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On November 3, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the launch of an Israeli technology company, NSO Group. The decision to add the company to the list of organizations that act in violation of US national security or foreign interests was significant.
In a statement on the subject, the Department of Commerce stated: “[there is] evidence that the agencies created and provided spy programs to foreign governments that used these tools to harass government officials, journalists, businesses, freedom fighters, students, and staff at the embassy. These tools have also contributed to the repression of foreign governments, which is the practice of oppressive governments that fight opponents, journalists and human rights activists to stem their tensions. This practice violates international law. ”
However, the Israeli government and the NSO decided to view the issue as a problem of public relations and not as a problem of human rights and to try to alleviate it. The company tried to look bold and published the phrase “feeling overwhelmed by the idea”. It then sent a “secret” letter to the Israeli government, which was “lost”, asking for help for the US government to suspend their registration and save hundreds of Israeli workers.
The Israeli government, for its part, also tried to involve itself in other destructive activities. On November 25, Israeli journalists publicly announced the decision by the Ministry of Defense to suspend cybertechnology from 65 other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and many more. not so; the ministry has only added one legitimacy – the need for a permit to start negotiating exports with these countries – in a non-disruptive way.
None of these destructive attempts seem to have worked. Moody’s NSO was downgraded and warned that it was in imminent danger, as US technology giant Apple pushed ahead with a lawsuit against the company for targeting iPhone users.
Indeed, black enrollment in the US could be a game changer, the beginning of a strong US response to the challenges that screening companies bring to social and democratic societies around the world.
Organizations such as Amnesty International, Citizen Lab, Forbidden Stories, Access Now, and many journalists and freedom fighters around the world, from India to Mexico and Hungary, to Israel, have long been ringing bells for the NSO and other spy companies, expects government officials to work. the US and elsewhere can listen when making decisions.
In doing so, the protesters are accused by the NSO and its allies of being false and even part of the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic campaign. There are also fears that they will be sued by a powerful company with huge sums of money to pay for expensive lawyers.
For us, Israeli freedom fighters, there has also been a barrier to convincing the people of Israel of the dangers of deterrent practices, as most Israelis accept 24/7 Israeli Israeli surveillance under Palestinian occupation under occupied territories.
Although the United States has suspended the NSO and the success of government agencies, I am also ashamed of the Israeli parliament and courts that have refused to regulate the companies overseeing or overseeing the security ministry’s operations.
For years the Knesset has avoided the literal discussion of export permits in disputed countries or under dictatorial regimes. It did nothing about the Ministry of Defense’s refusal to share much of its foreign intelligence technology.
In 2015, together with MK Tamar Zandberg (current minister of environmental protection), I co-authored an amendment to the 2007 Law for Oversight of Defense Exports, which prohibits exports of security to countries under United Nations ban. We quoted the statement on US “Leahy’s law”, which prohibits the provision of US military aid and exports to governments and security forces that violate human rights with impunity.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense and Foreign Affairs have opposed the merger of Israeli law with US law. Subsequently, Knesset failed to accept the request.
Repeated attempts by the Israeli human rights activists, which I was with, to expose the Ministry of Defense’s involvement in genocide and assassinations, and to suspend export permits to non-democratic governments through Israeli cases. systems also failed. Instead, we were constantly confronted with gaslights.
Judges and government officials constantly tried to make us believe that we were crazy or foolish, and that if we were not already part of the anti-Israel movement, we would unknowingly be transformed into one party. In a civil case involving an armed robberate in a civil war, a Supreme Court judge questioned who was receiving our money and who was issuing the document; instead, the judge of the medical court sought to make it clear that we were not part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions group.
Despite the embarrassing and frustrating criminal cases, we continued to complain because this was a way to show solidarity with the growing list of victims of Israeli intelligence and weapons technology, and because we had hoped to succeed. We succeeded in not doing so, as the defense ministry decided to ban all security exports to Myanmar at the end of 2017.
But we could not embarrass ourselves either. For example, in June, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the ban on the sending of Cellebrite to Russia, which was used to crack down on members of the opposition Alexey Navalny. The judges used the opportunity to block future appeals by ruling that Israeli courts have no jurisdiction over export security.
Without cooperation from the Knesset and the courts, it has been difficult or impossible to enforce changes in domestic policy within Israel. This is why the idea of the US Department of Commerce is so important. It puts the necessary external pressure on the Israeli authorities, who may have been shocked by the enrollment of illegal immigrants.
Apart from that, they have been used extensively to prevent interference from the US in their export policies. Probably the only major conflict between the US and Israeli governments over the issue occurred in the late 1990s, when the latter sought to supply Phalcon aircraft to China. Eventually an agreement was reached, which barred the supply of Israeli-made weapons to Beijing and imposed a law requiring the US to allow exports.
For everything else, the US has been paying close attention. The policy goes back to the Cold War, when successive US governments were pleased with Israel performing Washington’s atrocities and providing military capabilities to dictatorial regimes that met with US sanctions or reduced aid.
For example, the Israeli government and the Reagan authorities have strongly agreed in the case of Iran-Contra, which saw Israeli secrecy of arms sales to ban Iran. Recent reports in recent years show that US officials were aware of Israel’s training and shipment of weapons to dictatorial regimes, such as the Armed Forces of Argentina and Chile in the 1970s and 1980s, but did not try to stop them.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, US intervention on Israeli security was not clear, especially if it seemed to favor China and Russia or various dictatorships.
One has to wonder why the Clinton administration did not stop sending weapons from Israel to Serb troops in the war in Bosnia. Why was Israel allowed to continue providing weapons, surveillance systems and training to the Myanmar military to the point of killing all the people in Rohingya? Why did Israel manage to sell Cellebrite machines in Venezuela, Belarus, Russia and China? So why is Israel continuing to provide security equipment to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni as his government attacks the US and criticizes its ambassador for interfering in the general elections?
The big question now is whether the US will stand in the NSO or whether it will radically change its policy and move away from the Cold War strategy and ideology. If the NSO survives the blacklist and Washington fails to develop its actions against the uncontrolled stock of spyware, then this could only foster a sense of unpredictability within the industry and the arrogance of the Israeli Defense Ministry, whose employees often want to include in smart retirement companies. . from government services.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Al Jazeera.
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