[lolinder]

IDF Unit 8200 consists of thousands of conscripts serving their mandatory military service. If I were in Israel subject to conscription, I would absolutely have attempted to position myself into that unit for my mandatory service, as would most here. Beats the infantry.

What exactly am I confusing by pointing that out?

Were you under the impression that this unit was something like the NSA, staffed with people who chose to spy on people as a career? Because it's not. It's staffed by kids who are very good with computers and who—when given a choice between covert intelligence and a branch that actively shoots guns at people—chose the intelligence arm. Which would you have chosen?

[PessimalDecimal]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-pager-explosions-put...

Just months ago, some of those "kids who are very good with computers" caused compromised pagers to explode, with no knowledge of who would be near them. Civilians, including children, died as a result. It is right to think people who are "good with computers" in this way might not have the best intentions in their other applications of computers.

[lolinder]

The other alternative that those kids were given was to shoot guns or missiles. Are you really comfortable blaming them for the rest of their lives for choosing the option that likely gave them the smallest chance of killing people?

Any Israeli citizen in that age bracket today is going to be running a real risk of killing people. They don't have a choice (dodging the draft doesn't count as a choice). If you're going to hold that over for them for the rest of their lives I don't know how that's distinct from racism (or countryism if you prefer).

[PessimalDecimal]

> Are you really comfortable blaming them for the rest of their lives for choosing the option that likely gave them the smallest chance of killing people?

Yes. The "just following orders" excuse has been tried in the past. People didn't buy it then and we won't buy it now.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-soldiers-arrest-ab...

If the IDF wants to name the specific individuals from Unit 8200 who were involved in maiming or killing civilians including children by blowing up electronics in their faces, that might change things. Then it'd be a lot easier for people to avoid having concerns about that entire unit. Not naming them seems a lot like tacit support by the IDF for the actions of those in Unit 8200 who killed those children. Otherwise, people very well may have concerns about that entire unit. That's not "racism."

[lolinder]

(I deleted a comment that didn't seem relevant any more now that you added a bunch.)

So it's okay to blame vets of Unit 8200 for its actions 10 years after they founded Snyk (I have no idea how long after they left the unit) on the grounds that the intelligence arm of the IDF doesn't name names? So just in case and in the face of all the facts of the timelines, we should make sure to drag out these people's former mandatory service and remind everyone they served alongside bad guys 10+ years ago?

I'm not okay with blaming soldiers for following orders. When it's that or getting shot by your own side, there isn't a real choice. But I can't even begin to understand the mindset that would blame soldiers for the orders that other, unrelated soldiers followed more than 10 years later. That's some next-level hatred.

[mardifoufs]

Yes, because it's an institutional problem. I'm sure you have no issues using products developed by say, ex FSB agents just because it's been 10 years?

[lolinder]

The FSB is no comparison because it's more equivalent to the NSA—it was a career path, not a place to serve out mandatory military service.

FSB agents worked there for decades and chose that instead of any number of other things they could have done. Unit 8200 conscripts worked there for at most 2 years 8 months and chose it instead of a different, more gun-blazing branch of the military.

Mandatory military service completely changes the profile of the vets in a way that makes all these comparisons totally irrational. They're founded in fear and hatred for Israelis, not any reasonable similarity.

[danenania]

Why doesn’t refusing the draft count as a choice?

[lolinder]

Because it means a serious risk of the end of your life as you know it. I'm not willing to hold someone else to a standard that I know that I couldn't live up to.

If you truly believe that you'd risk your government's wrath instead of just picking the least dangerous and least likely to kill people branch of your military, then feel free to throw stones. For myself, my plan if the draft were reinstated in the US while I was still of that age was to find out how to join a cyberwarfare division, which would have led me straight to Unit 8200 if I were Israeli.

[KennyBlanken]

Those "kids who are very good with computers" designed a black-box AI that has been designating people terrorists which the military then uses to bomb not just them but their entire family.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an...

[lolinder]

And their peers in the other branches are killing civilians in other ways. Your point?

The only way to hold this against the individuals rationally, especially for those on this forum who would absolutely have chosen Unit 8200 as the least bad option given conscription, is to blame every citizen of the state of Israel and hold them all in distrust for having ever been in any branch of the IDF. I'm personally not okay with that level of sweeping blame and distrust. Are you?

[KennyBlanken]

> is to blame every citizen of the state of Israel

nobody has said or even implied this

> hold them all in distrust for having ever been in any branch of the IDF

nobody has said or even implied this

> that level of sweeping blame and distrust

There has not been any such thing in this discussion.

We're done here.

[lolinder]

Yes, it was done by OP, the comment that was rightly flagged and then later resurrected:

> Just a reminder that Snyk was founded by ex-IDF Unit 8200 soldiers. I would not trust them given what we've seen Israel do to supply chains.

Given that Unit 8200 is staffed by conscripts, how is this anything other than attempting to ensure that any person who ever came of age in Israel has that held against them for the rest of their careers?

Members of Unit 8200 weren't given a choice between that and the private sector—they were given a choice between that and shooting a gun, which for a technically inclined new-adult isn't much of a choice at all. And am I seriously supposed to believe that OP would argue that choosing to be a grunt who shoots a gun at people would be the morally purer choice that would make someone more trustworthy?

[joseppudev]

Size seems to be classified. Their officers seem to be classified as well. I understand how getting into the unit might be very normal. But doubt here is the healthy thing. Especially as a goyim.