US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists
apnews.com
apnews.com
It's never a good look going after journalists, but this seems especially petty.
Ofcourse they get away with it because literally nobody has ever taken Italy seriously in centuries.
Likewise, restrictions on the NSA spying on American citizens, for example, are bypassed by outsourcing that spying to, say, other Five Eyes countries.
Israel's role in this hacking phones of politicians, dissidents and now journalists on the behalf of the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia [2].
The Israeli company NSO Group was sued by WhatsApp for their use of Pegasus [3], something Israel tried to intervene to block [4].
I honestly don't know how people work on things like Pegasus knowing it's being used to target and kill journalists and politicians.
[1]: https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/rendition701/upda...
[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/world/middleeast/israel-s...
[3]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77n76kzmz4o
[4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/israels-attem...
You can make many people do pretty much anything under orders, and even more by rewarding them.
"I was just putting food on the table for my family..."
Is that all it's being used for? I can easily see situations where its use is saving lives, in which case it would be easy to justify working on.
His academic works stand independent of the unsavoury character -similar to Werner von Braun. But that doesn't remove the fact he supported "any-but-american-imperialism" decorated with racists undertones ("the brown people can not be perpetrator and victims at the same time") and tried to undermine the western value based world order.
Sorry, but it looks like you simply don't know people.
That's pretty obvious. Signal doesn't protect you against full device compromise. Any app can trivially extract your signal conversations
There is a security model baked in to the mobile OS that usually does not allow that.
> Any app can trivially extract your signal conversations
You will find it in CitizenLab's report: https://citizenlab.ca/2025/06/first-forensic-confirmation-of...
It mentions a CVE number but the apple link is generic and mo details on the CVE database.
Has this even been fixed by apple?
You would not find info anywhere
On the “vulnerability” it could be considered a zero-day because there was a real exploit against it prior to the exploit being reported by security researchers. It could also be considered not a zero-day because the software vendor is aware of the vulnerability such that no other real exploit of it, regardless of it being patched, will occur on the same day that they learn of it.
It’s kinda moot that it’s been patched. Even if they somehow failed to patch it since the exploit, it is no longer a zero-day vulnerability. But, to your point, knowing that it has been patched is practically (obviously) the same as knowing that the software vendor is aware of the vulnerability.
(Funny enough, they could be aware of it and it still be a zero-day since the definition is how many days have past since the vendor learned of it prior to it being exploited. Though, it would need to be exploited after they learn about it but before they patch it, which is unlikely.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44274249
Tl;DR: yes, this was resolved in iOS 18.3.1
(Small aside, but CitizenLab is excellent and such a valuable resource)
CitizenLab states the zero-click iMessage attack — CVE-2025-43200 - used as one of the vectors was fixed by Apple in iOS 18.3.1.
Apple has an "About the security content of iOS 18.3.1 and iPadOS 18.3.1" [^2] page, and it contains the following:
---
Messages Available for: iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later
Impact: A logic issue existed when processing a maliciously crafted photo or video shared via an iCloud Link. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.
Description: This issue was addressed with improved checks.
CVE-2025-43200: Apple
---
1: https://citizenlab.ca/2025/06/first-forensic-confirmation-of...
It used to be NSO Group that got all the press, now it's Paragon, and I think it's all for the good that the spotlight gets shone on these companies, but do keep in mind that this is not an "Israeli" phenomenon. There are American companies selling tooling that is more effective than "Graphite"; they're just more careful about publicity. Wherever it is you live that you feel is morally superior to America and Israel on commercialized CNE, you're likely to end up surprised.
I'm always amazed we know the origin of these sorts of things as much as we do.
Since tptacek likes to present themselves as an authority on this kind of stuff, and does indeed have a reputation here, I feel it's important to point out that this isn't the first time they've carried water for Israel like this.
Examples: Calling Israel's exploding pagers war crime "surgical" [0] - which it absolutely was not, or, saying that Hamas should've taken the ceasefire deal they were offered [1] (rightly called out in the replies).
It's absurd to try and claim that Israel is 'no better or worse' than other nations in the 'spying on journalists phones' department. Especially when you look at why.
American surveillance is a pretty good example. "Lawful" intercept, geofence tracking, dragnet collection, commercial de-anonymization, America leads the way in a deeply unethical field. Yet, criticize Palantir et. al and people will find ways to argue it's necessary. Usually they create a boogeyman; "we're the good guys because we fight human traffickers and thieves" type of stuff. You don't have to look very closely at the marketing materials for these companies, they're very clear about using it on the "bad guys" to assuage the average insecurity. It's like the dog-and-pony we always see when iOS vs Android security is brought up; "it's not about my phone, it's the relative security of theirs!" When in reality, neither company is ethical or sells a secure product. They're excuses not to think, instead of logical arguments against the claim.
This isn't even a politics issue, either. These comments are a mirror reflection of one's character and their internal (often irrational) justification for an illogical stance. Often these comments aren't even rooted in a form of rhetoric, they just want to deflect the blow a little bit to cover their own ass emotionally. In the tech industry, I've noticed this happen a lot when people are embarrassed by their own work being discovered "in the wild" by peers.
I hate to tell you, but companies like the ones you allude to are incredibly interesting. They're also probably very immoral, and should be known by people who have an interest in infosec.
If you were working with one of these companies, you’d know it because it’s their primary/only product/focus.
