allegation to something
| obviously wrong. Obviously everything the EU does isn't
| automatically right because it's the EU. But maybe if
| multiple reputable human rights organizations are
| condemning allegations of a country as baseless and part of
| ongoing human rights violations then maybe that specific
| thing is a correct statement of fact.
| pythonlion wrote:
| or maybe its conflict of interests. I'm not talking of
| the general situation but about this action by Israel
| government and the response. And this all human right
| groups are funded by the EU if its private or public it
| doesn't matter from the Israeli government perspective.
| Or maybe this groups doesn't know everything? why their
| members opinion is more accepted than the Israeli
| politicians who did that? some of them are even have pro-
| Palestinian independence stance
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| The fact based claim is that the Israel government
| haven't provided evidence to their claims and therefore
| the claims are unsubstantiated. Any discussion of
| conspiracy can be put to rest with some proof.
| pythonlion wrote:
| but since when governments need to provide evidence and
| to whom? the world government? Can I go to random
| governments around the world and ask them to show
| evidence about their security issues to my organization?
| [deleted]
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Yes, and you should. And for those governments who can't
| or won't provide evidence, you should disregard their
| assertions as baseless and suspect.
|
| I mean, why wouldn't you demand proof? Governments have a
| long and nasty history of conflating their political
| interests with security interests, just trusting their
| assertions seems extremely foolhardy.
| LegitShady wrote:
| because it would compromise means and methods
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Tough. The logical consequence of "we can't show you the
| proof" is "okay, I don't believe that you have any".
| After all, you would not believe my assertions about
| fantastical achievements without evidence, and the
| consequences of that hypothetical are much lower than the
| state saying it should be able to kill people in the name
| of "counter terrorism".
|
| More succinctly; "it would compromise means and methods"
| is a phenomenal way to cover up shaky or non-existent
| evidence.
| starik36 wrote:
| All the evidence of Russian collusion and hacking is
| almost always presented without any evidence whatsoever.
| Yet no one in the mainstream media thinks to question it.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Hello whataboutism.
|
| This seems more like an argument to raise the standards
| of evidence across the board, not to take the security
| apparatus at the word when they say someone is a
| terrorist.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It's not what aboutism, it's the introduction of reality
| to your 'logic'. You are asking why you don't have access
| to the evidence into an investigation into a designated
| terrorist group, and being told 'tough', and now
| demanding standards of evidence in other countries meet
| your needs.
|
| Again, no country in the world cares about your wish to
| have access to terror investigation evidence. None. Zero.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > It's not what aboutism, it's the introduction of
| reality to your 'logic'.
|
| Again, please follow the rules of this forum. You're
| pushing the norms of politeness here very, very hard.
|
| > You are asking why you don't have access to the
| evidence into an investigation into a designated
| terrorist group
|
| I actually never asked that question.
|
| What I actually said was "if the state doesn't provide
| evidence, then we're under no obligation to take its
| assertions seriously". The rest of your point in this
| paragraph makes no sense in the context of what I
| actually said.
|
| > Again, no country in the world cares about your wish to
| have access to terror investigation evidence. None. Zero.
|
| It seems like you're getting weirdly personal about this.
| This isn't about "my wish", and that's honestly a bad
| faith interpretation of what I'm saying.
|
| If we strip out the personal attacks, the core of this
| argument is actually clearly false. Governments don't
| want to give out evidence, yes, but they care a _lot_
| about swaying public opinion. If they didn't care, they
| wouldn't even bother justifying their actions as anti-
| terrorism. If the public in general demanded a higher
| standard of evidence, then governments absolutely would
| begin sharing more of it. My "wish" alone isn't enough,
| obviously, but in aggregate our wishes do matter a lot.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It's not your state, and your state wouldn't give you
| confidential evidence into a terrorism investigation
| either. You can imagine there are plenty of informants
| and intelligence taps to which the state doesn't want to
| give clues, right?
