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Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

calcalistech.com

171–180 of 370 posts

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#171
post #165
post #162

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It depends on the motives and not the actions. "Boycott Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians." A perfectly acceptable political statement. "Boycott Israel because they are a bunch of greedy Jews." An obviously anti-Semitic statement. The problem is that people who believe the latter will often say the former. This causes opponents of the latter to doubt the authenticity of people who say the former. Some…

Equally, dismissing various criticisms (including boycotts) about the illegal military occupation of Palestine as "anti-semitic" is exactly what groups as JIDF (defunct), ACT.IL and many others are experts at doing.

Yes, I specifically pointed that out when I said "Some people who oppose the former might also accuse people of the latter to discredit them." However that neither exonerates the people who are doing it for truly anti-Semitic reasons or proves that those people don't exist.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#172
post #150

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Do you believe boycotting is protected speech? Do you believe American citizens should be allowed to choose who they boycott?

I do. But I don't if it's anti-Semitic. And that's the whole question. Seems like many agree it's the latter.

Considering an apartheid state synonymous with Judaism is incredibly anti Semitic and promotes antisemitism

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#173

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Your justification is fully compatible with the observed phenomenon as described. The comment didn’t criticize Israel, although the possible criticism so obviously follows from the description that your mind added it all by itself. That, in a way, is also quite telling. I’m not sure if the definition of democracy is flexible enough to include non-democracies as long as they bring a note to class giving a good reason.…

> It’s just because Israel is considered to be among “the good ones” that it gets criticized more readily ... or because "the good ones" have a guilt conscience with regards to Israel, especially the European ones. Nothing better than shaming your victims to wash your conscience.

“Europeans” is doing a lot of work in that sentence… Subjectively, criticism of Israel seems to be more widespread in the US and Britain than Germany? I don’t doubt the continuing existence here in Germany (and called it the “seedy underbelly” of local politics just a few hours ago right here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977132). But my impression is that these are very distinct groups.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#174

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And anyone who thinks their own country isnt doing the same is deluded! The Security Services has to protect a country which means getting involved in everything, organised crime as well as business, and then when they feel things need to change direction, the security services have the tools aka blackmail information to make that change happen... in most cases!

Yeah, no, this is bullshit. People don’t just have agencies (Mossad, CIA), they also have agency as in: the power to change reality. And the vast majority of democratic countries are run by people who have a decent appreciation of the rule of law , which is what stands between your actual freedom and your gloomy fantasies. Then, there’s also a group of countries that simply cannot afford / don’t have the people to do…

I don't understand your argument: if the shady things they're doing have gotten leaked, isn't this because they were doing those shady things in the first place? Can you conclude one way or the other that the net is so loose that bad things will always see the light of day? Don't forget that with PRISM taking 6 years to be disclosed and MKUltra having taken 22, a lot of people rightly don't have such idealized views anymore.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#175
post #142

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BDS != The only way to criticize Israel. Lobbing against BDS has a pretty simple cause... From the same page: > ... A dozen local and national parliaments have passed symbolic resolutions condemning BDS. Most of these condemnations have alleged that BDS is anti-Semitic. Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Spain...

Do you believe boycotting is protected speech? Do you believe American citizens should be allowed to choose who they boycott?

anti-BDS regulations, implemented through either legislation or a governor’s order, require businesses contracting with the state to affirm that they are not participating in a boycott of Israel. I don't know of any laws that have attempted to silence individual citizens or direct their ability to protest as individuals (not businesses who also want government contracts).

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#176

Israel is its own nation and it isn't America's business what it does to its own citizens. However, their tools are used on American without warrants. It would be in our interests as citizens to flag all employees of NSO as spies and try them.

> Israel is its own nation and it isn't America's business what it does to its own citizens. I would argue that as long as Israel is lobbying the US to make it illegal for Americans to boycott Israel it is in fact our business https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws > The spread of anti-BDS laws in U.S. states is largely due to the lobbying of the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), an umbrella group of Israel lobb…

Let's not forget the 4 billion in American tax dollars they except every year for "defense".

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#177
post #170

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Should all opinions based on bad reasons be banned? Should people be compelled to explain their beliefs? Who decides if these opinions are good or illegal? I don't believe fairly arbitrating expression based on beliefs is feasible, and I do believe it is actively harmful

Everyone is free to their own opinions. Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations. We already apply this to other forms of restriction on speech like defamation. Often defamation will require negligence to harm or intent to harm. Someone who is factually incorrect through an honest mistake generally isn't considered to have committed defamation. I don't know why we are okay trying to ascertain t…

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Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#178
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is free to their own opinions. Actions can and should be banned depending on their motivations. We already apply this to other forms of restriction on speech like defamation. Often defamation will require negligence to harm or intent to harm. Someone who is factually incorrect through an honest mistake generally isn't considered to have committed defamation. I don't know why we are okay trying to ascertain t…

Quoted post unavailable.

Defamation has a singular victim. Hate speech has a class of victim. Why should we allow one and not the other? Why can't we just scale up our defamation laws to also apply to groups of people?

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#179
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the people, but AIPAC is the most feared lobby group across both sides of the isle for politicians. Russiagate is a joke compared to how much influence they have on our foreign policy, and its a travesty that their activities and heavy-handed influence is spoken of so quietly if at all. Signed, Iraq war vet (it was more for Israels interests than ours!)

>Signed, Iraq war vet (it was more for Israels interests than ours!) That would be odd way of serving the Israeli interest, as the actual Israeli government opposed the Iraq war and thought it would be bad for Israel: https://forward.com/opinion/9839/sharon-warned-bush/

That article only says Sharon (who was only a part of the government) opposed occupation, and even then was quiet about it. Also the article is completely unsourced.

Re: Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

#180
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Defamation has a singular victim. Hate speech has a class of victim. Why should we allow one and not the other? Why can't we just scale up our defamation laws to also apply to groups of people?

I don't think you can justly punish people for an unquanitifiable "group harm" with regards to speech

You could easily use such a justification to ban anti-war speech (something that has been done before), or ban speech against whatever you favorite political view is

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