I can only assume that there are actually some industry or professional repercussions for disclosing any specifics, because otherwise the only other logical explanation for such tight lipped discussion is that people are somewhat afraid to talk about these companies.
Also, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta probably have some of the most respected vulnerability research labs in the world. They, despite their many and varied other flaws, tend not to weaponise and profit from said research. I mean, they might, but they also do a pretty good job of actively and responsibly publishing this research.
After the talk I went up to him and asked, "What are the countries that are using these tools?" He looked at me with a certain amount of scorn and said, "All of them."
its not surprising since israel intelligence unit one of the best in the world
It's not the tech (or lack of it) that makes me feel morally superior. It's the choice to use that tech to defend literal facists that I would find embarassing.
If you think that sounds naive, I think you get my point. Those in power can not show worse ethics and morals than those they rule, at least not if you want to uphold the illusion of democracy and its values.
The American founders also emphasized the requirement that, for the American republic to function, it must have a virtuous people. The democratic process means that citizens now participate in the political process and thus shoulder some of the responsibility for how well a country is governed. The virtue of citizens becomes even more important.
Let's be specific: NSO Group sold Pegasus to Saudi Arabia, who used it to track Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his assassination. They sold to Mexico, where it was used to target journalists' families within days of their murders. To Rwanda, to hunt dissidents abroad after imprisoning their family. The list goes on.
This isn't cherry-picking. When Citizen Lab analyzes global sypware operations, Israeli companies dominate: NSO, Candiru, Paragon, QuaDream, and arguably Cytrox (Macedonian, but Israeli leadership and investors). The common thread? Former Unit 8200 personnel, who've turned state cyber-warfare capabilities into a business model explicitly built on selling to authoritarians.
Your "but everyone does it" framing fundamentally misrepresents the issue. Yes, other countries have surveillance companies. But there's a massive difference between developing capabilities and systematically selling them to regimes that murder journalists. WHen was the last time a German or French company's tools were found on a murdered journalist's or imprisoned political dissident's phone?
The data shows Israeli companies don't just happen to have "bad PR" (or uniquely terrible luck in choosing their clients) - they actively court authoritarian clients because that's where the money is if you have no morals.
For some context: Israel has a population of less than 10 Million - less than 0.1% of the world's population. If you have a persuasive argument for why Israeli spyware is routinely found by organizations like Citizen Lab, why their products seem so uniquely popular and successful with fascists and authoritarians, I'd love to hear it. Because from where I'm standing, the clear and obvious explanation is that there is a deep, systemic issue in the Israeli private intelligence and cybersecurity sector that is entirely unconcerned with how their tools will be used, or by whom, as long as the money's right. All enabled by the Israeli authorities, who need to approve of these exports.
You're right that spyware companies exist elsewhere. But when researchers keep finding the same tiny country's products in the phones of murdered journalists and jailed activists, dismissing scrutiny as bias is itself a bias. The question isn't why Israeli companies get attention - it's why they keep selling to regimes that use their tools to crush dissent, and worse.
Unit 8200 is Israel's elite military intelligence cyber unit - think NSA but with mandatory military service. Israelis serve in their late teens/early twenties, the most tech-savvy and promising recruits land in Unit 8200 where they develop world-class offensive cyber capabilities on the state's dime.
When they finish their service, they take those skills directly to companies like NSO, Candiru and Paragon. It's not a secret - these companies are often funded, and actively recruit Unit 8200 alumni. The talent isn't necessarily found, it's manufactured by the state and then handed off to the private sector.
That's why Israeli spyware is so effective. Arguably, it's not commercial R&D - it's military grade capabilities with a profit motive and little, if any, ethics oversight.
If you are paying for a VPN, the odds are good that it's owned by Kape Technologies, another Israeli company staffed by former Unit 8200 personnel. PIA and a bunch of others are now under their purview.
They'll say they don't keep logs, but only an idiot would trust that.
Cellebrite also does questionable shit with phone forensics; newer products upload phone images to "the cloud." Supposedly it is instanced and law enforcement is just supposed to trust that yet another function the Justice Department outsources to Israel isn't backdoored by them, like Inslaw/PROMIS.
1. keep your phone's identifiers secret, as they must target the devices in some way (like phone number/email/whatever)
or
2. don't own a phone
Phone 1 - with sim and is exploited, no data or apps. Phone 2 - different OS, no sim, uses portable hotspot from phone 1 and has all the apps and data.
its an anomaly having an "no data" especially in this ever digitized world
Honestly I don't think this is going to protect you if you are being targeted. We've already seen what can happen with pagers
Not having a phone is nigh on impossible, minimizing phone use isn't quite as bad as you might think. Mine ran out of battery on Monday and I've not charged it all week.
I'm toying with the idea of only using it when I absolutely need to (e.g., for MFA, if I'm out of an evening and likely to need a taxi). Not so much an opsec thing, more that I spend enough time in-front of screens as it is.
The parent comment was flippant, but I think in the context of this piece, phone-use minimization isn't necessarily a bad idea.
Trying to get into multiple systems and corollate/reconstruct information is much more difficult, time consuming, and likely to be much less complete. If a state actor has decided to stop at nothing to get you, it probably wont help, but if you are just someone that could end up on someone’s list, it will likely help.
Is it just me or is this statement written in a way that implies they think spying on people is acceptable just not in this specific circumstance?
