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US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

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Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#151
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incredible self awareness for you to write “There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia”. I wonder how Iran or Zambia feel about the west? The overthrow of their democracy. The colonial exploitations. Are those legit grievances in your eyes? Or are you a “take up the white mans burden” kind of person?

If you're claiming that Iran's government is somehow morally equivalent to Italy's, you're massively wrong. It's not about "the white mans burden", whatever that means. It's about Iran's government not being democratically elected, being massively unpopular with its own populace that can't do anything about it cause it's not a democracy, enforcing religious laws on people that often don't want them, not respecting mi…

You realize that US removed the democratically elected government in 1953 in CIA-led coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Then the US government kept the Shah in power. He repressed the population and led to the 1979 revolution.

Who's the one evil again?

Those countries in the middle east that US considers an ally are not democratically elected either and they enforce religious laws like not allowing woman to drive. They do not respect minorites and they invest in terror in the area too.

Turn off the tv and learn about the history of topics you want to shoot your mouth off in public about before you make a fool of yourself.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#152
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your definition of fascist and what is your argument that Meloni's party is fascist? I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you -- genuinely curious about your perspective. The most damning bit in her Wikipedia article is this: "In 1992 Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by followers of Italian fascism. She later became…

> But that does not necessarily mean she is herself a fascist, but rather that she was a member of various organizations that were originally founded by fascists then later moderated (roughly similar to the French FN/RN). Inane.

Why?

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your definition of fascist and what is your argument that Meloni's party is fascist? I'm not arguing or disagreeing with you -- genuinely curious about your perspective. The most damning bit in her Wikipedia article is this: "In 1992 Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by followers of Italian fascism. She later became…

> various organizations that were originally founded by fascists then later moderated (roughly similar to the French FN/RN). The reason those journalists were targeted is because they infiltrated one of those organizations and found that they were in fact still very much fascist behind closed doors (or at the very least racist and antisemitic).

Racist and antisemitic are not the same thing as fascist (all three are awful, of course). Though racism is usually part of fascism, there are lots of other elements of fascism too.

According to Wikipedia: "It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."

Most of these elements are not directly related to antisemitism or racism.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"most are combatants" serves to justify the ongoing genocide when the opposite is true in reality. The reality is most combatants are underground so Israel bombs civilians. This is in line with its war goals of ethnically cleansing Gaza so there is no contestation of its colonial claims. Currently, Israel and the United States are luring starving Gazans with a pittance of aid into kill boxes using the intelligence fr…

Nazi ideology is popular in Gaza and they learned many lessons from its chief propagandist Goebbels. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden "a new leaflet with photographs of two burned children was released under the title "Dresden—Massacre of Refugees", stating that 200,000 had died." "doctored with an extra zero to increase [the total dead from the raid] to 202,040"." Israel-Palestine war will be no…

> Israel-Palestine war will be notorious not for the mass casualties

It will be notorious for exactly that

And the complicity of the West.

The lack of boycott and scantions on the Israeli state is a damning indictment of the immense hypocrisy of us in the West

Shame on us, shame on them

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#155
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> various organizations that were originally founded by fascists then later moderated (roughly similar to the French FN/RN). The reason those journalists were targeted is because they infiltrated one of those organizations and found that they were in fact still very much fascist behind closed doors (or at the very least racist and antisemitic).

Racist doesn't mean fascist, but you can't be fascist without being racist. As long as the executive doesn't control the judges, or insist on carrying a two speed justice, you can't really be fascist country. Ergo a fascist party is one which is at least nationalist, if not ethnonationalist, and insist on curbing the rule of law : X should be less equal than Y in front of the law (assuming the same social class).

You can be fascist without being racists. Not all countries contain only one genetic population.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#156
post #4

It's amazing that US and Israel are the only countries mentioned in the headline While the story itself is about Italy spying on a journalist in another EU country But I guess news sites needs them clicks

(1) Headlines are necessarily lossy due to the limited character count.

(2) It says US-backed, which suggests to me that US investors helped fund it.

(3) It says Israeli tech, which rhymes with 2 previous spyware companies which have been torn to shreds in the public media and US courts for their lack of controls/oversight of how their customers used their software (violating the spyware vendor’s policies, the Israeli government export license, and the ToS of the software the spyware software exploited).

(4) the US-backed + “targeted a journalist” combined is an attack on the foundation of US as a country (on the assumption that the journalist wasn’t engaging in something like terrorism).

I’m bored by people who attack headlines. We all know that they aren’t accurate and can’t be 100% descriptive. And it’s not even clear that you could be appeased by any other formulation of the headline.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#157
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headlines are written by the publisher not the author. They’re written to maximize readership. The fact that spying happened in italy by italians is mostly only interesting to italians. The fact that the US backs an israeli company that sells spying tools is interesting to many more people. You can see the selling clicks, but because they’re not twisting the truth or saying something misleading - in this case I mostl…

However, the fact that companies sell offensive cyber warfare software to governments is not new, and that specific company isn't either. There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia. And fighting terror or crime using software is valid. The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists, and what I'd lik…

The spy companies sells to non western companies also like UAE and Saudi Arabia, with the approval of Israeli government.

And Israeli company selling software to spy on journalist tells you everything you need to know about the whole “western” concept. It’s a mirage of morality.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#158
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incredible self awareness for you to write “There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia”. I wonder how Iran or Zambia feel about the west? The overthrow of their democracy. The colonial exploitations. Are those legit grievances in your eyes? Or are you a “take up the white mans burden” kind of person?

If you're claiming that Iran's government is somehow morally equivalent to Italy's, you're massively wrong. It's not about "the white mans burden", whatever that means. It's about Iran's government not being democratically elected, being massively unpopular with its own populace that can't do anything about it cause it's not a democracy, enforcing religious laws on people that often don't want them, not respecting mi…

[deleted]

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"most are combatants" serves to justify the ongoing genocide when the opposite is true in reality. The reality is most combatants are underground so Israel bombs civilians. This is in line with its war goals of ethnically cleansing Gaza so there is no contestation of its colonial claims. Currently, Israel and the United States are luring starving Gazans with a pittance of aid into kill boxes using the intelligence fr…

Nazi ideology is popular in Gaza and they learned many lessons from its chief propagandist Goebbels. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden "a new leaflet with photographs of two burned children was released under the title "Dresden—Massacre of Refugees", stating that 200,000 had died." "doctored with an extra zero to increase [the total dead from the raid] to 202,040"." Israel-Palestine war will be no…

More genocidal rhetoric. The nazis are infamous because in part, they were doing settler colonialism in Europe. They were getting free land from lesser beings and promising homesteads to their officers. Israel is doing settler colonialism to people that had nothing to do with WW2 and the holocaust. If you have a problem with the Germans, take it up with Germany.

My understanding is that in Gaza, it is a common understanding that they are being subjected to a Nazi extermination campaign by people (Christian and Jewish Zionists) claiming the Holocaust made them do it (meanwhile, the Zionists stole reparations money from Holocaust survivors and considered the survivors weak).

I'm Jewish and I cannot tolerate this shit. It is an evil stain on our people that will mark us for millennia. Anyone who does not speak out at this moment is complicit in genocide.

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