8 ms·

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying an

by Matl 4mo ago

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace. If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.

r_lee 4mo ago
there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
- bigyabai 4mo ago
  Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...
inglor 4mo ago
Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway). Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc). There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.
- Matl 4mo ago
  > my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. > There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
  - 4gotunameagain 4mo ago
    > I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. Yes, they are trying their hardest with their actions to fuel a new way of antisemitism. Turns out if you are a religious fundamental colony that occupies territory based on the bible, that gives bad rap to the whole religion.
    - gwerbin 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Matl 4mo ago
        > It's not based on the Bible, it's based on where we know for a fact people actually lived under the Roman empire. If not just speculation based on a 4000 year-old mythical text, it's literal documented history. It's the invocation of a 'promised land', which even Israeli government officials use as a justification for their actions, that is based on (a reading of) the Bible, despite Israel being nominally a secular country. I don't think many dispute there was a significant population of Jews within the Roman Empire, many of which lived in the rough geographical area of present day Israel. I am not sure how any sort of present day 'inherent right' stems from that.
HappyPanacea 4mo ago
Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
- Matl 4mo ago
  > why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately. Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out. I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'. One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias. It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible
ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
- bluealienpie 4mo ago
  They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
  - pipes 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
      National Socialists were capitalists.. You known that right? Not everything with socialsts in the name begets communism, they served Industry and Capital to the fullest and sought to crush any leftist cause. https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-hypercaptialism-social-darwinism-liberalism https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-...
      - brightball 4mo ago
        Hitler explicitly adopted socialist & anti-capitalist rhetoric early on had heavy state control of industry and price controls in place. Political extremist always pander to control the people who will listen to them, selling lies at worst or at best hope that depends on a lack of understanding of human behavior and economics to follow things to their natural conclusions. Nazis, Socialists, Marxists, and Communists are all authoritarian extremist who share the same values.
        ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
        The same as Israelis.
tdeck 4mo ago
Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago
  Which government are you comparing to?
  - Gud 4mo ago
    Any other small country? You rarely read about Finland spying on other nations, or trying to influence their politics. There is the AIPAC, I challenge you to find anything similar from any other country.
    - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Gud 4mo ago
        None of those groups funnel millions of dollars into American congress men and congress women’s pockets. You are being disingenuous.
        trimethylpurine 4mo ago
        Nearly half a billion dollars in annual lobbying is attributable to oil money. It's okay for OPEC's foreign interests in your book, but you're focused on the tiny impact that Israel has. Saudi money good, Israeli money bad? What's up with that?
      - Lucasoato 4mo ago
        I don’t know man, never heard about Finnish people decimating a population, starving kids, subverting countries, toppling governments... I’ve been in Finland last year and they’re so nice.
pipes 4mo ago
[flagged]
- gacgacgac 4mo ago
  I think it's pretty objective. It's honestly possibly even a bit of a pro Israel framing given how passive and soft it is.
znpy 4mo ago
[flagged]
- nick_ 4mo ago
  Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
  - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
    Is the UK a US ally? Is Japan? If you only focus on one country for some strange reason that you can't explain, people are going to notice. That shouldn't surprise you.
    - nick_ 4mo ago
      Does the UK or Japan engage in election meddling in the US?
      - graemep 4mo ago
        Not recently, but there are things like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50752217 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50752217 and there have been claims the UK interfered in American politics in about 1940 to get US support in WW2.
      - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
        Nearly every country does it, in nearly every other country. That's well known fact at this point. The US government is openly, actively, warning American citizens about it. FOIA continues to reveal clandestine ops including faked terror attacks that happened (and are probably still happening) all over the world. What does that have to do with Israel?
        nick_ 4mo ago
        Are you asking what A) the countries that meddle with US elections, and B) their relationship to the US, has to do with Israel, on this comment thread?
bell-cot 4mo ago
> ... because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace. > If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal ... Perhaps, but - talk to someone who's done PR work for startups. Ask them what it would take for an Israeli startup working on, say, home bagel-making machines to get the sort of world-wide media attention that any Israeli creep-tech firm can get - for free - by association with a few nefarious deeds.
- spwa4 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - r_lee 4mo ago
    yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...
  - gatlin 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - spwa4 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - bigyabai 4mo ago
        I don't think they contested your claim, but rather highlighted the hypocrisy.
    - dang 4mo ago
      Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - gatlin 4mo ago
Scroll_Swe 4mo ago
[flagged]
magic_hamster 4mo ago
There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Israelis never interact with Palestinians. To suggest that a sector of Israeli startups exists on the experience of people "suppressing Palestinians" is definitely biased, absurd, and is a slippery slope.
- Matl 4mo ago
  > There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory. Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians. So yes, it's very much related.
  - gwerbin 4mo ago
    > over Palestinian territory This could mean anything from a couple of ghettos to all of the modern state of Israel depending on what you think Palestinian territory is or should be. If you take the approach that all of it is Palestinian territory and the state of Israel shouldn't exist, then yeah, sure? that's different from the assertion that all of the intelligence related businesses in Israel are founded because of direct experience in conflict with the Palestinian people.
