Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes • Hacker News Board

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#221

Post by breppp » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

Matl wrote: post #201

gwerbin wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely wasn't sure what GP meant. Maybe I have a wrong read on the situation between Iran and Israel. But my impression is that Israel is more concerned with Iran as a general threat, moreso than they are concerned that Iran will intervene on behalf of Palestinians, current Palestinian territory, or Hamas. If Iran didn't get involved directly after ~2 years of open warfare and inarguably genocide-shaped atrociti…

> my impression is that Israel is more concerned with Iran as a general threat Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first. As for their 'proxies' they only really exist because Israel has invaded Lebanon long before Hezbollah existed and its creation was spearheaded primarily by Lebanon's local population as a response to the invasion, with Iranian support. Iran supports these local 'proxies' because it see…

> Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first

Iran was involved in attacks against Israel and Israeli towns in the 1980s and 1990s by their mercenaries in Hezbollah and direct IRGC presence in Lebanon. This happened even when Israel supported Iran during the Iraq-Iran war, so this is strictly not true

Other incidents were the Iranian bombings of the Israeli embassy in Argentine or the Jewish center there, and attempts on the London and Bangkok embassies

Furthermore financing of Hamas during the 1990s suicide campaign with the direct goal of derailing the peace process.

This is part of a long line of Iranian aggressive actions that have led them to being isolated and in a string of wars that greatly destroyed their already diminished economic power

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#222

Post by _DeadFred_ » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

RobotToaster wrote: post #46

shevy-java wrote: post #4

Is the USA finally doing something about foreign lobbyists here? Trump is like the ultimate tool here for foreigners to gain influence, no matter the country. Yuri explained this already in the 1980s (!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk (it's the KGB view, so biased too, of course, but if you extend it, then also connect it to Epstein, you have basically undermined democracy effectively; a shame Yuri is…

Nope, foreign lobbyists in the guise of AIPAC spent record amounts to primary Thomas Massie.

OP is talking about American's here. AIPAC is made of and paid for AIPAC, like other political packs or other American groups. AIPAC is just Americans, doing the American political thing.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#223

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #218

woodruffw wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, so here's the question: what counts as the interests of a foreign country? AIPAC's entire lobbying stance is that its positions are mutually beneficial to both the US and Israel, and this is the stance that every other national/ethnic affinity group in the US uses as well. Put another way: it seems very risky to allow the federal government to determine the propriety of political speech just because it happens…

The difference is the nature of the lobbying and the volume. Follow the rules. An egregious, non-controversial example of things going poorly is NYC Mayor Adams and Turkey. He basically accepted bribes and favors from the Turkish government and their proxies for specific actions. A “doing it right” example that wouldn’t have been controversial until recently is Denmark. They mostly focus on direct diplomatic policy l…

> The difference is that when the papers found out about Adams being a crook… that didn’t turn into accusations of racism and fomenting sectarian hatred. In the AIPAC example, there will be a both a legitimate visceral response from Americans and astroturf from lots of prominent people.

I think there's a much more parsimonious explanation for this: the average American doesn't know that much about Turkey, know very many Turkish people, etc.

In contrast, the average American has been steeped in I/P and related proxy conflict news for their entire adult life. That, combined with the fact that the US has a large Jewish population means that there's a degree of salience to accusations around AIPAC that wouldn't exist if the equivalent Turkish-American political lobby entity[1] was caught bribing politicians.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Coalition_of_America

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#224

Post by _DeadFred_ » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:45 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #85

inglor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway). Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military…

No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for that matter. My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the very top level. The head of government has a Jewis…

I have stood up for Jews since I was a kid, often saying "I'm Jewish" when racists/antisemitic jokes were told and I have been called those things. I've heard people say all kinds of horrific stuff about Jews. In this very thread we have:

"This is definitely made easier by the fact that the arrogance, the endless lawyering, the shady dealings, the greediness, the constant switching between attacking and playing the victim, they all match to a tee the most known historical antisemitic tropes." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48515906

"Large American investment companies that were also both founded by Jewish people. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, though" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48516750

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#225

Post by _DeadFred_ » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

LightBug1 wrote: post #160

inglor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway). Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military…

I didn't downvote you. You're Jewish (I stand side by side with Jewish brothers and sisters against Israel), you've expressed disagreements with the Israeli government. We're likely on a similar page then. However: > There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. Besides the point. I truly won't touch anything from that Apartheid, gen0cideal state. c.f. the boycott of So…

Israeli designed/made chips are in phones, computers, all over the internet. Same with Israeli made software. Anyone using/posting to the internet is touching/supporting quite a few things from Israel.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#226

Post by woodruffw » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #215

woodruffw wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like the categorically correct thing to do, for the same reason that (for example) a domestic Korean-American nonprofit that lobbies for Korean interests doesn’t get counted as foreign money or influence. (Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent, whatever it is.)

It’s very different. I was adjacent to state level politics for a long time. The German, Korean and French economic development organizations would come around every now and again with promotional events coordinated with their embassy to promote partnerships and business opportunities. Sometimes they had lobbyists focused on general relationship building, more often for specific issues. The Israeli ground game is dif…

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Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#227

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

sudosteph wrote: post #208

bradleyjg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for that matter. My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the very top level. The head of government has a Jewis…

It's hard to separate for some people. Unfortunately those people tend to be the worst on both sides In general, I think (or at least hope) your experience is the more common one. But fwiw I do have a Jewish friend who was personally cussed at and threatened by his own coworker explicitly for being Jewish (well, and probably because they were from Florida if I'm being honest, but there aren't as many slurs for that).…

There’s definitely antisemitism out there. Criticizing Israel is not part of it. The people that run to that ever. single. time. ought to be ashamed of themselves for crying wolf. They have no right to abuse the term and rob it of legitimate meaning because they don’t have a good response on the merits.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#228

Post by pipes » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #188

pipes wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you calling me an anti Semite? Or am I missing the point you are making entirely?

I'm saying you leaving a comment taking the name "National Socialist" literally is a well trodden path of misinformation and a long standing part of the post-war revisionism, such as the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth and the Double Genocide myth. It is not worth discussing seriously with you in particular, and I am writing for those reading these comments. The Nazi party purposefully used the term "Socialist" as a method to…

Well this is surprising for a few reasons. And pretty offensive. For what it's worth I'm pretty much the reverse of an anti Semite.

Pointing out that the Nazi party called themselves national socialists and had socialist policies does not make me a holocaust denier, Nazi apologist or anything else that you are attempting to label me as.

Your reaction to what I said is genuinely baffling to me. I'm a liberal through and through. The common enemy of communists and Nazis was liberals. In my view Nazis and communists are both sides of the same brutal coin.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#229

Post by spwa4 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

gatlin wrote: post #179

spwa4 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#230

Post by mschuster91 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

orwin wrote: post #45

mschuster91 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign. The question if there is a genocide isn't settled, either. There are credible arguments for both viewpoints when it comes to the current iteration of the Palestine conflict.

Forced displacement and systematic art/books destruction, I don't need more arguments tbh.

> Forced displacement

Well, what would you do if, say, drug cartels hid out in civilian residential areas on the southern border in Mexico and would keep lobbing bombs over the border wall? If I were to guess, you'd have the US Army go in and clean up for good.

Because that's exactly what Israel is doing. They don't want to be exposed to constant bombardment out of Gaza and Lebanon any more, they have had that ever since IDF left Gaza in 2006.

However, I agree with you, what is going on in West Bank is inexcusable. Fatah is just as corrupt as Hamas, but they have not shown any sign of aggression from their end towards Israel.