11 ms·

Slovenian officials blame Israeli firm Black Cube for trying to manipulate vote

634 points by cramsession 6mo ago

https://archive.ph/LwhOj https://archive.ph/LwhOj https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corruption-israel-spy-firm-slovenia-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corrupt...

therealdkz 6mo ago
[dead]
Terr_ 6mo ago
Alternate source due to paywall: https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corruption-israel-spy-firm-slovenia-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corrupt...
- fidotron 6mo ago
  "The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power." Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.
  - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
    If I had a choice in my country, and all else being equal, I would prefer the scum not supporting either Israel or Russia
  - mrkstu 6mo ago
    Yeah, what studiously seems to be absent is a denial of the contents of the recording. Kind of as if Nixon's Watergate burglars had found damning evidence of Democratic shenanigans- just a melee between dirty handed criminals all around.
  - gregopet 6mo ago
    First let me say that any corruption admitted to in those recordings should be prosecuted immediately, no question about it. But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover). Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago
I wonder when people will stop being scared to speak out. Is it once they lose their job due to stolen data? Is it once Palantir decides they are a threat and they lose their freedom? Is it once they lose their own land? Is it after starting the 10th war?
- crimsoneer 6mo ago
  At the risk of stating the obvious, Black Cube is an actual private intelligence firm that sells spy services [1], while Palantir is a software firm that sells software (even if that software is used by intelligence, gov, etc). You can go spin up a free Foundry instance [2] and test it, and it doesn't have secret buttons to imprison people. [1] https://www.blackcube.com/ https://www.blackcube.com/ [2] https://www.palantir.com/developers/ https://www.palantir.com/developers/
  - ks2048 6mo ago
    Yes, they are master hackers - they even hacked the scrollbar on their web page.
  - kennywinker 6mo ago
    And yet both these technologies are being used to subvert democracy and suppress opposition… almost like it doesn’t need to be fully automated fascism to be fascistic.
    - jschrf 6mo ago
      Kind of them to put the evil right in the name.
  - frm88 6mo ago
    From Black Cube's website: Our Code of Ethics was developed together with Prof. Asa Kasher, an internationally acclaimed scholar specialising in philosophy and ethics, who wrote the Code of Ethics for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). From Wikipedia on Prof. Kasher: Kasher states explicitly that it is justified to kill a Palestinian child who is in the company of a hundred 'terrorists', because the 'terrorists' might kill children in Sderot. But in reality, it was a case of killing a hundred children who were in the company of one 'terrorist'." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher Ethics code. Got it.
cbcoutinho 6mo ago
https://archive.ph/LwhOj https://archive.ph/LwhOj
miroljub 6mo ago
[flagged]
- brenschluss 6mo ago
  The truth is the truth, whether or not it might align with a narrative or stereotype. For example: NSA wiretapping was a truth that happened to align with pre-existing conspiracy theory narratives. It was easy to dismiss it as a crackpot theory, but that didn’t make the truth any less (or more) true. If someone says “if you believe this might be true, you’re [a bad person]”, I would consider this person fundamentally against truth, and someone more interested in shaping narratives than upholding accuracy and integrity.
  - miroljub 6mo ago
    With so many conspiracy theories becoming truth and so much news proving to be lies over time, I now have more trust in something labeled as a conspiracy theory than in official news.
    - doodlebugging 6mo ago
      >...I now have more trust in something labeled as a conspiracy theory than in official news. I think that is the goal. Destroy trust in formerly trustworthy sources so that the reality you see every day more closely aligns with one of the many conspiracy options.
      - miroljub 6mo ago
        Well, that's the conspiracy. Both in theory and practice. People conspire all the time, even those claiming they don't. If something is a conspiracy, doesn't mean it's not true. Or false.
- bilekas 6mo ago
  I think you forgot to put the /s at the end there.
nslsm 6mo ago
[flagged]
- rhcom2 6mo ago
  DNC emails weren't fake either but dumping them all right before the election was certainly intended to be election interference.
  - armchairhacker 6mo ago
    And when WaPo released Trump's "grab em by the pussy" tape October 2016? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_...) Even if our politicians are so corrupt that every one has skeletons in their closet, I don't think releasing factual evidence of malfeasance is a type of election interference that should be condemned.
- baq 6mo ago
  there are examples of files and tapes which veracity isn't in question in a much bigger and more important country than Slovenia regarding much more important people than the Slovenian prime minister and... it doesn't matter much, apparently
- CodingJeebus 6mo ago
  The candidate who stands to benefit from circumstances like this is usually quite corrupt as well. The mere appearance of a foreign espionage outfit helping one candidate should raise questions about their integrity.
- catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
  Sausage is made by all parties. If you show how one party makes its sausage, and only that party, that is a smear campaign a foreign power must not assist in. Same as donating to one party, it is interfering with electuons
greenavocado 6mo ago
Joel Zamel, an Israeli intelligence veteran, led the Israeli intel company Psy-Group, which worked closely with Netanyahu and the Trump campaign circle, including Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. Psy-Group partnered with Cambridge Analytica (later Emerdata) to influence the 2016 US elections using social media data. The Black Cube intel firm, staffed by former Mossad agents, was employed by Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in harvesting Facebook data. Harvey Weinstein Hired ex-Mossad Agents to Track Women Accusing Him of Sexual Assault Weinstein hired Israeli firm Black Cube to research his accusers and to scuttle reports of his sexual abuse Black Cube operatives posed as activists, abuse victims and sources for journalists https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report-weinstein-hired-ex-mossad-to-track-his-accusers/0000017f-e68d-d62c-a1ff-feffd81c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report...
shevy-java 6mo ago
Israel really needs to stop interfering in other countries' elections. That's not acceptable. We don't interfere when their population votes for warcriminals either.
- afavour 6mo ago
  This isn't Israel the state, it's a private company that's based in Israel.
  - asadm 6mo ago
    gee I wonder what does the private company gain from defaming another country's "pro-Palestine" party.
    - afavour 6mo ago
      ...money? My point is a simple one: the company was hired by someone. Was it the opposition party? To say this is entirely Israel's doing implies the Slovenian party that benefits just happens to have gotten lucky. The reality is likely considerably murkier than that.
      - bigyabai 6mo ago
        To say that this is entirely the Slovenian party's fault implies that Israel cannot govern their own state. Both are complicit.
        margalabargala 6mo ago
        > implies that Israel cannot govern their own state Or more simply that what the Israeli company did, is not illegal in Israel.
        bigyabai 6mo ago
        I can guarantee you that it is very illegal if you target the wrong government. Selective prosecution is a recurring issue under Israeli jurisprudence.
seydor 6mo ago
Israel has created a whole industry around "politics" as a service. Between rampant spying in multiple countries using Predator etc and slimy campaings like this, you can buy governments for an increasingly affordable price.
- 6510 6mo ago
  It might be cheaper than we think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU
  - tristanMatthias 6mo ago
    I'm SO surprised more people don't know about this... I'm always dismissed when I say the elections are rigged.
    - 6510 6mo ago
      I once made a list of various issues raised in various elections in various countries. The instances describe a whole spectrum of cheating. The only consistent factor is that no one believes there was cheating. The funniest was an order to change punchcards that made the holes not line up. People still found room to not see a problem with it.
chiengineer 6mo ago
At this point its extremely clear and important to understand It doesnt matter how men, bodies / hours / time / millions and billions you spend building a defensive They will infiltrate with less than 500k And come out on top 100% of the time This is a fundamental human problem that needs fixing across the entire planet It does not matter what country or secret groups are involved or how much life or death is truly at stake There is a 100000% chance some dumbass is willing to fuck if all up for a small bribe
