Israel Politics and News Thread

He makes sense... a rare job... well done... on the medium...

Some 20 Israelis sold missile technologies illegally to an "Asian country".

https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-israelis-suspected-of-illegally-making-selling-missiles-to-asian-nation/

That unnamed Asian country is China.

China already has such missile. It could be North Korea. Other Asian nations can buy such things directly to Israel. It look like loitoring drones.

Isos wrote:China already has such missile. It could be North Korea. Other Asian nations can buy such things directly to Israel. It look like loitoring drones.

China also has fighter aircraft and yet they buy Su 35s from Russia in order to reverse engineer Russian products.

Israel has a history of selling weapons to China both on and off the record.

They buy what they don't have to copy the technology. The missile they show on picture are simple and already build in China.

On the other hand north koreans would love to have a loitoring munitions.

Big blast at rocket factory .

It's kicking off in Israel/Palestine

Hmas issued an ultimatum for the Israelis to withdraw from Al Aqsa mosque and Sheikh Jarrah area. There were protests and riots in the area for days already, presumably over new settler landgrabs

First rocket salvos have been fired

ATGM strike by Islamic Jihad/ al Qassam Brigades (unclear)

https://mobile.twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1391776354241323008

https://mobile.twitter.com/LebUpdate/status/1391773867727859723

Crowds cheering in Jerusalem as the rockets fly overhead

https://mobile.twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1391774140336648198

More rockets

https://mobile.twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1391775749259026435

Knesset evacuated, military drills suspended, public bomb shelters have been opened in Southern Israel.

https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1391774074955763722

This whole thing will just fizzle out soon same as always

It's like Korea, we all know they are just dickwaiving and everyone stopped giving a **** decades ago

PapaDragon wrote:
This whole thing will just fizzle out soon same as always

It's like Korea, we all know they are just dickwaiving and everyone stopped giving a **** decades ago

Na shit's getting real

PapaDragon wrote:
This whole thing will just fizzle out soon same as always

It's like Korea, we all know they are just dickwaiving and everyone stopped giving a **** decades ago

If by fizzling out you are holding this current round of fighting to Middle East standards then yes maybe

But will be interesting to see if Hamas has adapted better to the realities on the ground by adopting Hezbollah style tactics

Preliminary conclusions
* Hamas is using the early stages of a conflict to exhaust Israeli Air defense systems by using its pimped up firework rockets

* Hamas can overwhelm Iron Dome by sending large barrages of (heavy) rockets to a certain target

* Hamas wil likely not be willing to see Gazan infrastructure be completely destroyed a thirs/fourth time

(they issued an ultimatum yesterday and then issued another one this afternoon, very weak)

* Israel seems to be holding back in its response

* Everything as expected on the world stage

--

137 rockets fired towards Ashkelon in ~5 minutes

https://mobile.twitter.com/HananyaNaftali/status/1392088471024635904

https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1392075969465290753

First Israeli casualties

https://mobile.twitter.com/ynetnews/status/1392096949646540804

JohninMK wrote:Thought it worth a thread of its own as its all change by the look of it as Israel heads towards the unknown, both in terms of the new political situation and relationships with the Palestinians.

Woe, just wow. The plans of Netanyahu are now dust, his era is over, next stop his trial and the risk of jail on the horizon.

Disclose.tv
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JUST IN - PM Netanyahu ousted as Lapid and Bennett agree on cabinet formation, according to Israeli media.

Bennett will serve first as PM until 2023 when Lapid will take over until 2025. Swearing-in to take place in 10 days, following an announcement of the new government (JPost)

This is the second time Netanyahu pulled this kind of stunt. When the opposition tried to make a coalition government with the Arabs against him several years back he just caused a major conflict in the Gaza Strip and rallied most of the population behind him. He even built that stupid wall turning Gaza into an open air prison. He thought he could just repeat the same thing again this time. Well, it seems he failed. I would not be surprised if there was a lot of backroom dealing here we never heard anything about.
You should remember that before Hamas started the missile artillery barrages they used an anti-tank missile against an Israeli target. I suspect that is why Israel this time did not sent the tanks in. Well that and the fact that Hezbollah might take the chance to attack them at the same time.

The 'Assad must go' curse has struck again

Netanyahu: Israel would risk 'friction' with US over Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he's prepared to risk tension with the US if that is what it takes to neutralize Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Tel Aviv: The embattled premier, whose political future is in question just 11 days out from a bruising war, said Israel's biggest threat remains the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.

He said Israel is prepared to prevent that from happening even if the United States and other nations succeed in reinstating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord.

"If we have to choose, I hope it doesn't happen, between friction with our great friend the United States and eliminating the existential threat — eliminating the existential threat” wins, Netanyahu said.

He spoke at a ceremony for David Barnea, the new chief of Israel''s Mossad spy agency.

Iran has accused Israel of being behind a number of attacks killing Iranian nuclear scientists or sabotaging Iranian nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu's comments come amid ongoing talks in Vienna between nations seeking to update and reinstate the 2015 agreement, in line with President Joe Biden''s campaign promise. His predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018 and imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The deal places curbs on Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for relief from crippling economic sanctions.