While the story itself is about Italy spying on a journalist in another EU country
But I guess news sites needs them clicks
There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia. And fighting terror or crime using software is valid. The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists, and what I'd like to know from this article was what was their motivation
If you’d like to know more about them, an article in the AP isn’t the right place to find more. But it is a good way to let people know what the US is funding in the world.
Concerning why this happened, you seem to know exactly why this happened. I for one am happy to be informed whether this is corruption, fascist crackdown, some unknown italian law that makes it all okay, actually the work of the previous government or maybe these journalists were actually baby kidnappers, whatever. That's pretty much why we need to read an article
I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you -- genuinely curious about your perspective.
The most damning bit in her Wikipedia article is this: "In 1992 Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by followers of Italian fascism. She later became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party that became the MSI's legal successor in 1995 and moved towards national conservatism."
But that does not necessarily mean she is herself a fascist, but rather that she was a member of various organizations that were originally founded by fascists then later moderated (roughly similar to the French FN/RN).
On the other hand, lots of people you could fairly describe as fascist or far-right claim to not be so, so it's possible she genuinely is and the moderate turn of these parties is a sham. As someone who doesn't follow Italian politics I have no way of knowing which is the case.
The reason those journalists were targeted is because they infiltrated one of those organizations and found that they were in fact still very much fascist behind closed doors (or at the very least racist and antisemitic).
As long as the executive doesn't control the judges, or insist on carrying a two speed justice, you can't really be fascist country.
Ergo a fascist party is one which is at least nationalist, if not ethnonationalist, and insist on curbing the rule of law : X should be less equal than Y in front of the law (assuming the same social class).
According to Wikipedia: "It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."
Most of these elements are not directly related to antisemitism or racism.
Inane.
It was an atheism joke.
But fairly niche outside of that.
But she didn't have even this excuse of social pressure, did she ?
[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-plays-down-her...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/12/matteo-salvini...
Salvini's ties to Russia of course go way beyond a couple Aeroflot tickets: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/albertonardelli/salvini...
That's what this company's software is used for.
Good luck to them shifting focus to the bad actors they choose to do business with.
Half the employees are from NSO and they're all from the same unit.
I believe that similarly to phone tapping, this is a technology that in the wrong hands is dangerous, but it can be very effective against some threats that might make this worthwhile
Western democracies have worked for a century after the invention of phone tapping, and even a few decades after inventing a much more dangerous technology, of massive government or corporate surveillance networks.
Zero click exploit makes the news but it has no implication on most of the population, it's too expensive.
> it has no implication on most of the population
Journalistic content is still one of my main source of information that most of the population use to get informed, so my bet is many people do feel implicated somehow.
Good thing the story is not about the companies or governments, but the journalists.
The "this is not new" / "everyone knew about this" middlebrow dismissal adds nothing to any conversation, and falsely equates all hacking incidents, but the real story is about the clients, their motivations and the victims who are always different.
> I'd like to know from this article was what was their motivation
Wouldn't we all? Meloni's office had no comment, but the article gave enough breadcrumbs about the reporting of the victims that one can make an educated guess.
i emphatically beg to differ with this statement
Better spies than more covid research at wuhan.
Spying created the conditions where we were on the brink of nuclear armageddon. That they also saved us from going over the brink isn’t really to their credit.
Also, fyi - as best as we can ever know there was no lab leak. If you want a good summary of why not - have a listen to the most recent “If Books Could Kill” podcast episode.
Really?
6 minutes in “look at the viruses they were working on…”
Can’t, it’s been scrubbed, thankfully some people saved some of the data before it was deleted.
7 minutes in: “never been a confirmed case of a lab worker getting covid”
The documented black market of animals out of biolabs in China and the fact that it’s an aerosol virus might be important here…
> Really?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/t6RUAjksL7caBQvZA?g_st=ic
A 30min drive. So, a relevant point, especially since that’s basically the key piece of “evidence” for the lab leak.
> 6 minutes in “look at the viruses they were working on…”
> Can’t, it’s been scrubbed
They published papers about what they were working on. That has not been scrubbed.
> 7 minutes in: “never been a confirmed case of a lab worker getting covid”
> The documented black market of animals out of biolabs in China and the fact that it’s an aerosol virus might be important here…
Sure. That might be relevant. But it’s not evidence, it’s just an idea of how it might have happened. A wuhan lab worker getting covid early on would be evidence.
Nobody can say definitively it wasn’t a lab leak, but what we can say is that we don’t have credible evidence that suggests it was - just a couple coincidences that aren’t actually super coincidental when you look closer. Like, say, a lab and a market 19km away in a city of 11 million people. For comparison - that’s a city with more people than NYC, and the lab is in Manhattan while the market is in Coney Island.
It's not like Iran or Zambia precisely to the degree it doesn't use such tools.
remember belgacom?
western governments are also in the war of information and minds. if they wouldnt wage it, we'd already have lost.
sadly, this results in this kind of weirdness. and its incredibly hard or impossible to find their true motives or intent. especially if for example an investigation didnt turn up what they needed, an so seems like a random hack on a random person.
it doesnt happen only to journalists. but when they are targeted its easier discovered because they might expect it more and look for it more. and when it does, because its related to press, everyones 'freedom of press' button is tripped and they get offended, sad, angry, whatever the button releases.
Tangential, but this I strongly disagree with. The reason the US, and West more broadly, has been gradually, and now rapidly, losing this 'war' since the end of WW2 is precisely because we started waging it. And more generally the reason we started waging it is because we started behaving in an increasingly amoral fashion.
