[HN Gopher] Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New ...
___________________________________________________________________
Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and
Scotland votes
Author : pera
Score : 472 points
Date : 2026-06-13 07:45 UTC (15 hours ago)
HTML web link (www.reuters.com)
TEXT w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| Zealotux wrote:
| The israeli ambassador in France should already have been kicked
| out a while ago for a myriad of reasons, I'm ashamed my country
| is so spineless.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Europeans couldn't even get Israel out of a silly pop song
| contest, so it seems a bit hopeless to expect any actual
| political action.
| bflesch wrote:
| I'm pretty sure religious fundamentalists from all beliefs
| would love to get rid of Eurovision song contest. Excluding
| Israeli citizens from it hurts their moderates more than it
| hurts the hardliners.
|
| Ask Donald Epstein how they chose locations for Miss Universe
| during cold war times. They'd never exclude the countries
| they wanted to ideologically reform.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Excluding Israeli citizens from it hurts their moderates
| more than it hurts the hardliners._
|
| Nah, it hurts their public image and thus hardliners. Like
| similar actions against South Africa did.
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Whatever their rhetoric they desperately crave
| respectability, making Israel a pariah state a la 1980s
| South Africa would hurt them badly.
|
| Why else are they even trying to be in Eurovision and
| UEFA in the first place
| vkou wrote:
| Rogue states will attack Western democracy. It's a tale as old
| as... Well, actually, in the past few years, this one has done
| more on that front than all the others combined.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Is the USA finally doing something about foreign lobbyists here?
| Trump is like the ultimate tool here for foreigners to gain
| influence, no matter the country. Yuri explained this already in
| the 1980s (!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk
| (it's the KGB view, so biased too, of course, but if you extend
| it, then also connect it to Epstein, you have basically
| undermined democracy effectively; a shame Yuri is dead, he would
| have had a field day with "analysing" Putin).
| badgersnake wrote:
| Nope, the war in Iran is testament to that.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Nope, foreign lobbyists in the guise of AIPAC spent record
| amounts to primary Thomas Massie.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| OP is talking about American's here. AIPAC is made of and
| paid for AIPAC, like other political packs or other American
| groups. AIPAC is just Americans, doing the American political
| thing.
| stuaxo wrote:
| "Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for
| explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying
| to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."
|
| This is a very well executed bit of diplomacy.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Nonsense, it'll end up with merely some public head scratching
| and shrugs, and a "gee whiz monsieur, it sure is a mystery to
| us too".
|
| Interesting that whatever they wanted to do backfired in NYC.
| pera wrote:
| Here in Scotland it seems the desinfo campaign targeted
| mostly the SNP and Swinney. I guess it's hard to know how
| effective it was but his party lost 6 seats in last month's
| elections.
|
| https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26188090.john-swinney-
| ta...
| ebbi wrote:
| The same Israeli BlackCore that masqueraded as a humanitarian
| fund for Gaza and stole the money?
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-0...
|
| Lowest of the low.
| miroljub wrote:
| BlackCore? Yeah, those are these Russians meddling in elective
| all over the Europe and the USA.
| inglor wrote:
| As an Israeli this is shameful though I find it nowhere (company
| registry, news sites etc) locally so I wonder how they figured it
| out.
|
| If anyone is from here and is up for protesting this hit me up at
| username @ gmail
|
| (leaving any other politics I disagree with aside)
| breppp wrote:
| I am an Israeli and though I dislike this certain brand of
| companies and would never work in one, I am not sure this is
| strictly bad.
|
| I assume these were hired by a local candidate (unless someone
| can think who has a deep interest in French municipal
| elections)
|
| Currently the only actors who use fake social accounts for
| election manipulation are the Russians, Chinese, Iran and
| Qatar.
|
| The west is completely powerless in either fighting back,
| regulating social networks or coming up with a technological
| solution.
|
| As democracies are being undermined by foreign influence, from
| Brexit, to the US elections, I'd rather local parties would
| have access to these tools than the alternative, and that would
| be only done using private companies.
|
| Of course the better alternative is getting rid of fake
| accounts and making social media into a unicorn and bunnies
| hate-free zone, don't think we are headed there though
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Israel just buys the political support in the open instead.
| breppp wrote:
| I believe you are referring to Jewish citizens of the USA
| that are free to support whatever political candidate they
| see fit?
| shagmin wrote:
| I take it as referring to AIPAC, one of the most
| influential lobbying organizations in the US.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Let me guess, the wealthy Jews control the economy and the
| media?
| kelipso wrote:
| Repeating true statements in a sarcastic manner doesn't
| suddenly make them untrue statements.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| You guessed wrong. As far as I know, there's no such
| lobby, and I find your suggestion of its existence to be
| antisemitic. But the pro Israel lobby is quite open and
| public. Aipac's spending, for example, is public
| knowledge, and you can look it up for yourself.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French
| municipal elections
|
| The State of Israel? They are paranoid about their
| international standing. (Really, just paranoid in general, to
| an absurd and pathological degree, though for understandable
| reasons.)
| breppp wrote:
| That's doubtful, I don't think Israel has the resources to
| spend huge sums of money to invest in manipulating French
| municipal elections.. That's absurd
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Yes, it's an absurd and counterproductive use of their
| resources. But again, they are not a rational actor, they
| are paranoid and delusional
| breppp wrote:
| I would claim that people who subscribe to these kind of
| conspiracy theories are paranoid and delusional, but
| never mind
| Georgelemental wrote:
| _Someone_ spent the money to hire this firm. So no matter
| what, we know there is _some_ conspiracy theory about
| this that is true
| breppp wrote:
| That's not a conspiracy theory though, the fact that
| political parties during elections campaign try to
| influence voters, sometimes in morally questionable ways,
| is pretty well known and common.
|
| I had an issue with the idea that a nation in the Middle
| East is somehow interested in municipal elections in
| Europe as it somehow will advance its security
| interests... that's kinda way out there
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Much of the Israeli government believes that the entire
| world is out to get them; that every generation brings a
| new "Amalek" (as Prime Minister Netanyahu put it); that
| every Gentile anywhere in the world is at risk, if
| exposed to the right trigger, of waking up tomorrow
| wanting to start another Holocaust. Prominent Israeli
| politicians talk like this all the time. Here in the US,
| I see Zionists make similar arguments constantly ("Israel
| is the only country where Jews can be safe",
| "antisemitism is part of the European DNA", etc.).
