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Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

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Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#111
post #99
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So perhaps the obvious conclusion should be that your definition of "mass bombing" is not what people mean when they use that term?

I was under the impression it was a synonym for area bombing - e.g. throwing a bunch of bombs at a place to inflict damage in a general way. As opposed to having a very specific target. What's your definition?

Tens of thousands of people being displaced seems pretty general to me.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a loaded and defensive question that tries to broaden the scope of the allegation to something obviously wrong. Obviously everything the EU does isn’t automatically right because it’s the EU. But maybe if multiple reputable human rights organizations are condemning allegations of a country as baseless and part of ongoing human rights violations then maybe that specific thing is a correct statement of…

or maybe its conflict of interests. I'm not talking of the general situation but about this action by Israel government and the response. And this all human right groups are funded by the EU if its private or public it doesn't matter from the Israeli government perspective. Or maybe this groups doesn't know everything? why their members opinion is more accepted than the Israeli politicians who did that? some of them…

> why their members opinion is more accepted than the Israeli politicians who did that?

Why does the opinion of multiple third parties carry more merit about the adversarial facts of a conflict than one of the participants to said conflict? Really?

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted. Please also keep in mind that Israel have occupied far more land - and promptly given it back as soon as a lasting peace agreement with the country in question was signed (more or less the entire Sinai. And the country who signed a lasting peace treaty and never had trouble with Israel again is Egypt). Also, please keep in mind that significant more Jews has been chased o…

"Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted." This is always presented with the implication that they should have accepted the plan. I think if someone, even the UN came to you (and by 'you' I mean group of people of multiple religions living in your state / country etc ) and said "I've got a wonderful plan that I want you to accept. You people who currently live in the whole of this land will get to live in less t…

You bring up good points. I don't want to undermine them. I think I understand the people on the ground somewhat. My country was occupied for five years and it stuck around into well into my childhood ("Germans" were our natural enemies and the bad guys in pulp literature as well as war comics until well into my childhood at least.)

That said:

Want to hear a joke? The UN. [1]

Have you ever seen me defend the UN on this site?

But, when the UN is responsible for todays situation to such large degree, and when someone pulls out that map, then the fact that only one part agreed to that map becomes a point.

[1]: This however is not a joke: You know why there are so many resolutions from the UN against Israel compared to the other way around? Because USSR used its veto power to block almost every single proposal that suggested condemnation of Arab states while USA allowed a number of those who condemned Israel to slip through.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#114

To be fair, it is quite murky to what extent groups like Al-Haq are associated with the PFLP (which, with its history of aircraft hijackings and suicide bombings, is undoubtedly a terrorist group). There is plenty of purported evidence of financial and personnel links out there, and I really doubt HN is the right forum to decide either way (unless someone is an expert).

What evidence is "out there"? So far, there's no evidence, from what is being reported by legitimate news agencies who saw the supposed evidence. Example: https://apnews.com/article/business-europe-middle-east-israe...

In 2018 all payment processors (MC/Visa/Amex) banned payments to Al-Haq due to allegations that they forwarded money to PFLP, so this is not new news.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-00193...

This was based on testimony given in court by two Palestinian accountants that Al-Haq was funneling money to terrorism.

It should be noted that Al-Haq does not make disclose either the sources or destinations of donation money.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#115
post #41

Something is changing in the US though. > The US Commerce Department is unequivocal that the new sanctions against NSO Group and Candiru is connected to their software being used to government officials, journalists, activists and business people. [0] https://twitter.com/AlexMartin/status/1455892710586519553

Putting them on the entity list just limits what US exports can go directly to them. Basically I can't sell a zero day to the NSO group, but I can buy one from them. This can hardly be considered a sign something is changing, it's the bare minimum that can be done for PR purposes.