Consider that US had absolutely no intelligence agency whatsoever until 1942. And the CIA did not exist before 1947. Then within 15 years they're proposing engaging in terrorist acts against Americans on American soil so we can blame it on another country and get involved in a war. [1] And that proposal was only stopped by a President who would then shortly thereafter be assassinated by a "deluded gunman." [2] For context on that snippet if you're unaware, Bush Sr was the former head of the CIA.
From there it's shockingly just been a rapidly downhill slide. When you pretend to hold the moral high ground while acting fundamentally immoral, it leaves people far more jaded, and noncompliant, when they eventually 'wake up' to what's happening than if you just dropped the pretext and leveled with people.
I wonder how Iran or Zambia feel about the west? The overthrow of their democracy. The colonial exploitations. Are those legit grievances in your eyes? Or are you a “take up the white mans burden” kind of person?
You might think the above is morally equivalent with whatever the state of Italy is doing, but I believe some governments and some cultures are better than others. Not because they are superior humans, but because human organizations and actions can be compared one to another, and there is at least for me, places I'd rather live in, and places I wouldn't
We can all go back and forth about which nations abuse their people the most. You can point to LGBT and someone can point to American prisoner counts. Why does it matter? Stay on topic?
The problem is the blanket statement which effectively becomes “the ordained group of humans can have these tools while the others we judge as less-than and prohibit”. The more they talk the more they reveal about their views which are either outright racist or extremely disingenuous when it comes to obvious historical contexts.
It's not about "the white mans burden", whatever that means. It's about Iran's government not being democratically elected, being massively unpopular with its own populace that can't do anything about it cause it's not a democracy, enforcing religious laws on people that often don't want them, not respecting minorities. And oh, btw, investing billions of dollars in promoting terror all across the Middle East, with the stated goal of eradicating Israel (and, eventually, the US).
So, I don't really care how Iran's rulers feel about the US - they're evil. If you can't recognize that, you've lost the plot.
Who's the one evil again?
Those countries in the middle east that US considers an ally are not democratically elected either and they enforce religious laws like not allowing woman to drive. They do not respect minorites and they invest in terror in the area too.
Turn off the tv and learn about the history of topics you want to shoot your mouth off in public about before you make a fool of yourself.
Such mindsets would never allow for achieving peace with neighbors through any strategy that isn’t built around dominance through violence.
Based on the population over/under killing off all of Gaza seems to be the most peaceful solution. Israel would work but it has a bigger population, and only one side or the other would have to be eliminated to achieve gaza-israel peace in that conflict.
Of course we don't have any real say in the matter. They're being starved to death as we speak, and once they all perish I don't think they'll be able to defend themselves or engage in hostilities.
You very well might have applied this same logic to ireland during the troubles, and advocated for the extermination of all irish-Catholics or all irish-Protestants. Yet we have had 2-3 decades of peace now, and a resuming of violence seems unlikely.
It seems stuck and peace impossible because that serves to reinforce the goals of those with power in this situation. There are solutions, they just involve a small minority with a disproportionate amount of influence (e.g. US oil companies, ideological christian imperialists, zionist absolutists) not getting their way.
Unwittingly, you are arguing the foundation of Israel is Nazi ideology.
You don’t say?? A state that can only exist as the result of ethnic cleansing? A state that is currently committing numerous acts of genocide? Huhhh.
After that, we have nothing else we agree on, because your ideology is based on a false description of reality.
Remember, the tech revolution started in the US so have some respect for my country's opinion on the issue. Israel is a large supplier of tech including computer chip design.
The unfortunate truth is that the Palestinians in a fair election elected Hamas, a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy Israel.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
“Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing seriously serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group,”
That the political allies of israel defend it by denying an ongoing genocide is hardly evidence it’s not happening.
> Moreover, civilian deaths stop in Gaza the moment Hamas surrenders and returns the remaining hostages.
Patently false: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-netanyahu-...
Israel turned down a deal back in january 2024 that would have released all the hostages.
If hostage taking is wrong - Israel held thousands of palestinians without charges prior to oct 7th.
If hostages are the reason for the war, why has israeli bombing killed so many of the hostages?
> The unfortunate truth is that the Palestinians in a fair election elected Hamas, a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy Israel.
That, and oct 7th, are all events that happened long after the ethnic cleansing of palestine started. The policy of “Trimming the weeds” lead to an intensification of anti-israeli sentiment in gaza.
But the election of which you speak was in 2006 - and hamas was elected. It’s been 19 years since an election in gaza. So anyone under 37 killed since oct 7th could not have voted for hamas. That’s most of them btw.
Also, you do see that the tread you’re responding to is someone explicitly saying the only path to peace is complete genocide of either gazans or israelis? Pick your friends better maybe?
That's some of the most degenerate, nihilistic, disgusting, inhumane rhetoric I've ever seen. Ethnic cleansing and genocide is "the most peaceful solution"? What the fuck?
>once they all perish I don't think they'll be able to defend themselves or engage in hostilities.
No shit they won't be able to engage or defend themselves - they'll be dead long before that.
Keep pretending like your murder of children is the way towards peace. The rest of the world will just look at it with disgust.
How will things change?
Or do you also want people to assume everything about your views based on the average views of people in your country?
> Such mindsets would never allow for achieving peace with neighbors through any strategy that isn’t built around dominance through violence.