- 6510 6mo ago
  We should have some benchmark project that bluntly describes the issues with each democracy. Like, did elected officials dramatically change in appearance (length, ears, nose, teeth, chin, eyes), election agenda points that don't match execution, issues with method of voting, issues with vote counting etc
bilekas 6mo ago
Am I mistaken but in theory aren't Solvenia and Isreal technically allies ? I'm not naive to believe intelligence agencies don't target each other in many ways, but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. I would love to see an example being made out of them here. That said, bar sanctions, Isreali 'private' companies like this seem to have carte blanch on whatever they want to do. No sanctions, no fines, not even investigations will happen I fear.
- seydor 6mo ago
  How are they technically allies? Israel is not in eu or nato. If you mean broadly, western-minded, yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for israel lately
  - bilekas 6mo ago
    > yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for Israel lately hasn't everyone though ? Does that mean Isreal is in the clear to interfere ? > Israel is not in eu or nato. No of course not, but there is an alignment technically, I guess the western minded. Ireland is not a NATO member but there would be some backlash from hearing Isreal was interfearing in elections.
    - seydor 6mo ago
      No, most of the EU has not condemned the atrocities in Gaza. Slovenia did, it recognized Palestine and banned weapon sales
- CodingJeebus 6mo ago
  > but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-scuttled-the-vietnam-peace-talks-107623/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-sc...
jmyeet 6mo ago
I want to talk about Ticketmaster. People hate Ticketmaster. For good reason. TM throws on all these fees, clearly engages in third-party selling, makings buying difficult and jacks up prices. All of this is known. But what's less known is that artists, especially big artists, like Ticketmaster. Why? Because TM is a sacrificial anode. It takes all the hate but adding junk fees that in part go to the artist. The artist can say they're selling seats from as low as $20 in press releases while the least they will get for a seat is $30 because of all the fees. Being hated is a service you can sell because it takes away attention from what you're doing. You get to blame this third-party but you're still absolutely complicit in everything they're doing. You see where this is going? Israel is America's Ticketmaster. Anything bad that Israel or an Israeli firm does, the US could end today with a phone call by simply saying "we're cutting off aid if you don't stop doing". The price of this is to be the sacrificial anode for what is actually American foreign policy. There are well-funded and organized efforts to whitewash Israel's reputation and those were successful up until the last few years. Israel is a huge supplier of spyware eg Pegasus [1]. Despotic regimes use this to spy on journalists and opposition figures and has likely been used to locate and kill them. You think we couldn't stop that? Of course we can. But we like that because, again, Israel takes the heat. So Israel interfering in Slovenia's elections is the least surprising thing I've heard. I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. You will find Israeli influence in probably every election. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
- canticleforllm 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- rafram 6mo ago
  I’m not a fan of comparing a cruel, genocidal government to a site that jacks up the prices on concert tickets, personally.
- margalabargala 6mo ago
  Your broader point is true but the characterization of Israel as an extension of America is not. Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America. America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.
chimpanzee2 6mo ago
[flagged]
- mattfrommars 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - vrganj 6mo ago
    Is it anti-semitism or anti-Israel sentiment? Because if it's the latter, well, have you taken a look at their behavior recently? Their ethnicity/religion has nothing to do with why people condemn the state.
    - nailer 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - vrganj 6mo ago
        Has Germany been bombing its neighbors lately?
        nailer 6mo ago
        [flagged]
        vrganj 6mo ago
        Indeed. But as you might notice, WW2 is almost a century ago at this point. Were they to do it in the present day, they would have to face present day criticism. However, they don't do that anymore, which makes your whole attempt at false equivalency rather hollow.
        nailer 6mo ago
        [flagged]
dadoum 6mo ago
Recently, there were municipal elections in France, and there was Israeli interference there as well [0] (the article is pay-walled and in French but it's written in the title at least). [0]: https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-de-desinformation-anti-lfi-qui-intrigue-les-services-de-renseignement https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-...
- IsTom 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- port11 6mo ago
  Given the current sentiment towards Israel in most of Europe, manipulating elections might not be the cleverest way to win our sympathy again.
  - yostrovs 6mo ago
    Europeans give too much value to their sympathies. Given that it's now clear to anyone that will open their eyes that there is no international law, Europe ends up looking like an old grandpa yelling at the clouds, powerless to actually do something. Sympathies are not enough.
    - refulgentis 6mo ago
      Sympathies translate into trade policy, arms embargoes, diplomatic recognition, and votes at international bodies. The idea that soft power is meaningless because it isn't a missile is a contradiction in terms. Europe is Israel's largest trade partner. That's not nothing. Also, "there is no international law" is a strange argument to make in defense of a country that spends enormous resources lobbying international institutions and running influence ops in allied democracies. If none of it mattered, why bother?
      - bonzini 6mo ago
        > If none of it mattered, why bother? Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Republicans and missiles being the best.
nmeofthestate 6mo ago
"Black Cube" - wonder what they're going for there. Maybe "Sinister Obelisk" was taken.
- TinyRick 6mo ago
  Black cube is a common form of symbolism in occult/Kabbalah traditions
  - gunapologist99 6mo ago
    As well as Islam (the Kaaba).
    - tolerance 6mo ago
      The Kaaba was not covered in black until around the 13 century.
- cr125rider 6mo ago
  They wanted everyone to know they are the bad guys, just like Black Rock.
  - nmeofthestate 6mo ago
    It works, to be honest - I would never let Beige Rock manage my money.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  - p0w3n3d 6mo ago
    Black Rock Black Stone... Maybe even Black Dodecahedron someday
    - fakedang 6mo ago
vrganj 6mo ago
Israel under Netanyahu is part of the international antidemocratic axis of imperialist autocracy. Other members, in no particular order: Orban, Trump, Putin, Babis, Thiel, Bolsonaro, Ellison, Milei, Nawrocki. These gentlemen (and of course they're all men) constitute the 21st century axis of evil, responsible for most of the backsliding and worsening of rule of law around the world.
- flir 6mo ago
  Not Meloni, then?
  - vrganj 6mo ago
    This list might be non-exhaustive. Good point on Meloni, she's a bit of a special case. Turns out women can be evil, too!
    - tremon 6mo ago
      Was there any doubt of that after Maxwell, Noem, Bondi? (Or, keeping with the same theme, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Grese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Grese)
- kotaKat 6mo ago
  Hey now, there’s a few axis girlbosses out there! Don’t forget Sana’s skin in the game.
- eithed 6mo ago
  Nawrocki is just incompetent (and to be fair that was his selling point for PiS). Now - Kaczynski, that's where true evil lies
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- reducesuffering 6mo ago
  Milei though? His social views, eccentric behavior, and seeing other right wing leaders as kindred spirits is unfortunate. However, practically and policy-wise, what has he done that's antidemocratic or imperialist? He's repeatedly democratically elected, as part of the people's mandate to fix their economy, and despite leftwing hang-wringing it'll never work, all data seems to point to their economy getting better.
emsign 6mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 6mo ago
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_zoltan_ 6mo ago
and Russia is now doing the same in Hungary... :(
- ajewhere 6mo ago
  Russia has no resorces to do that, no matter how many times you retell the myth about "troll factories", "Russia did Brexit" and all the other lies / half truths which US, UK, Israel and other western states told and continue to tell to divert the attention from the enormous scale of their propaganda industry.
