Slovenian officials blame Israeli firm Black Cube for trying to manipulate vote
wsj.com
wsj.com
[0]: https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-...
Also, "there is no international law" is a strange argument to make in defense of a country that spends enormous resources lobbying international institutions and running influence ops in allied democracies. If none of it mattered, why bother?
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Republicans and missiles being the best.
There are an awful lot of old men yelling at clouds in power across the world right now.
Sympathy is akin to allegiance, and over time translates into all sorts of practical benefits. We were getting harsher on China until it turned out that they can be reasonable and a good trade partner.
Israel doesn’t have a ton of friends left in the world arena. Sure, we might be old grandpas over here, but at least I think it’s a better world if we hold each other accountable and try to be friendly to our allies.
The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
Just to be fair, this is not unique to the current government. We've had several similar corruption scandals throughout several governments; it was almost always related to infrastructure projects.
A few days prior to this leak there was a separate one posted on Facebook (that I sadly can't find anymore; it has been covered by several media outlets here [1]), in which the former GS secretary reveals who gets what % and that they have to "set our own people to the right places, as (2023) floods cleanup is where the most money flows".
It is also not a secret that the mayor of Ljubljana, Janković, is able to bypass all laws to issue building permits in exchange for a 20% "donation" to city-ran sports clubs, which are ran by his friends. This was revealed in the case of an Austrian investor and his luxury flats at Celovška cesta, Ljubljana, a few months ago.
It's also plain obvious that the state media (RTV SLO) is trying hard to shift the conversation towards the origin of the leaks rather than the supposed corruption revealed in them. The practice had usually been to investigate the content first.
(the parent comment has been edited to remove this claim shortly after I made my comment responding to it)
SOVA has only been able to confirm that an unlabeled Israeli charter landed at Brnik and that a taxi ride with two businessmen was made from the airport to the street in Ljubljana where SDS is headquartered.
This could have also been any two legit businessmen, who might have come with any other flight, for any other purpose. It’s not confirmed whether they entered the SDS building either.
It’s also anachronistic - the videos appear to have been filmed a while ago (given the statements made and the held positions of the people in them), while that flight has only happened a few weeks ago.
Švarc Pipan also didn’t refuse to lobby, she just brushed it off by saying “it’s not lobbying” after bring told it indeed was, right after bragging about lobbying.
She then goes on to explain that she kept arranging things from behind, after resigning from her position because of the Litijska corruption scandal about a year into her turn.
The UN believes the IDF uses rape as a matter of policy and has published a report with quite a bit of evidence.
Hearing Israel is meddling with elections is like, yeah, if you are doing that other stuff I'm not shocked when you also do this.
People hate Ticketmaster. For good reason. TM throws on all these fees, clearly engages in third-party selling, makings buying difficult and jacks up prices. All of this is known. But what's less known is that artists, especially big artists, like Ticketmaster. Why? Because TM is a sacrificial anode. It takes all the hate but adding junk fees that in part go to the artist. The artist can say they're selling seats from as low as $20 in press releases while the least they will get for a seat is $30 because of all the fees.
Being hated is a service you can sell because it takes away attention from what you're doing. You get to blame this third-party but you're still absolutely complicit in everything they're doing. You see where this is going?
Israel is America's Ticketmaster. Anything bad that Israel or an Israeli firm does, the US could end today with a phone call by simply saying "we're cutting off aid if you don't stop doing". The price of this is to be the sacrificial anode for what is actually American foreign policy. There are well-funded and organized efforts to whitewash Israel's reputation and those were successful up until the last few years.
Israel is a huge supplier of spyware eg Pegasus [1]. Despotic regimes use this to spy on journalists and opposition figures and has likely been used to locate and kill them. You think we couldn't stop that? Of course we can. But we like that because, again, Israel takes the heat.
So Israel interfering in Slovenia's elections is the least surprising thing I've heard. I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. You will find Israeli influence in probably every election.
Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America.
America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.
It's a service that they offer first and foremost to themselves and against anyone else, including America.
But could they? You are somehow assuming that all this "dirty work" as you call it is only done on behalf of others and not used to ensure continued ("unwavering") support for themselves.
Can we even prove it hasn't already happened?
Also, if your parable about Ticketmaster were true. But it isn't. Most artists do indeed dislike them; the paltry kickback isn't worth the... bad blood... it sends their way. And it's weird that your read is that most artists secretly hold their fans in contempt. I don't know what kind of person just assumes that of others, except that they're that way themselves, maybe.
They are speaking in English. Only appendices 1-5 are available.