Just for the record, Israel has managed to achieve peace with many of its historic enemies like Jordan and Egypt, and more recently the UAE and is (was) on the way to achieving relations with Saudi Arabia. The peace in Egypt included giving back land that is 4x the size of all of Israel.
The people of Jordan and Egypt resent the Israelis because of what the Israelis do to the Palestinians on a daily basis. You know settle their lands, destroy their houses, uproot their trees, murder their children, starve their civilians, etc etc.
If Israel ever signs a peace deal with Palestinians, but the Palestinian populace still hates Israel, that would also not count as peace? What would count as peace besides Israel not existing?
Is this working? Israel stole the land. Israel got away with the murder of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel has the upper hand but its policy of violent repression and aggressive expansion has created for itself millions of enemies. Will this stand the test of time? Logic says no. So abandon this course while you still have time.
If you're referring to the war in Gaza, I completely agree. I think the goals of the war are legitimate and correct, but the way the war is being conducted is morally wrong, and we've long since passed the point where the length of the war makes sense. (Like many Israelis, I suspect the war is at least partially continuing because that benefits Netanyahu personally, even as it hurts Israel.)
The origin of "the problem" is 1920/1924 when 1200 years of Islamic rule ended in that area, and non-muslims no longer lived under apartheid. With the old oppressive laws rescinded, and no able to enforce peace, a violent mess ensued, with both sides killing each other and the British, until some of the land was divided by the UN in 1947 into two nations, one Jewish and one Arab. Israel took that opportunity to declare their independence.
It was only then that the entire Arab world waged war on on Israel, and the result of that war was the "Nabka", or in other words, the Arabs who declared the war lost.
Keep in mind that far more Jews were "displaced" from the surrounding countries, and were robbed of their land and property.
It is the mindset, created through 1200 years of history, that non-muslims are lesser people and do not deserve self-determination that does not allow peace in that area.
The missing piece here is that happened because of the European support and implementation of Jewish settlement.
The zionists had actually initially considered Argentina, which had constitutional provisions that would have lended well to establishing a Jewish community there, peacefully. Instead they chose the more violent approach in the middle east.
If the Arabs had pushed back harder initially, the Zionists would have quickly just went to their alternative. This accident of history ended up being the difference between the ongoing bloodfued we see now and the much happier alternative.
I provided three facts and an opinion that 1200 years of rule created a mindset that would not allow for the independence of those considered "inferior". You also realize that this 1200 year rule was based on violent conquest, slavery, ethnic cleaning, genocide, and apartheid.
Your response is all conjecture and assumptions. There is no reason that there could not have been peace with two states in 1947.
Other homelands, such as as Argentina and Uganda, were considered backups, not as primaries, in case things did not go well and Jews needed a safe haven. This is because living in the mideast under Muslim rule for Jews is not safe. It has not been safe for 1200 years.
And I agree, if the Arabs won, there would not be bloodshed in the mideast because there would be no Jews left, so I will give you that. I would not call it "happier".
Tell me, if the United States falls apart (not so unlikely), and numerous states formed, would you think it is a good idea for the Native Americans to leave for another part of the world because a bunch of racists here in the US could not accept them having a state of their own and would declare war on them ?
Of course not, Native Americans were here long before Europeans came and brutally ruled over them.
The Jews were in the middle east before Islam came into being, and were brutally oppressed by those that follow Islam for 1200 years.
The end of Ottoman Empire was decades before Zionist terrorists founded Israel (Lehi, Irgun, Haganah). These are facts.
Israel was founded on theft and by ethnically cleansing Palestine of its indigenous people through non-stop atrocities and terrorism. Literally most of Israel’s first prime-minister were terrorists. Even Jews like Einstein recognized this at the time and refused to be associated with the Zionist project.
Just admit it and then it becomes possible to find a solution that doesn’t require murdering tens of thousands of Palestinian children to ethnically cleanse Palestinians that won’t give up their right to return.
Sure. Just one example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed_massacre
Must be an accident the most Right-wing Israeli voting block is composed exactly of the Jews who were living with Muslims.
>Einstein... refused to be associated with the Zionist project.
Well, not exactly:
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-albert-einstein-wa...
>Just admit it
To get close to a shared narrative, there's a need to connection to reality first... It can't be built on lies.
Read his own words:
https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/einstein-zionist-views-in...
Israel is a country where all of its people live peacefully with each other according to the same rules, including the 20% of its population is Arab. The problem Israel has is not between its citizens, which is the most diverse group of people in the entire middle east. Arabs and Jews can live peacefully together, they currently do so in Israel, and while Jews are the majority, they do not rule the Arab minority with violence or terrorism or by imposing on them a different set of rules or laws.
The Arabs in Gaza, which is not Israel, on the other hand, live in abysmal conditions, one that I would not wish upon anyone. Unfortunately, they have been indoctrinated from birth to hate Jews by their leaders, and leaders of other countries. They hate Jews more than they love themselves. They have clearly stated on many occasions that their intention is to destroy Israel and kill its Jews. For half of the past 80 years, Arabs in Gaza have had their freedom - from 1947 to 1967 and from 2005 to 2025. Both times they chose to use that time not to better themselves, but to arm themselves to fight Israel.
This is not about being Jewish or Arab, it is about the sane and the insane.
Out of curiosity, what would that be? From what I've seen, you'd either have to build a wall/externally enforced border, hoping they get over it after forced peace for X years, or force migrate one of them.