    - Matl 4mo ago
      > If you take the approach that all of it is Palestinian territory and the state of Israel shouldn't exist, then yeah, sure? You know there's such a thing as internationally recognized Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, right? Start with that, instead of deploying the 'do you want Israel to not exist' deflection tactic.
jmyeet 4mo ago
Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact. No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions. As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate. Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7]. And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht. Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird. It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOgm1IcBd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOgm1IcBd0 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) [3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/8/what-you-need-to-know-about-israeli-spyware-pegasus https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/8/what-you-need-to-kno... [4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-pegasus-project/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-... [5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240 [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device... [7]: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-pensioner-student-arrested-for-backing-palestine-action https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-pensioner-... [8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683
frankohn 4mo ago
In addition to this malware, which comes from an Israeli company and is used for the purpose of subverting democratic elections in foreign countries (we don't really know who mandated these interventions, but the target, John Swinney and fellow ministers, have been vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and have imposed a form of sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces by withholding state grants to arms firms that supply the IDF and freezing support for exports to Israel), they have also infiltrated some countries like the UK and US with very powerful pro-Israel lobbies acting behind the curtain by directly contacting prominent politicians. In the UK, the Israeli company Elbit Systems produces arms for Israel through its British subsidiary, which holds major Ministry of Defence contracts including the Watchkeeper drone programme (worth over £800 million) and the Jupiter training system (around £130 million) – sources: UK Companies House and MoD contract notices. People protesting for Palestinians at Elbit sites have been arrested: between 2020 and June 2024, over 140 arrests were made at more than 50 actions by Palestine Action, but police and court records show that no terrorism charges were filed, and the High Court rejected a legal challenge against policing of these protests in May 2024. Two main lobbies cover both major parties in the UK: Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel. In the US, a similar two‑party structure exists but with far greater financial power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC spent over $4.5 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, mostly to defeat progressive Democrats critical of Israel, including successfully spending $14.5 million to unseat Congressman Jamaal Bowman (source: Federal Election Commission filings). The Democratic Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition mirror the UK's Labour and Conservative lobby groups, while the US provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid – a sharp contrast to the UK's limited sanctions on the IDF. Unlike the UK, no US protester has been arrested under terrorism laws for actions against arms companies supplying Israel. In practice, Israel and Russia do similar things: they affect or subvert foreign elections by manipulating information and social media, and they directly influence politics via foundations, think tanks, and by cultivating politicians and influencers. For Russia, this includes organisations like the Russian House in Washington and sympathetic think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation – though the Heritage Foundation is American, Russian state media and proxies have actively courted its positions. Russia has also influenced figures like Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly echoes Kremlin talking points, and JD Vance, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine; no public evidence proves formal recruitment, but both have amplified narratives favourable to Moscow and JD Vance made a powerful endorsement of Orban, a corrupted pro-russian statesman, in the past election in Hungary.
Qem 4mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
yieldcrv 4mo ago
IDF conscripts astroturf on social media all day, and a lot of people do the same for free on behalf of the concept of Israel Don’t worry about the deflections and karma flagging censorship as consensus, because its not Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world, and think losing a perception game will result in their eradication perpetuated by everyone around them. This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that, so I can empathize, but not at the expense of fiction. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want the corrosive traits in their culture to be checked and go away. Put all those PhD’s that some people are so proud of into other pursuits.
- bulbar 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - yieldcrv 4mo ago
    > Independent of who is in the right there, they are losing the media war. Honestly, I like that nobody's getting fired anymore. I like that consensus has shifted on consensus-driven forums until the IDF conscripts wake up. Generations of that and nobody's opinion actually changed, people independently perceived the same things and speaking was merely suppressed by private sector and communities. Partially by our own governments too. Now the behavior of Israeli administrations and some settlers is all so indefensible that people can sort their thoughts out about things together, publicly. Even the astroturfing is disingenuous, people are saying the exact same points that Jewish Israeli protesters are saying towards their own government in Israel. But the fear of non-Jewish people flipping on them is even greater, so when we say the same things its paraded around as something that it isn't. Just get US out of it.
  - sosomoxie 4mo ago
    > Israel had to fight multiple wars to avoid extinction Israel should never have been created in the first place. Generally when people invade other's land and start ethnically cleansing it, they will come under attack from people practicing self-defense. In other words, 100% of hostility created from Israel is self-inflicted.
warumdarum 4mo ago
[flagged]
smashah 4mo ago
At this point just file it under "Tech-washing". As if Rudolph Höss' innovations in chemical and civil engineering somehow excuse Auschwitz. People need to start being clear about subversion and inhumanity exported from Israel and not attempt to bookkeep that against their B2B SaaS'. This demonic rhetoric would not be valid in any other circumstance.