|
| This (delusional, paranoid, insane) attitude is central
| to the national ideology, and the #1 reason why the
| country is so messed up.
|
| Because of it, they see any politician anywhere
| expressing any criticism of them whatsoever as an
| existential threat, someone who could turn into the next
| Hitler and genocide them all. That's why they just
| increased their PR budget to over $700 million.
| breppp wrote:
| > Much of the Israeli government believes that the entire
| world is out to get them; that every generation brings a
| new "Amalek" (as Prime Minister Netanyahu put it);
|
| Sorry to inform you but the idea that every generation
| breeds someone that will try to destroy the Jewish people
| is firm in Jewish religion (and with merit). That is
| repeated in every Passover. It is also based on quite
| firm historical grounds though.
|
| > that every Gentile anywhere in the world is at risk, if
| exposed to the right trigger, of waking up tomorrow
| wanting to start another Holocaust
|
| That's your interpretation, as for someone that is versed
| in the local language and culture, I think it is wrong
|
| > Here in the US, I see Zionists make similar arguments
| constantly ("Israel is the only country where Jews can be
| safe", "antisemitism is part of the European DNA", etc.).
| This (delusional, paranoid, insane) attitude is central
| to the national ideology, and the #1 reason why the
| country is so messed up.
|
| Like it or not, but Zionism has said that European
| antisemitism is pathological and will end in disaster for
| the Jewish people. That might be regarded as paranoid in
| 1932, but zionist jews were largely saved while other
| less paranoid Jews were completely exterminated in an
| actual real genocide.
|
| The message which you characterize as paranoid is quite
| easy for Israelis to understand as most of the country is
| descendent to refugees from genocide, ethnic cleansing or
| both
|
| > That's why they just increased their PR budget to over
| $700 billion.
|
| Sounds like a lot. In any case, I don't see how any of
| this explains Israel's obsession with municipal elections
| in France. But I guess it's a difference in axioms. Once
| you believe Israelis are insane, then you don't need to
| rationalize your own beliefs, even though they lack any
| logical ground
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > That's why they just increased their PR budget to over
| $700 billion.
|
| Million, not billion, sorry for the typo.
|
| ---
|
| Yes, the paranoia is for understandable historical
| reasons. It didn't come out of nowhere, I get that. Most
| paranoid people are paranoid due to real traumatic
| experiences that happened to them. But _none of that
| makes it any less harmful or destructive_. At worst, it
| becomes an endless cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy.
|
| (Israel is hardly the only example of an entire society
| going down this dark path. E.g. Germany: horrible
| traumatic experience of losing WWI -> paranoia, "we must
| have been betrayed" -> "the Jews did it" -> Nazism, the
| Holocaust.)
| breppp wrote:
| Well, conspiracy theories are easier to explain when they
| are based on non-logic and I guess they also bring
| comfort.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I would say that it is even more of a paranoid,
| delusional conspiracy theory to say that GP is subscribed
| to a conspiracy theory, or is paranoid or delusional
| Computer0 wrote:
| This is the most delusional take I have seen. Israel is
| known for their extensive spying and foreign influence.
| You sir are the absurd one.
| endofreach wrote:
| Ignoring the actual situation as I don't care to go into that
| right now, just talking about the mechanisms working with
| here. I did have access accidentally to buy cheap social
| stuff. Not that it would be hard to run it myself, just
| wouldn't be worth the effort to make it run well for
| controllably long time. But anyway, i didn't do anything with
| it, but i always thought, how do easy it would be for a
| competent, young, informed government, to realize
| counteracting the digital influence of foreignn governments
| is much more important than whatever else they prioritise.
| Exaggerated, maybe, but it should be at least top 3 or
| whatever exact position in ones priority list. Because
| especially: it's so easy, to spend a few thousand euros to
| hire some really competent people who might just pay some
| shady social account broker, now even with the use LLMs ,
| much more scalably & effectively, to counteract and do even
| better stuff than what they do.
|
| But then, remembering bernays, i am happy they are
| incompetent. The day they reach competency with the toolset
| that is yet in infancy, i will regret not having tried to
| control who is running this. On the other hand, you just
| can't risk doing this. It will lose your control eventually.
| And without being a conspiracy theorists, it won't be long
| until more pips (people in power) will notice the ease of
| influence- and propaganda (in bernays understanding, the one
| who rebranded it as public relations), through these tools.
|
| Luckily, i've never been in a knife fight. Though i've heard,
| that with an unskilled fighter, you have pretty bad chances
| of not getting hurt. But a skilled one is a death sentence.
| Of course i don't want to be attacked by a knife. And i don't
| want to take some other unskilled street gangster and train
| him. Of course, some people get humbled if introduced to
| power. But many corrupt. And those hungry for power, are
| rarely those, who should have it. This could be an hour long
| discussion. But just look around the people you know well.
| Maybe yourself in certain situations or relationships. Every
| humans has the potential.
|
| So what i think w
| drekipus wrote:
| world's most obvious honeypot
| Matl wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in
| green tech or medical research
| bigyabai wrote:
| Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...
| inglor wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Except Zionism is not religious. It is a modern secular
| nationalist ideology rooted in ethnicity, shared
| ancestry, history, culture, and language. Indeed,
| socialism dominated Zionism for a long time.
|
| Many if not most Israelis are not religious, and
| traditionally, religious Jews (especially the Orthodox;
| an extreme case is Neturei Karta) oppose Zionism and the
| State of Israel as a secular ersatz, believing that they
| must wait for the Messiah to restore Israel.
|
| Of course, in the last few decades, a faction of Zionists
| have commandeered the messianic for political purposes,
| but this is not the origin.
| bulbar wrote:
| The country Israel historically is based on the
| Holocaust, because when it came to light what the Nazis
| did, the political views regarding that topic shifted
| drastically and eventually resulted in Israel getting
| founded. The borders were defined by the wars that
| followed in the decades afterwards where neighboring
| countries tried to invade Israel.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| The country of Israel is based on western colonialism,
| taking advantage of the atrocities of WWII and the
| Holocaust.
|
| It was meant as a western foothold in the middle east,
| which is clearly the case now. In a despicable manner,
| Germany now is aiding and abetting the atrocities
| committed by the colony of Israel, as if two wrongs make
| a right.