People move on if you let them.
Stop killing Palestinians. Stop the settler terrorism. Share Jerusalem and stop antagonizing its people. Admit that your Likud party are a bunch of Fascist, genocidal, maniacs and prosecute them. Give Palestinians the right to return.
Let some time pass and many Palestinians will befriend Israelis and vice versa. And when a Palestinian militant group tries to resist with violence again don’t start murdering civilians. Just treat with them. With time the Palestinians will demand that the violent resistance stops. People just want to live.
But you seem to blame Israel for the situation no longer being this way. You say:
> People move on if you let them
So why is the situation worse now than it was before?
The reason, from an Israeli perspective, is that Israel started a peace process with the Palestinians in which it tried to arrive at a reasonable solution, but the Palestinians eventually refused every offer, including very generous offers, and walked away. Not only that, they launched the second intifada, the deadliest wave of terror attacks on Israel.
Israel tried a different way with Gaza - we can't reach a deal, so fine - we'll just leave Gaza completely. It uprooted all Jewish citizens of Gaza, dismantled all settlements, and left. Gaza then proceeded to elect Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, and started almost immediately shooting rockets at Israel.
So as an Israeli liberal - I absolutely prefer peace and want to get to a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians. But it's honestly unclear to me that we have any partner on the Palestinian side that is willing to live side-by-side with Israel.
>And when a Palestinian militant group tries to resist with violence again don’t start murdering civilians. Just treat with them.
You know that this is precisely what Israel did with Hamas - just dealt with them with them. This is what many people are now criticizing Israel for.
The Jews were living "happily" alongside the Muslims in the same way Native Americans have been living "happily" alongside the Europeans for the past 150 years. What choice do they have ?
Fact: non-muslims lived as Dhimmi, meaning they paid a special tax to keep their "protected" status, which meant they would not be killed or enslaved. They could not bear witness against a Muslim, they could not carry a weapon, they could not use the same type of transport (horse vs donkey),could not build or live in housing that was taller or grander than a Muslim, had to wear clothing to distinguish them from a Muslim, etc.
Calling this "happy" is no better than the southern racists who want to go back to a time when everyone was "happier".
fact: The end of the Ottoman Empire did end decades before Israel was founded. It ended in 1920 when they lost the war with the west and were broken up. In 1924, the caliphate was ended. The violence started in 1920 as there was no one able to enforce the "peace" Jews killed Arabs. Arabs killed Jews. Jews and Arabs killed the British.
fact: It was the two Islamic empires that were founded on theft, war, slavery, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and apartheid. The last genocide of the Ottoman Empire was during WW1 when they killed 1.5M Christians simply because they were afraid of them joining the west. Maybe because they knew that those Christians were not "happy" ?
fact: Israel was founded in 1948, and it was because of this the Arab world waged war. The Arab world lost the war, and it was the result of this losing the war they themselves started that populations shifted. More Jews than Arabs lost their lands and possessions.
fact: for the first 20 years if Israel's existence, the lands designated for the Palestinian nation were ruled by Egypt and Jordan. Israel spent this time building a nation. What did the Palestinians do ?
fact: The Palestinians and their descendants (now total 2M) who chose to stay in 1948 and live in peace now live under equal laws and have 10 times the prosperity of those living in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. So, it is quite possible for Palestinians and Jews to live in peace.
Fact: millions of Palestinians displaced by the haganah, Irgun, and the lehi terrorists now live in refugee camps while the Israelis live on their lands and in their houses.
Everything else you wrote is just a bunch of propaganda to distract from the central issue. If you have a problem with the Turks take it up with them. The Palestinians however have a problem with you because you came from Europe and stole their land and killed their people. Address that and don’t ramble about what some non-Palestinians did hundreds of years ago.
But even if I did - why is this the root problem here, and yet not a problem for the millions of other people displaced in the world around the same time, and since then? There have been tens of millions of refugees around the world since 1948, they've all resettled elsewhere and stopped being refugees, not kept the idea of endless resistance until they reclaim their land, despite there being no way to achieve this without causing just as big a humanitarian disaster now, if not bigger.
You're right that if you consider the central issue to be the existence of Israel, everything else is "propaganda". But in no other case is it considered legitimate to wage endless war built on the idea of completely destroying a country that is recognized by almost every other country in the world.
So a more correct thing to say is that the central issue is that the Palestinians have never agreed to any form of living side-by-side with Israel, despite having several opportunities to do so, and have demands that are quite simply illegitimate.
50 generations of political, legal, social, and economic supremacy does not go away quickly, and it has only been about 100 years. Imagine if the US as a nation was forcibly disbanded overnight, and the various ethnic groups (Europeans, Mexicans, blacks, native Americans) were all given an area of land to call their own. It does not take much to imagine the wars that would ensue, and the ethnic and racist hatred they would be based on.
It has been 160 years since just part of the US (southern slavery) was ended, and no lands were divided up into nations, and yet, even today, there are still white people who cannot accept that blacks are peers and have equal rights, have been violently opposed to their equality, and would look forward to going to war to address this "crime against nature".
I think it is too optimistic to expect that ethnic hostility would end after only 100 years after 1200 of oppression.