by Matl 4mo ago

r_lee 4mo ago

there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research

bigyabai 4mo ago
Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...

inglor 4mo ago

Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway). Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc). There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.

Matl 4mo ago
> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. > There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
- 4gotunameagain 4mo ago
  > I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. Yes, they are trying their hardest with their actions to fuel a new way of antisemitism. Turns out if you are a religious fundamental colony that occupies territory based on the bible, that gives bad rap to the whole religion.
  - gwerbin 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Matl 4mo ago
      > It's not based on the Bible, it's based on where we know for a fact people actually lived under the Roman empire. If not just speculation based on a 4000 year-old mythical text, it's literal documented history. It's the invocation of a 'promised land', which even Israeli government officials use as a justification for their actions, that is based on (a reading of) the Bible, despite Israel being nominally a secular country. I don't think many dispute there was a significant population of Jews within the Roman Empire, many of which lived in the rough geographical area of present day Israel. I am not sure how any sort of present day 'inherent right' stems from that.

HappyPanacea 4mo ago

Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.

Matl 4mo ago
> why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately. Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out. I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'. One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias. It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible

ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago

The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.

bluealienpie 4mo ago
They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
- pipes 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
    National Socialists were capitalists.. You known that right? Not everything with socialsts in the name begets communism, they served Industry and Capital to the fullest and sought to crush any leftist cause. https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-hypercaptialism-social-darwinism-liberalism https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-...
    - brightball 4mo ago
      Hitler explicitly adopted socialist & anti-capitalist rhetoric early on had heavy state control of industry and price controls in place. Political extremist always pander to control the people who will listen to them, selling lies at worst or at best hope that depends on a lack of understanding of human behavior and economics to follow things to their natural conclusions. Nazis, Socialists, Marxists, and Communists are all authoritarian extremist who share the same values.
      - ai_fry_ur_brain 4mo ago
        The same as Israelis.

tdeck 4mo ago

Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.