|
| Why do you think this foreign state isn't as capable of
| dismissing your demands as you are of saying 'tough' to
| them? That's the issue with your original 'tough'
| comment. It's just internet bravado, and doesn't survive
| contact with reality.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > It's just internet bravado, and doesn't survive contact
| with reality.
|
| Okay, I've reached my patience limit with you. Go use ad
| hominems on other people, I've tired of your blatant
| abuse.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I'm sorry if finding out that national security of a
| foreign state trumps your demands for evidence in a
| terrorism investigation is so traumatizing you classify
| it as abuse.
| pythonlion wrote:
| countries do hit jobs rarely and when they do its clear
| this person was involved 100% of the time. That's the
| only case people get killed in the name of "counter
| terrorism". the discussion was about banning an
| organization not a person.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| They claim that, yes. Then again the DOD also claimed
| that their final drone strike was on a valid combatant,
| later on they had to admit that it was just a worker
| being greeted by his children. Whoops (/s).
|
| Obviously banning an organization is much lower stakes
| than killing or jailing someone, and we should adjust
| accordingly. Still, if Israel (or any other country
| really) is going to run around and say that an
| organization or person is connected to terrorism, they
| should pony up enough evidence commensurate with the
| actions they propose so that we can discuss the matter.
| The pressure for any state to conflate political and
| security threats is high, and public scrutiny is part of
| what provides a counter balance.
|
| This is particularly important if a country is demanding
| that the international community writ large take action
| against a given person or organization. Should not the
| citizens of the countries being asked to participate have
| the opportunity to see some evidence and discuss the
| matter?
| LegitShady wrote:
| flipside of tough - you're demanding a foreign nation
| compromise its security so that you can feel better. You
| and your demands are nobody and nothing to a foreign
| state. So no. tough.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| No, I'm demanding they support their allegations before
| killing people. Giving the state unfettered access to
| kill and jail god knows who based on unsupported
| allegations of terrorism is very dangerous territory, and
| any right thinking person should be wary of handing out
| that kind of power.
|
| Saying this is about making me "feel better" is pushing
| the limits of good faith discussion, don't do that.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It's not your state, and this did go to court, you just
| weren't privy to the evidence because you're not a party
| involved in the investigation or the case, and have no
| security clearance in this foreign state to know the
| details.
| Quanttek wrote:
| Any state abiding by the rule of law, human rights, and
| democracy needs to provide evidence proving such
| allegations beyond a reasonable doubt and enabling the
| victims to challenge such administrative decisions in
| court. If Israel wants to drop the pretense of democracy,
| so be it. But human rights and the rule of law are
| universal obligations under international law.
| pythonlion wrote:
| this is biased for countries which are not under conflict
| and don't get accused by the other side every other week
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why their members opinion is more accepted than the
| Israeli politicians who did that?_
|
| Why does the opinion of multiple third parties carry more
| merit about the adversarial facts of a conflict than one
| of the participants to said conflict? Really?
| [deleted]
| zouhair wrote:
| Wait until you learn what was said about Mandela.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Seriously. Do people forget the rhetoric around Mandela and
| the ANC during apartheid South Africa?
|
| He was only taken off the terrorist watch list in '08.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Seeing necklacing with your own eyes is something to
| forget, but cannot.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Mandela was offered an early release if he renounced
| violence. He did not take that offer. I don't know about
| after his release, but for most of his life he believed in
| achieving his aims with violence, if need be.
|
| As for the violence the ANC perpetrated: It would
| definitely be considered terrorism today.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Super disingenuous in my view to have some purity test
| around renouncing violence against a white supremacist
| state. Is political violence not justified in that
| context?
|
| Were violent European revolutions against their monarchs
| all terroristic?
|
| Honestly surprised to see so many apartheid apologists in
| these replies.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I'm not passing judgement on his stance, the ANC's
| actions, and even on whether terrorism is a good or bad
| thing. I'm merely stating that he did have prolonged
| support of the entity that we today call terrorism.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Terrorism is not an entity, so I don't understand what
| you are saying.