| diffs wrote:
| This is false and ahistorical. Repeating the same
| sentiment, as is your wont, cannot change that it is
| factually incorrect.
| throw310822 wrote:
| You don't know your history. Zionism started in the late
| 19th century as a nationalist and colonialist movement;
| by 1917 it had already secured the support of the (soon
| to be) British administration of Palestine for the
| creation of a Jewish state there; mass immigration was
| already underway and flooded with hundreds of thousands
| of colonists a territory that had had almost no Jewish
| presence for a thousand years or more. Ethnic cleansing
| of the native population was already in the plans, as
| shown by the private diaries of the father of Zionism
| Theodore Herzl.
|
| When in 1948 the UN formulated its partition plan (i.e.
| the proposal to expropriate the Palestinians of half of
| their land to give it to the Jewish immigrants), the land
| that the proposal assigned to the Jewish state had a 45%
| Palestinian population, which the newborn state
| immediately proceeded to ethnically cleanse. Besides,
| Israel never formally accepted the borders of the
| partition plan and immediately set to conquer new
| territory (plan Dalet).
| diffs wrote:
| This is, of course, completely false. Zionism is the
| Jewish indigenous rights movement established in response
| to antisemitic atrocities--pogroms--in Europe. It has
| nothing to do with any kind of colonialism. Furthermore,
| it has succeeded. Israel exists and no amount of attempts
| to re-litigate Zionism or distort its history is going to
| change that.
|
| That's the thing about "anti-Zionism", it attempts to do
| the impossible--to go back in time and change the past.
| This is what makes it the domain of unreasonable
| individuals and thus, thankfully, rather rare on HN
| compared to places like Reddit.
| throw310822 wrote:
| Lol. While of course Zionism was conceived also as a
| solution to the persecutions that Jews were facing in
| Europe, it was born within the European ideology of
| nationalist movements of that period (which gave birth to
| several of the European nations of today) and of
| colonialism- also a widespread and uncontroversial
| feature of the time. Nothing specifically bad about
| Zionism in this respect, it's simply a product of the
| ideas of its time.
|
| All the rest, about Israel existence today, is
| irrelevant. We can recognize the mistakes of the past to
| at least understand how we got to this point and what's
| the best and correct way forward. It's not about
| reverting history but at least knowing it.
| diffs wrote:
| I suggest you begin with the mistakes made in the
| founding of your own country, I'm quite certain there
| would be plenty to learn from, as you say.
|
| It is disingenuous to pretend that you merely care about
| learning from the past when it is only one specific
| country's past you supposedly wish to learn from.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| The creator of Zionism, Teodore Herzl was very clear that
| it was a colonial project dependent on ethnic cleansing:
|
| > _We must expropriate gently the private property on the
| state assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the
| penniless population across the border by procuring
| employment for it in the transit countries, while denying
| it employment in our country. The property owners will
| come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation
| and the removal of the poor must be carried out
| discretely and circumspectly. Let the owners of the
| immoveable property believe that they are cheating us,
| selling us things for more than they are worth. But we
| are not going to sell them anything back._ (Theodore
| Herzl, 12 June 1895)
| throw310822 wrote:
| > it's important to note that the Israeli government does
| work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism
|
| This is definitely made easier by the fact that the
| arrogance, the endless lawyering, the shady dealings, the
| greediness, the constant switching between attacking and
| playing the victim, they all match to a tee the most known
| historical antisemitic tropes.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It's amazing how Trump and Bibi manage to embody the
| absolute worst stereotypes of their respective cultures.
| There's something almost Jungian about it.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| It's all Zionists. Israel has been like this since it's
| very inception. Every Zionist president in the US has
| abetted them.
| jdw64 wrote:
| Personally, I think you're going through a hard time. An
| individual and a country are different, but people do rely to
| some extent on the image of a country when judging an
| individual. I agree with your logic, so I'll give you an
| upvote
| bradleyjg wrote:
| No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has
| ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has
| spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for
| that matter.
|
| My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in
| its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The
| legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the
| very top level. The head of government has a Jewish son-in-
| law.
|
| Even online, I see much more pervasive criticism of my nation
| than yours.
|
| Yet, listen to Zionists and I'm practically living in Weimar
| Germany. That dog won't hunt.
|
| People have criticisms of Israel. They may be fair or unfair.
| Address them on the merits and leave the rest of us out it.
| It has nothing to do with Jews qua Jews.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| > My nation, the most powerful in the world,
|
| USA?
|
| > Yet, listen to Zionists and I'm practically living in
| Weimar Germany. That dog won't hunt.
|
| Yeah this is so detached from reality I have to ask how you
| arrived at this conclusion and consider reexamining the way
| you consume information. Both in my own personal impression
| and according ADL global index USA's antisemitism is a low.
| Because "Zionists" have pro-Israel bias they will perceive
| any one who support Israel positively, and no one support
| Israel more than USA, so they will likely view USA as
| positive further lessening negtive views.
| sudosteph wrote:
| It's hard to separate for some people. Unfortunately those
| people tend to be the worst on both sides
|
| In general, I think (or at least hope) your experience is
| the more common one. But fwiw I do have a Jewish friend who
| was personally cussed at and threatened by his own coworker
| explicitly for being Jewish (well, and probably because
| they were from Florida if I'm being honest, but there
| aren't as many slurs for that). The guy who did it was
| fired (whole thing was recorded iirc), nobody sided with
| him, he was clearly off his rocker in some way - but it
| doesn't take much to get shaken up - it sticks with you.
| And my friend was understandably, shaken up.
|
| I know that because I used to live in Seattle, and
| unfortunately I had a really scary experience of being
| threatened (he yelled "I'm going to kill you b****") and
| chased down by a homeless man for nothing other than being
| a woman on the same street as him. So I saw my own
| perspective shift when it happened first hand. I was no
| longer excited about living downtown in a big city after
| that experience.
|
| So what I'm saying is, neither me nor my friend took the
| experience and made it a defining thing. He still lives
| where he does, didn't blame the community or anything. And
| I'm back to taking public transit, talking to strangers on
| the sidewalk, and all the other stuff that comes with
| spending time downtown in a big city. But this time the
| city is Charlotte, my home city. It's probably not any
| safer than Seattle (maybe worse), but experiences shape
| perception, and I've always had really good experiences on
| Charlotte, including with homeless people. I could say it's
| because Charlotte has more police presence lately, or
| because there's not visible tent camps or open drug usage.
