Why did Israel refuse to sell the Pegasus software to Ukraine?

[dlk]

Inquiring minds would like to know. Would this be connected to Israel’s reticence to openly support Ukraine in the current war with Russia?

[PoliticAverse]

1. "Israel, Fearing Russian Reaction, Blocked Spyware for Ukraine and Estonia"

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/pegasus-israel-ukraine-russia.html

KYIV, Ukraine — The Israeli government rejected requests from Ukraine and Estonia in recent years to purchase and use Pegasus — the powerful spyware tool — to hack Russian mobile phone numbers, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Israel feared that selling the cyberweapon to adversaries of Russia would damage Israel’s relationship with the Kremlin, they said.

Both Ukraine and Estonia had hoped to buy Pegasus to gain access to Russian phones, presumably as part of intelligence operations targeting their increasingly menacing neighbor in the years before Russia carried out its invasion of Ukraine.

But Israel’s Ministry of Defense refused to grant licenses to NSO Group, the company that makes Pegasus, to sell to Estonia and Ukraine if the goal of those nations was to use the weapon against Russia. The decisions came after years of Israel providing licenses to foreign governments that used the spyware as a tool of domestic repression.

Israel's actions towards Ukraine are apparently affected by Israel's desire not to piss off Russia because Israel is depending on Russia's continued cooperation in Syria.

[JohnSJ]

3. The fact is various U.S. government agencies have the license for the software, and one has to

believe if we are truly supporting Ukraine, which I believe we are, we are supplying the necessary information to Ukraine.

I do not think it is a coincidence that multiple Russian generals have been killed, and a Russian ship destroyed with intelligence information from the U.S. and other Ukraine allies

[Budi]

11. some commentators..wanted to find a scapegoat for Ukraine's suffering. Rather than focus on Russia"

"..some commentators in the West wanted to find a scapegoat for Ukraine’s suffering. Rather than focus on Russia, they set their analysis on the country some of them always have a knee-jerk obsession with: Israel."

POST #10

The fault is with Russia & only Russia.

Why didn't NATO....
Why didn't Biden ...
Why didn't Israel...
Why didn't Germany...

Why did all these the blamers help elect Donald Trump? The fate of Ukraine was apparantly already laid out, with the only thing left to fulfill Putin's wishes was the seating of Trump.

Get the US out of NATO
Destroy Ukraine.
Who helped set this unholy act of treachery in motion by seating Trump?

Its an easy answer really. We all watched in horror as it went down.
2016 was the ballgame.
Warnings were flat out Ignored.

Israel isn't the problem. But Israel is the scapegoate for Media to run with because they surely cannot blame Russia.
$$$$$$

[PoliticAverse]

12. The fault may be with Russia but the solution is in getting countries to help Ukraine.

Zelenskyy frequently comments on the lack of assistance from certain countries, do you think that means he doesn't also blame Russia?

[Budi]

13. Its who the commentators fail to blame wholly for the atrocious genocide in Ukkraine

Iron Dome defense system is far more complicated than the commentators either care to report or care to educate themselves on.

Russia is the sole cause of this.

Post #10 explains the complication far more realistically than the simplified version we are fed by media either ignorant to the facts or intentionally leading the blame in another direction than where it began. Russia.

[Celerity]

2. Cuz they are in cahoots with Russia, those were 2 of the main 6 nations who interfered in 2016

Six nations hatched a plot to elect Trump. The plot was hatched in 2015; the nations involved were Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt. The leaders of these countries were all involved.

Three of these six nations—Russia, Israel, the UAE—had infiltrated deep into the Trump campaign by March 2016: Russia through Dimitri Simes; the UAE through Yousef al-Otaiba; Israel through Kushner, Groner, and Birnbaum. The campaign understood the plan these nations had.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216474439#post60



one of the articles from that link:


Exclusive: Jeffrey Epstein’s investment in an Israeli start-up reveals a myriad of links to Donald Trump and Israeli spies.

https://narativ.org/2019/07/27/building-big-brother/

It’s been thirty-two years since the “Pollard Affair” pierced the seemingly impenetrable façade of U.S.-Israeli relations. Now, two suspected Israeli agents are in jail – indicted on separate charges of sex trafficking of minors. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on July 6 and charged with trafficking minors across state lines. George Nader – a key witness for Robert Mueller – was arrested last month for possession of child porn and transporting a minor for sex from Europe.

