[Matl]

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.

[Qem]

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

[yieldcrv]

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.

[throw310822]

> 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.

[inglor]

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.

[Matl]

> 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.

[4gotunameagain]

> 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.

[lo_zamoyski]

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.

[gatlin]

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.

[repelsteeltje]

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

[tartoran]

European origin jews are not semites btw. Antisemitism is a misnomer, when they refer to antisemitism they refer to Jews only.

[rendall]

Semitic does not refer to people nor to a race of people, but to a family of languages including Hebrew and Arabic. The man who coined the term "antisemitic" used it to describe his own views which were specifically anti-Jew.

The only erasure is the attempt to diffuse the term to include Akkadians, Amharics, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Black Israelites, adherents to the Nation of Islam, all 1.3 billions Arabs, what-have-you, when it always and only ever referred to anti-Jew hatred.

[woodruffw]

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.)

[gatlin]

Speakers of Semitic languages are Semitic. This isn't controversial, unclear, or irrelevant.

[woodruffw]

I don’t know why you would assert this like it’s any of those things. You can look it up if you don’t believe me; you would be considered extremely weird for talking about “Semites” as a coherent racial or ethnic category around anthropologists.

(By comparison: nobody who isn’t a racist talks about Japhetites or Hamites, but these are the coextensive groups implied by the existence of Semites.)

[mhb]

What is shameful about the "military stuff"? Isn't that's what is protecting you from your neighbors and their patron?

[lostlogin]

Recent events have taken ‘protection’ to a whole new level that’s extremely controversial.

It seems unlikely that you don’t know that.

[mhb]

Sorry for not being able to parse "military stuff" with the same precision as you.

Especially since there are plenty of people who post here who won't work on defense-related activities despite availing themselves of their protection.

[jdw64]

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

[LightBug1]

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.

[_DeadFred_]

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.

[LightBug1]

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.

[sosomoxie]

Nazis made rockets and medical advances. That didn't make Nazi Germany positive in any kind of way.

[netsharc]

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

[kombine]

> 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.

[nobodyandproud]

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.

[kombine]

Let's not pin it all on Netanyuhu, he is a good representation of his society.

[joxdosba]

It is an indisputable fact that when polled, most Israelis openly support genocide.

[netsharc]

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).

[smcl]

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

[timoshishi]

Can you provide these sources?

[joxdosba]

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.

[srean]

Touche

[hirvi74]

As is Trump for Americans.

[bradleyjg]

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.

[HappyPanacea]

> 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.

[_DeadFred_]

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

[noworriesnate]

Comments like yours are what people mean when they say they're switching between attacking and playing the victim. Your response to perceived "antisemitism" is to play the victim, and it is only helping prove what you're complaining about.

The correct way to address this perception is to prove that the attacker (Israel, who is attacking everyone around them) and Jews are not the same. Israel is working very hard to make them seem the same. THAT is what you should be complaining about. Non-Zionist Jews should paint yourselves as the victims of Israel, not the victims of anti-semites. That is the single biggest contribution you can make to this conversation.

[sudosteph]

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.

[bradleyjg]

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.

[tdeck]

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.

[bugsense]

They actively export it. See Pegasus

[tptacek]

There are dozens of firms around the world, including several in the US, doing exactly the same thing.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Looks like several in israel, like the one described in the article.

[trimethylpurine]

Which government are you comparing to?

[Gud]

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.

[RobotToaster]

If the I in AIPAC stood for Italian they would call it a Mafia organisation.

[trimethylpurine]

They'd be better off. No one would demand that everyone in Italy be handed over for execution.

[myth_drannon]

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)

[Matl]

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.

[woodruffw]

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.)

[_DeadFred_]

This is a reference to Americans. Americans choosing to freely donate to groups/causes they support and Americans being involved in American politics.

[frm88]

These numbers are wrong. There is no possible way Liberia has spent 10% of its GDP on lobbying the US for the past 10 years. They just signed (May 2026) a lobbying contract for $1.2 million with a lobbying company in the US, which seems vastly more in proportion https://liberianinvestigator.com/liberia-ballard-partners-lo...

OpenSecrets laid off 30% of its staff due to financial problems [0] and I'm absolutely sure that site is AI generated. No idea what numbers are displayed there but no country can afford 10% of GDP for 10 years for influence in Washington.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSecrets

[HWR_14]

Those numbers in no way indicate that Liberia spent 10% of its gdp lobbying the US. It looks like approximately 0.8%, which is still fantastically high

[narrator]

Liberia does not have that much money. Same goes for Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands has a GDP of $342 million. What the heck is going on here?