| But deep down, I know, crazy people are always gonna be out
| there, and the most trivial thing can make you a target.
|
| So I really get the pull by people who have experienced
| victimization like that to talk about it. You feel kinda
| crazy if you don't, because you are surrounded by people
| who say it never happens because they've never seen it.
| That was such a big part I think of the Floyd protests - a
| lot of white people lived in a bubble and didn't know how
| pervasive overly violent interactions with the police can
| be (though the ironic part is that a lot of white people
| still don't realize that they can also be targeted by
| police with just as much malice). Most American black
| people already knew first or second-hand that police
| brutality was real and not uncommon - but until it was
| undeniable on video, it was treated by others as if it
| never happened.
|
| So there's some honest middle ground somewhere, but the
| extremists are the one who have the most to gain from
| convincing people to believe otherwise.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| There's definitely antisemitism out there. Criticizing
| Israel is not part of it. The people that run to that
| ever. single. time. ought to be ashamed of themselves for
| crying wolf. They have no right to abuse the term and rob
| it of legitimate meaning because they don't have a good
| response on the merits.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I have stood up for Jews since I was a kid, often saying
| "I'm Jewish" when racists/antisemitic jokes were told and I
| have been called those things. I've heard people say all
| kinds of horrific stuff about Jews. In this very thread we
| have:
|
| "This is definitely made easier by the fact that the
| arrogance, the endless lawyering, the shady dealings, the
| greediness, the constant switching between attacking and
| playing the victim, they all match to a tee the most known
| historical antisemitic tropes."
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48515906
|
| "Large American investment companies that were also both
| founded by Jewish people. I'm sure it's just a coincidence,
| though" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48516750
| kombine wrote:
| > Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political
|
| We are more than two years into full-on genocide and you
| hesitate to be political? This position reminds me of many
| Russians who prefer to "stay out of politics" because there
| are "two sides" to the conflict and it's an uncomfortable
| topic for them.
| mhb wrote:
| Two years in and the incompetents running the IDF can't
| even manage to stop the population from increasing.
| Matl wrote:
| Is this the disgusting attempt to deny the Gaza genocide
| it sounds like?
| mhb wrote:
| "the genocide" LOL.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Your PM Netanyahu is a disaster. Your religious hardliners
| seem to love him.
|
| Even someone neutral to sympathetic can't help but look on in
| disgust at your PM and his supporters.
|
| Edit: The point being that it tarnishes everything that
| Israel does, and makes fault-finding way too easy.
| kombine wrote:
| Let's not pin it all on Netanyuhu, he is a good
| representation of his society.
| joxdosba wrote:
| It is an indisputable fact that when polled, most
| Israelis openly support genocide.
| timoshishi wrote:
| Can you provide these sources?
| joxdosba wrote:
| First google result https://www.haaretz.com/israel-
| news/2025-06-03/ty-article/.p...
|
| At least according to this study, almost all Israelis are
| monsters who openly support genocide.
| perpetualpear wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the results of a poll for
| actual genocide would be the same, but expulsion is not
| genocide. I really wish people would stop diluting the
| meaning of genocide at every opportunity.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Forced displacement and ethnic cleansing is a core
| component of genocide, you're making a distinction
| without a difference.
| devcpp wrote:
| Yet neither are sufficient to constitute genocide. There
| is possibly a difference, and there lies the key to
| claiming "most Israelis support genocide" based on
| evidence they support expulsion.
|
| Sorry to repeat what the other commenter said but it
| seems you had missed the point.
| srean wrote:
| Touche
| hirvi74 wrote:
| As is Trump for Americans.
| mhb wrote:
| What is shameful about the "military stuff"? Isn't that's
| what is protecting you from your neighbors and their patron?
| LightBug1 wrote:
| I didn't downvote you. You're Jewish (I stand side by side
| with Jewish brothers and sisters against Israel), you've
| expressed disagreements with the Israeli government. We're
| likely on a similar page then.
|
| However:
|
| > There are plenty of good things though - startups in the
| biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
|
| Besides the point. I truly won't touch anything from that
| Apartheid, gen0cideal state.
|
| c.f. the boycott of South Africa during Apartheid. Same
| principle.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Israeli designed/made chips are in phones, computers, all
| over the internet. Same with Israeli made software. Anyone
| using/posting to the internet is touching/supporting quite
| a few things from Israel.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| You are very intelligent......
|
| https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/mister-
| gotcha-...
|
| To be clear, the job of the ordinary citizen in this
| situation is not to opt out. I criticise China often and
| yet my phone has Chinese chips. Would you have me shut up
| about China?. And so it is with Israel.
|
| The job of the ordinary citizen is to do what they
| reasonably can to protest the gen0cidal, N'azi behaviour
| of its current administration with the support of a
| significant percentage of its populous.
|
| Given how the troubles have turned a significant number
| of the population into blood-thirsty land thieves, the
| country should be de-N'azified like they did to Germany
| after WW2.
|
| You're welcome.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| Nazis made rockets and medical advances. That didn't make
| Nazi Germany positive in any kind of way.
| gatlin wrote:
| I never understood this: the Palestinian children whose
| family and limbs are torn from them for Israeli sport are
| also Semites. It seems like the ultimate erasure to claim
| "antisemitic" for only Jews.
| tartoran wrote:
| European origin jews are not semites btw. Antisemitism is a
| misnomer, when they refer to antisemitism they refer to
| Jews only.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Etymologically you're correct that semites refers to [all]
| people from middle east and horn of Africa. But the label
| is from the European perspective, where it was used to
| refer to Jews. I'm sure that if they'd had a say in it,
| they would not have referred to themselves as Jews.
|
| But yeah, there is indeed some irony in the term
| "antisemitism" in the context you describe
| woodruffw wrote:
| There is no such thing as a "semite." It's an archaic
| racial category that 19th century German race science used
| since "anti-semite" sounds more scientific than "Jew
| hater." Consequently, that's why it's applied to Jews
| rather than a larger pseudoscientific racial group.
|
| (More broadly, "they're semites too" is the "Elon Musk is
| African American" of I/P discourse. You can recognize
| extraordinary human tragedy without re-using race science.)