  - phatfish 6mo ago
    It's the ONLY thing that Russia has the resources to do. Apart from fighting their smaller neighbour to a standstill.
  - _zoltan_ 6mo ago
    ??? it's a FACT that they do this.
  - consumer451 6mo ago
    This is the most disconnected-from-reality comment that I have read on this website, ever?
zug_zug 6mo ago
It seems to me that interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war.
- nextos 6mo ago
  Yes, and the EU, due to this fragmentation, seems to be a fertile playground for all this unacceptable interference by foreign powers.
  - tremon 6mo ago
    Actually, no. The decentralization of power means that it takes a lot more effort to subvert each country individually, rather than propping up a few candidates for the entire region like they do in the US.
    - tempaccount420 6mo ago
      They only need one country for veto rights.
      - nextos 6mo ago
        Exactly, see what is happening in Hungary. Controlling Hungary is enough to veto some support for Ukraine.
      - snackbroken 6mo ago
        The EU is perfectly capable of collaborating even when it can't reach full consensus or when it wants to include peripheral states without them becoming full members. See for example the Schengen area, Eurozone, European Economic Area, and more recently (and specifically to circumvent member state vetos) when the enhanced cooperation procedures were invoked to lend money to Ukraine.
  - close04 6mo ago
    That’s true but that fragmentation is also what limits the propagation of fractures. You can see it like sandboxing. A deal with foreign intelligence is a dead with the devil that comes with a lifetime of subservience. And subservience to foreign powers is a greater evil than yo usual internal corruption. At least the locally corrupt in a democracy have some interest in things going somewhat well in their country. The foreign actors only care about theirs.
epolanski 6mo ago
It's insane the power and influence Israelis have. In the US it's blatant, from the insane amounts of money and weaponry sent to Israel (why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? It's not like they are neither poor nor US owes them) to the recent events in the middle east. But even in Europe. Here in Italy the coalition government has multiple high profile politicians that just happen to be shareholders or CEOs of security companies owned by Israelis. And just so it happens that the same security and communication companies get lots of work by the Italian government. And when journalists brought this up because they didn't report it to neither the government nor parliament, nothing happened anyway. It's a scandal really, but if you write or say it, you're labeled as anti semitic, so criticizing and surfacing this terrible stuff is always controversial.
- bawolff 6mo ago
  > why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced. I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.
  - cramsession 6mo ago
    We primarily fund the other Middle Eastern countries to keep Israel safe. Were it not for Israel, we would just have normal diplomatic relations with them.
    - beloch 6mo ago
      I wouldn't go that far. The U.S. and other European powers have a long history of involvement in Middle East politics. Significant parts of the Middle East were once parts of various European empires. Many of them gained their independence only to find there were still a lot of strings and (pipe)lines of exploitation attached. The U.S. did more than its fair share to glom onto those lines of exploitation and keep them alive at the expense of locals. e.g. Iran is what it is today because of U.S. oil interests. The CIA installed an authoritarian Shah when Iran's (at the time) democratic government started taking control of its own oil industry (American oil companies would have had to start paying taxes). Rule under the Shah was "unpleasant" for Iranians and revolution was the direct response. Hence, theocracy. Israel is a special case in the Middle East. The zionist movement gained state sponsors and convinced European powers (and the U.S.) to pour money in instead of sucking it out. How they did that is a question that stretches back well into the 19th century. I'd argue that a lot of it was the result of people who had their hearts in the right places. Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
nashashmi 6mo ago
The desperation of the state is becoming apparent. Look for more election interference in the future. It will be more sophisticated. And likely can be traced in past elections.
- tremon 6mo ago
  I think it's also true that government officials around the world are less inclined to just go along with it, since Israel has lost control of public perception. So the tactics have to become more brazen and forceful to achieve the same results, increasing the risk of exposure and/or blowback.
- 8bitsrule 6mo ago
  I don't think for a minute that this stuff is anything new ... to the contrary. I think what is new is that, every time they step in it, the whole world now quickly knows.
hathym 6mo ago
[flagged]
- tremon 6mo ago
  Something with stars and stripes?
- croes 6mo ago
  Too many
gokhan 6mo ago
[flagged]
bawolff 6mo ago
So is the allegation that this private intelligence firm tried to induce members of the government party to offer a bribe. They then published the recorded conversations. I guess what is missing from the article is was the videos misleading or did they really get offered the bribe? Because if its the latter, its kind of hard to feel sympathy for a corrupt official getting caught even if the mechanism was problematic.
- rekrsiv 6mo ago
  A bribe in a low trust society is not the same as a bribe in a high trust society. In this context, a bribe is irrelevant compared to the act of election interference by a foreign actor.
  - bawolff 6mo ago
    Appearently not to the electors or this scheme wouldn't have worked.
    - pessimizer 6mo ago
      It isn't corruption or the exposure of corruption that is the crime to European elites. The crime is doing something that will cause voters to choose something that they do not want the voters to choose. If you are corrupt, and that corruption helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation. If you expose corruption, and that exposure helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation. Meanwhile, the US is pouring billions of dollars into their elections, and if questioned, the questioning is considered an authoritarian encroachment on human rights. The US can make their officials into unpersons with sanctions for doing their jobs with integrity, and they'll just go along with it, tsk-tsking at the official in question. Too bad for Golob, though - since it's Israel doing it for Israeli reasons, the "left-liberals" won't be able to get any of their usual support to attack them, because it's Israelis all the way down now. Ukraine is old news and competing with Israel for weapons, so there's no need for NATO-lackey Golob anymore.
- sigismund 6mo ago
rekrsiv 6mo ago
Quick question: Could they also be manipulating this message board's voting?
- vrganj 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - tempaccount420 6mo ago
    Politics are indiscriminately flagged. People don't come to HN to read politics.
    - adamors 6mo ago
      This is simply not true, this very submission sits comfortably on the front page, so does https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522709 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518281 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523106 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523169 Unless of course you mean "politics" as in everything you don't like is "politics".
- Bender 6mo ago
  If they could get people to install a mobile UI app that fetches instructions on what to up/down-vote, what to flag/vouch then they could and unlikely anyone would notice. It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things. Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.
  - bjacobel 6mo ago
    Exactly such an app exists. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232163 https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232163
beboplifa 6mo ago
The tapes show prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing corruption, illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds. Is there any evidence that the tape is fraudulent? The article doesn't provide any. I wonder if anybody even read the article other than words "Israeli firm" and jumped to a lynching
- megous 6mo ago
  Giora Eiland is the architect of "General's Plan". If anything, this scumbag criminal should have been locked up the moment he touched down in Ljubljana with his "company".
  - throw310822 6mo ago
    "The plan, conceived by retired major general and former head of the National Security Council Giora Eiland and presented to the Knesset by a group of several retired Israeli generals, proposed giving approximately 300,000 Palestinians a one-week evacuation period to depart from the northern third of Gaza before designating it a military exclusion zone. Under this strategy, anyone remaining in the area would be considered a combatant. The plan would then implement a complete siege that would block essential supplies until militant surrender, denying all essential supplies including medicine, fuel, food, and water"
