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U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#361

Post by hanniabu »

sizzle wrote: post #339
freeflight wrote: post #331

If this was a Russian/Iranian/Chinese company, we'd already have a news conference by the US DoS, declaring sanctions, freezing assets, and calling for an international coalition to contain the rogue state that's threatening world peace. But this is a Israeli company, so it's just another "scandal" that scrolls trough the news feed, it will be forgotten by next week, to be completely memory holed by next year.

Can you explain why that is for us who aren’t well versed in geopolitical issues.

Rule #1: Don't criticize Israel

Rule #2: If anybody criticizes Israel you attack them and call them antisemitic

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#362

Post by runarberg »

jacobolus wrote: post #345
sizzle wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why that is for us who aren’t well versed in geopolitical issues.

Israel is a third rail in US politics. One significant faction of the GOP is millenarian evangelical Christians who (a) believe the Israeli state is a necessary precursor to armageddon and (b) have spent the past 2 decades trying to conflate “Muslim” with “terrorist”. The Democratic party includes as part of its coalition many American Jews who, despite frustration with the human rights abuses of the Israeli governme…

I know this is what the up-vote button is for. But I do want to add a redundant comment appreciating this explanation. It explains this adequately in three short paragraphs.

The second paragraph is worth expanding from a little. As it can be argued that fear of anti-antisemitism among the left is well warranted. A good example of that is Jeremy Corbin constantly being accused of anti-antisemitism for criticizing the state of Israel for their human rights violation in the last UK general election (a tactic that perhaps worked given the lousy performance of the labour party). Even Bernie Sandars—a jew himself with family ties to holocaust survivors—gets smeared for this reason.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#363

Post by jacquesm »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #282
ginja wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US spies on its European allies all the time, and I'm sure they spy on Israel too, so that's not super surprising. As for the USS Liberty, some do argue that it was intentional, but both the Israelis and Americans ended up agreeing that it was a mistake. The US is no stranger to such mistakes either, even more egregious ones like when they killed close to 300 civilians aboard a regular passenger flight following…

And the European allies spy on the USA, rinse and repeat.

If you can't prove that you probably shouldn't make such unqualified statements. There is plenty of proof for the opposite, afaik none whatsoever for the reverse.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#364

Post by drc500free »

DSingularity wrote: post #352
sizzle wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why that is for us who aren’t well versed in geopolitical issues.

It’s not purely geopolitical but I think the top 3 factors for this: 1, the most powerful political organization in the US is AIPAC. More powerful than any other lobbyist and can tip the scales in almost any election. 2, the services provided by Israel to support US-backed dictatorships in the Middle East (eg the NSO group) 3, the military industrial complex loves the Israeli customer because they are dependable, rep…

Could you provide a source for AIPAC being the most powerful political organization in the US? That seems surprising given that they spend a fraction of what other lobbying groups do. How is that measured?

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#365

Post by refurb »

markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

“Shadow government” = “Deep state”?

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#366

Post by FjgdymdjttdjG »

spiznnx wrote: post #342
sizzle wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why that is for us who aren’t well versed in geopolitical issues.

Israel is an ally of the United States.

They were an ally too in 1967 when they bombed the USS Liberty, killing 31, injuring hundreds, then covering it up. The history is so sullied at this point that it's all just an anti-semitic plot, a conspiracy theory.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/historiat/2018/06/06/why_di...

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#367

Post by Sebguer »

bjourne wrote: post #188
jimbob45 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're joking but for anyone that's not in on the joke: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055

Wow! You found one instance of the US spying on a friendly government. That totally justifies NSO leasing spyware to authoritarian third world regimes! Carry on folks, nothing to see here.

Wait, you were actually being serious? How about this one: https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-document... / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spying_on_United_Nations_leade...

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#368

Post by flyinglizard »

runarberg wrote: post #362
jacobolus wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is a third rail in US politics. One significant faction of the GOP is millenarian evangelical Christians who (a) believe the Israeli state is a necessary precursor to armageddon and (b) have spent the past 2 decades trying to conflate “Muslim” with “terrorist”. The Democratic party includes as part of its coalition many American Jews who, despite frustration with the human rights abuses of the Israeli governme…

I know this is what the up-vote button is for. But I do want to add a redundant comment appreciating this explanation. It explains this adequately in three short paragraphs. The second paragraph is worth expanding from a little. As it can be argued that fear of anti-antisemitism among the left is well warranted. A good example of that is Jeremy Corbin constantly being accused of anti-antisemitism for criticizing the…

Jeremy Corbin did more than just “criticizing the state of Israel for human rights violations” though. This is a politician who, amongst many other things, called Hamas and Hezbollah “my friends”, so clearly his issue with Israel is not about human rights per se.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#369

Post by retrac »

foolfoolz wrote: post #350
jacobolus wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is a third rail in US politics. One significant faction of the GOP is millenarian evangelical Christians who (a) believe the Israeli state is a necessary precursor to armageddon and (b) have spent the past 2 decades trying to conflate “Muslim” with “terrorist”. The Democratic party includes as part of its coalition many American Jews who, despite frustration with the human rights abuses of the Israeli governme…

this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies. israel is a military power. we have strategic interests in maintaining the middle east political bloc imagine if this headline read france instead. we would react similarly

Speaking of France and geopolitics, it's worth noting you see similar consistent support for Israel from most of the other major NATO powers. And France's position on Israel is not due to conservative evangelical political influence domestically.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#370

Post by Digory »

DFHippie wrote: post #359
foolfoolz wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this angle seems really out dated. the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons. israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies. israel is a military power. we have strategic interests in maintaining the middle east political bloc imagine if this headline read france instead. we would react similarly

> the us alliance with israel is not about religious reasons This is simply not true. The base of the US Republican Party is evangelical Christians. This being so, religious reasons are close to the surface. There are surely other interested parties, but Republicans can't get crosswise with any of their conservative Christian constituencies -- evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons. These constituencies have particular…

This is terribly jumbled. Yes, if you’re in a non-Islamic religion that reveres the Old Testament, you probably support Israel’s land claims.

But Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals have wildly different views of the end times, and the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals.

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