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
| bluealienpie wrote:
| 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.
| watwut wrote:
| Did they? Like, which exactly?
| pipes wrote:
| Rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
|
| He later worked at NASA.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Don't say that he's hypocritical
|
| Say rather that he's apolitical
|
| "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
|
| That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun
| hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:
| This is fantastic. This is what I'm going to say next
| time I work on military tech.
| FeteCommuniste wrote:
| It's from the old Tom Lehrer song, "Wernher von Braun."
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I've never seen someone take it as a suggestion before.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
|
| Hypothermia research, sleep deprivation research, etc.
| really cruel stuff.
| crote wrote:
| Most of that stuff was just torture for the sake of
| cruelty. It lacked the scientific rigor needed to
| classify it as even remotely close to research, so most
| of the "data" collected is completely worthless.
|
| Turns out you can't do proper experiments when the
| subjects are also being starved and worked to death, when
| you lack a proper control group, or when you interpret
| all the results from a heavily racist perspective. And
| that doesn't even touch the completely nonsensical
| hypotheses yet.
| cluckindan wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
| Scroll_Swe wrote:
| Cant believe people like you get to vote
| yesbabyyes wrote:
| Apart from other mentions, they also did cutting edge
| research on nuclear power and weapons. Some of the
| scientists understood how massive an undertaking that was,
| however the political leadership apparently did not, or the
| world would look different today.
| lesostep wrote:
| The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by
| Konrad Zuse in 1938, and completed in 1941. It was the
| world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital
| computer. [c] Wikipedia
| breppp wrote:
| The Nazis were also obsessed with Zionism and were Pro-
| Palestinian, so?
| tdeck wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Which government are you comparing to?
| Gud wrote:
| 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.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| From https://www.opensecrets.org/
|
| Totals since 2016 Country Total Spending China
| $562,676,323 Japan $504,111,211 Liberia $432,968,270
| Saudi Arabia $421,890,448 Marshall Islands $382,012,024
| South Korea $363,237,700 Bahamas $293,205,139 United Arab
| Emirates $269,529,107 Qatar $269,260,794 Israel
| $215,168,616
|
| So for small countries UAE and Qatar(no surprise here,
| they just gifted 1 billion airplane to Trump)
| Matl wrote:
| This excludes US based groups lobbying for Israeli
| interests, which does not count under official spending
| by Israel, so it is not an accurate representation of the
| lobbying effort in the interests of Israel.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That seems like the categorically correct thing to do,
| for the same reason that (for example) a domestic Korean-
| American nonprofit that lobbies for Korean interests
| doesn't get counted as foreign money or influence.
|
| (Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent,
| whatever it is.)
| Matl wrote:
| > Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent,
| whatever it is.
|
| Agreed. Any lobbying that centers on the interests of a
| foreign country should IMO count as foreign lobbying, I
| have no problem in including Korean-Americans, Kenyan-
| Americans etc. in that too.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Well, so here's the question: what counts as the
| interests of a foreign country? AIPAC's entire lobbying
| stance is that its positions are _mutually_ beneficial to
| both the US and Israel, and this is the stance that every
| other national /ethnic affinity group in the US uses as
| well.
|
| Put another way: it seems very risky to allow the federal
| government to determine the propriety of political speech
| just because it happens to concern two (or more
| countries) at once.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The difference is the nature of the lobbying and the
| volume. Follow the rules.
|
| An egregious, non-controversial example of things going
| poorly is NYC Mayor Adams and Turkey. He basically
| accepted bribes and favors from the Turkish government
| and their proxies for specific actions.
|
| A "doing it right" example that wouldn't have been
| controversial until recently is Denmark. They mostly
| focus on direct diplomatic policy lobbying, and leverage
| consultants to promote mostly tourism. Their affiliations
| are known and registered. Now they hire K-Street
| lobbyists to influence policy objectives re: Greenland,
| etc.
|
| The difference is that when the papers found out about
| Adams being a crook... that didn't turn into accusations
| of racism and fomenting sectarian hatred. In the AIPAC
| example, there will be a both a legitimate visceral
| response from Americans and astroturf from lots of
| prominent people.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > The difference is that when the papers found out about
| Adams being a crook... that didn't turn into accusations
| of racism and fomenting sectarian hatred. In the AIPAC
| example, there will be a both a legitimate visceral
| response from Americans and astroturf from lots of
| prominent people.
|
| I think there's a much more parsimonious explanation for
| this: the average American doesn't know that much about
| Turkey, know very many Turkish people, etc.
|
| In contrast, the average American has been steeped in I/P
| and related proxy conflict news for their entire adult
| life. That, combined with the fact that the US has a
| large Jewish population means that there's a degree of
| salience to accusations around AIPAC that wouldn't exist
| if the equivalent Turkish-American political lobby
| entity[1] was caught bribing politicians.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Coalition_of_A
| merica
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's very different.
|
| I was adjacent to state level politics for a long time.
| The German, Korean and French economic development
| organizations would come around every now and again with
| promotional events coordinated with their embassy to
| promote partnerships and business opportunities.
| Sometimes they had lobbyists focused on general
| relationship building, more often for specific issues.
|
| The Israeli ground game is different. American PACs
| affiliated with or specifically "not affiliated with, but
| always talking about" Israeli interests show up at every
| level of government - a good friend is a town board
| member of a big suburban town and they call on him, and
| he refuses the contributions so will likely get
| primaried.
|
| The real difference is information awareness. There is a
| CRM somewhere the ground guys have access to, and
| relationships are cultivated and used. My buddy is being
| targeted becuase there's a good chance he'll be in the
| state legislature someday. There's a pipeline to get
| targeted American politicians to tour Israel for whatever
| reason. When critical attention is focused on this stuff,
| the reaction is fast and painful for the media outlet or
| political actor.
|
| The only thing close to this is China, who does similar
| stuff with a different playbook. They've been caught
| embedding agents of one sort or another in California and
| New York governments at a high level, as well as places
| like Florida or within government contractors with lower
| level people.
|
| Note that we've purged the FBI counterintelligence
| division, so the brazenness of the "bad" stuff will get
| worse - nobody is watching.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That doesn't sound very different to me. It sounds like a
| competent ground operation; nothing you've described even
| approaches impropriety of the kind FARA is intended to
| our political system against.
|
| (I also think this backfires spectacularly: there are now
| plenty of politicians running for office in the US on an
| explicitly "no AIPAC money received" line. That line
| clearly has pull with voters!)
