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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

#71
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geopolitically they both hate iran. Culturally both are fairly similar - both are "western"-style democracies (e.g. representative democracies with constitutions that value rule of law, independent judiciary, etc) And, the following might be controversial - but many of americas strategic allies do much worse shit than israel, they just get called out on it less. Hell, Saudi arabia is literally murdering people in emb…

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 the congress does every time an Israel-related issue is being discussed.

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?

Right wing evangelicals do performatively praise Israel more often, but actual lobbying is strongly bipartisan and cuts across the conservative-progressive divide.

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

#72

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).

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…

why Israel need to answer to EU and why everything EU does is automatically right?

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

#75

Can someone explain the strong ties between US and Israel, and why US stands behind Israel, no matter what?

A more instructive question might be (warning: this is meant to get people thinking, but at least I'll be straight forward about it): Why does nobody else follow up on the UN resolution from 1948? (Just like in the case of India / Pakistan UN decided to divide the area into two parts, one for Jews, one for Arabs.) I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region? T…

> a beneficial although controversial deal for both parts.

How did the US benefit? Did that benefit go to the US population as a whole, or to a few oil companies? Does that benefit exceed the astronomical cost of the many middle eastern conflicts the US has gotten tangled in?

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

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There clearly aren't a lot of good bedfellows to be had in the region. US engagement in ME politics is rife with contradictions and blind self-interest, as are political calculations in the EU, China, or anywhere else with enough reach to matter. When you have to weigh blood, oil, military projection, and short-term regional influence in a unpredictable region, it's hard to see anyone as being on the right side of an…

> But it's as necessary with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Palestine as it is with Israel. If Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine have reasons to hate each other, then why intervene? It's not like backing one side will stop the conflicts and bring peace as recent history showed us.

The Iraqi prime minister just escaped a bomb attack a few days ago. No friend of Saddam, but I believe the US has responsibilities now. Well, that would be true for Iran as well...

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

#77
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.

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

#79

Seriously, every Pegasus-related news slightly killing the Apple "privacy" myth. And this is good 'cause we deserve better mobile solutions than the strange duopoly, where one company pays $9B to another for the right to mining private data.

You may be right, but I don't see how this is relevant here. I hate shady tracking practices too, but we're talking about human rights violations, which is a far bigger issue and has nothing to do with how much Apple tracks you. Even if it didn't track you, nothing stops malware with arbitrary kernel privileges from tracking you anyway. Security vulnerabilities will always exist. It happens on Android too, it just doesn't make headlines that often because iOS is (or at least claims to be) more secure.

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

#80
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more instructive question might be (warning: this is meant to get people thinking, but at least I'll be straight forward about it): Why does nobody else follow up on the UN resolution from 1948? (Just like in the case of India / Pakistan UN decided to divide the area into two parts, one for Jews, one for Arabs.) I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region? T…

Er... you mean the UN resolution which produced this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_... ? Well, today Israel opposes the current "two state solution" proposal which would give the Palestinians a much smaller territory than on that map, so I kind of understand why the proposal from 1948 is not on the table anymore...

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