Epstein and Nader share a personal network that includes Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Erik Prince, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and his UAE counterpart, Mohamed Bin Zayed. But their association goes further than powerful friends and proclivities for teenage boys and girls. Epstein and Nader are believed to be agents for Israeli Intelligence. Narativ has independently confirmed with two separate sources who were in a position to know that Epstein worked for Israeli military intelligence.

Both men also have ties to a burgeoning Israeli tech sector which is bringing Mossad-style military intelligence to the private sector and endangering the global balance of power. The Haaretz newspaper has previously reported that Epstein, who was Donald Trump’s friend through the ’80s and ’90s, partnered in an Israeli start-up alongside former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Barak is seeking to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime Minister in the upcoming re-run elections scheduled for September. Since 2015, he has been the front-man for Carbyne, an Israeli start-up which purports to be a high-tech solution for 911 emergency call centers, but the platform’s architecture and investors raise serious privacy concerns. Narativ undertook an extensive investigation into Carbyne, and can now reveal a myriad of troubling connections between the start-up and people connected to Donald Trump.

snip

Ukrainian-born Viktor Vekselberg is close to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen. He’s been in business with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for 5 years.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (center) with the three co-founders of Carbyne (formerly Reporty). Alex Dizengof, Amir Elichai and Lital Leshem. All four are tied to Israeli military intelligence or cybersecurity.

A rare photo of Joel Zamel obtained by Narativ (center), Erik Prince of Frontier Resource Group (left) and George Nader (right). All three men attended a meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. on August 3 2016 to discuss a social media manipulation plan by Zamel’s Psy Group.

[dlk]

4. Did Israel sell Pegasus licenses to Russia?

So many unholy alliances… (Jeffrey Epstein was literally in bed with everyone.)

[JohnSJ]

5. Highly unlikely. Russia has their own software for spying and hacking. We do know the FBI has it

because they acknowledged it.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/feb/02/fbi-confirms-it-obtained-nsos-pegasus-spyware

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

[Celerity]

9. This is correct.

[Celerity]

7. Russia never uses foreign-made spyware, the FSB is super paranoid, but Israeli spy firms sell

globally to a tonne of bad actors.

Here is a very long article with a tonne of detail.



The Full Story behind the NSO Hack: The Israeli-Military-Allied Surveillance Industry and Transnational Repression

https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-full-story-behind-the-nso-hack-the-israeli-military-allied-surveillance-industry-and-transnational-repression/

snip

More than NSO: The Israeli Cyber-Surveillance Industry

The media outrage involving the NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware misses the broader picture of an Israeli offensive surveillance industry encompassing hundreds, possibly thousands, of cyber companies. Several Israeli surveillance firms have been the subject of research by centers like Citizen Lab, Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and Privacy International and the Haaretz newspaper. While the NSO Group has been engulfed in scrutiny and lawsuits over the last few years, many others continue to operate in secret while some received their fair share of scandal.



The Israeli firm Black Cube drew international attention for allegedly working for the Trump Administration to discredit Obama Administration officials who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, and for gathering information on behalf of client Harvey Weinstein about the women who had been sexually assaulted by him. Another company, Psy-Group, conducted social media influence and manipulation campaigns, elaborate false identities to manipulate targets, smear operations, honey traps, and secretive HUMINT (human intelligence) activities in the United states, including Project Butterfly to spy on and embarrass and intimidate Palestinian rights activists. The company shut down in 2018 following its implication in the Mueller investigation into Russian election interference for pitching psychological operations (hence the name Psy-Group) and social media manipulation campaigns to the Trump team in 2016 in order to influence election results.

A secretive Israeli company, Quadream, operates a spyware technology called Reign, which like Pegasus has zero-click capabilities to infect smartphones and gain access to all data and documents stored on the phone as well as control over the camera and microphone. However, unlike Pegasus which maintains the ability to destroy the spyware if it is being abused, Reign cannot be remotely turned off. This additional feature may be the reason why the Saudi regime has been working with Quadream since 2019, in addition to its deals with the NGO Group. Archimedes Group operates political campaigns on social media and was caught using fake accounts and spreading disinformation in order to influence and disrupt elections in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. An investigation by Facebook revealed that Archimedes spent some $800,000 on fake ads between 2012 and 2019.

