Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware | Hacker News Reader

Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

frontlinedefenders.org

541 pointsbjourne307 comments

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.

> (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 :(

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.

Jack was alluding at that but afaik he didn't mention anything about how they ensure it's not used against their own citizens?

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 ...

> that the plausible deniability goes out the window the minute they host their own infrastructure

NSO operates the infrastructure and customers provide a list of phone numbers. They will launch exploitation against the provided numbers without any knowledge of who owns the phone (as long as the number isn't from a restricted country like Israel or the US). Once the implant calls back it goes to a portal where the customer can control it.

I'd fault NSO for a lot of things, but they just aren't in a position to know if a burner phone belongs to a journalist or a foreign diplomat until it has been popped. They do have to trust their customers to an extent.

No they do not have to trust anyone. They designed it that way. Maybe this level of oversight is the only level the market will bear, but it was still a design decisions.

> have to

Careful, now.

(which is because organized crime is indistinguishable from general business)

> 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?

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.

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.

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...

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> "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.

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 :)

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).

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/

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

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.

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.

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.

Something I think helps a lot to bring moral clarity to one's thinking about the Israel-Palestine conflict is to locate where the material power to end it lies, rather than to search vainly for a party without blood on its hands.

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”.

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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?

>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.

It shouldn't be accepted and tolerated, but it's disingenuous to discuss it without mentioning the reasons why it happened in the first place.

I think he's saying the turn of events is tragically predictable, and we SHOULDN'T accept or tolerate it. That was my reading, anyway.

> The attempted murder of innocent people?

In your opinion, what should a teenager do after witnessing extrajudicial execution of his relative by occupying army?

In your opinion, how should the IDF act do if they know that every teenager can become a potential mass murderer? Your words, not mine. Bear in mind that soldiers are people and they can feel emotions such as fear and anger over dead comrades. Of course unjustified violence is not right, but you can't exactly expect them to engage in community relationships. They also can't ignore the status quo which involves terrorists acting with impunity like in the intafadas.

> how should the IDF act do

Solution is simple: end the occupation.

> which involves terrorists

Your terrorists are someone else's freedom fighters.

> Solution is simple: end the occupation.

That is not an answer, might as well have just written "Free Palestine!"

I would be interested in hearing your real solution, instead of just repeating a slogan. Nobody has been able to figure it out for decades.

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/1251004227956150273

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.

> 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.

You say your Israeli.. But then you use the phrase"

"you are just pushing Hasbara."

I'm Israeli, and I have never met an Israeli who would say that phrase, Especially in english, using the hebrew word like that. Something doesn't add up.. Are you russian or israeli arab or something? You had work partners in magav and they told you they put a stun grenade in a baby stroller? This seems pretty weird..

Hasbara Hasbara. When you're pushing Palestinian narrative you're progressive. When you're pushing zionist narrative you're an evil Jew Hasbara troll.

Yeah, except the hasbara efforts are real and well documented.

Pretty disingenuous for you to try and present OP in such a way.

Israeli here. I don’t want to get into an argument here about the six NGOs, Israel and NSO group. I personally don’t have enough information to make an informed decision on it.

There is one thing I want to clarify though. Hasbara is Hebrew for “explaining” - so when Israelis or any Hebrew speaker say hasbara it literally means “explaining” their point of view. Now more often or not, Israelis and Hebrew speakers actually complain that “our governments Hasbara/explanation was garbage” or “wow, we did a really poor job explaining ourselves there”.

When you put it into that context, you need to understand from an Israeli/Hebrew speaker point of view “hasbara” is not a bad thing at all - it’s a necessity regardless of if you are pro or anti Israel.

Unfortunately people who don’t understand Hebrew have turned a common Hebrew term into a derogatory attack against any Israeli or pro Israeli individual and this extremely problematic for so many reasons I won’t get into now.

Regardless, every time you accuse someone of “hasbara” you are actually just accusing them of explaining themselves or their point of view and since it is everyone’s right to be allowed to explain their point of view - you really aren’t accusing them of anything bad at all.

Hasbara refers to simply explaining the same way that Islam refers to mere submission. When people are talking about Hasbara with an uppercase H they are referring to government PR programs - ie, propaganda.

