[Matl]

90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be some dodgy 'security' or spyware startups. This in addition to them boasting of having 'field tested' their stuff on Palestinians, which is also why U.S. cops go there for training. I suppose to learn from the 'real experts' how to suppress the masses.

[mathverse]

This is not true. It's just "dodgy security/spyware" startups are more open coming from Israel that they exist than the myriad of hidden companies that you never heard about because they focus on tailored exploits.

[dietr1ch]

Israel is the British colonialism foreign base where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own "defence" hardware, software, tactics, and ideology.

[gruez]

>where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own [...]

Source that a large proportion of founders/employees are actually American/British? The more believable claim is that such Israeli startups are US/UK backed, but that's not as damning as it sounds, because US/UK is the finance hub, so thats where you expect funding to come from, rather than "colonialism foreign base" or whatever.

[epolanski]

Meh, imho it's much simpler: Israel has had insane security needs since it's birth, thus naturally security firms concentrated where there was an immediate market and testing possibility.

Which makes the failure of October 7th even more striking. It's insane Israeli leadership hasn't paid for this.

[baq]

> the failure of October 7th

you would be wise to reconsider what it actually was

[lorakamina]

I think they got tired after doing that Pager supply chain attack and went to celebrate on some private island.

[lorakamina]

Nope. I see it completely differently. We know for a fact that all CEOs of big tech are either Jewish zios (Israeli citizens by birth) or have spouses who are such or are in that zios link.

They also establish the so called “R&D” offices in Israel which is code-word for free software export.

Then the same country that has access to the source code of the major American tech firms, combobulates the “best” in class spyware doesn’t come as a surprise.

We keep crying wolf to Chinese tech spies when the real wolf are these. That’s a tiny nation living off of 300MM large nation and its allies make that another 400MM.

[Pay08]

IIRC there were attempts to impeach the government (as well as multiple probes) but they all fell through. Same as 9/11, really. Plus, Israel hasn't had an election since.

[rainworld]

> British colonialism

So the Palestinians and Arabs thought a hundred years ago. It served them badly.

It’s not that US/UK and others don’t get anything out of the relationship, as you note. But the arrows have been mostly pointing the other way for a long time. Trump and his background, as well as Epstein/Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour are just the latest, blatant examples of how this works.

[m0llusk]

That is some nasty garbage right there. The Israeli tech startup scene is very large and dynamic with including basic software development tools, wireless infrastructure, and so on. If anything it is more like 90% either consumer infrastructure or non-LLM developer tools. Whether it is politically advantageous to talk about or not, a very large fraction of all economic activity is still down the chain near the child needs bowl of rice level. Grandiose claims without support only obfuscate the situation instead of focusing on what needs to be done to protect people.

[bell-cot]

> 90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be ...

Not to claim that Israel is the land of saintly virtues - but if your news sources are inclined toward tech or polarized left/right politic, they make sure that's what you see. Wouldn't matter if 99.9% of actual Israeli startups were working to build better home bagel-makers, or gene-engineering perfect breeds of salmon for lox.

[yes_really]

To be clear, do you think it's bad to use technology to detect and stop terrorism?

[Matl]

Israel being founded with the help of terrorist groups like Irgun and Lehi and their current prime minister as well as former defense minister being wanted for war crimes, excuse me if I don't take their word as to whom they're fighting for granted. Especially not after what they did in Gaza.

[yes_really]

I heard many bizarre conspiracy theories about Jewish people. But this one, I can't even understand what you mean.

To be clear, do you deny that there are multiple terrorist groups targeting civilians in Israel such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and multiple individuals who attacked civilians indiscriminately with bombs, knives and guns?

Do you deny that Israel uses its intelligence services to detect and stop these terrorist attacks?

[disusered]

Textbook definition of bad faith arguments, go back to X with this slop.

[yes_really]

The original comment was "To be clear, do you think it's bad to use technology to detect and stop terrorism?", and the reply said he wouldn't "take their word as to whom they're fighting".

I asked if the person was denying that Israel intelligence seeks to detect and stop terrorism from those major terrorist groups and from individual terrorists. How on earth is this a "bad faith argument"?

[yosamino]

No, the original argument was that Israel - spelled out for you, because you are pretending you missed it - is using these technologies for the brutal suppression of the whole of the of the Palestinian people and that the overt motive of "fighting terrorism" is used as a fig-leaf to hide the ulterior motive of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from their lands.

Your question, which was really an assertion, asking if "it's bad to use technology to detect and stop terrorism" is in bad faith, because you know very precisely that the person you were replying to does not think it's bad to "use technology to detect and stop terrorism", but instead you were using that question as a rhetorical device to assert that all Israel is doing is the overt action "detect and stop terrorism" in an effort to deny that Israel is also doing the ulterior ethnically cleaning.

Whether that is true or not can be debated, but the way you are asking the question is pre-supposing that it cannot be debated, because your assertion by asking that question is that the ulterior motive does not exist and you are trying to create a "gotcha".

You then went on to call the claim that Irgun and Lehi were terrorist organizations and/or the claim that two members of the Israeli government ware wanted for war crimes and/or the claim that the Israeli government might have overt as well as ulterior motives and therefore they might not be trusted on what they overtly say alone, a "bizzare conspiracy theory" about Jewish people in an effort to undermine these claims without judging them based on factfulness or truth.

I hope I cleared that up for you.

I tried to ask an LLM to be an impartial judge and give your comment a hasbara score, but it immediately banned me.

food for thought.

[Pay08]

Or maybe that's the ones you know about because it's what gets fearmongering articles written about in English and the rest is in Hebrew?

[Matl]

Except the English articles are not generally fearmongering, more praising of the 'bursting' Israeli tech scene. It's only when you look at what the startups do you realize what's up.

It makes sense in a way, most Israelis probably acquire a fair bit of skills and contacts as part of being in the military there. And because the military 'needs' to surveil millions of people it rules over without any mandate whatsoever, what better way to get a contract than to enhance the surveillance capabilities of the army once you get back into civilian life?

[Pay08]

You are either plainly lying or have an incredibly strange media consumption landscape. The plurality tech startups coming out of Israel are in biological sciences and medicine.