carabiner 6mo ago
Why are they like this... There are elite cultures that just live and don't bother anyone. Israel isn't one of them.
- booleandilemma 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - fweimer 6mo ago
    Isn't that more the U.S. evangelical view of Christianity? (Although obviously there are of course Jewish thinkers who believe in ethnic superiority, but many also reject it.)
nmeofthestate 6mo ago
So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters. The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
- sigismund 6mo ago
  The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
  - trinix912 6mo ago
    I'm from Slovenia and it is very obvious what is going on behind the scenes. It's a public secret at this point that both the parties in charge (especially the people in/around Gibanje Svoboda) and the various people "from behind" take their cuts at big infrastructure projects. Just to be fair, this is not unique to the current government. We've had several similar corruption scandals throughout several governments; it was almost always related to infrastructure projects. A few days prior to this leak there was a separate one posted on Facebook (that I sadly can't find anymore; it has been covered by several media outlets here [1]), in which the former GS secretary reveals who gets what % and that they have to "set our own people to the right places, as (2023) floods cleanup is where the most money flows". It is also not a secret that the mayor of Ljubljana, Janković, is able to bypass all laws to issue building permits in exchange for a 20% "donation" to city-ran sports clubs, which are ran by his friends. This was revealed in the case of an Austrian investor and his luxury flats at Celovška cesta, Ljubljana, a few months ago. It's also plain obvious that the state media (RTV SLO) is trying hard to shift the conversation towards the origin of the leaks rather than the supposed corruption revealed in them. The practice had usually been to investigate the content first. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c5OFcRRSF6k https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c5OFcRRSF6k
- refulgentis 6mo ago
tlogan 6mo ago
Interesting. I have vey limited knowledge of Slovenian politics, but it often seems that whoever gets elected ends up facing corruption charges and ends up in prison after the next election cycle. Since Janez Jansa will be prime minister he will be charged for corruption by end of his term and this could be the third time for him to go to prison (the first instance happened under the socialist regime, so maybe that does not count). Anyway, I do not think Israelis needed to work hard here to find some dirt.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
SoftTalker 6mo ago
[flagged]
- Imustaskforhelp 6mo ago
  Conflict of interests. We were told these things by the very same people who have an interest to rigging an election :-) at some point, this problem boils down to something like trusting trust and I think that the answer might be similar to how stage0 in compilers work in that smaller stages which can be easily audited combine/compile together to form larger stages. (Not sure if this allegory fits at the moment but I do feel like decentralization can definitely help in these cases which is my point but these same people who told that it wasn't possible aren't looking for/actively hindering any prospects of decentralization due to once again, conflict of interests)
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > lot of people were called crazy or worse for believing it might be possible Sorry, when were questions about Slovenia’s voting system considered crazy?
- Gud 6mo ago
  Who would say that? Elections are rigged all the time.
  - longislandguido 6mo ago
    https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2020-election-most-secure-history-dhs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2020-election-most-secu... https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-official-election-was-secure https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/17/tammy-baldwin/yes-department-homeland-security-declared-nov-3-el/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/17/tammy-bald...
    - Gud 6mo ago
      I skimmed and nowhere did it say it was "impossible to rig an election". Please quote verbatim don't just drop links.
nec4b 6mo ago
There was no rigging or any manipulation of votes. Current and previous government officials were caught bragging about their previous corrupt adventures. The government after some initial shock came up with a story about foreign intervention. Slovenian newspapers and journalist activist carried it all the way to Brussels in order bank on negative emotions about Israel and hopped people will think about that. There was no institutional response, because the current government has cleaned institutions of people not loyal to them. It's a rather sad situation. The society is deeply divided. When similar thing happened in Belgium, the corrupt people were immediately punished and nobody cared who exposed them.
- trinix912 6mo ago
  Yes, pretty much. It's much more obvious if you take into account the Počivalšek leaks before the previous elections and compare the media response to this time.
- easymodex 6mo ago
  Thing is, the ones "exposing" them are already known as corrupt from multiple previous scandals, now all they did was get some people on camera which say that the other side is also corrupt. While none of this is good, I'd still vote for the ones supposedly somewhat corrupt instead of those known to be fully corrupt.
koakuma-chan 6mo ago
[flagged]
- dang 6mo ago
  > Hitler was right about jews? Anti semitism actually has grounds? Asking purely out of curiosity. WTF? We've banned this account. Threads related to Israel regularly fill with the worst violations of the site guidelines that we see (and yes, these come from all sides). There's so much that we can't even moderate it all. But outright anti-semitic trolling is its own category of hell. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
tzu321 6mo ago
Here are the videos: https://www.anti-corruption2026.com/ https://www.anti-corruption2026.com/ They are speaking in English. Only appendices 1-5 are available.
maxdo 6mo ago
This instance is a kindergarten if you compare Victor Orban doing phone calls during EU sessions from toilet to report secrets to Russia.
- ejpir 6mo ago
  so, interfering with elections is "kindergarten", compared to leaking secrets?
ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago
Israel has recently invaded Lebanon, started a regional war with Iran, and has been recognized as committing genocide in Gaza. The UN believes the IDF uses rape as a matter of policy and has published a report with quite a bit of evidence. Hearing Israel is meddling with elections is like, yeah, if you are doing that other stuff I'm not shocked when you also do this.
- js212 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago
    Is this some sort of weird justification? Are you under the mistaken impression that a) I think Hamas is good; or b) that using rape to "punish" rape is good? There's no acceptable use of rape. And "but they did it first!" is a child's defense of bad behavior.
  - amunozo 6mo ago
    So as Hamas did horrible things, Israel can do whatever they want anytime. We are talking about Israel, not Hamas.
abdelhousni 6mo ago
Same Slovenia which Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was shot and critically injured in 2024 after, certainly not related, his government's opposition to military assistance to Ukraine and of hypocritical face of the EU inaction against Israel "treatment" of Palestinians.
- ZenDroid 6mo ago
  Nope, not the same Slovenia. That Slovenia was actually Slovakia.
  - abdelhousni 6mo ago
    I stand corrected thanks and sorry
cooloo 6mo ago
[flagged]
- hollywood_court 6mo ago
  I don't think that's the case. There are five people in my office including myself. Three of them are Jewish. None of them ever have anything positive to say about Israel. The three Jewish people in my office certainly don't hate Jews.
- phkahler 6mo ago
  >> It's amazing to see the amount of hate towards Israel here. I guess part of it it's just plain old Jew hate in new cover Hahaha. They're trying to influence European elections. You don't need to have any opinion about Jews to be upset about that.
- sillyfluke 6mo ago
  A third of Jews in NYC voted for an anti-Zionist Muslim mayor, which equates to roughly half the population of Tel Aviv according to demographic statistics. I advise you discuss "Jew hate" with them before you start attacking everyone else for racism.
  - TheGuyWhoCodes 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - sillyfluke 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - TheGuyWhoCodes 6mo ago
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        sillyfluke 6mo ago
LightBug1 6mo ago
[flagged]
Ms-J 6mo ago
[flagged]
ncr100 6mo ago
Is this an act of war? One country, Israel, attempting to change out the government of another? That's hideous.
rendall 6mo ago
[flagged]
derelicta 6mo ago
Remember; its not the tail that is wagging the dog. Behind every Israeli operation hides an American one.
LightBug1 6mo ago
[flagged]