[HWR_14]

It works out to about 0.8% of Liberia's GDP. The Marshall Islands number works out to about 15% of the estimated value of the amount of financial assistance the US gives them.

[smashah]

At this point just file it under "Tech-washing".

As if Rudolph Höss' innovations in chemical and civil engineering somehow excuse Auschwitz.

People need to start being clear about subversion and inhumanity exported from Israel and not attempt to bookkeep that against their B2B SaaS'.

This demonic rhetoric would not be valid in any other circumstance.

[r_lee]

there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research

[bigyabai]

Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...

[bell-cot]

> ... 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.

[ai_fry_ur_brain]

The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.

[bluealienpie]

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.

[watwut]

Did they? Like, which exactly?

[pipes]

Rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

He later worked at NASA.

[RobotToaster]

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

[jyounker]

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.

[hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

This is fantastic. This is what I'm going to say next time I work on military tech.

[FeteCommuniste]

It's from the old Tom Lehrer song, "Wernher von Braun."

[cluckindan]

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

[yesbabyyes]

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.

[lesostep]

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

[comrade1234]

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

Hypothermia research, sleep deprivation research, etc. really cruel stuff.

[crote]

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.

[jmyeet]

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-...

[8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683

[tptacek]

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.

[frankohn]

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.

[HappyPanacea]

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.

[Matl]

> 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

[magic_hamster]

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.

[Matl]

> 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.

[tptacek]

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.

[nixon_why69]

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.

[FireBeyond]

And while Arafat was responsible for many abominable actions and many, many casualties, let's not forget that one of the first supporters of Hamas was ... oh yes, Netanyahu. Because Arafat, for whatever reason or reasons in his final years softened and the PLO was increasingly being seen by the world as the one willing to negotiate while Israel didn't want to, which made for uncomfortable questions of "why is a terroristic organization willing to figure out how to get to peace while a supposedly peaceful nation is not".

Netanyahu and his ilk realized that rather than a rapidly moderating, rapidly gaining sympathy and support PLO was not the enemy they "needed" for their own agenda - "from the river to the sea", which, let's not forget, was actually Likud's official election slogan in the 70s and 80s (a "hilarious" irony when certain people try to point to Palestinian usage of this as a "gotcha" - "See, they want to exterminate us!"), and that IDF intelligence showed that Hamas was likely to be more extremist and thus garner more sympathy for Israel, so Israel started supporting Hamas' rise.

[tptacek]

Over the last 10 years Hezbollah has spent more manpower fighting in Syria for Iran than it has confronting Israel. I don't know how to take seriously the idea that Hezbollah is anything but an appendage of the IRGC.

As a reminder: Shia are a minority in Lebanon; it's not even close.

[nixon_why69]

Yeah, but Shia are a bigger percentage of the area that Israel is currently occupying and "turning into Gaza" in their own words. There are approximately 1.5 million homeless in the area now?

Hezbollah do see the Iranian supreme leader as the leader of Shia Islam, and they do see Iran as their key ally, but they didn't even exist before Israel occupied southern Lebanon in the 80s and abetted all sorts of massacres. They have a reason to exist besides being Iranian stooges, they're real people.

One more interesting narrative frame: Fighting in Syria for Iran? Not for Assad? Was Assad a thoughtless Iranian appendage also?

[breppp]

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

[ImPostingOnHN]

> 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)

[breppp]

> 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?

[8note]

rather than words, israelis are required to enlist and actively murder rape, and maim palestinians as a right of passage to becoming an adult?

[Matl]

Are you seriously going to bring up chants when Israel is a country where they chant 'Death to Arabs' casually, watch the Gaza genocide from a hilltop and have installed vending machines to make the massacres more fun to watch?

But to answer your question directly, the Iranians would say they equate Israel with ethno-supremacy, same as apartheid South Africa. Getting rid of apartheid in South Africa was not about getting rid of while South Africans as such, it was about getting rid of the ethno-supremacy underpinning apartheid.

[gwerbin]

> 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.

[Matl]

> 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.

[gwerbin]

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.

[Matl]

> 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.

[ifwinterco]

Everything is israel is and always will be related to palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their land