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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

#371

Post by freeflight »

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

It's not outdated at all, Trump's presidency was a direct throw-back to Dubya times [0] that whole thing with Muslim bans and getting treated like some kind of Messiah by evangelicals [1].

These very same US evangelical currents are also super tight with Israel, because they think Armageddon is gonna happen there and that needs to happen for Christ's return and heaven on earth [2].

These people are a end-world cult, one that has by now had direct influence on at least two US presidents in recent history. One of which they pushed into declaring a literal "crusade" [3] complete with "holy warriors" [4].

In the early 2000s there were a bunch of "scandals" about them infiltrating the US military to further Christianize it [5], even in the 2010s there's been incidents with US government acquired rifle sights featuring secret bibles codes [6].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

[1] https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2017...

[2] https://youtu.be/Fo77sTGpngQ

[3] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html

[4] http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/16/opinion/oe-arkin16

[5] https://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/jesus-killed-mohammed/

[6] https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed...

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

#373

Post by mr_toad »

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…

There are many groups, including nation states in the Middle East who would like to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. This is not hyperbole, it’s public policy. And it’s not just words, Israel has been attacked repeatedly by countries intent on its destruction.

There are some people inside the US, and outside it, who feel that allowing that to happen would be unacceptable. The western world does not want another holocaust on their conscience.

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

#374

Post by freeflight »

Digory wrote: post #370
DFHippie wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> the “Bring in the Armageddon” crowd in particular is an outlier among evangelicals.

Being an outlier still does not stop them from wielding over-proportional political influence compared to other Christian sub-currents, and particularly other religions.

To add data to that degree; In the US such well-organized and rich elite interests are very much the de-facto policy makers [0].

[0] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

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

#375

Post by napmo »

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

The whole point of your comment is wrong. Israel may be considered a democracy, but only for the so-called "chosen people"; This so-called democracy which is based on racial purity and militarism is in fact a form of fascism, and not a democracy in any way. And the main reason for some of the countries in the middle east to become enemies of the US is the blind support of US for the Israel to occupy the land of Palestine and commit war crimes. Occupying other people's land, torturing and killing them, and then claiming to be a democracy is quite laughable claim by Israelis.

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

#376

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

redman25 wrote: post #17

> NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled the relevant accounts and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry. Why would they cancel accounts without knowledge of wrongdoing?

Sounds like NSO Group is about to be served a subpoena.

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

#377

Post by Analemma_ »

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

> israel is the one democratic state in a region that mostly has our enemies.

Wasn’t there another democratic country in the region in the early 50’s? Oh yeah, it was Iran, and then the US took that democratic state and deposed it in a coup.

“We have to stand with the only democratic state in the region” loses a lot of rhetorical force when the US topples other democratic states it doesn’t like.

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

#378

Post by whatshisface »

sbelskie wrote: post #355
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.

Were there immediate press conferences or sanctions for the Solarwinds stuff? Honest question. I don’t remember.

The Solarwinds stuff was so obviously the fault of Solarwinds that making a big deal out of it would be an own-goal.

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

#379

Post by whatshisface »

mr_toad wrote: post #373
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…

There are many groups, including nation states in the Middle East who would like to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. This is not hyperbole, it’s public policy. And it’s not just words, Israel has been attacked repeatedly by countries intent on its destruction. There are some people inside the US, and outside it, who feel that allowing that to happen would be unacceptable. The western world does not want another…

But the question is, what makes it more unacceptable than the destruction of other countries, countries who also have enemies, who are not such close allies? "Feel that allowing that to happen would be unacceptable" is the loaded phrase that holds all the content in that description. The US is not giving that much military aid to every country that has such enemies.

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

#380

Post by freeflight »

sbelskie wrote: post #355
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.

Were there immediate press conferences or sanctions for the Solarwinds stuff? Honest question. I don’t remember.

Afaik all attributions to Russia about that came from "unnamed government sources/experts" in media, don't think the US accused Russia of that out in the open and "officially".
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