634 points by cramsession 6mo ago

therealdkz 6mo ago

[dead]

Terr_ 6mo ago

Alternate source due to paywall: https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corruption-israel-spy-firm-slovenia-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corrupt...

fidotron 6mo ago
"The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power." Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.
- catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
  If I had a choice in my country, and all else being equal, I would prefer the scum not supporting either Israel or Russia
- mrkstu 6mo ago
  Yeah, what studiously seems to be absent is a denial of the contents of the recording. Kind of as if Nixon's Watergate burglars had found damning evidence of Democratic shenanigans- just a melee between dirty handed criminals all around.
- gregopet 6mo ago
  First let me say that any corruption admitted to in those recordings should be prosecuted immediately, no question about it. But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover). Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago

I wonder when people will stop being scared to speak out. Is it once they lose their job due to stolen data? Is it once Palantir decides they are a threat and they lose their freedom? Is it once they lose their own land? Is it after starting the 10th war?

crimsoneer 6mo ago
At the risk of stating the obvious, Black Cube is an actual private intelligence firm that sells spy services [1], while Palantir is a software firm that sells software (even if that software is used by intelligence, gov, etc). You can go spin up a free Foundry instance [2] and test it, and it doesn't have secret buttons to imprison people. [1] https://www.blackcube.com/ https://www.blackcube.com/ [2] https://www.palantir.com/developers/ https://www.palantir.com/developers/
- ks2048 6mo ago
  Yes, they are master hackers - they even hacked the scrollbar on their web page.
- kennywinker 6mo ago
  And yet both these technologies are being used to subvert democracy and suppress opposition… almost like it doesn’t need to be fully automated fascism to be fascistic.
  - jschrf 6mo ago
    Kind of them to put the evil right in the name.
- frm88 6mo ago
  From Black Cube's website: Our Code of Ethics was developed together with Prof. Asa Kasher, an internationally acclaimed scholar specialising in philosophy and ethics, who wrote the Code of Ethics for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). From Wikipedia on Prof. Kasher: Kasher states explicitly that it is justified to kill a Palestinian child who is in the company of a hundred 'terrorists', because the 'terrorists' might kill children in Sderot. But in reality, it was a case of killing a hundred children who were in the company of one 'terrorist'." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher Ethics code. Got it.

cbcoutinho 6mo ago

https://archive.ph/LwhOj https://archive.ph/LwhOj

miroljub 6mo ago

[flagged]

brenschluss 6mo ago
The truth is the truth, whether or not it might align with a narrative or stereotype. For example: NSA wiretapping was a truth that happened to align with pre-existing conspiracy theory narratives. It was easy to dismiss it as a crackpot theory, but that didn’t make the truth any less (or more) true. If someone says “if you believe this might be true, you’re [a bad person]”, I would consider this person fundamentally against truth, and someone more interested in shaping narratives than upholding accuracy and integrity.
- miroljub 6mo ago
  With so many conspiracy theories becoming truth and so much news proving to be lies over time, I now have more trust in something labeled as a conspiracy theory than in official news.
  - doodlebugging 6mo ago
    >...I now have more trust in something labeled as a conspiracy theory than in official news. I think that is the goal. Destroy trust in formerly trustworthy sources so that the reality you see every day more closely aligns with one of the many conspiracy options.
    - miroljub 6mo ago
      Well, that's the conspiracy. Both in theory and practice. People conspire all the time, even those claiming they don't. If something is a conspiracy, doesn't mean it's not true. Or false.
bilekas 6mo ago
I think you forgot to put the /s at the end there.

nslsm 6mo ago

[flagged]

rhcom2 6mo ago
DNC emails weren't fake either but dumping them all right before the election was certainly intended to be election interference.
- armchairhacker 6mo ago
  And when WaPo released Trump's "grab em by the pussy" tape October 2016? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_...) Even if our politicians are so corrupt that every one has skeletons in their closet, I don't think releasing factual evidence of malfeasance is a type of election interference that should be condemned.
baq 6mo ago
there are examples of files and tapes which veracity isn't in question in a much bigger and more important country than Slovenia regarding much more important people than the Slovenian prime minister and... it doesn't matter much, apparently
CodingJeebus 6mo ago
The candidate who stands to benefit from circumstances like this is usually quite corrupt as well. The mere appearance of a foreign espionage outfit helping one candidate should raise questions about their integrity.
catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
Sausage is made by all parties. If you show how one party makes its sausage, and only that party, that is a smear campaign a foreign power must not assist in. Same as donating to one party, it is interfering with electuons

greenavocado 6mo ago

Joel Zamel, an Israeli intelligence veteran, led the Israeli intel company Psy-Group, which worked closely with Netanyahu and the Trump campaign circle, including Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. Psy-Group partnered with Cambridge Analytica (later Emerdata) to influence the 2016 US elections using social media data. The Black Cube intel firm, staffed by former Mossad agents, was employed by Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in harvesting Facebook data. Harvey Weinstein Hired ex-Mossad Agents to Track Women Accusing Him of Sexual Assault Weinstein hired Israeli firm Black Cube to research his accusers and to scuttle reports of his sexual abuse Black Cube operatives posed as activists, abuse victims and sources for journalists https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report-weinstein-hired-ex-mossad-to-track-his-accusers/0000017f-e68d-d62c-a1ff-feffd81c0000 https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report...

shevy-java 6mo ago

Israel really needs to stop interfering in other countries' elections. That's not acceptable. We don't interfere when their population votes for warcriminals either.

afavour 6mo ago
This isn't Israel the state, it's a private company that's based in Israel.
- asadm 6mo ago
  gee I wonder what does the private company gain from defaming another country's "pro-Palestine" party.
  - afavour 6mo ago
    ...money? My point is a simple one: the company was hired by someone. Was it the opposition party? To say this is entirely Israel's doing implies the Slovenian party that benefits just happens to have gotten lucky. The reality is likely considerably murkier than that.
    - bigyabai 6mo ago
      To say that this is entirely the Slovenian party's fault implies that Israel cannot govern their own state. Both are complicit.
      - margalabargala 6mo ago
        > implies that Israel cannot govern their own state Or more simply that what the Israeli company did, is not illegal in Israel.
        bigyabai 6mo ago
        I can guarantee you that it is very illegal if you target the wrong government. Selective prosecution is a recurring issue under Israeli jurisprudence.

seydor 6mo ago

Israel has created a whole industry around "politics" as a service. Between rampant spying in multiple countries using Predator etc and slimy campaings like this, you can buy governments for an increasingly affordable price.