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| This is a reference to Americans. Americans choosing to
| freely donate to groups/causes they support and Americans
| being involved in American politics.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| If the I in AIPAC stood for Italian they would call it a
| Mafia organisation.
| bugsense wrote:
| They actively export it. See Pegasus
| pipes wrote:
| "working to suppress Palestinians" isn't exactly a neutral
| observation, I'm not surprised you got accused of bias.
| gacgacgac wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more
| Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology
| and world peace.
|
| Meddling with foreign affairs is a well established practice,
| and that's just life.
|
| Israeli do that, North Koreans do that, Russians do that,
| Americans do that (think former CIA/FBI people, think Palantir
| etc).
|
| Highlighting that specific nation (Israel) for those practices
| while ignoring all other positive contributions (dumb example
| since we're on HN: Graviton processors came from Annapurna
| labs, an israeli company, and they gave the definitive push for
| ARM in the datacenter by proving it's effectively feasible and
| cost-effective) is borderline antisemitic.
|
| So yeah, you got called out and rightfully so (and you should
| really review your biases).
| nick_ wrote:
| Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| Does the UK or Japan engage in election meddling in the
| US?
| graemep wrote:
| Not recently, but there are things like this:
| 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 wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| 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?
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| You've lost me. I took your line of questioning as
| suggestive of the idea that this kind of spying behavior
| is somehow unique to Israel.
|
| It's not. And my larger point is that when someone hyper
| focuses and targets for grouping and prejudice a group of
| otherwise ordinary people, they shouldn't be surprised
| when they are called out for it.
|
| I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Feel free to
| clarify.
| yowo wrote:
| Maybe US OFAC has missed one particular state
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| Russians do not do that. It is contrary to our culture.
|
| There was a lord (knyaz) in old times who even warned enemies
| that he is going to attack them. Of course it is not as
| advantageous as a covert approach. But it is very Russian.
|
| When you hear otherwise it is those other entities targeting
| you, that's all.
| blks wrote:
| Russia's involvement with foreign assets is pretty well-
| documented. Maybe not on a hysterical level where someone
| believes Russian government stole elections in USA, but
| they definitely meddled and continue to meddle in affairs
| of neighbouring countries and EU, both through information
| campaigns and via direct actions and influence.
|
| Talking about stuff from early Middle Ages (kniazi), it has
| zero relevance to modern culture. Russia is anything but
| isolationist as it should be clear since 2014/2022.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Games three-letter agencies play are the same everywhere
| and have zero relation to the culture. 2016 meddling did
| happen of course. It was also negligible and led to a huge
| overreaction, extremely similar to the US meddling in
| Russian elections in 1996 where Clinton admin indirectly
| prevented Nemtsov from running by supporting unpopular
| Yeltsin (and NGOs did a ton of "work" which barely affected
| anything, the main reason Yeltsin won was Filatov running
| the campaign, oversized spending and collusion with the
| media aka Xerox affair, and the "admin resource" he had).
| moogly wrote:
| There are three options:
|
| 1. Israel is doing this in an outsized way compared to
| everyone else
|
| 2. Israel is extremely poor at doing it because it keeps
| getting caught
|
| 3. All the reporting is controlled by the antisemitic media
| conglomerates ruled by a shadowy council funded by Qatari
| money
|
| I expect you to deny 1, 2 is an impossibility to you, 3 is
| the most likely I'd hear even though it's highly reminiscent
| of something...
|
| Looking forward to option 4. I hope it's something more
| original than shouting "blood libel!".
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| False trichotomy 4. Small amount of people make sure to
| look and echo everything that paint Israel in bad light and
| this work, we know this work because this entire post is
| about a company (small amount of people) influencing New
| York and Scotland votes.
|
| Also it is entirely possible all 1+2+4 hold
| crote wrote:
| That's just option 3.
| moogly wrote:
| Seeing as billions upon billions of dollars goes into
| Israel's lobbying operations (including countless more
| from non-affiliated but pro-Israeli groups), that must be
| the least successful industry ever to be outclassed by a
| small number of random guys online.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > ... 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 wrote:
| Just take a car drive into Haifa. That tells you all you need
| to know about just how much innovation is happening in
| Israel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE4JOn54rWA
|
| You pass everything, submarine design firms, intel labs, the
| Baha'i temple. Every kind of innovation you want: materials
| science, microchips, to sanctuary from muslim massacres.
| r_lee wrote:
| yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...
| gatlin wrote:
| "sanctuary from muslim massacres" I hope you at least get
| paid to support genocide. Doing it for free would somehow
| be worse.
| spwa4 wrote:
| Read up on history of the Baha'i, and you'll see it's
| exactly what I said it was.
| bigyabai wrote:
| I don't think they contested your claim, but rather
| highlighted the hypocrisy.
| Scroll_Swe wrote:
| Some personal questions for you then,
|
| Where do you live?
|
| What colour is your skin?
|
| Thank you.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| gwerbin wrote:
| I genuinely wasn't sure what GP meant.
|
| Maybe I have a wrong read on the situation between Iran
| and Israel. But my impression is that Israel is more
| concerned with Iran as a general threat, moreso than they
| are concerned that Iran will intervene on behalf of
| Palestinians, current Palestinian territory, or Hamas.
|
| If Iran didn't get involved directly after ~2 years of
| open warfare and inarguably genocide-shaped atrocities
| carried out on civilians, what are they waiting for?
| Meanwhile Netanyahu has been talking about the danger of
| Iran developing nuclear weapons for decades now.
|
| Keep in mind I was responding to a post about an
| assertion that there are so many military startups in
| Israel because so many Israelis, in their IDF service,
| have hands-on experience fighting against and oppressing
| Palestinians. I responded to a post that seemed reductive
| and misleading in support of that perspective.
| Matl wrote:
| > my impression is that Israel is more concerned with
| Iran as a general threat
|
| Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first. As
| for their 'proxies' they only really exist because Israel
| has invaded Lebanon long before Hezbollah existed and its
| creation was spearheaded primarily by Lebanon's local
| population as a response to the invasion, with Iranian
| support.