> it's the bare minimum that can be done for PR purposes

This is an edgy dismissal from an armchair, but it’s wrong. Functionally, this designation cuts the company and its employees off from the American financial system.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, this hasn't always been the case, and the US were actively opposed to Israel's covert Nuclear program, for example, which was built with French support against the wishes of the US government at the time. The world has change significantly since then, including the French and American governments alignment of interests and weighing to pros and cons. I'm sure other people here can provide more nuance tha…

Comparing the blood on the conquerer hands and the blood on the conquered hand is always a strong indicator of either misinformation or bad faith. It would be like saying 'Sure, the USA did a lot of terrible things in Afghanistan, but did you know that Taliban recruits child soldiers? There are blood on everybody's hand', well yes detective it's called a war, nobody is innocent in a war. The relevant issue is who let…

Wait, you're just outright saying that you are OK with the Taliban to committing human human rights abuses?

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is undoubtedly false. Speaking of "purported evidence" when there is literally no credible evidence submitted by the Israeli government for these allegations is misleading at best. Their whole case rests on the testimony of two Palestinian accountants, likely attained by torture, that worked for two organizations that were not included in the list of six [1]. They merely state it is "general knowledge" that thes…

Israel, a country that terrorizes Palestinians on the daily accuses everyone that fights it as terrorists. Maybe some are, but I think our minds should be initialized to “given the terror you consciously and actively spread, please provide evidence for any terrorist accusations”.

> Israel, a country that terrorizes Palestinians on the daily accuses

They don't. Sending a Police Riot control unit against a group of people throwing stones and molotovs does not qualify as being terrorized.

> accuses everyone that fights it as terrorists.

If they hurt bystanding civilians (and they do) or funnel money for it (and they do) there is nothing wrong with that.

> Maybe some are

They are, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and many more... not some and not maybe.

> please provide evidence for any terrorist accusations

They do.

Israel have problems. It should solve them. Hyperbolic discussion will never achieve it.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately the reasons why israel and iran are at odds don't matter much. Both are competiting to be regional powers in the middle east, and its the lines which alliances are being drawn around.

Don't matter to you maybe ... to many people finding reason is important.

> Don't matter to you maybe

The point is swap out the people in those geographies, rerun the timeline, and you’ll find them in conflict. The reasons they each come up with in this iteration is dressing.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it'd also be good to mention that there exists a strong, largely right-wing and evangelical, pro-Israeli lobby in the US that make it politically very costly to not demonstrate unequivocal support

I'm not the brightest bulb in American politics, but the trope of right wing evangelicals single-handedly being responsible for America-Israel bizarre parasitic relationship is tired and false IMO. If it were true, progressives and their allies would drop into this new fertile frontier of the culture war, and if that was true, we would see a lot more struggle and conflict than the meek 'meh' and shoulder shrug that t…

>Look at abortion for example, do right wing evangelicals value this issue less than their support for a 10-thousand+-kilometer-away country? did they manage to make it controversial and costly to not adopt their position on it?

Being anti-abortion is a political litmus test in many parts of the US.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#120
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of analysis is kind of hard, because you could also say that Israel's enemies would benefit a lot from this sort of thing being discovered.

If your goal is to hurt Israel, I doubt you would give money to the NSO Group to spy on Palestinian human rights defenders in the hopes that some day their targets list becomes public. As if that violation of Palestinian rights would suddenly turn people against Israel. And if it's their enemies are behind the hack and then are adding false information to hurt Israel, there are so many better targets. Any US journali…

I was thinking more if you had access to some leaked nso exploits somehow, not paying them. And i do think israel is vulnerable to bad PR, especially right now when there has been a lot of it recently - at least that seems to be its weakest point right now. Its not like anyone is going to win a straight up military conflict with them.

> Any US journalist critical of Israel for example.

But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to get discovered. It also fits with the narrative a bit better to make the target a Palestinian human rights activist.

On the whole though, i do think its more likely that Israel is behind this, i'm just exploring this from the perspective of who could potentially benefit.

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