6510 6mo ago
It might be cheaper than we think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU
- tristanMatthias 6mo ago
  I'm SO surprised more people don't know about this... I'm always dismissed when I say the elections are rigged.
  - 6510 6mo ago
    I once made a list of various issues raised in various elections in various countries. The instances describe a whole spectrum of cheating. The only consistent factor is that no one believes there was cheating. The funniest was an order to change punchcards that made the holes not line up. People still found room to not see a problem with it.

chiengineer 6mo ago

At this point its extremely clear and important to understand It doesnt matter how men, bodies / hours / time / millions and billions you spend building a defensive They will infiltrate with less than 500k And come out on top 100% of the time This is a fundamental human problem that needs fixing across the entire planet It does not matter what country or secret groups are involved or how much life or death is truly at stake There is a 100000% chance some dumbass is willing to fuck if all up for a small bribe

6510 6mo ago
We should have some benchmark project that bluntly describes the issues with each democracy. Like, did elected officials dramatically change in appearance (length, ears, nose, teeth, chin, eyes), election agenda points that don't match execution, issues with method of voting, issues with vote counting etc

bilekas 6mo ago

Am I mistaken but in theory aren't Solvenia and Isreal technically allies ? I'm not naive to believe intelligence agencies don't target each other in many ways, but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. I would love to see an example being made out of them here. That said, bar sanctions, Isreali 'private' companies like this seem to have carte blanch on whatever they want to do. No sanctions, no fines, not even investigations will happen I fear.

seydor 6mo ago
How are they technically allies? Israel is not in eu or nato. If you mean broadly, western-minded, yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for israel lately
- bilekas 6mo ago
  > yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for Israel lately hasn't everyone though ? Does that mean Isreal is in the clear to interfere ? > Israel is not in eu or nato. No of course not, but there is an alignment technically, I guess the western minded. Ireland is not a NATO member but there would be some backlash from hearing Isreal was interfearing in elections.
  - seydor 6mo ago
    No, most of the EU has not condemned the atrocities in Gaza. Slovenia did, it recognized Palestine and banned weapon sales
CodingJeebus 6mo ago
> but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-scuttled-the-vietnam-peace-talks-107623/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-sc...

jmyeet 6mo ago

I want to talk about Ticketmaster. People hate Ticketmaster. For good reason. TM throws on all these fees, clearly engages in third-party selling, makings buying difficult and jacks up prices. All of this is known. But what's less known is that artists, especially big artists, like Ticketmaster. Why? Because TM is a sacrificial anode. It takes all the hate but adding junk fees that in part go to the artist. The artist can say they're selling seats from as low as $20 in press releases while the least they will get for a seat is $30 because of all the fees. Being hated is a service you can sell because it takes away attention from what you're doing. You get to blame this third-party but you're still absolutely complicit in everything they're doing. You see where this is going? Israel is America's Ticketmaster. Anything bad that Israel or an Israeli firm does, the US could end today with a phone call by simply saying "we're cutting off aid if you don't stop doing". The price of this is to be the sacrificial anode for what is actually American foreign policy. There are well-funded and organized efforts to whitewash Israel's reputation and those were successful up until the last few years. Israel is a huge supplier of spyware eg Pegasus [1]. Despotic regimes use this to spy on journalists and opposition figures and has likely been used to locate and kill them. You think we couldn't stop that? Of course we can. But we like that because, again, Israel takes the heat. So Israel interfering in Slovenia's elections is the least surprising thing I've heard. I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. You will find Israeli influence in probably every election. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

canticleforllm 6mo ago
[flagged]
rafram 6mo ago
I’m not a fan of comparing a cruel, genocidal government to a site that jacks up the prices on concert tickets, personally.
margalabargala 6mo ago
Your broader point is true but the characterization of Israel as an extension of America is not. Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America. America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.

chimpanzee2 6mo ago

[flagged]

mattfrommars 6mo ago
[flagged]
- vrganj 6mo ago
  Is it anti-semitism or anti-Israel sentiment? Because if it's the latter, well, have you taken a look at their behavior recently? Their ethnicity/religion has nothing to do with why people condemn the state.
  - nailer 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - vrganj 6mo ago
      Has Germany been bombing its neighbors lately?
      - nailer 6mo ago
        [flagged]
        vrganj 6mo ago
        Indeed. But as you might notice, WW2 is almost a century ago at this point. Were they to do it in the present day, they would have to face present day criticism. However, they don't do that anymore, which makes your whole attempt at false equivalency rather hollow.
        nailer 6mo ago
        [flagged]

dadoum 6mo ago

Recently, there were municipal elections in France, and there was Israeli interference there as well [0] (the article is pay-walled and in French but it's written in the title at least). [0]: https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-de-desinformation-anti-lfi-qui-intrigue-les-services-de-renseignement https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-...

IsTom 6mo ago
[flagged]
port11 6mo ago
Given the current sentiment towards Israel in most of Europe, manipulating elections might not be the cleverest way to win our sympathy again.
- yostrovs 6mo ago
  Europeans give too much value to their sympathies. Given that it's now clear to anyone that will open their eyes that there is no international law, Europe ends up looking like an old grandpa yelling at the clouds, powerless to actually do something. Sympathies are not enough.
  - refulgentis 6mo ago
    Sympathies translate into trade policy, arms embargoes, diplomatic recognition, and votes at international bodies. The idea that soft power is meaningless because it isn't a missile is a contradiction in terms. Europe is Israel's largest trade partner. That's not nothing. Also, "there is no international law" is a strange argument to make in defense of a country that spends enormous resources lobbying international institutions and running influence ops in allied democracies. If none of it mattered, why bother?
    - bonzini 6mo ago
      > If none of it mattered, why bother? Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Republicans and missiles being the best.

nmeofthestate 6mo ago

"Black Cube" - wonder what they're going for there. Maybe "Sinister Obelisk" was taken.

TinyRick 6mo ago
Black cube is a common form of symbolism in occult/Kabbalah traditions
- gunapologist99 6mo ago
  As well as Islam (the Kaaba).
  - tolerance 6mo ago
    The Kaaba was not covered in black until around the 13 century.
cr125rider 6mo ago
They wanted everyone to know they are the bad guys, just like Black Rock.
- nmeofthestate 6mo ago
  It works, to be honest - I would never let Beige Rock manage my money.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- p0w3n3d 6mo ago
  Black Rock Black Stone... Maybe even Black Dodecahedron someday
  - fakedang 6mo ago

vrganj 6mo ago

Israel under Netanyahu is part of the international antidemocratic axis of imperialist autocracy. Other members, in no particular order: Orban, Trump, Putin, Babis, Thiel, Bolsonaro, Ellison, Milei, Nawrocki. These gentlemen (and of course they're all men) constitute the 21st century axis of evil, responsible for most of the backsliding and worsening of rule of law around the world.

flir 6mo ago
Not Meloni, then?
- vrganj 6mo ago
  This list might be non-exhaustive. Good point on Meloni, she's a bit of a special case. Turns out women can be evil, too!
  - tremon 6mo ago
    Was there any doubt of that after Maxwell, Noem, Bondi? (Or, keeping with the same theme, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Grese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irma_Grese)
kotaKat 6mo ago
Hey now, there’s a few axis girlbosses out there! Don’t forget Sana’s skin in the game.
eithed 6mo ago
Nawrocki is just incompetent (and to be fair that was his selling point for PiS). Now - Kaczynski, that's where true evil lies
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
reducesuffering 6mo ago
Milei though? His social views, eccentric behavior, and seeing other right wing leaders as kindred spirits is unfortunate. However, practically and policy-wise, what has he done that's antidemocratic or imperialist? He's repeatedly democratically elected, as part of the people's mandate to fix their economy, and despite leftwing hang-wringing it'll never work, all data seems to point to their economy getting better.