|
| Iran supports these local 'proxies' because it sees
| itself as a leader of the Shia and more broadly as a
| leader of the Muslim world and the Palestinian cause as
| being the responsibility of every Muslim nation (incl
| theirs) to get involved with.
|
| Israel is indeed concerned with Iran as a threat, but
| only because they see the other governments in the region
| as willing to overlook the Palestinian cause, in exchange
| for economic links with Israel.
|
| In that sense Iran is very much connected to the
| Palestinians, this assertion that Iran is just super
| irrational and wants to see Israel go down because they
| want to laugh watching it or something is nothing more
| than cheap Israeli propaganda.
|
| Of course Iran is not just looking for the Palestinians
| out of altruism, they want a leadership position in the
| Muslim world and this is their way of gaining legitimacy,
| but the reason why Israel sees them as a threat is very
| much because of Iran's interest in the Palestinians.
| breppp wrote:
| > Iran has never attacked Israel unless attacked first
|
| Iran was involved in attacks against Israel and Israeli
| towns in the 1980s and 1990s by their mercenaries in
| Hezbollah and direct IRGC presence in Lebanon. This
| happened even when Israel supported Iran during the Iraq-
| Iran war, so this is strictly not true
|
| Other incidents were the Iranian bombings of the Israeli
| embassy in Argentine or the Jewish center there, and
| attempts on the London and Bangkok embassies
|
| Furthermore financing of Hamas during the 1990s suicide
| campaign with the direct goal of derailing the peace
| process.
|
| This is part of a long line of Iranian aggressive actions
| that have led them to being isolated and in a string of
| wars that greatly destroyed their already diminished
| economic power
| Matl wrote:
| > in the 1980s and 1990s
|
| Except Israel invaded Lebanon before that. It also
| engaged in assassinations, espionage, terror and sabotage
| before that. In fact Israelis engaged in those even
| before the state of Israel was officially pronounced.
|
| I'm not saying the Iranians or Lebanese etc. never play
| dirty, but this portrayal of them as just irrational and
| aggressive for no reason whatsoever against their peace
| loving Israeli neighbors is just dishonest.
|
| For one, neither the Iranians, nor the Lebanese are
| occupying foreign territory. The same cannot be said for
| the Israelis.
|
| Israelis will say they invaded Lebanon in the 70s/80s
| because of the PLO, (no Hezbollah yet) however the PLO
| was itself a consequence of Israeli occupation of
| Palestinian territory.
|
| In conclusion; there's a fairly simple way to disarm the
| Iranians and strip them and their proxies of any
| perceived legitimacy they may hold with anyone; stop
| occupying Palestine.
| gwerbin wrote:
| You're doing the same thing you're accusing the other
| person of.
|
| The PLO was not an inevitable force of nature, it was an
| organization that consisted of human beings, making
| conscious decisions.
|
| The British took Palestine from the Ottomans and handed
| it to the state of Israel. Maybe morally it's an
| occupation, but if so then the USA is occupying Hawaii.
| breppp wrote:
| > Except Israel invaded Lebanon before that. It also
| engaged in assassinations, espionage, terror and sabotage
| before that. In fact Israelis engaged in those even
| before the state of Israel was officially pronounced.
|
| That is moving the goal posts, as these are not instances
| of attacking Iran, it's hard to claim Iran never attacked
| Israel first when it is either financing attacks against
| Israel or participating in them for the last 45+ years
|
| > Israelis will say they invaded Lebanon in the 70s/80s
| because of the PLO, (no Hezbollah yet) however the PLO
| was itself a consequence of Israeli occupation of
| Palestinian territory.
|
| Back when the PLO was founded there was no "foreign
| territory occupied by Israel", only internationally
| recognized Israeli borders and Gaza/West Bank which were
| under Egyptian/Jordanian occupation. Two countries that
| refused to create an independent Palestinian state
| breppp wrote:
| Iran is not strictly "an obstacle" to Israeli hegemony. Its
| ideology since the 1970s clearly states the destruction of
| Israel as its goal. It clashed with Israel over Iran's
| desire to set up a Shia vassal state in Lebanon and it
| killed Jews and Israelis all over the world through terror
| (e.g. AMIA bombing in Argentina)
|
| The Palestinians are merely a tool for Iran to gain
| influence, Hezbollah and Shias in Iraq were far more
| important for them historically
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> Iran is not strictly "an obstacle" to Israeli
| hegemony. Its ideology since the 1970s clearly states the
| destruction of Israel as its goal._
|
| you say that as if israel doesn't have the exact same
| ideology against iran (it does)
| breppp wrote:
| > you say that as if israel doesn't have the exact same
| ideology against iran (it does)
|
| What are the parallels in Israeli society for Iranian
| school systems morning chants of "Death to Israel" and a
| public countdown clock to the destruction of Israel?
| tptacek wrote:
| Well that and the fact that Iran is (was) the other peer
| military adversary in the region, with forces deployed on
| Israel's border, and with a longstanding declared intent of
| eradicating Israel.
| ifwinterco wrote:
| Everything is israel is and always will be related to
| palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their
| land
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
|
| [3]: 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-...
|
| [5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240
|
| [6]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
|
| [7]: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-
| pensioner-...
|
| [8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683
| tptacek wrote:
| This is just cringe conspiracy stuff. Selling CNE tooling is
| a business (I don't know how big you want to call it) all
| over the world. Israel is not a global headquarters for it.
| frankohn wrote:
| 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 PS800 million) and the Jupiter training
| system (around PS130 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 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
| yieldcrv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of
| the entire world
|
| Could be, because within the lifetime of their parents and
| grandparents, Israel had to fight multiple wars to avoid
| extinction and just before that came the Holocaust.
|
| > think losing a perception game will result in their
| eradication perpetuated by everyone around them.
|
| Which is not totally unrealistic. Countries depend on their
| relationships with other neighbors and Israel in particular
| has relied on their relationship to the Western world.
|
| It's sad they have had an extremist government for quite some
| time now.
|
| Independent of who is in the right there, they are losing the
| media war.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > _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.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of
| the entire world [...] This is due to a 1,000 year history of
| exactly that
|
| Actually it goes way further. It seems that a large part of
| Jewish religion and culture is centered on the idea of being
| persecuted. A quick list goes from the Egyptian slavery, to
| the attack by the Amalekites, to the Babylonian destruction
| of the First Temple, to Haman's plot to exterminate Jews in
| Persia... and we're still at the book of Esther, 5th century
| BCE. The list goes on and on. Each of these is commemorated
| in a religious or civil ceremony: Passover, Purim, Hanukkah,
| etc.
