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Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

homelandsecuritynewswire.com

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Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#281

Post by joelbluminator »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #245
seoaeu wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clever. By labeling anyone who alleges antisemitism as an "Israeli propagandist" you can shut down any discussion of antisemitism without having to engage with whether there may be any bigotry or prejudice in play But seriously, ask yourself if there is any way a Jew could tell you "Hey, what you're saying about Israel is kinda racist because XYZ" without you immediately dismissing them. (And maybe there is! I haven'…

The opposite is a much more common occurrence. By reflexively labeling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic", people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid. Frankly, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of my experience as a diaspora Jew: having to constantly point out that Israel != Jews in response to people who want to exploit my religious identity…

> people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid

The apartheid bit can and should be engaged and eventually solved with a Palestinian state beside Israel. The settelr colonialist bit is mostly said to try and ruin the Zionist state by dismantling Zionism. No one calls the U.S a settler colonialist country. No one demands California to be returned to Mexico (it's rightful owner btw) or that the Indians get the right to their lands back (so what if not many of them are left? if we wanna dismantle colonialism let's start with it's founders). These are requirements specific to Israel. The hard left knows very well the chances of "one democratic state" surviving are close to zero, and that the endgame is immigration of most Jews out of Palestine, to become hated refugees everywhere they go yet again. But that's the hard left's plan, and not everyone like to engage with that.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#282

Post by fidesomnes »

cutemonster wrote: post #118
Guthur wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to define the greater good? We had share morals at one time with religion but that's been tore down relentless so what are those shared ideals now. The fact of the matter is that eradication is impossible so what are we actually trying to achieve here. Reduce impact on health care? Maybe we should ban smoking and alcohol then or maybe MacDonalds, where is the line?

> Who gets to define the greater good? One answer is the voters and the government they choose (if it's an okay functioning democracy)

No wonder it's a disaster.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#283

Post by luffapi »

bzbarsky wrote: post #280
luffapi wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> create a homeland for the Jewish people This is clearly colonialism by definition. It’s the entire story because there is no justification for oppressing and colonizing others, even if the people doing it also face discrimination. It’s not an excuse and shouldn’t be part of the conversation.

I think there's an interesting argument to be had here about the point at which "self-determination" becomes "colonialism". A group that is sufficiently geographically diffuse does not have a right to self-determination (ipso facto, because it's not the majority anywhere). Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to exercise the right to self-determina…

> Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to exercise the right to self-determination is fundamentally illegitimate because any such attempt is "colonialism".

If that relocation involves creating a new state or otherwise taking power over the region, then yes that’s my definition of colonialism.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#284

Post by htek »

dhx wrote: post #60
KingOfCoders wrote: post #20

What I find funny is this: "Our clients only use the software against terrorists and criminals, so it can't be used the wrong way" "We made sure that it doesn't work against US phone numbers". That is straight out of "A Few Good Men": If Colonel Jessup ordered the soldier should not be touched, and soldiers follow orders, why was the victim scheduled for a plane ride off the base?

According to an old product manual[1], NSO would have most likely have been aware of whom was targeted and the content being retrieved because NSO would generally run the anonymising nodes on the Internet and seemingly insist on installing and maintaining the servers hosted at the client site where data eventually ends up. There is a note saying that customers could set this up themselves but I suspect the countries…

"NSO would generally run the anonymising nodes on the Internet and seemingly insist on installing and maintaining the servers hosted at the client site where data eventually ends up. There is a note saying that customers could set this up themselves but I suspect the countries involved wouldn't have the expertise to do so. Thus to a country such as France which has been targeted, they would have to assume it is actually Israel spying on France via proxy countries. "

I would be shocked if NSO wasn't feeding intel its 'clients' acquired spying on their targets to Israel.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#285

Post by joelbluminator »

luffapi wrote: post #276
joelbluminator wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A colony is the establishment of a new state on or in territory occupied by someone else That's you interpreting Balfour / Zionism the way you see fit, there were movements in Zionism that wanted to split the land, in fact the main movement wanted to split the land since 1937 for sure (agreeing to the Peel committee split plan) and maybe even before that. But the declaration itself just says - a national Jewish hom…

Those territories weren’t “unoccupied” though. They were occupied and not consulted in the formation of Israel. It really is the root of the issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balfour_Declarati...

