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Comment by username_my1 | Hacker News Reader

No one is doing it as much as Israel does, Russia's influence campaigns are well documented, often weak, lack the "forcefulness" you see when it comes to Israel.

The thing is that messaging from Russia, China, Arab countries ... have to be very subtle else it's visible and immediately gets called out.

Israel on the other hand sees itself as part of the collective west and think they have the right to be as laud as they want and everyone has to listen.

it's fundamentally about who's talking and who's the audience.

for example Israel does run lots of influence campaigns in Arabic as well, but they're also more quite and more understanding that it's not their main audience.

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> "No one is doing it as much as Israel does"

How could you possibly know that? Do you have any numbers that put Israel's efforts into perspective, compared to those of other countries? This is not a good faith argument whatsoever.

There are uncensored interviews of former CIA agents conducted by credible reporters like Seymour Hersh. In The Samson Option, several witnesses confirm that Israel had unprecedented access to US spy satellites and convinced the CIA to cover up the (extremely controversial) Dimona facility.

Both of those "favors" are beyond anything that most US allies received at the time, especially at Israel's size. Even America's closest postwar allies like the UK, Sweden and Japan did not get that type of diplomatic cover, it was exclusive to Israel.

« Even America's closest postwar allies like the UK, Sweden and Japan did not get that type of diplomatic cover, it was exclusive to Israel.«

wasn’t echelon a joint collaboration between the US and the UK ?

The earliest incarnations of ECHELON, to my knowledge, were relatively siloed and not comparable to Israel's intelligence status at the time. FIVE EYES did not include de-facto nuclear coverups, satellite downlink control or a physical presence within CIA offices and the Pentagon.

I know for one that Israeli lobbying groups in the US don't have to register as foreign agents, because they're technically run and funded by American citizens (often with dual Israel citizenship). Taking orders from Israeli officials doesn't change their standing because they have enough plausible deniability. If you can find a Russian counterpart to this with comparable funding or influence here, please show it.

Mearsheimer & Walt (2007): The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

This is the standard source on the topic. They compare the dynamics vs other countries like Russia

Do you know of any other foreign governments that explicitly try to influence a host country at the detriment of its people? I can honestly only think of Israel + the US being the two worst offenders of this.

Who else do you think is doing it in a similar quantity?

This feels like a poor faith attempt to "muddy" the waters because when you start to question the utility of such relationships (giving a country military aid while your own citizens suffer) you realize how worthless the ally may have been.

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