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Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens

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

#211

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Calvin02 wrote: post #149
friendlydog wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is the 3rd largest recipient of US foreign aid receiving 3.2 Billion in US tax dollars in 2017 with only Iraq and Afghanistan receiving more. Reducing foreign aid while America is floundering would be a small step to the road of recovery.

First, putting aside Israel for a second. I understand the urge to reduce foreign aid while we're running deficits (I assume is what you mean by "floundering"), but think of foreign aid as diplomacy. We need both hard (military) and soft (aid, donations, etc.) diplomacy. If any thing, the bang for buck is higher with soft diplomacy. Hard diplomacy is very expensive. Second, Israel is a shining example of a robust dem…

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

#212

Post by eli_gottlieb »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #122
snird wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he is not being malinformed, what other reason does he have to spread lies about Israel?

Can residents of Gaza and the occupied West Bank vote in Israeli elections, when they are under Israeli rule? If the answer is no, then that's apartheid.

You're not making the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict better. You're making the word "apartheid" meaningless.

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

#213

Post by eli_gottlieb »

WaxProlix wrote: post #93
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, it's hard to come up with a litmus test because both sides of the debate kinda like the standard motte-and-bailey structure of "criticisms of Israel". In fact, not only are the arguments often motte-and-baileys, there's often a super-bailey , a bailey for the bailey that basically invokes some kind of "I win either way" gotcha. For example: Motte: Israel's use of Palestinian "guest workers" who have no opportun…

I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey. It isn't just the status of 'guest worker's but also the ongoing asymmetric violence, theft & active bulldozing of homes, harassment/hacking of activists' phones, military checkpoints & other core indicators of an occupied land, etc. I heard someone point out that Israel can't help but kill children in Palestine because the medi…

>I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey.

Isn't that the point of a motte and bailey? The motte is what you think you can defend to an outgroup member without prior convictions, or even an actively skeptical outgroup member. The bailey is what you and your ingroup believe and act upon when nobody's asking you to justify yourselves. They're very different.

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

#214

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #133
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ignoring some minor details, like that Israel had to fight some real frigging wars over its bare existence, and is still facing a regional power that calls for its extinction. Looks like Israel isn't getting too much love, at least not here at HN. I maintain that we in Israel are still a very normal, western type society, if you take all these rather extreme circumstances into consideration (and, in addition,…

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.…

> If Israel’s situation does really require essentially doing away with democratic norms, it’s somewhat delusional to still afford it that label

That's a bit of a stretch, I didn't claim any such exemption, and the state of affairs that you describe is not true either.

The facts described by the article were published by independent newspapers, and are now the subject of an investigation by the State Comptroller. See https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-693834

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

#215

Post by buzzwords »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #70
chews wrote: post #67

"In other cases, NSO’s spyware was installed in the phone of citizens to try to find and collect data and information that isn’t necessarily connected to an investigation or suspicions but simply for investigators to use this data later on as a means of pressure on people being interrogated." aka Blackmail

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!

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

#216

Post by buzzwords »

yonixw wrote: post #156
ForgotMyPwOops wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides what is antisemitic? It seems to me that based on your logic all speech can be prevented assuming some arbiter declares it antisemitic Boycotting can hardly be considered protected speech if that's all it takes to silence it

> Who decides what is antisemetic? The Majority. > Some arbiter Nope. The Majority. > if that's all it takes to silence it Nope. anti-semetic is kinda big deal. We all should treat it as such and run from it like fire.

Nope, if majority believe A, doesn't make A true. It just means majority believe A. Public opinion is very malleable. Hence the existence of marketing.

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

#217

Post by noduerme »

ILMostro7 wrote: post #200
slg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yet they all tend to be grouped into that category when a phrase like "anti-semitic" is used. If jews criticize Israel, they're labelled as self-hating. Whitewashing in the name of holocaust victims is doing a disservice, to say the least, IMHO. Religious zealots on one side are treated with white gloves, while any dissent or uproar (unrelated to Religion, even) on the other side is seen as justification to take any…

When you compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, you're doing violence to history. The Warsaw Ghetto did not have elections to vote in a terrorist group. It was not offered its own nation-state. It didn't receive billions in foreign aid to build bombs. It did not have a charter, nor was the annihilation of German civilians in its charter. Moreover, it existed as a way to round people up in order to exterminate them. That is not the "purpose" of Gaza. Gaza should by now be a successful part of a successful Palestinian state, and the reason it is not has a lot to do with Hamas.

In any case, where you have actual genocide - e.g. the systematic murder of a Muslim minority in China - no one is calling for boycotts or comparing it to the Holocaust, or even labeling it a genocide. Tesla opens a dealership in Xinjiang and the same exact people who want to boycott Israel go out and buy Teslas. Teslas they can charge up at the casinos on Indian reservations between LA and Phoenix. Chatting on their iPhones made by slave labor in China.

But then, where you have nothing remotely similar to systematic murder, as in the Palestinian territories, people call it "genocide" and call for a boycott. Ain't that funny?

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

#218

Post by Calvin02 »

pthread_t wrote: post #197
Calvin02 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, putting aside Israel for a second. I understand the urge to reduce foreign aid while we're running deficits (I assume is what you mean by "floundering"), but think of foreign aid as diplomacy. We need both hard (military) and soft (aid, donations, etc.) diplomacy. If any thing, the bang for buck is higher with soft diplomacy. Hard diplomacy is very expensive. Second, Israel is a shining example of a robust dem…

"a 2013 National Intelligence Estimate on cyber threats “ranked Israel the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US” behind only China and Russia" [1] "Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service." [2] "Israel’s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal" [3] [1] https://www.timesofisra…

I think it is probably fair to assume that every country (friend or a foe) spies on others.

Just a few months ago, we were caught red handed spying on the EU and our closest allies [0]. I’m sure their equivalent of NSA lists us as the most aggressive hackers behind China and Russia.

When your economy or your survival (in Israel’s case) is at stake and you have the tools, the temptation is just too strong.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...

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

#219

Post by buzzwords »

Whenever Israel is involved in anything unfortunately the discussion becomes about anti semitism (sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly). Maybe it helps if we imagined it was another nation and then see what we think about it. If it was Russia/china or UK/France/Germany would you still think or feel the same?

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

#220

Post by 9tailedkitsune »

friendlydog wrote: post #115

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.

And yet the United States crucifies China and Russia for what it does to its own citizens. I think America will only get involved if it's not an ally.
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