trimethylpurine 4mo ago
Which government are you comparing to?
- Gud 4mo ago
  Any other small country? You rarely read about Finland spying on other nations, or trying to influence their politics. There is the AIPAC, I challenge you to find anything similar from any other country.
  - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Gud 4mo ago
      None of those groups funnel millions of dollars into American congress men and congress women’s pockets. You are being disingenuous.
      - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
        Nearly half a billion dollars in annual lobbying is attributable to oil money. It's okay for OPEC's foreign interests in your book, but you're focused on the tiny impact that Israel has. Saudi money good, Israeli money bad? What's up with that?
    - Lucasoato 4mo ago
      I don’t know man, never heard about Finnish people decimating a population, starving kids, subverting countries, toppling governments... I’ve been in Finland last year and they’re so nice.

pipes 4mo ago

[flagged]

gacgacgac 4mo ago
I think it's pretty objective. It's honestly possibly even a bit of a pro Israel framing given how passive and soft it is.

znpy 4mo ago

[flagged]

nick_ 4mo ago
Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
- trimethylpurine 4mo ago
  Is the UK a US ally? Is Japan? If you only focus on one country for some strange reason that you can't explain, people are going to notice. That shouldn't surprise you.
  - nick_ 4mo ago
    Does the UK or Japan engage in election meddling in the US?
    - graemep 4mo ago
      Not recently, but there are things like this: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50752217 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50752217 and there have been claims the UK interfered in American politics in about 1940 to get US support in WW2.
    - trimethylpurine 4mo ago
      Nearly every country does it, in nearly every other country. That's well known fact at this point. The US government is openly, actively, warning American citizens about it. FOIA continues to reveal clandestine ops including faked terror attacks that happened (and are probably still happening) all over the world. What does that have to do with Israel?
      - nick_ 4mo ago
        Are you asking what A) the countries that meddle with US elections, and B) their relationship to the US, has to do with Israel, on this comment thread?

bell-cot 4mo ago

> ... because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace. > If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal ... Perhaps, but - talk to someone who's done PR work for startups. Ask them what it would take for an Israeli startup working on, say, home bagel-making machines to get the sort of world-wide media attention that any Israeli creep-tech firm can get - for free - by association with a few nefarious deeds.

spwa4 4mo ago
[flagged]
- r_lee 4mo ago
  yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...
- gatlin 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - spwa4 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - bigyabai 4mo ago
      I don't think they contested your claim, but rather highlighted the hypocrisy.
  - dang 4mo ago
    Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - gatlin 4mo ago

Scroll_Swe 4mo ago

[flagged]

magic_hamster 4mo ago

There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Israelis never interact with Palestinians. To suggest that a sector of Israeli startups exists on the experience of people "suppressing Palestinians" is definitely biased, absurd, and is a slippery slope.

Matl 4mo ago
> There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory. Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians. So yes, it's very much related.
- gwerbin 4mo ago
  > over Palestinian territory This could mean anything from a couple of ghettos to all of the modern state of Israel depending on what you think Palestinian territory is or should be. If you take the approach that all of it is Palestinian territory and the state of Israel shouldn't exist, then yeah, sure? that's different from the assertion that all of the intelligence related businesses in Israel are founded because of direct experience in conflict with the Palestinian people.
  - Matl 4mo ago
    > If you take the approach that all of it is Palestinian territory and the state of Israel shouldn't exist, then yeah, sure? You know there's such a thing as internationally recognized Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, right? Start with that, instead of deploying the 'do you want Israel to not exist' deflection tactic.