There is hope - 2M Arabs live peacefully in Israel, are treated equally legally, and mostly equally on a practical basis. And they live safe and productive lives. It is the Arabs that did not stay in Israel, those that either left or stayed in what was supposed to be their nation state (Gaza/West Bank) and have been under the indoctrination, for decades, of those who want to bring back the Caliphate that are the problem. They should be wearing green MIGA hats - Make Islam Great Again
And this is what I find so ironic -those in America that would be gleeful if the Native Americans were to somehow get part of their land back and create a sovereign state, even through violence, are the same people that are appalled that Jews have done exactly that for themselves in Israel.
You strike me as a person who repeats the “a land without a people for a people without a land” lies. You just leave out why you didn’t find people in one of the oldest continually inhabited land on earth: you displaced them.
So to be clear, by "stole the land" you're only referring to the Nakba that happened because of the war? Those are the only cases of what you're talking about that I'm aware of (until 1948, I'm not talking about the despicable acts currently happening in the WB).
> Turn off the tv and learn about the history of topics you want to shoot your mouth off in public about before you make a fool of yourself.
This kind of personal attack is beneath the level HN aspires to.
>This kind of personal attack is beneath the level HN aspires to
Sophistry is also beneath that level.
Yes, and the parent's answer to this was "allies of Western governments are also morally inferior". But I never said that allies of Western governments should have cyber weapons, nor did I make any claims on their moral status. Hence parent's comment not addressing anything I said.
> Sophistry is also beneath that level.
I think my argument was clear, but just to reiterate so you don't think I'm engaging in sophistry:
I think Iran's government is morally inferior to Italy's government and to other Western governments, under my value system (a standard Western value system). I think this is blindingly obvious to everyone.
Therefore I think it's worse for Iran to possess cyber weapons than for Western Governments to possess cyber weapons.
First they said that the West did a coup against the Iranian government. Hence according to them they are not morally superior (or rather: “Who’s the evil one again”). That directly addresses your claim.
Then they also went into the bonus topic of arguing that the US doesn’t even make their allies based on who is “moral”, further but more indirectly undermining the shining city on the hill argument.
This is an area that lacks a clear unique singular datapoint, more a landscape of multiple rounds of buckshot.
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prove , sense number 3
Who are we talking about again? I think you could say that statement is true for the US, UK, Iran, Israel, Russia, the list goes on...
Ain't no saints in the middle east.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden
I'm not reading the arguments closely enough to make a judgement, but the reference is to an imagined moral imperative to spread "civilization" and whatnot to "lesser" cultures and peoples. We covered it in high school where I grew up.
No one should be buying Israeli consumer goods, let alone weapons or security tools as part of Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions.
The king can do no wrong. What a pinnacle of arrogance.
>"The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists"
Welcome to a real world
no I'm genuinely curious - because no matter who you sell it to it will be used against its own populace - look at bloody PRISM(mass data collection of internet traffic in US by NSA in case you weren't aware), Echelon(older project targeted at radio transmissions), 5eyes(US, UK, AUS, NZ, CN asking each other to spy on their own citizens as a loophole) .. or any other scandal in EU when it leaked that such spyware was used against journalists investigating government corruption. Or in Mexico, or anywhere else.
How you are surprised that "western government" might attack journalists when there has been proof of them doing that for years?!
Yes, because Western ones are the good governments (looking at Meloni).
> And fighting terror or crime using software is valid. The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists, and what I'd like to know from this article was what was their motivation
Huh, it’s surprising that Western governments would spy on journalists. But they are the good guys? What was their motivation.
It is immoral. I'd never hire someone who worked on such software or for one of those firms. We should have a movement that declares this.
And Israeli company selling software to spy on journalist tells you everything you need to know about the whole “western” concept. It’s a mirage of morality.
Only if you want to live in an Israeli-type society where a certain group is inherently suspicious and have no rights. Americans should be repulsed by that.
That's why I don't buy the judeo-christian propaganda about how our values are the same. The western values are justice and due process and "all men are created equal", zionist values are "we are god's chosen", no holds barred "war on terror" with no due process, invoking religous amalek to commit genocide. These are the values of an ancient desert tribe not western civilization. Zionist values have been forced onto the west over the last 30 years as Israel tries to rope us into more middle eastern wars, but they don't derive from western enlightenment philosophy.
what group? If you mean arabs, israeli arabs enjoy full citizenship rights.
> zionist values are "we are god's chosen", no holds barred "war on terror" with no due process, invoking religous amalek to commit genocide.
That's some very specific claims. I challenge you to show any evidence for this.
>Zionist values have been forced onto the west over the last 30 years as Israel tries to rope us into more middle eastern wars, but they don't derive from western enlightenment philosophy.
??? What?
Disingenuous. The existence of arab israelis who enjoy some degree of equality within israel doesn’t refute the existence of an apartheid. A gazan can’t just decide they’re cool with israel and travel freely around the country they are occupied within.
That's a malicious misrepresentation. They enjoy the same rights and protections as any other citizen according to the law.
The rest of your comment is down to some hideously complicated political arrangements peace treaties etc where most arabs living in israel prefer their own state and citizenship.
At the least it 's an extremely strange apartheid when 2 million arabs are not part of it.
Also as far as i can tell there has been very limited israeli presence in Gaza between 2006-23. If you insist that your thread of logic is still correct you have to continue down that path and say that Egypt is also an apartheid state and they are occupying gaza as well.
Also there has been plenty of violence in gaza in that time period. 6,407 palestinians and 308 israelis. On the palestinian side that’s about two 9/11s, or around six oct 7ths.