Netanyahu staunchly opposes the agreement, arguing that it does not have enough safeguards to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Israel also says the deal must address Iran's support for militant groups, its military actions across the region and its development of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and says the nuclear deal should be reinstated without any changes.

Netanyahu spoke about Iran on Tuesday as his rivals in the Knesset huddled to try to form a coalition government that would end Netanyahu's 12-year rule.

The developments come amid a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas'' militant rulers in the Gaza Strip after a brutal 11-day war that killed more than 250 people, most of them Palestinian.

Hamas, which opposes Israel's right to exist and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the U.S. and other Western countries, receives millions of dollars of military aid from Iran each year.

https://www.dtnext.in/News/TopNews/2021/06/01225123/1298106/Netanyahu-Israel-would-risk-friction-with-US-over-.vpfa

Pegasus’ Maker Reportedly Got Extensive Support From Israeli Government in Selling Spyware Abroad, by Ilya Tsukanov for Sputniknews. 20.07.2021.

The Israeli security software maker is at the center of an international scandal after media investigations revealed that at least 50,000 phones, including those of 600+ senior politicians and officials and hundreds of journalists, had been targeted by its military-grade spyware.

The Israeli government was heavily involved in pushing NSO Group’s Pegasus software to foreign state clients, and even intervened directly in situations where the cybersecurity giant showed hesitation to do so, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has reported, citing half-a-dozen officials and businesspeople said to be familiar with the situation.

Unnamed executives from Israel’s ‘offensive cyber industry’ told the newspaper that the Israeli government heavily lobbied for its cyberweapons firms, especially NSO Group, during now former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s formal state visits and secret trips to other countries, with company representatives believed to have secretely accompanied him during some of the outings.

NSO Group would not have been able to sell its products, whose export is regulated by the Defence Ministry, to countries like Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has no formal diplomatic relations, unless Tel Aviv allowed them to do so.

One senior official told the newspaper that “Israel marked Saudi Arabia as a strategic target” for an aggressive spyware marketing campaign in 2017, with Tel Aviv reportedly considering Riyadh to be a ‘moderate’ force in the Arab world and actively seeking to exacerbate the Gulf kingdom’s tensions with regional rival Iran, which is also a key strategic adversary of Israel's.

“This is a project that the Defence Ministry was involved in, the desire was to coddle and indulge the Saudis of our capabilities,” the official said in reference to the campaign. “That’s how Cellebrite and NSO got to sign such big deals with the Saudis,” the source added. Cellebrite is a cybersecurity hardware maker which produces devices capable of cracking phones, and reportedly inked a major contract with Saudi Arabia’s police forces.

A second senior official said Israel sought to “arm the Saudis” with its spyware tech, including Pegasus, amid Tel Aviv’s quiet efforts to normalize relations with Riyadh and other Gulf sheikdoms.

A third official, who also requested that their identity be withheld, told the newspaper that Saudi Arabia deserved Israeli help via spyware sales amid “serious threats from Iran and its different terror cells and proxies.”

Just Business

One person said to be present at a 2017 tech event in Cyprus where NSO Group demonstrated its products recalled the company’s showcasing of its zero-click hack capability to Saudi officials, during which a freshly-bought iPhone was hacked using only its phone number. “They went to discuss it amongst themselves. You don’t need to know Arabic to understand that they were in awe and super excited from what they saw – it was clear that this was what they were looking for,” the person said.

Riyadh reportedly went on to purchase NSO software in a $50 million multi-year deal.

One of the officials indicated that the outsized power of Israel’s cyber industry in proportion to the country itself gives it a “relative advantage” which it could trade with other intelligence services.

A CEO from an unnamed Israeli company told the newspaper that there were times when the government openly pressured companies to sign contracts to export their offensive cybersecurity capabilities abroad. In one instance, the businessman said, the United Arab Emirates offered his/her company $40 million for its cyber solutions. The company refused, only to have an Emirate representative ask whether it would “help” if they talked to “Bibi” Netanyahu about the request.

Another businessman said an official acting on behalf of the Israeli government had asked them to “take the deal” with one country because “it helps Israel’s security.”

Responding to the newspaper’s reporting, the Israeli Defence Ministry confirmed that the government was “in charge of overseeing the sale of cyber tools from Israel,” and added that “a number of considerations” are taken into account, among them defence and security deliberations, as well as diplomatic and strategic ones, when it comes to military exports.

The ministry maintained however that “Israel authorizes sales of cyber tools only to official state organs and law enforcement agencies that are committed to make use of it according to the terms of fighting terrorism or serious crimes.” Such a commitment, it said, is “stipulated in terms of use.” The ministry further stated that “the state of Israel does not have access to the information and data collected by NSO’s clients.”

NSO Group has similarly suggested that its software is made strictly for the purposes of fighting crime and terrorism, that its products have saved “tens of thousands” of lives, and has offered a blanket rejection of the wave of reporting on the potential illegal use of its products.

Sources speaking to The Guardian partially corroborated the statements made by Haaretz’s state and business sources, with anonymous sources telling the British newspaper that Saudi Arabia was temporarily cut off from being allowed to use Pegasus in 2018 after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but had its access to the software restored in 2019 following pressure from the Israeli government.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202107201083425175-pegasus-maker-reportedly-got-extensive-support-from-israeli-government-in-selling-spyware-abroad/