Psy-Group partnered with Cambridge Analytica (later Emerdata) to influence the 2016 US elections using social media data.
The Black Cube intel firm, staffed by former Mossad agents, was employed by Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in harvesting Facebook data.
Harvey Weinstein Hired ex-Mossad Agents to Track Women Accusing Him of Sexual Assault
Weinstein hired Israeli firm Black Cube to research his accusers and to scuttle reports of his sexual abuse
Black Cube operatives posed as activists, abuse victims and sources for journalists
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report...
In the US it's blatant, from the insane amounts of money and weaponry sent to Israel (why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? It's not like they are neither poor nor US owes them) to the recent events in the middle east.
But even in Europe. Here in Italy the coalition government has multiple high profile politicians that just happen to be shareholders or CEOs of security companies owned by Israelis. And just so it happens that the same security and communication companies get lots of work by the Italian government. And when journalists brought this up because they didn't report it to neither the government nor parliament, nothing happened anyway.
It's a scandal really, but if you write or say it, you're labeled as anti semitic, so criticizing and surfacing this terrible stuff is always controversial.
The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced.
I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.
The U.S. did more than its fair share to glom onto those lines of exploitation and keep them alive at the expense of locals. e.g. Iran is what it is today because of U.S. oil interests. The CIA installed an authoritarian Shah when Iran's (at the time) democratic government started taking control of its own oil industry (American oil companies would have had to start paying taxes). Rule under the Shah was "unpleasant" for Iranians and revolution was the direct response. Hence, theocracy.
Israel is a special case in the Middle East. The zionist movement gained state sponsors and convinced European powers (and the U.S.) to pour money in instead of sucking it out. How they did that is a question that stretches back well into the 19th century. I'd argue that a lot of it was the result of people who had their hearts in the right places. Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
Teodore Hertzl (Zionism’s founder) was explicit about the need to ethically cleanse the Palestinians from their land.
(I ask not because it's inconceivable, but because Herzl died almost half a century before Israel declared its independence. Ze'ev Jabotinsky is more consistently identified with revisionist Zionism/territorial maximalism.)
https://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quot...
This is in marked contrast to Jabotinsky, who says these things explicitly[1]:
> Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot – or else I am through with playing at colonialization.
And:
> We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached
This isn’t to somehow excuse Herzl; he’s still an essentially colonial thinker. But from what I can tell he never thought deeply about the political mechanics of Israel/Palestine itself, in part because of European colonial assumptions around a lack of Palestinian connection to the land.
(Or in other words: Jabotinsky’s “innovation” is realizing that the Palestinians are a people with real attachments, not just realtors. It’s from there that he concludes, decades later, that displacement is the only workable strategy. He is, needless to say, also wrong.)
Edit: or another framing is that Herzl was too racist and provincializing in his limited view of Arabs/Palestinians to see where his movement would go.
Your comment completely ignores the long history Israel has of rigging the US elections by funding their pet congressmen.
Israel is, to use a Pacific-theatre term, our unsinkable aircraft carrier. A better Pakistan.
> long history Israel has of rigging the US elections by funding their pet congressmen
Americans were, until recently, pro Israel. The funding worked because amplifying anti-Israeli sentiments among electeds lost them votes. Now that that balance of perceptions has shifted, the effect has as well. And note that pro-Israel != Israel; lots of America pro-Israeli influence is entirely homegrown.
Israel isn’t even in the top 10 of countries paying politicians.
Unfortunately, this POV doesn't seem to be widely held by many woth influence.
And if what you say is true, why is Netanyahu still in power?
That said I don't think your point undermines my suggestion that the U.S. should get out of the business of funding Israel and joining it in any wars over there.
They also did try as recently as 2009, not that you'd have heard about it[2].
Also, the aid money the USA sends to Israel doesn't disappear into nothing any more than NASA's funding does. American aid to Israel (and to most places in the world) hinges on the condition that they only use that money to buy from American companies.
[2]: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
What I do think is a bit antisemitic is the suggestion that Israel is somehow unique here. Russia, China, and the U.S. are all doing this. Heck we just captured Maduro and killed leader of Iran. I just think a country like Russia is way more effective and subtle when it comes to election manipulation, especially in Eastern Europe.
The US sadly just do the fuck they want, but I think they get a lot of criticism here in Europe at least. The only thing in what Israel is unique about is that it seems there are no consequences for their actions.
Always different rules for Israel vs. any other "normal country", and that in itself tells you all you need to know
That's at a cold hearted strategic level, not even mentioning the war crimes, genocide and general moral bankruptcy
Hatchwell was one of the biggest donors of Netanyahu campaign, and was in the inner circle of Sheldon Adelson.