The Israeli company, Verint Systems, sold software to Azerbaijan and Indonesia that were used to track and arrest LGBTQ+ individuals and activists and religious minorities. Verint products were also sold to Bahrain and used for surveillance and collecting information from social media sites, and to South Sudan, Peru, and Columbia where they “were used for eavesdropping on regime opponents.” Cellebrite offers services to retrieve data deleted from devices and was used in Belarus, Hong Kong, and Russia to target pro-democracy activists including Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Even US schools are using Cellebrite software to unlock student phones. An NSO sister company, Circles Technologies, sold services to UAE’s Supreme Council for National Security which kept tabs on and intercepted conversations of members of the Qatari royal family, the editor of the Qatari Al Arab newspaper, and other Qatari citizens. Circles also sold capabilities to Nigerian governors ahead of the 2015 elections to monitor rivals and their family members and to arrest regime critics. Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest military company known for manufacturing weapons and technologies used in attacks against Palestinian civilians, supplied the Nigerian government with espionage programs while Cyberbit, formerly part of Nice Systems and acquired by Elbit Systems, sold spyware to Ethiopia and was used against dissidents in the United States and Britain. Candiru, which is another secretive Israel-based company that sells spyware exclusively to governments, sold remote spying software to Saudi Arabia, Hungary, and Indonesia, among others. It’s not only the Israeli companies that are involved in these digital transnational repression operations, but veterans of the Israeli Unit 8200 that focuses on military intelligence operations are also moving on to other surveillance companies around the world, employing and spreading their repressive military skills. For example, Abu Dhabi intelligence firm, DarkMatter, is known for recruiting Unit 8200 graduates and offering them high salaries and beachfront accommodations in Cyprus.



The examples are numerous and too many to list. These firms are knowingly involved in selling offensive military-grade cyber surveillance systems and weapons to non-democratic and oppressive regimes around the world for use against innocent citizens, critics, and activists. This intricate web of Israeli military-grade surveillance companies represents a worrying growing trend of Israeli intelligence firms that are self-described as “private Mossads” but are essentially connected to the Israeli military intelligence units and often intersect on many levels and work closely together.

Mossad for Hire: Industry Ties to the Israeli State Military Apparatus

Israeli spyware companies like Archimedes, Black Cube, Candiru, Carbyne, Cellebrite, Cyberbit, Elbit Systems, NSO Group, Psy-Group, Quadream, Toka, Verint, White Knight, Wikistrat, among many others, have been selling surveillance technologies around the world for years. What these companies have in common is that they are trained by the Israeli military and sanctioned by the Israeli state. The majority of their founders and personnel are graduates of Unit 8200, an intelligence unit of the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), sometime referred to as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps or the Israeli SIGINT (signal intelligence) National Unit (ISNU). According to a study cited by Haaretz in 2018, 80 percent of the 2,300 people who founded the 700 Israeli cybersecurity companies at the time came from IDF intelligence units.

snip

[anamnua]

6. I have lost a lot of respect for Israel during this crisis.

[dlk]

8. Really appreciate all of the information from everyone

There’s no shortage of bad actors.

[Budi]

10. "The endless ignorance of tying Ukraine needs to Israel's Iron Dome "

"some commentators in the West wanted to find a scapegoat for Ukraine’s suffering. Rather than focus on Russia, they set their analysis on the country some of them always have a knee-jerk obsession with: Israel."

Jerusalem Post World News
The endless ignorance of tying Ukraine needs to Israel’s Iron Dome - analysis
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN Published: APRIL 4, 2022 22:39
Updated: APRIL 5, 2022 16:30


Israel couldn’t supply Iron Dome to Ukraine, because Israel has never supplied the system abroad, except to the US.

When the Ukraine war broke out, after Russia’s vicious and unprovoked invasion of the country, some commentators in the West wanted to find a scapegoat for Ukraine’s suffering. Rather than focus on Russia, they set their analysis on the country some of them always have a knee-jerk obsession with: Israel.