jmyeet 4mo ago

Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact. No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions. As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate. Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7]. And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht. Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird. It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOgm1IcBd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOgm1IcBd0 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware) [3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/8/what-you-need-to-know-about-israeli-spyware-pegasus https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/8/what-you-need-to-kno... [4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-pegasus-project/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-... [5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240 [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device... [7]: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-pensioner-student-arrested-for-backing-palestine-action https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-pensioner-... [8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683

frankohn 4mo ago

In addition to this malware, which comes from an Israeli company and is used for the purpose of subverting democratic elections in foreign countries (we don't really know who mandated these interventions, but the target, John Swinney and fellow ministers, have been vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and have imposed a form of sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces by withholding state grants to arms firms that supply the IDF and freezing support for exports to Israel), they have also infiltrated some countries like the UK and US with very powerful pro-Israel lobbies acting behind the curtain by directly contacting prominent politicians. In the UK, the Israeli company Elbit Systems produces arms for Israel through its British subsidiary, which holds major Ministry of Defence contracts including the Watchkeeper drone programme (worth over £800 million) and the Jupiter training system (around £130 million) – sources: UK Companies House and MoD contract notices. People protesting for Palestinians at Elbit sites have been arrested: between 2020 and June 2024, over 140 arrests were made at more than 50 actions by Palestine Action, but police and court records show that no terrorism charges were filed, and the High Court rejected a legal challenge against policing of these protests in May 2024. Two main lobbies cover both major parties in the UK: Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel. In the US, a similar two‑party structure exists but with far greater financial power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC spent over $4.5 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, mostly to defeat progressive Democrats critical of Israel, including successfully spending $14.5 million to unseat Congressman Jamaal Bowman (source: Federal Election Commission filings). The Democratic Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition mirror the UK's Labour and Conservative lobby groups, while the US provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid – a sharp contrast to the UK's limited sanctions on the IDF. Unlike the UK, no US protester has been arrested under terrorism laws for actions against arms companies supplying Israel. In practice, Israel and Russia do similar things: they affect or subvert foreign elections by manipulating information and social media, and they directly influence politics via foundations, think tanks, and by cultivating politicians and influencers. For Russia, this includes organisations like the Russian House in Washington and sympathetic think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation – though the Heritage Foundation is American, Russian state media and proxies have actively courted its positions. Russia has also influenced figures like Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly echoes Kremlin talking points, and JD Vance, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine; no public evidence proves formal recruitment, but both have amplified narratives favourable to Moscow and JD Vance made a powerful endorsement of Orban, a corrupted pro-russian statesman, in the past election in Hungary.

Qem 4mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang

yieldcrv 4mo ago

IDF conscripts astroturf on social media all day, and a lot of people do the same for free on behalf of the concept of Israel Don’t worry about the deflections and karma flagging censorship as consensus, because its not Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world, and think losing a perception game will result in their eradication perpetuated by everyone around them. This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that, so I can empathize, but not at the expense of fiction. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want the corrosive traits in their culture to be checked and go away. Put all those PhD’s that some people are so proud of into other pursuits.

bulbar 4mo ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago
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- yieldcrv 4mo ago
  > Independent of who is in the right there, they are losing the media war. Honestly, I like that nobody's getting fired anymore. I like that consensus has shifted on consensus-driven forums until the IDF conscripts wake up. Generations of that and nobody's opinion actually changed, people independently perceived the same things and speaking was merely suppressed by private sector and communities. Partially by our own governments too. Now the behavior of Israeli administrations and some settlers is all so indefensible that people can sort their thoughts out about things together, publicly. Even the astroturfing is disingenuous, people are saying the exact same points that Jewish Israeli protesters are saying towards their own government in Israel. But the fear of non-Jewish people flipping on them is even greater, so when we say the same things its paraded around as something that it isn't. Just get US out of it.
- sosomoxie 4mo ago
  > Israel had to fight multiple wars to avoid extinction Israel should never have been created in the first place. Generally when people invade other's land and start ethnically cleansing it, they will come under attack from people practicing self-defense. In other words, 100% of hostility created from Israel is self-inflicted.

warumdarum 4mo ago

[flagged]

smashah 4mo ago

At this point just file it under "Tech-washing". As if Rudolph Höss' innovations in chemical and civil engineering somehow excuse Auschwitz. People need to start being clear about subversion and inhumanity exported from Israel and not attempt to bookkeep that against their B2B SaaS'. This demonic rhetoric would not be valid in any other circumstance.