Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes
reuters.comAs a New Yorker this doesn’t shock me too much. The level of “Mamdani is an anti-Semite” sentiment I saw online (Reddit particularly) felt truly hysterical. And wasn’t matched by any equivalent in the offline world.
There has been a significant rise in antisemitic hate crimes in NYC - a 70% increase YoY for the month of May based off NYPD report:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-898305
But HN will downvote me for showing stats that antisemitism is on the rise.
Did they categorize anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests as antisemitic hate crimes like the universities did when they reported similar numbers? Do you agree with that categorization?
Whilst that was certainly my gut reaction, looking at the report, they only count actual felonies where charges are laid. Protests and anti-Israel rather than antisemitic things do actually appear not to be conflated.
However... Between 2013 and 2016, when that rule came into play, reported hate crimes rose 18.9%.
This seems to be less a giant jump upwards, and more a slow and gradual increase. Concerning, but not the end of the world. Unsurprising in an environment where "hate the foreigner" is en vogue for the political elite.
I’m glad to see antisemitism doesn’t have the sting it used to have. It’s been a shield to hide behind while doing the most abhorrent things. The world is waking up.
In most western countries it is the only true suppression of free speech, as the state will mobilise it's full force against someone, no matter their position or spuriousness of the claims.
Show me a single article about "antisemitism on the decline".
Is anti-semitism on the rise, or is the bar on the ground?
Unless you're claiming the bar has been lowered from last year - the answer is it's clearly on the rise.
New account made just for this comment is always suspicious.
Look - the correct amount of hate crime is always 0 but using a percentage masks the amount of crime that comes from noise. Hate crime is not evenly distributed - no crime is - and a rise from 10 to 20 per month in a city of 8.5 million is not the cataclysm you're acting like it is.
Again: no hate crime is good and this increase is an unalloyed ill. It's something that deserves attention and NYPD resources, as well as public campaigns.
The last thing I want is anyone to be attacked for their religious beliefs.
But the fact that this talking point is heavily botted is indicative of broader initiatives to make sure it stays a talking point disproportionately to its impact.
You’re an account created 30 minutes ago.
So? Does that change the reported NYPD stats?
They should mettle in Central European votes to get the Lefties and Arabs out.
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.
Not to be confused with Blackrock or Blackstone, both large American investment companies with their own shady operations.
And don’t forget Blackwater.
"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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Israel literally owns that contest. By what reasoning could the EU force the owner of a silly song contest to exclude their own country?
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.
>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.
Whatever their rhetoric they desperately crave respectability, making Israel a pariah state à la 1980s South Africa would hurt them badly.
Why else are they even trying to be in Eurovision and UEFA in the first place
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.
Is this the same company that Slovenia was asking the EU for help with regarding the company's meddling in the election process?
Not quite. That was Black Cube, a second Israeli spy firm accused of election meddling: https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-golob-slovenia-eu-pro...
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.
They think they can do whatever they want. And thus far, they have been right about that.
The current US administration would have likely been in favor of it. Long term it’s a bad idea but it wouldn’t be the first time we saw groups like this only thinking about the short term.
Article is very light on details
I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for the company or good?
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.
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.
They actively export it. See Pegasus
There are dozens of firms around the world, including several in the US, doing exactly the same thing.
Looks like several in israel, like the one described in the article.
Which government are you comparing to?
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.
If the I in AIPAC stood for Italian they would call it a Mafia organisation.
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)
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.
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.)
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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_America
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.
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!)
This is a reference to Americans. Americans choosing to freely donate to groups/causes they support and Americans being involved in American politics.
there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
> ... 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.
[flagged]
That last swipe was religious flamebait and that is not allowed on HN, so please edit it (and anything like it) out of your posts here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: this is excessive and abusive: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... HN is no place for conducting religious battle. Please do no more of this here.
(And yes, in case that is wondering, this applies equally regardless of which religion and who is doing it.)
yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...
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Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.
The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
The Nazis were also obsessed with Zionism and were Pro-Palestinian, so?
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.
Did they? Like, which exactly?
Rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
He later worked at NASA.
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
Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.
This is fantastic. This is what I'm going to say next time I work on military tech.
It's from the old Tom Lehrer song, "Wernher von Braun."
I've never seen someone take it as a suggestion before.
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.
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
Hypothermia research, sleep deprivation research, etc. really cruel stuff.
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.
Cant believe people like you get to vote
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-...
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.
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.
> 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
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.
> 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).
Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
Maybe US OFAC has missed one particular state
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.
Does the UK or Japan engage in election meddling in the US?
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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 (князи), it has zero relevance to modern culture. Russia is anything but isolationist as it should be clear since 2014/2022.
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).
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!".
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
That's just option 3.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
Hi, I see you've been consuming The Narrative.
It turns out Hezbollah and Hamas are not Persian and don't speak Farsi. Hamas are Sunni.
Most importantly, both groups exist as a direct result of Israeli persecution of their civilian populations. They weren't created by Iran, they're a predictable result that happens when you occupy people's land and oppress them, you get resistance groups.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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
> 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.
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.
> 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
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
> 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)
> 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?