emsign 6mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

_zoltan_ 6mo ago

and Russia is now doing the same in Hungary... :(

ajewhere 6mo ago
Russia has no resorces to do that, no matter how many times you retell the myth about "troll factories", "Russia did Brexit" and all the other lies / half truths which US, UK, Israel and other western states told and continue to tell to divert the attention from the enormous scale of their propaganda industry.
- phatfish 6mo ago
  It's the ONLY thing that Russia has the resources to do. Apart from fighting their smaller neighbour to a standstill.
- _zoltan_ 6mo ago
  ??? it's a FACT that they do this.
- consumer451 6mo ago
  This is the most disconnected-from-reality comment that I have read on this website, ever?

zug_zug 6mo ago

It seems to me that interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war.

nextos 6mo ago
Yes, and the EU, due to this fragmentation, seems to be a fertile playground for all this unacceptable interference by foreign powers.
- tremon 6mo ago
  Actually, no. The decentralization of power means that it takes a lot more effort to subvert each country individually, rather than propping up a few candidates for the entire region like they do in the US.
  - tempaccount420 6mo ago
    They only need one country for veto rights.
    - nextos 6mo ago
      Exactly, see what is happening in Hungary. Controlling Hungary is enough to veto some support for Ukraine.
    - snackbroken 6mo ago
      The EU is perfectly capable of collaborating even when it can't reach full consensus or when it wants to include peripheral states without them becoming full members. See for example the Schengen area, Eurozone, European Economic Area, and more recently (and specifically to circumvent member state vetos) when the enhanced cooperation procedures were invoked to lend money to Ukraine.
- close04 6mo ago
  That’s true but that fragmentation is also what limits the propagation of fractures. You can see it like sandboxing. A deal with foreign intelligence is a dead with the devil that comes with a lifetime of subservience. And subservience to foreign powers is a greater evil than yo usual internal corruption. At least the locally corrupt in a democracy have some interest in things going somewhat well in their country. The foreign actors only care about theirs.

epolanski 6mo ago

It's insane the power and influence Israelis have. In the US it's blatant, from the insane amounts of money and weaponry sent to Israel (why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? It's not like they are neither poor nor US owes them) to the recent events in the middle east. But even in Europe. Here in Italy the coalition government has multiple high profile politicians that just happen to be shareholders or CEOs of security companies owned by Israelis. And just so it happens that the same security and communication companies get lots of work by the Italian government. And when journalists brought this up because they didn't report it to neither the government nor parliament, nothing happened anyway. It's a scandal really, but if you write or say it, you're labeled as anti semitic, so criticizing and surfacing this terrible stuff is always controversial.

bawolff 6mo ago
> why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced. I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.
- cramsession 6mo ago
  We primarily fund the other Middle Eastern countries to keep Israel safe. Were it not for Israel, we would just have normal diplomatic relations with them.
  - beloch 6mo ago
    I wouldn't go that far. The U.S. and other European powers have a long history of involvement in Middle East politics. Significant parts of the Middle East were once parts of various European empires. Many of them gained their independence only to find there were still a lot of strings and (pipe)lines of exploitation attached. The U.S. did more than its fair share to glom onto those lines of exploitation and keep them alive at the expense of locals. e.g. Iran is what it is today because of U.S. oil interests. The CIA installed an authoritarian Shah when Iran's (at the time) democratic government started taking control of its own oil industry (American oil companies would have had to start paying taxes). Rule under the Shah was "unpleasant" for Iranians and revolution was the direct response. Hence, theocracy. Israel is a special case in the Middle East. The zionist movement gained state sponsors and convinced European powers (and the U.S.) to pour money in instead of sucking it out. How they did that is a question that stretches back well into the 19th century. I'd argue that a lot of it was the result of people who had their hearts in the right places. Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.

nashashmi 6mo ago

The desperation of the state is becoming apparent. Look for more election interference in the future. It will be more sophisticated. And likely can be traced in past elections.

tremon 6mo ago
I think it's also true that government officials around the world are less inclined to just go along with it, since Israel has lost control of public perception. So the tactics have to become more brazen and forceful to achieve the same results, increasing the risk of exposure and/or blowback.
8bitsrule 6mo ago
I don't think for a minute that this stuff is anything new ... to the contrary. I think what is new is that, every time they step in it, the whole world now quickly knows.

hathym 6mo ago

[flagged]

tremon 6mo ago
Something with stars and stripes?
croes 6mo ago
Too many

gokhan 6mo ago

[flagged]

bawolff 6mo ago

So is the allegation that this private intelligence firm tried to induce members of the government party to offer a bribe. They then published the recorded conversations. I guess what is missing from the article is was the videos misleading or did they really get offered the bribe? Because if its the latter, its kind of hard to feel sympathy for a corrupt official getting caught even if the mechanism was problematic.

rekrsiv 6mo ago
A bribe in a low trust society is not the same as a bribe in a high trust society. In this context, a bribe is irrelevant compared to the act of election interference by a foreign actor.
- bawolff 6mo ago
  Appearently not to the electors or this scheme wouldn't have worked.
  - pessimizer 6mo ago
    It isn't corruption or the exposure of corruption that is the crime to European elites. The crime is doing something that will cause voters to choose something that they do not want the voters to choose. If you are corrupt, and that corruption helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation. If you expose corruption, and that exposure helps the opposition, you are accused of election manipulation. Meanwhile, the US is pouring billions of dollars into their elections, and if questioned, the questioning is considered an authoritarian encroachment on human rights. The US can make their officials into unpersons with sanctions for doing their jobs with integrity, and they'll just go along with it, tsk-tsking at the official in question. Too bad for Golob, though - since it's Israel doing it for Israeli reasons, the "left-liberals" won't be able to get any of their usual support to attack them, because it's Israelis all the way down now. Ukraine is old news and competing with Israel for weapons, so there's no need for NATO-lackey Golob anymore.
sigismund 6mo ago

rekrsiv 6mo ago

Quick question: Could they also be manipulating this message board's voting?

vrganj 6mo ago
[flagged]
- tempaccount420 6mo ago
  Politics are indiscriminately flagged. People don't come to HN to read politics.
  - adamors 6mo ago
    This is simply not true, this very submission sits comfortably on the front page, so does https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522709 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518281 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523106 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523169 Unless of course you mean "politics" as in everything you don't like is "politics".
Bender 6mo ago
If they could get people to install a mobile UI app that fetches instructions on what to up/down-vote, what to flag/vouch then they could and unlikely anyone would notice. It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things. Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.
- bjacobel 6mo ago
  Exactly such an app exists. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232163 https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232163

beboplifa 6mo ago

The tapes show prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing corruption, illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds. Is there any evidence that the tape is fraudulent? The article doesn't provide any. I wonder if anybody even read the article other than words "Israeli firm" and jumped to a lynching

megous 6mo ago
Giora Eiland is the architect of "General's Plan". If anything, this scumbag criminal should have been locked up the moment he touched down in Ljubljana with his "company".
- throw310822 6mo ago
  "The plan, conceived by retired major general and former head of the National Security Council Giora Eiland and presented to the Knesset by a group of several retired Israeli generals, proposed giving approximately 300,000 Palestinians a one-week evacuation period to depart from the northern third of Gaza before designating it a military exclusion zone. Under this strategy, anyone remaining in the area would be considered a combatant. The plan would then implement a complete siege that would block essential supplies until militant surrender, denying all essential supplies including medicine, fuel, food, and water"

carabiner 6mo ago

Why are they like this... There are elite cultures that just live and don't bother anyone. Israel isn't one of them.