|
| If you are saying that the ANCs actions make them
| objectively terrorists, I would say that I've never seen
| the term terrorist used in an objective and consistent
| manner.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Was the violence always against the state or was it also
| against innocent civilians? Not really the same thing.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sorry, trying to follow the threads here. Because some
| violence was perpetrated against civilians, I should thus
| expect Nelson Mandela to denounce all violence against
| the apartheid state and condemn him for failure to do so?
|
| Why is the same charge not levied against the apartheid
| South African state, which refused to renounce violence
| after committing violence against its own black citizens
| (forcible imprisonment, beatings, etc.) for daring to
| marry a white person, against anyone who was caught in a
| white area of the country, etc. etc.?
| joelbluminator wrote:
| I don't know what you should do, I do think it's
| complicated.
| pvarangot wrote:
| > Were violent European revolutions against their
| monarchs all terroristic?
|
| Unfortunately the answer is something like "yes but we
| don't want to speak about that because it makes us feel
| uncomfortable" most of the time. Thing is western society
| has been doing well the past 20/30 years regarding civil-
| war like violence at a large scale and for a hard to fix
| issue, and no one wants to talk about how or why but
| everyone wants to believe days of violent civil uprising
| are long gone.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| No, they weren't. Nevermind the fact that "terrorism" is
| a stupid word - these were justified conflicts of a
| people against tyranny. Violence for those aims is
| justified.
| pvarangot wrote:
| I don't think terrorism is a stupid word, it just means
| terrorizing civil population outside of normal militia
| vs. militia violence on the field. In a lot of those
| conflicts civilians that were persecuted by the
| government fought back with unconventional action, I'm
| not saying it was not justified, but it did involve
| innocent bystanders. For example during the end of the
| French revolution, as a reaction to the Reign of Terror
| and Robespierre, on the storming of the Hall of Paris.
|
| What's stupid is thinking that on a violent conflict only
| one side can be guilty of terrorism.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _There is plenty of purported evidence_
|
| The name for this is "allegations," specifically "unconfirmed
| allegations," AKA "random BS."
| bhouston wrote:
| The issue with many terrorism designations, such as these, is
| that it allows for the evidence of such designations to remain
| secret. It is great for banning organizations you do not like
| based on innuendo. It would be better if the evidence was made
| public and could be judged -- when it isn't you have to wonder
| whether it is being hidden because it can not stand up to
| scrutiny.
| newacct583 wrote:
| This seems like an attempt at misdirection. In a lawful
| society, the reason for surveilling suspected terrorists is
| because you actually suspect them of terrorism, not because
| they're currently your political opponents.
|
| If you ran with a gang in your 20's, that doesn't give the
| government permanent access to a wire tap when you start doing
| social justice advocacy in your 40's.
| juanani wrote:
| You cant have an article criticizing Zion without you shills
| showing up. Be gone
| otrahuevada wrote:
| Unless you count the oddly vague couple admissions extracted
| under torture from some random accountants as evidence of
| something, which you shouldn't because torture is not and
| shouldn't ever be considered a valid way to extract actionable
| information, being "fair" has nothing to do with what is being
| done here.
| q1w2 wrote:
| There is no evidence of torture whatsoever. This is a strange
| lie you keep posting with your link to 972mag, a biased
| Palestinian defense magazine.
|
| If you dig a little deeper at what the actual accountant's
| lawyer said - he said his client was seated in a chair with
| his hands tied behind his back during his initial arrest.
| Inventing a new name ("The shabah position") doesn't make it
| torture.
|
| Obviously the lawyer wants to protect his client from
| retribution from Al-Haq, so he will make outlandish
| accusations of "torture". I don't blame him - I'd be afraid
| of Al-Haq too after testifying against them.
|
| ...but remember that both accountants provided detailed
| testimony in an open court room - not from a torture chamber.
| Your claims torture are false.
| otrahuevada wrote:
| https://www.972mag.com/shin-bet-dossier-palestinian-ngos/
| Oh isn'there?
|
| Please, stop lying.
|
| The established facts, that the Shin Bet tortures people
| and israeli courts accept anything extracted under torture
| as testimony, do not in any way make your attempt at
| attacking sources of information nor your claim that this
| is false any more valid.