It's yet another tool in the "destroy Israel" toolbox; prevent Zionists from speaking up or defending themselves. If someone says anything remotely positive about Israel (even if it's real) it's "Hasbara", some kind of black magic. Already it's increasingly difficult to identify as pro Israel in American colleges, slowly but surely it's happening.

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.

Hasbara is what the Israelis call it… what would be a more sincere way for me to refer to it?

Public relations? Diplomacy? Even propaganda if you want to be negative towards Israel? Why would you use the Hebrew word for it, do you use the Hebrew word for other things as well? It's not a unique thing to Israel that's exactly my point.

You are missing the point, people don’t use it because it’s the Hebrew word. Hasbara is a crucial part of Israeli strategy to expand its borders and maintain its dominance of the Palestinian people. Hasbara is all about (1) obfuscating the settler-colonial nature of Israel and (2) white-washing Israeli military war crimes in Gaza and occupied territories. It’s telling that the achievement which launched the political career of the current prime-minister was astroturfing Wikipedia to promote Zionism and Israel. This stuff is important to Israel it’s not just propaganda to promote is hasbara to enable.

The nature of hasbara has features which warrant distinguishing it from propaganda. For example it seemingly exclusively relies on astroturfing. That’s useful to know that there are organizations giving students fellowships [1] to promote these efforts. Another feature is in the objective. Unlike generic propaganda, the objective isn’t to promote domestic nationalism, counter competing ideologies, or to demotivate foreign adversaries. The objective is obfuscating the settler colonial nature of Israel and white-washing Israeli military war crimes.

To me, this warrants calling these efforts by what the Israelis call it.

1. https://hasbarafellowships.org/

Given your apparent intended meaning, “propaganda” seems most appropriate.

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.

1) Molotov != Protest

> 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.

> 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).

> 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.

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?

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?

Molotov and rocks may be both protests and murder attempts.

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.

> 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.

> 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?

> 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.

You ask first if this someone understands the very basics correctly.

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.

They tried to give back Gaza and got extremely burned for that. Should they have listened to Egypt how to deal with the people in Gaza? I don't think so.

> 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?

> 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.

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...

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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...

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-...

why Israel need to answer to EU and why everything EU does is automatically right?

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

this is biased for countries which are not under conflict and don't get accused by the other side every other week

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.

because it would compromise means and methods

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.

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.

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.

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?

> 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?

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.

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...

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.

Those allegations came from the same place this “evidence” did.

Since when is testimony from their own Palestinian accountants not considered evidence?

> 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

Why are you splitting hairs??? They worked as accountants through 2019. So obviously they have knowledge of where the funds were being funneled to.

No one is splitting hairs; this is the very crux of the matter. They worked as accountants for a different organization altogether.

Given that the accountants gave testimony - it would stand to reason they had knowledge of it.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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?

>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/found...

https://old.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/comments/o5su74/the_i...

> 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.

> 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.

> remember that both accountants provided detailed testimony in an open court room - not from a torture chamber

Using torture to force victims to testify against themselves or others in an open court room was routine in early USSR, for example, so I don't see how this changes anything.

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.

Wait until you learn what was said about Mandela.

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.

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.

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.

In case of ANC, it definitely did things that fit the colloqual definition of terrorism - i.e. targeting civilians for political purposes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMkhonto_we_Sizwe#1980s:_Bombi...

That's not a justification of apartheid, though. One can argue that apartheid and terrorism are both morally despicable. Or one may argue that terrorism is sometimes justifiable.

And there are many other historical examples of the same. E.g. Soviet partisans did a lot of things that would also be considered terrorism during WW2 - targeting not Germans or their pet militias, but civilians accused of collaboratinism (which could be very vaguely defined - e.g. teachers who refused to close down schools on occupied territories). Again, you could debate whether it was justified or not, especially in the context of much broader use of terrorist tactics by Germans themselves, but that's a separate conversation.

I'd call Bantustans terrorism though.

Why bother, when there's an example of straight-up, blatant terrorist tactics by the apartheid government:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Council_of_Churc...