He is related also with "Action and Communication on the Middle East" (Acom), the "company accelerator" Zakut (Provider of entrepreneurship and technology consulting services), the investments platform OurCrowd, and several business on real state in Madrid.
One country, Israel, attempting to change out the government of another?
That's hideous.
Our Code of Ethics was developed together with Prof. Asa Kasher, an internationally acclaimed scholar specialising in philosophy and ethics, who wrote the Code of Ethics for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
From Wikipedia on Prof. Kasher:
Kasher states explicitly that it is justified to kill a Palestinian child who is in the company of a hundred 'terrorists', because the 'terrorists' might kill children in Sderot. But in reality, it was a case of killing a hundred children who were in the company of one 'terrorist'." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher
Ethics code. Got it.
2. There are many more protest besides NoKings
3. Direct Action is better than no action. We only vote once every 1/2/4 years. This helps get people moving, to take their first steps. Case in point, this year I am printing whistles and information
NoKings starting a new political party around the movement, or explaining how to do it to people, so youngsters can fire the GOP for good... that would change the game. THAT would send the clear message that politicians will hear with fear.
But marching, not, It will not change anything. Is just distracting the frog in the bath for a little more, while the slow cooking coup continues. Unless the politicians think that they personally have something to lose, they will not care.
it's a FACT that they do this.
I guess what is missing from the article is was the videos misleading or did they really get offered the bribe? Because if its the latter, its kind of hard to feel sympathy for a corrupt official getting caught even if the mechanism was problematic.
In this context, a bribe is irrelevant compared to the act of election interference by a foreign actor.
If you are corrupt, and that corruption helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation. If you expose corruption, and that exposure helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation.
Meanwhile, the US is pouring billions of dollars into their elections, and if questioned, the questioning is considered an authoritarian encroachment on human rights. The US can make their officials into unpersons with sanctions for doing their jobs with integrity, and they'll just go along with it, tsk-tsking at the official in question.
Too bad for Golob, though - since it's Israel doing it for Israeli reasons, the "left-liberals" won't be able to get any of their usual support to attack them, because it's Israelis all the way down now. Ukraine is old news and competing with Israel for weapons, so there's no need for NATO-lackey Golob anymore.
Since Janez Jansa will be prime minister he will be charged for corruption by end of his term and this could be the third time for him to go to prison (the first instance happened under the socialist regime, so maybe that does not count).
Anyway, I do not think Israelis needed to work hard here to find some dirt.
Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.
But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover).
Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...
It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things.
Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.
Seeing a sudden flood of new messages from low use accounts around elections or referendums is normal these days.
So, no. Israel is not "winning the up- and downvote war" of HN.
There may well be a pro-Israel brigade going out of their way to move that along, but there is an equally rapid anti-Israel brigade. Nothing remains on the front page for long.
Posts that veer into overt anti-Semitic conspiracy theory get flagged because the mask slips too far and they reveal the game.
Companies, trolls, states etc have it way to easy now
Controlling Hungary is enough to veto some support for Ukraine.
A deal with foreign intelligence is a dead with the devil that comes with a lifetime of subservience. And subservience to foreign powers is a greater evil than yo usual internal corruption. At least the locally corrupt in a democracy have some interest in things going somewhat well in their country. The foreign actors only care about theirs.
Requires a rigorous definition of interference.
The allegations here—trying to catch politicians on tape being sleazy and then releasing them with sketchy editing-doesn’t seem to rise to the level of calling for a kinetic response.
What I do think is that nations should 1) interfere back, and 2) make their citizens more resilient to foreign propaganda. And I specifically don't mean building a firewall. In fact do the opposite: if a firewalled nation is leaking out propaganda, ensure firewall-breaking tools leak in.
And in general a huge lack of empathy and obsession with power and money.
I guess it's normal given the coupling to the #1 VC incubator of the #1 country that obsesses over power and money.
I do think that there is some utilitarian aspect to it. Some people might genuinely believe that the losses to human livelihoods/human lives because of AI (yes even with these AI drones now with the deal @OpenAI), the end reality would still make everything worth it and within this distorted view of the future, they believe that everything happening in present is alright for the future and that itself can be used to propose some disgusting idea like eugenics which people might become okay with, as such.
And its very easy to switch somewhere within the past of a person being the former to the latter through the ladder steps of altruism to transhumanism to essentially the things we hear from AI hypebros. All the while, a benefit is that especially right now, selling AI sells for profit right now whereas people can question about the morality later/justify it through these distorted lenses that I mentioned.