Everything is israel is and always will be related to palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their land
"working to suppress Palestinians" isn't exactly a neutral observation, I'm not surprised you got accused of bias.
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.
Some personal questions for you then,
Where do you live?
What colour is your skin?
Thank you.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
This is false and ahistorical. Repeating the same sentiment, as is your wont, cannot change that it is factually incorrect.
> 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.
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.
It's all Zionists. Israel has been like this since it's very inception. Every Zionist president in the US has abetted them.
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.
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
European origin jews are not semites btw. Antisemitism is a misnomer, when they refer to antisemitism they refer to Jews only.
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.)
What is shameful about the "military stuff"? Isn't that's what is protecting you from your neighbors and their patron?
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
> 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.
Two years in and the incompetents running the IDF can't even manage to stop the population from increasing.
Is this the disgusting attempt to deny the Gaza genocide it sounds like?
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.
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.
Nazis made rockets and medical advances. That didn't make Nazi Germany positive in any kind of way.
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.
OMG, really?! Well then, because they did all those beneficial things, then I'm fine with Israel bombing hospitals, schools, and killing children by starving them while they sleep on the pile of rubble that was their home!
/S
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.
Let's not pin it all on Netanyuhu, he is a good representation of his society.
Touche
As is Trump for Americans.
It is an indisputable fact that when polled, most Israelis openly support genocide.
People justified their anti-Muslim hate after 9/11 with similar statements about polls saying most Muslims saw Bin Laden in a good light, and have anti-West views.
Not saying I agree with any of it, but I find the parallels illuminating. If anyone wonders why there's more anti-semitism now, s/he can perhaps compare it with how all Muslims are condemned as being members of a barbaric sect after any terrorist attack (yes, even attacks where the perpretator doesn't claim to be doing it for Allah).
Hold on, you're doing a little gymnastics here. People are very deliberately talking about Israel being in favour of the genocide, and quite understandably saying that their government should not be supporting Israel - with "not supporting" meaning anything from BDS to simply not handing billions of dollars to them. Some of the most vocal and strident supporters of this are Jewish. The groups attempting to connect the genocide to Judaism are the US, British and Israeli governments & news media - who are all broadly pro-Israel.
Additionally the anti-Muslim hate was not "ah let's very justifiably cut ties with some mad country" it involved widespread and open islamophobia, calls for mass deaths and indeed invasions of muslim-majority countries.
The two situations are not remotely alike
What do you get when you poll Gazans?
Can you provide these sources?
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.
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.
Forced displacement and ethnic cleansing is a core component of genocide, you're making a distinction without a difference.
Most pro-Palestinians support the expulsion of Jews from that same area.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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
What a surprise..
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.
Also Black Cube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
Black, like Leon Black of Epstein fame
… and if you’re against Israeli firms against meddling in our elections, you’re somehow accused of antisemitism
A shocker!
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.
Quite revealing when this comment has been getting downvoted. I guess some people support the fact that some people dishonestly raise money for a humanitarian cause and then steal that money.
Lol. Just use reddit. No need for creating new platforms
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?
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.
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).
>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?
> 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).
>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.
Ctrl-F "digital"
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?
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.
>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.
The purpose is support enterprises which have investment in genocide, the free speech nature of this website was always questionable at best.
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.
UK‘s censorship and surveillance is also political.
Do they get flagged?
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).
Nope, the war in Iran is testament to that.
Nope, foreign lobbyists in the guise of AIPAC spent record amounts to primary Thomas Massie.
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.
BlackCore? Yeah, those are these Russians meddling in elective all over the Europe and the USA.
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.
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)
world's most obvious honeypot
Mother of all honeypots!
If our press was honest, every story you heard about Russia would have been about Israel instead. Israel is overwhelmingly America's worst enemy and they distract from that by pretending Russia/Iran/China/Qatar is. No other country blackmails our politicians or steals so much of our money, military resources, soldier lives as much as Israel. There's no close competitor even.
Yet we're never told that explicitly and it's never framed as the abusive relationship that it is.
Makes you really wonder who the press works for.
Russia has been weaponizing disinformation for over 100 years. You are comparing a tiny country to a former superpower. I am amazed by the frequency of comments on the Internet that need to make this comparison, somehow simultaneously relying on antisemitism and downplaying what Ukraine is going through.
Actually, maybe I'm not that surprised. Using Jews as a scapegoat has been a pretty common tactic in older Russian disinformation too.
Anti-Zionism is not equivalent to antisemitism, this deceitful rhetorical trick needs to stop if you actually care about Jews. There are many Jews that oppose Zionism, and many Zionists who are not Jews
That, too, is a classic Russian disinformation line, from Soviet times actually where the word antizionism gained international usage, as a barely hidden legitimized alternative to antisemitism.
Maybe you don't mean it that way, but if you are going to choose to use the word, you don't get to deny how it has historically been used.
Its a small unimportant beachstrip only weirdos and islamo supremacists obsess over.
'islamo supremacists', but not jewish supremacists? The ones just spontaneously moved into a land where people already lived 75 years ago aren't responsible?
Literally DARVO.
is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as abusers, narcissists, or sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Research indicates that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.
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.
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?
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.
Trust me it is hard for your uncle to be "not" anti Israel nowadays.