|
| Your insistence makes me wonder what kind of incentives you
| have to be perceiving to go out of your way to defend a
| bald-faced lie like this.
|
| Can we go back to having an earnest discussion instead of a
| boring, hasbara-typical farce?
| starik36 wrote:
| > Your insistence makes me wonder what kind of incentives
| you have to be perceiving
|
| If someone disagrees with you, surely they must be
| getting paid. Whose payroll are you on?
|
| > Can we go back to having an earnest discussion
|
| Indeed.
| otrahuevada wrote:
| I'm sorry, do you have a point? You seem to be trying to
| imply something that makes 0 sense.
| [deleted]
| jules-jules wrote:
| >what kind of incentives you have
|
| I am sure you are aware, but there is an ongoing, well-
| funded and highly organised propaganda campaign with deep
| military integration.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/nher96/inside
| _is...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/comments/n4etue/fo
| und...
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/comments/o5su74/th
| e_i...
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > but remember that both accountants provided detailed
| testimony in an open court room - not from a torture
| chamber.
|
| That's not actually a counter argument for torture here.
| Tons of torture victims will walk into court and say
| everything they said in the torture chamber; the threat of
| continued torture of them and their loved ones is quite the
| motivator. History is littered with examples of torture
| victims "confessing" in court, often to crimes that were
| laughably made up.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > This is a strange lie you keep posting with your link to
| 972mag, a biased Palestinian defense magazine.
|
| 972mag is a magazine founded by Jewish journalists in Tel
| Aviv. When an Israeli magazine run by Jews condemns torture
| of Palestinians and is called a "Palestinian defense
| magazine", you have to wonder how provincial the thought
| process that would use that label is. Considering world
| opinion on the human rights of Palestinans who were
| tortured by Israel, which includes these journalists, and
| which includes their political pole within Jewish Israeli
| society, you have to wonder how isolated the group on the
| other side of all of this is.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Having been interrogated myself, it's incredible how defiant
| I was until my interrogators threatened my wife, and at that
| point I told them I'd do whatever they wanted.
| lacker wrote:
| This title is quite editorialized. The whole controversy is over
| whether these are human rights organizations as this website
| claims, or terrorist groups as the Israeli government claims.
|
| It should not be a surprise that the NSO group, as an Israeli
| company, is working against groups that the Israeli government
| considers to be terrorists.
| hanniabu wrote:
| > against groups that the Israeli government considers to be
| terrorists
|
| Basically any Palestinian is a terrorist in the eyes of the
| Israeli government because it allows them to justify their
| oppression, theft, and murders.
| starik36 wrote:
| Your comment smells of generalization, unfairness, lack of
| subtlety and antisemitism a bit, don't you think?
| VictorPath wrote:
| > human rights organizations as this website claims, or
| terrorist groups as the Israeli government claims.
|
| These NGOs get funding from the European Union, and Amnesty
| International and Human Rights Watch condemned Israel outlawing
| these human rights NGOs - so it Israel against not just this
| magazine, but the EU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
| etc.
| jjcon wrote:
| The EU and US etc are also bankrolling these israeli
| operations so im not really sure the funding argument holds
| up well here
| golemiprague wrote:
| It doesn't even matter if it is a terrorist organisation or
| not. The Arabs that call themselves "Palestinians" want to
| conquer and destroy Israel, it is clearly and explicitly
| written in the Hamas charter, the de facto "constitution" of
| Gaza. The ones in the west bank want the same thing but they
| hide behind calling it "the right of return", basically
| demanding that Israel will let about 10 million Arabs to
| "return" to Israel, or in other words, conquer it.
|
| So basically Gaza and the Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the west
| bank) and many other Arab states in the region are enemy
| entities to the state of Israel, whether they use terrorism or
| just regular "legal" military operations and political
| activities. As such, there is no surprise Israel is spying
| after them like any country would do against their enemies,
| even if they are not terrorists.
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(page generated 2021-11-08 23:01 UTC)