Worth a watch, Can't recommend this video enough,
AI is a Eugenics Project : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SSxfa3da58
And god forbid how easily you're labeled as anti semitic for bringing up facts about Israeli spying and lobbying in the west.
Hell, in Italy, neo nazi hooligans go protest for Israel with hundreds of police defending them.
Whereas genuine pro Palestinian protests (99 times out of 100 peaceful) met nothing but batons and condemnation.
Even the tv narratives about these events is disgusting.
It's clear the Israelis know how to do their job.
And I would say half can't/won't speak about this. I try to stray away from these discussions sometimes because I feel worried that someone is going to take any comment out of context within these messages which is a bit of a strange way of self censorship actually and I feel like I might not be the only one. It's also worth mentioning that I have found this to be the case especially for Israel.
For example, I feel valid criticizing the current American Regime and Americans themselves would agree with me at a a much higher proportion/magnitude compared to Israel in which from my small sample bias of online acquaintances, I only had one Jewish (Living in America, not Israeli) person agree that Israel is doing some pretty horrendous things and although do take this with a grain of salt as something they told me but they said that Zionism and Antisemitism are effectively something comparable as within the Jewish religion, There is an idea of the world hating the Jews as being a pre-condition within Jewish religion for them to win within the end-times theology of the jewish faith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog I think they were referencing this: Zechariah 14:2 states, "I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it." The idea is that the Jewish people will have no earthly allies left.
Just so we're clear, this is religious fundamentalism.
Other members, in no particular order:
Orban, Trump, Putin, Babis, Thiel, Bolsonaro, Ellison, Milei, Nawrocki.
These gentlemen (and of course they're all men) constitute the 21st century axis of evil, responsible for most of the backsliding and worsening of rule of law around the world.
However, practically and policy-wise, what has he done that's antidemocratic or imperialist? He's repeatedly democratically elected, as part of the people's mandate to fix their economy, and despite leftwing hang-wringing it'll never work, all data seems to point to their economy getting better.
It doesnt matter how men, bodies / hours / time / millions and billions you spend building a defensive
They will infiltrate with less than 500k
And come out on top
100% of the time
This is a fundamental human problem that needs fixing across the entire planet
It does not matter what country or secret groups are involved or how much life or death is truly at stake
There is a 100000% chance some dumbass is willing to fuck if all up for a small bribe
My point is a simple one: the company was hired by someone. Was it the opposition party? To say this is entirely Israel's doing implies the Slovenian party that benefits just happens to have gotten lucky. The reality is likely considerably murkier than that.
Or more simply that what the Israeli company did, is not illegal in Israel.
Selective prosecution is a recurring issue under Israeli jurisprudence.
Noone is saying that the party that contracted this company (if indeed it was a Slovenian party and not the Israeli state itself) for this service doesn't carry blame. But both the company itself and the state of Israel carry just as much blame for offering, permitting, and carrying out such services.
By your logic, if someone were to found a legal private paid assassin company in France, and then the opposition party in Germany hired this company to assassinate the German chancellor, you'd say that it's unfair for Germany to blame France for this.
Curious: can you show the research steps you took to reach this conclusion? Really curious how we can all easily determine which companies are and aren't CIA fronts!
Coincidences are funny sometimes :-)
Sheldon Adelson's backing helped Netanyahu a lot, and not just by funding the free Israel Hayom newspaper (which generally assumes a right-wing, pro-Netanyahu editorial stance).
I'm not naive to believe intelligence agencies don't target each other in many ways, but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. I would love to see an example being made out of them here.
That said, bar sanctions, Isreali 'private' companies like this seem to have carte blanch on whatever they want to do. No sanctions, no fines, not even investigations will happen I fear.
If you mean broadly, western-minded, yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for israel lately
hasn't everyone though ? Does that mean Isreal is in the clear to interfere ?
> Israel is not in eu or nato. No of course not, but there is an alignment technically, I guess the western minded.
Ireland is not a NATO member but there would be some backlash from hearing Isreal was interfearing in elections.
It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-sc...
It's nuts. Israel's idea of being an ally is fucking all their allies over, with useless war they can't win but that will erase and reverse within a few weeks all benefit countries like mine (Czechia) ever derived from a bilateral trade with them, just based on increased energy prices alone. (Compared to Slovenia, it's well deserved here, though. Czechs should suffer, to learn.)
This little stuff, like meddling in elections, is nothing, compared to big effects of IL state policy.
Israel doesn't have allies aside from US, they nurture a herd of masochist sycophant states.