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Was the violence always against the state or was it also against innocent civilians? Not really the same thing.

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.?

I don't know what you should do, I do think it's complicated.

Seeing necklacing with your own eyes is something to forget, but cannot.

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.

>There is plenty of purported evidence

The name for this is "allegations," specifically "unconfirmed allegations," AKA "random BS."

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.

> 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...

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.

Because it was never substantiated. There's little point in repeating information that's no more trustworthy than taking a poll of random people on the street.

Israel is free not to release their evidence, and the rest of us are free to infer what we would like from the fact that a first world nation refuses to substantiate their reasoning for bombing a news outlet.

That would stand for pretty much any nation that considers itself to be free. If Germany bombed their AP HQ and refused to release any evidence of why, there would be some very stern questions as well.

> Why did you omit the reason for targeting?

I think it's obvious why he omitted it.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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".

You're indulging in the fallacy of relative privation and trying to change the subject for some reason.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

So perhaps the obvious conclusion should be that your definition of "mass bombing" is not what people mean when they use that term?

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?

Tens of thousands of people being displaced seems pretty general to me.

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

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.

"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.

>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.

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.

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.

1984 looking more and more like an instruction manual everyday.

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

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.

> 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.

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?

> 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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

> assassinating innocent civilians abroad

care to provide a source or evidence for this allegation?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

The EU and US etc are also bankrolling these israeli operations so im not really sure the funding argument holds up well here

The EU being that terrorist organization whose member states orchestrated and funded the destruction of Libya, among other atrocities?

Not sure that lends much credibility to the proxy organizations they fund and influence. This is not some benevolent group dedicated to improving and protecting life around the globe. It is a corrupt, morally bankrupt hive of war criminals and arms profiteers. If ever they pretend to care for someone who is not rich, it is obviously with ulterior motive.

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?

Is there a tool to scan your devices for Pegasus?

Yes, see here: https://github.com/AmnestyTech/investigations/tree/master/20...

You can look at Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT):

* https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt

Probably no effective ones, but you can packet sniff and look for traffic to known C2 servers.

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.

Yes, this makes sense. It will become outdated soon, technologies are evolving rapidly.

Kind of OT, but are there Palestinian human rights organizations that are focused, or at least cover human rights violations by Palestinian government?

There is a bunch of Palestinian HR groups that do that, for example:

http://www.mezan.org/en/post/21740/Al+Mezan+Calls+for:+Solut...

http://www.mezan.org/en/post/24069/Press+Release%3A+Al+Mezan...

http://www.mezan.org/en/post/24043/Position+Paper%3A+Human+R...

I hope the Pegasus Spyware source code leaks sometime soon.

If these claims are true, this intelligence gathering might save lives by preventing terrorist attacks.

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.

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.

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.

> 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...)

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...

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...

I think "the fappening", xghost and NSO have already clearly demonstrated that mobile security is just PR.

According to Wikipedia "the fappening" was a phishing attack. I don't think that is a mobile specific problem.

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.

According to the link below it clearly was phishing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak...

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.

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.

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.

Can someone explain the strong ties between US and Israel, and why US stands behind Israel, no matter what?

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.

> 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...

The enemy of my enemy (Iran), is my friend.

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.

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.

> 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.

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...

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.

> 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.

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.

Wait, you're just outright saying that you are OK with the Taliban to committing human human rights abuses?

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.

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.

> “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.

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.

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.

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.

Er... you mean the UN resolution which produced this map: https://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...

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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".

> > 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.

> 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?

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.

> 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".

> 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?

> 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?

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Don't matter to you maybe ... to many people finding reason is important.

> 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.

> 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.

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

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.

>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.

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.

>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.

FWIW, didn't the US just blacklist Pegasus?

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...

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.

that’s one you’re gonna have to figure out for yourself.

Large US Jewish population eg. Lubavitch Jews.

Because if Israel loses a war they will use nukes. When they ask "please help us" we support them... because of the implication.

Which nation would benefit from those infections?

Israel most likely.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

>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.

False flags pretty much never happen irl, they are much more popular in the minds of internet commentators.

Then you may find this article interesting:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/13/false-flag/

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.

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