booleandilemma 6mo ago
[flagged]
- fweimer 6mo ago
  Isn't that more the U.S. evangelical view of Christianity? (Although obviously there are of course Jewish thinkers who believe in ethnic superiority, but many also reject it.)

nmeofthestate 6mo ago

So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters. The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.

sigismund 6mo ago
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
- trinix912 6mo ago
  I'm from Slovenia and it is very obvious what is going on behind the scenes. It's a public secret at this point that both the parties in charge (especially the people in/around Gibanje Svoboda) and the various people "from behind" take their cuts at big infrastructure projects. Just to be fair, this is not unique to the current government. We've had several similar corruption scandals throughout several governments; it was almost always related to infrastructure projects. A few days prior to this leak there was a separate one posted on Facebook (that I sadly can't find anymore; it has been covered by several media outlets here [1]), in which the former GS secretary reveals who gets what % and that they have to "set our own people to the right places, as (2023) floods cleanup is where the most money flows". It is also not a secret that the mayor of Ljubljana, Janković, is able to bypass all laws to issue building permits in exchange for a 20% "donation" to city-ran sports clubs, which are ran by his friends. This was revealed in the case of an Austrian investor and his luxury flats at Celovška cesta, Ljubljana, a few months ago. It's also plain obvious that the state media (RTV SLO) is trying hard to shift the conversation towards the origin of the leaks rather than the supposed corruption revealed in them. The practice had usually been to investigate the content first. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c5OFcRRSF6k https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c5OFcRRSF6k
refulgentis 6mo ago

tlogan 6mo ago

Interesting. I have vey limited knowledge of Slovenian politics, but it often seems that whoever gets elected ends up facing corruption charges and ends up in prison after the next election cycle. Since Janez Jansa will be prime minister he will be charged for corruption by end of his term and this could be the third time for him to go to prison (the first instance happened under the socialist regime, so maybe that does not count). Anyway, I do not think Israelis needed to work hard here to find some dirt.

deleted 6mo ago
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SoftTalker 6mo ago

[flagged]

Imustaskforhelp 6mo ago
Conflict of interests. We were told these things by the very same people who have an interest to rigging an election :-) at some point, this problem boils down to something like trusting trust and I think that the answer might be similar to how stage0 in compilers work in that smaller stages which can be easily audited combine/compile together to form larger stages. (Not sure if this allegory fits at the moment but I do feel like decentralization can definitely help in these cases which is my point but these same people who told that it wasn't possible aren't looking for/actively hindering any prospects of decentralization due to once again, conflict of interests)
JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> lot of people were called crazy or worse for believing it might be possible Sorry, when were questions about Slovenia’s voting system considered crazy?
Gud 6mo ago
Who would say that? Elections are rigged all the time.
- longislandguido 6mo ago
  https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2020-election-most-secure-history-dhs/ https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/2020-election-most-secu... https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-official-election-was-secure https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/its-... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/17/tammy-baldwin/yes-department-homeland-security-declared-nov-3-el/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/nov/17/tammy-bald...
  - Gud 6mo ago
    I skimmed and nowhere did it say it was "impossible to rig an election". Please quote verbatim don't just drop links.

nec4b 6mo ago

There was no rigging or any manipulation of votes. Current and previous government officials were caught bragging about their previous corrupt adventures. The government after some initial shock came up with a story about foreign intervention. Slovenian newspapers and journalist activist carried it all the way to Brussels in order bank on negative emotions about Israel and hopped people will think about that. There was no institutional response, because the current government has cleaned institutions of people not loyal to them. It's a rather sad situation. The society is deeply divided. When similar thing happened in Belgium, the corrupt people were immediately punished and nobody cared who exposed them.

trinix912 6mo ago
Yes, pretty much. It's much more obvious if you take into account the Počivalšek leaks before the previous elections and compare the media response to this time.
easymodex 6mo ago
Thing is, the ones "exposing" them are already known as corrupt from multiple previous scandals, now all they did was get some people on camera which say that the other side is also corrupt. While none of this is good, I'd still vote for the ones supposedly somewhat corrupt instead of those known to be fully corrupt.

koakuma-chan 6mo ago

[flagged]

dang 6mo ago
> Hitler was right about jews? Anti semitism actually has grounds? Asking purely out of curiosity. WTF? We've banned this account. Threads related to Israel regularly fill with the worst violations of the site guidelines that we see (and yes, these come from all sides). There's so much that we can't even moderate it all. But outright anti-semitic trolling is its own category of hell. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

tzu321 6mo ago

Here are the videos: https://www.anti-corruption2026.com/ https://www.anti-corruption2026.com/ They are speaking in English. Only appendices 1-5 are available.

maxdo 6mo ago

This instance is a kindergarten if you compare Victor Orban doing phone calls during EU sessions from toilet to report secrets to Russia.

ejpir 6mo ago
so, interfering with elections is "kindergarten", compared to leaking secrets?

ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago

Israel has recently invaded Lebanon, started a regional war with Iran, and has been recognized as committing genocide in Gaza. The UN believes the IDF uses rape as a matter of policy and has published a report with quite a bit of evidence. Hearing Israel is meddling with elections is like, yeah, if you are doing that other stuff I'm not shocked when you also do this.

js212 6mo ago
[flagged]
- ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago
  Is this some sort of weird justification? Are you under the mistaken impression that a) I think Hamas is good; or b) that using rape to "punish" rape is good? There's no acceptable use of rape. And "but they did it first!" is a child's defense of bad behavior.
- amunozo 6mo ago
  So as Hamas did horrible things, Israel can do whatever they want anytime. We are talking about Israel, not Hamas.

abdelhousni 6mo ago

Same Slovenia which Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was shot and critically injured in 2024 after, certainly not related, his government's opposition to military assistance to Ukraine and of hypocritical face of the EU inaction against Israel "treatment" of Palestinians.

ZenDroid 6mo ago
Nope, not the same Slovenia. That Slovenia was actually Slovakia.
- abdelhousni 6mo ago
  I stand corrected thanks and sorry

cooloo 6mo ago

[flagged]

hollywood_court 6mo ago
I don't think that's the case. There are five people in my office including myself. Three of them are Jewish. None of them ever have anything positive to say about Israel. The three Jewish people in my office certainly don't hate Jews.
phkahler 6mo ago
>> It's amazing to see the amount of hate towards Israel here. I guess part of it it's just plain old Jew hate in new cover Hahaha. They're trying to influence European elections. You don't need to have any opinion about Jews to be upset about that.
sillyfluke 6mo ago
A third of Jews in NYC voted for an anti-Zionist Muslim mayor, which equates to roughly half the population of Tel Aviv according to demographic statistics. I advise you discuss "Jew hate" with them before you start attacking everyone else for racism.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 6mo ago
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  - sillyfluke 6mo ago
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    - TheGuyWhoCodes 6mo ago
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      - sillyfluke 6mo ago

LightBug1 6mo ago

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Ms-J 6mo ago

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ncr100 6mo ago

Is this an act of war? One country, Israel, attempting to change out the government of another? That's hideous.

rendall 6mo ago

[flagged]

derelicta 6mo ago

Remember; its not the tail that is wagging the dog. Behind every Israeli operation hides an American one.

LightBug1 6mo ago

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