Check the fatalities section of this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_...
As for equality:
“Many Arab citizens feel that the state, as well as society at large, not only actively limits them to second-class citizenship, but treats them as enemies”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
So while they may be equal in law, that doesn’t mean they have full equality. Hence my wording “some degree of equality”
You might want to look up Karen Silkwood, who was likely murdered by either her employer or US government agents, while driving to meet with a reporter and her boyfriend.
If you think the US government hasn't murdered any journalists in the last 70 years or so, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
And to shape narrative!
So, in theory, these contracts with Paragon should be canceled, unless Trump decides to repeal that executive order, because it is a remnant of the previous administration.
The misuse of such tools outweighs the legitimate use cases, so people want to know who is so reckless to sell these programs
Comparably, phone tapping equipment is being sold world wide for almost a century and is used similarly
The fact that some countries that gets these tools starts listening to journalists is concerning, but at least I want to believe it happens less in functioning countries
But I don't see any issue with taking remote control of a drug dealer, terrorist or mafia phone
It’s always shady if someone uses it because of its high misuse potential.
It’s the computer equivalent of a ABC weapon.
because the one who sold it quite likely also gets a hold of all information captured by it's user.
Check your other posts for examples of ongoing mass public surveillance programs.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Cause my guess is the misuse is the stuff you hear about because it eventually makes the news. But the thousands or millions of legitimate use cases in which it prevented terror attacks or just, y'know, helped solved crimes, are just routine and don't get a mention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
5eyes(spying agreement between US, UK, CAN, NZ, AU) utilizing a loophole to spy on each other's citizens.
Tons of cases with PEGASUS being used to target activists and journalists, usually ones investigating government corruption(EU, Mexico from top of my head).
You know what would also help solve crimes? if every action that everyone did was always observed and recorded. Would you be willing to live in such world? i would rather not.
What happens more often terror attacks which aren't easy to plan and do or journalists and activists do something the people in power don't like.
And how often are tools that were promised to be used only to combat serious crimes such as terrorism and child abuse used for the worst of all crimes: Copyright piracy
I'm not saying I have a clue what the answer is - I'm certainly very skeptical of invasive technologies. But I think pretending there's no upside to them is wrong. Like most technologies there are pros and cons. Probably the system in most Western democracies works relatively well - there are adverserial members of the system trying to prove and/or refute the idea that the tool use is necessary, a judge has to sign off, there are checks and balances (including free press) on abuse, etc.
I'm not pretending that, I say the cons outweigh the pros because there are more use cases for misuse than use.
Terrorist are rare, child abuse not so much but the arrests are still rare, so either they don't use them in that cases or they don't work.
No, you hear about where it was, who stole it and where it was found.
(2) It says US-backed, which suggests to me that US investors helped fund it.
(3) It says Israeli tech, which rhymes with 2 previous spyware companies which have been torn to shreds in the public media and US courts for their lack of controls/oversight of how their customers used their software (violating the spyware vendor’s policies, the Israeli government export license, and the ToS of the software the spyware software exploited).
(4) the US-backed + “targeted a journalist” combined is an attack on the foundation of US as a country (on the assumption that the journalist wasn’t engaging in something like terrorism).
I’m bored by people who attack headlines. We all know that they aren’t accurate and can’t be 100% descriptive. And it’s not even clear that you could be appeased by any other formulation of the headline.
Surprised they allowed a zero click exploit to be exposed for what appears to be low value targets.
Why do you need enemies with such "friends".
But not for you.
I'd say Israel is -- in terms of it's international reputation -- somewhere between where South Africa was in the eighties and Serbia was in the nineties, and deteriorating fast. Definitely on the pariah spectrum, particularly outside of the US.
If you don't think so, be warned, you are in a dangerous bubble.
I would like to add that Paragon disagrees with COPASIR: (article in italian) https://www.fanpage.it/politica/paragon-smentisce-il-copasir... They offered to give some information about who was surveilled by whom, but not surprisingly the Italian government refused (it was used by 2 secret service agencies in italy). At this point, Paragon stopped giving its access to Italian agencies (spying on journalists is forbidden by Paragon'S tos). COPASIR say they are the ones who stopped the commercial relationships though, so it is clear as water that at least one party isn't telling the truth
I'd imagine this is the sort of fallout when things go sideways and there is not the requisite level of trust on both sides to definitively run down root causes.
They both may have simply cut each other off. Since there is no definitive way of knowing the other side is being truthful.
(Is that 3rd party -- God ? xD)
But if it makes you feel better, the third party is usually playing God.
If you're a journalist and you don't have basic OPSEC for cyber stuff, there is no point in doing sensitive work.
Nobody is really accountable for those kind of things anyway.
I care a lot
That's why it's important to take some precautions
Overall, very disappointing to come on HN and find any thread critical of this one country results in mass flagging, censorship and hasbara EVERY SINGLE TIME
Very muddying statement. The normalization of intimidation and censorship has already happened by those in power, a comment can only acknowledge the reality of it.
> when we know that isn't the consensus nor desired.
by who? Crearly a lot of very powerful people desire it very very much.
Humans were a mistake.
I have sensitive data on my phone that I must carry around, and there is no way I'd ever keep it on an iphone. 'Pegasus' was the moment corporations and governments should have banned iphones for their terrible security.
But a hack on my Andriod device might, or might not, work on your Android device
Not so much iPhones. Some difference between versions, but pretty much a monoculture