The commentary on Ukraine became about why Israel wasn’t doing more for Ukraine. This was odd, considering Israel had condemned the invasion and was helping Ukrainians. The condemnation of Israel shifted to complaints that Israel wasn’t sending its famous air defense system Iron Dome to Ukraine.

This critique hasn’t ended despite a month of war and numerous articles that have pointed out why the Iron Dome system isn’t the right air defense system for Ukraine.


The story about the potential for Ukraine to acquire the Iron Dome broke in mid-February. But most of those who made comments about it since then have never actually read the reports about Ukraine’s request, and most of them know nothing about the Iron Dome. Their comments are driven both by ignorance, and also a dyed-in-the-wool hatred of Israel.

It is true that, according to reports, Ukraine did seek air defense systems from the US last year. According to these reports Ukraine wanted Patriot and Iron Dome and other systems. The US never transferred the systems.

Raytheon says on its website that “in 2019, the US Army announced its intent to buy two Iron Dome batteries to fill a need for an interim capability. Given interest by the US and several other nations in Iron Dome’s unique capabilities, Raytheon Missiles and Defense has debuted the SkyHunter air defense system in cooperation with Rafael. Based on Iron Dome, SkyHunter can be produced in the United States to expand availability and capacity for the US and its allies.”


The reports about the Ukraine request for Iron Dome makes it seem like Israel prevented sales of the system to Ukraine. However, the US doesn’t sell expensive air defense to Ukraine, and neither do European countries. If it was true that Israel was some standout here, then Ukraine would have had access to Western air defense systems for years.

HOWEVER, THE West kept Ukraine out of NATO and kept it from acquiring all of the air defense it needed. Iron Dome only came up later. Unsurprisingly Israel couldn’t supply Iron Dome to Ukraine, because Israel has never supplied the system abroad, except to the US.


This is no minor point. Israel doesn’t sell Iron Dome all over the world, at least not yet. It was complicated enough just to supply the US with a complex and sensitive system. While it is true that some countries have acquired the radar used by Iron Dome, it doesn’t appear that the system is operational anywhere except in Israel.

Thus, the critique of Israel makes little sense and those complaining about Israel not giving Iron Dome away don’t seem to hold the US or western countries to the same standard. The obsession with Israel that often borders on antisemitism, posits that Israel should supply the Iron Dome in the midst of a conflict but that the corollary is not expected; the US needn’t supply Patriot batteries.

Israel is not only a smaller and more vulnerable country than the US, but the ramifications for Israel of getting involved in the Ukraine war are greater for Israel. Russia has based air defense systems in Syria and Israel has sought to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria. Any attempt by Russia to move more advanced air defense systems to Syria could be a problem for Israel.

Nevertheless, the real ignorance behind the Iron Dome complaints is that the authors of these complaints often know little or nothing about air defense. Iron Dome is a short-range air defense system that wouldn’t help Ukraine and requires long training. How could it be sent in the midst of a war?

Meanwhile, there are other air defense systems that the West and Israel make about which it might be more reasonable to inquire. The Arrow system, for instance, which reports say the Germans may want to acquire. There is also David’s Sling, which is similar to Patriot. There are also Barak missiles, which foreign reports say have been acquired by Azerbaijan and Morocco. In addition, Israeli defense companies such as IAI have worked with India on the MRSAM system. Then there is the Spyder system and many others.

The obsession with Iron Dome often comes from ignorance. It’s a buzz word and it is often used by people who know nothing about the system or the complexities involved in outfitting a country with air defense.
MORE...

[Crunchy Frog]

14. Why would they do anything that doesn't directly benefit themselves?

[dlk]

15. Apparently

[Samrob]

16. Yet, almost every conflict we engaged in the ME was to benefit Israel in some way. "Yellowcake"

Never forget "Yellowcake" and Israel pushing us to invade Iraq and off Saddam...cost us much and gained a lot for Israel...especially since Iraq and Saddam had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. We have been on the wrong side of this history since after WWII.

[Crunchy Frog]

17. Yes, I remember that very well.

It was when I first began questioning the entire narrative around Israel.