|
| This is to say, Judaism is built around grievance. And
| grievance in turn, if kept unchecked, is dangerous because it
| can justify unethical behaviours that are seen as reparatory.
| zby wrote:
| I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for
| the company or good?
| trolleski wrote:
| A shocker!
| WhatsName wrote:
| I predict that this will be flagged very soon. I would love for
| HN to publish some data on likes/flags, even anonymous IDs with
| some infos like account age and number of posts. Sure someome
| will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but
| I don't buy that.
| inglor wrote:
| We've had discussions about this sort of stuff before.
|
| As an Israeli (note the article exposing them is Israeli too) I
| was not aware until I saw this and I definitely intend to
| protest/organize about this (though to be fair I've been
| protesting about other stuff in the past and the climate here
| sucks).
| free652 wrote:
| >Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are
| political, but I don't buy that.
|
| Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about
| politics. The comments section will be predictable and it will
| be flagged for that.
|
| Do you disagree?
| WhatsName wrote:
| I do not disagree that there is a political aspect to this
| article. Todays news on Fable and Mythos are political too.
| HN has plenty of political articles, yet some are more
| flagged than others.
|
| I claim there might be a pattern of supression. Are arguing
| against my main point that it would be good to have more
| transparency so I can support or refute my claim?
| bluealienpie wrote:
| The purpose is support enterprises which have investment in
| genocide, the free speech nature of this website was always
| questionable at best.
| free652 wrote:
| >I claim there might be a pattern of supression.
|
| Do you want to count how many times words like nazi,
| genocide, terrorists appears in comments section about
| Anthropic vs here? Do you see the difference?
|
| But I am going to point to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Blackcore isn't a startup. It was already covered
| everywhere in the news. So there is no need to post yet
| again.
| tclancy wrote:
| It's sort of a classic in any place where more than a
| couple of people gather to talk: "political" as a
| pejorative doesn't mean "about politics", it means "I don't
| like the direction this is heading". The obvious example is
| the American Right telling athletes to "stick to sports"
| but then howling and crying when an athlete gets blowback
| for uttering some loony right wing view.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| > Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally
| about politics.
|
| Sure it's about politics, but it's also about tech. The
| _intersection_ of politics and tech is a fascinating area, of
| great interest to many folks on HN, and probably within HN 's
| charter.
|
| I think that merely touching on politics should not be
| grounds for flagging a submission, even when the specifics
| are highly controversial (as in this case).
| free652 wrote:
| >Sure it's about politics, but it's also about tech.
|
| Can you point me how was the tech used in this article
| about *tech* and politics. I didn't see anything.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Ctrl-F "digital"
| croes wrote:
| UK's censorship and surveillance is also political.
|
| Do they get flagged?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Just because something is political and is flagged, does not
| mean it was flagged _because_ it was political.
|
| HN has plenty of unflagged political topics.
| mentalgear wrote:
| Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone,
| BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is
| run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.
| bflesch wrote:
| Black, like Leon Black of Epstein fame
| FeteCommuniste wrote:
| Also Black Cube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
| myth_drannon wrote:
| There are 2 billion people who pray to Black Stone... I will
| let you decide if it's evil or not.
| sourcegrift wrote:
| Muslims are the most peaceful people on earth and islam is
| literally the most peaceful religion. The penalty for
| apostasy is death.
| jongjong wrote:
| It's disturbing to think that there are people getting paid huge
| amounts of money by governments, using taxpayer money to f around
| with politics of other countries... Meanwhile I've been trying to
| raise a $100K seed round for my startup which I've been working
| on for 14 years during nights and weekends... and I never even
| made it the interview phase of a tech incubator. WTF is wrong
| with people?
| yowo wrote:
| What a surprise..
| dmix wrote:
| Article is very light on details
| eunos wrote:
| I'm surprised that they dare to target NYC. I think NSO Group
| restricted Pegasus so that no US adversary would be retained as a
| client and the US would not be targeted.
| smashah wrote:
| Doesn't matter anymore. Through Palantir they will be targeting
| us all. All because they insist on continuing the Holocaust of
| the Palestinains. They can't even allow us to be mad about it.
| Truly a subversive destroyer of freedom, privacy and democracy.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I confused BlackCore with Black Cube, a different Israeli private
| oppo research and dirty tricks group of former intelligence
| agents. They gained attention for their dirty campaigns against
| Harvey Weinstein's accusers, NSOs critics and Hungarian
| opposition.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Not to be confused with Blackrock or Blackstone, both large
| American investment companies with their own shady operations.
| lostlogin wrote:
| And don't forget Blackwater.
| Carbon1603 wrote:
| Is this the same company that Slovenia was asking the EU for help
| with regarding the company's meddling in the election process?
| sourcegrift wrote:
| Lol. Just use reddit. No need for creating new platforms
| sghiassy wrote:
| ... and if you're against Israeli firms against meddling in our
| elections, you're somehow accused of antisemitism
| kava962 wrote:
| I always thought this was a new thing until I read The Palestine
| Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein. Over more than 50 years Israel
| has developed a global export industry around military,
| surveillance, and security technologies that were developed and
| tested through its control of Palestinian territories, and that
| these technologies are then marketed and sold worldwide. Buyers
| are often bad actors that use it to kill and suppress other
| populations including in Armenia/Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Rwanda
| genocide, authoritarian governments and many other examples cited
| in the book.
| soerxpso wrote:
| Is the "meddling" just running campaign ads? I don't really see
| how an election where voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads
| funded by foreign governments is less legitimate than one where
| voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads funded by local
| organizations.
| muwtyhg wrote:
| You don't see a difference between local and foreign
| organizations influencing an election?
|
| Most countries only allow citizens to vote. By your logic, they
| should let anyone vote, because what's the difference between a
| citizen and a foreigner when it comes to elections?
| hereme888 wrote:
| I recommend leaving out the name Israel out of titles, or you'll
| attract the anti-Israel/Pro-Hamas to pollute the comments section
| with politics and hate.
| aaa_aaa wrote:
| Trust me it is hard for your uncle to be "not" anti Israel
| nowadays.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-06-13 23:00 UTC)