Define unoccupied. It was scarcely populated, definitely then and definitely by today's standards, and the Palestinian national movement was only in it's infancy. Most Palestinian wanted to be part of Syria back then afaik. It wasn't inconceivable that two people can create two states there then, and still isn't now. So no, I don't buy that everything was a colonialist plot. Some Zionists saw it as an expansionist enterprise and some didn't. We know for sure that on 1937 Zionism was seeking a split to the land or at least willing to make it happen. If the Palestinian agreed to the Peel committee in 1937 which offered Israel a very small state we wouldn't have been having this discussion now.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#286

Post by ashtonkem »

refurb wrote: post #177
ashtonkem wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old guard is … old. Their ability to hold onto electoral power is impressive (and annoying to me), but the actuarial tables are looming here. Meanwhile the new guard views Israel as an apartheid state, which isn’t great for Israel.

The new guard is no different from the new guard of the 60’s they’ll either be squeezed out or conform.

Possible, but I don’t see a mechanism for that at this point in time. It’s not like these people hid their opinions of Israel under a bushel in order to get elected; a lot of the more vocal critics of Israel handily won re-election last year, often against vocally pro-Israel opponents. Their voters either agree, or do not view Israel as an issue sufficiently important to override other policy concerns and change their vote.

If something will force these candidates to conform or leave to a pro-Israel position, it’s not obvious how or why that would happen.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#287

Post by luffapi »

joelbluminator wrote: post #285
luffapi wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those territories weren’t “unoccupied” though. They were occupied and not consulted in the formation of Israel. It really is the root of the issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balfour_Declarati...

Define unoccupied. It was scarcely populated, definitely then and definitely by today's standards, and the Palestinian national movement was only in it's infancy. Most Palestinian wanted to be part of Syria back then afaik. It wasn't inconceivable that two people can create two states there then, and still isn't now. So no, I don't buy that everything was a colonialist plot. Some Zionists saw it as an expansionist en…

The estimate is around 700k people, of which a minority was Jewish:

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

Just because it wasn’t a dense urban area, it doesn’t mean it was “unoccupied”.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#288

Post by jakelazaroff »

joelbluminator wrote: post #281
jakelazaroff wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is a much more common occurrence. By reflexively labeling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic", people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid. Frankly, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of my experience as a diaspora Jew: having to constantly point out that Israel != Jews in response to people who want to exploit my religious identity…

> people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid The apartheid bit can and should be engaged and eventually solved with a Palestinian state beside Israel. The settelr colonialist bit is mostly said to try and ruin the Zionist state by dismantling Zionism. No one calls the U.S a settler colonialist country. No one demands California to be returned to Mexico (it's…

People do talk about all of those things though? Israel and the US are both settler colonial states. Acknowledging that should be the start of a conversation about righting historical wrongs, not shorthand for a proscribed solution.

As a side note, it seems like you're using "hard left" as a smear, but most of the people I follow who engage on this topic are diaspora Jews who very much do not want to become "hated refugees".

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#289

Post by bzbarsky »

luffapi wrote: post #283
bzbarsky wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an interesting argument to be had here about the point at which "self-determination" becomes "colonialism". A group that is sufficiently geographically diffuse does not have a right to self-determination (ipso facto, because it's not the majority anywhere). Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to exercise the right to self-determina…

> Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to exercise the right to self-determination is fundamentally illegitimate because any such attempt is "colonialism". If that relocation involves creating a new state or otherwise taking power over the region, then yes that’s my definition of colonialism.

> If that relocation involves creating a new state

Creating a new state is what the right to self-determination is all about, yes.

It sounds like we have some fundamental disagreements on definitions here, though I would be interested in your take about how you feel the right to self-determination can be meaningfully exercised by a geographically dispersed group, if at all.

Re: Israel tries to limit fallout from the Pegasus spyware scandal

#290

Post by luffapi »

bzbarsky wrote: post #289
luffapi wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your position seems to be that an attempt by such a group to concentrate geographically somewhere in order to exercise the right to self-determination is fundamentally illegitimate because any such attempt is "colonialism". If that relocation involves creating a new state or otherwise taking power over the region, then yes that’s my definition of colonialism.

> If that relocation involves creating a new state Creating a new state is what the right to self-determination is all about, yes. It sounds like we have some fundamental disagreements on definitions here, though I would be interested in your take about how you feel the right to self-determination can be meaningfully exercised by a geographically dispersed group, if at all.

I don’t think a new state can ethically be created without a democratic choice to do so by the existing population of a region.

I think a humanitarian route would be to lobby for open immigration in existing democracies. For instance, I think we all would have been a lot better off if instead of creating the state of Israel, we offered US citizenship to anyone who needed it after WWII. I’m also a proponent of a modern day open border policy for the US (where I’m a citizen).

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