Recently, there were municipal elections in France, and there was Israeli interference there as well [0] (the article is pay-walled and in French but it's written in the title at least).
So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters.
The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
Same Slovenia which Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was shot and critically injured in 2024 after, certainly not related, his government's opposition to military assistance to Ukraine and of hypocritical face of the EU inaction against Israel "treatment" of Palestinians.
> interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war
Requires a rigorous definition of interference.
The allegations here—trying to catch politicians on tape being sleazy and then releasing them with sketchy editing-doesn’t seem to rise to the level of calling for a kinetic response.
Actually, no. The decentralization of power means that it takes a lot more effort to subvert each country individually, rather than propping up a few candidates for the entire region like they do in the US.
The EU is perfectly capable of collaborating even when it can't reach full consensus or when it wants to include peripheral states without them becoming full members. See for example the Schengen area, Eurozone, European Economic Area, and more recently (and specifically to circumvent member state vetos) when the enhanced cooperation procedures were invoked to lend money to Ukraine.
That’s true but that fragmentation is also what limits the propagation of fractures. You can see it like sandboxing.
A deal with foreign intelligence is a dead with the devil that comes with a lifetime of subservience. And subservience to foreign powers is a greater evil than yo usual internal corruption. At least the locally corrupt in a democracy have some interest in things going somewhat well in their country. The foreign actors only care about theirs.
What I do think is that nations should 1) interfere back, and 2) make their citizens more resilient to foreign propaganda. And I specifically don't mean building a firewall. In fact do the opposite: if a firewalled nation is leaking out propaganda, ensure firewall-breaking tools leak in.
Just more cultural appropriation. Black Cube, Blackrock, Blackstone... And not a black person in sight. Someone even took Blackstreet which was already ours. /s
If they could get people to install a mobile UI app that fetches instructions on what to up/down-vote, what to flag/vouch then they could and unlikely anyone would notice.
It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things.
Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.
I think a larger question to ask is if could they also be manipulating the people themselves who are reading these message boards prior to this post which later impacts such message board's voting.
Of course. So are their allies in the Trump admin, note also the abuse of the flagging mechanism to take down any news that might not portray them in the best light.
Lol. If Israel could manipulate HN do you think so many anti-Israel posts would appear on the front page, and each mitigating or nuanced comment about Israel would be flagged so quickly? No, Israel does not control or manipulate HN.
They do it in a more subtle way on HN. They use friendly journalists to push technologies and solutions they have backend access too. Obviously the HN crowd is a very a tough crowd the fool, but it does not mean they are not trying.
Notice how the tech media will decide particular companies as the only ones worth talking about in certain segments. It's not only money behind this, there are other motivations.
The desperation of the state is becoming apparent. Look for more election interference in the future. It will be more sophisticated. And likely can be traced in past elections.
I think it's also true that government officials around the world are less inclined to just go along with it, since Israel has lost control of public perception. So the tactics have to become more brazen and forceful to achieve the same results, increasing the risk of exposure and/or blowback.
I don't think for a minute that this stuff is anything new ... to the contrary. I think what is new is that, every time they step in it, the whole world now quickly knows.
It's insane the power and influence Israelis have.
In the US it's blatant, from the insane amounts of money and weaponry sent to Israel (why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? It's not like they are neither poor nor US owes them) to the recent events in the middle east.
But even in Europe. Here in Italy the coalition government has multiple high profile politicians that just happen to be shareholders or CEOs of security companies owned by Israelis. And just so it happens that the same security and communication companies get lots of work by the Italian government. And when journalists brought this up because they didn't report it to neither the government nor parliament, nothing happened anyway.
It's a scandal really, but if you write or say it, you're labeled as anti semitic, so criticizing and surfacing this terrible stuff is always controversial.
Actually - it's not Israeli influence. It's pro-Israel influence. Important difference. This includes lobby organisations funded or founded by wealthy Jews, conservative Christian lobbyists, pro-arms trade interests, and geopolitical interests (essentially Israel acts as a US military proxy they can use to keep the middle east in check). Not quite Israel secretly pulling strings (which is quite rightly dismissed as traditional boring anti-semetic conspiracy theory wearing a different hat), more of an alignment of interests, which dictator Netenyahu is currently taking advantage of to pursue his own career agenda (complete destruction of Iran and security of Israel from the mindset of a paranoid Israeli nationalist). Naturally, this involves attempting to buy out journalists and promote propaganda - and the Israeli attempts to do this are usually rather inept. What's far more effective is the already existing domestic pro-Israel lobby groups that have a completely above board, and vastly more effective way of funding Israel (and the vastly more powerful US military-financial-geopolitical interests).
> why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly?
The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced.
I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.
We primarily fund the other Middle Eastern countries to keep Israel safe. Were it not for Israel, we would just have normal diplomatic relations with them.
I wouldn't go that far. The U.S. and other European powers have a long history of involvement in Middle East politics. Significant parts of the Middle East were once parts of various European empires. Many of them gained their independence only to find there were still a lot of strings and (pipe)lines of exploitation attached.
The U.S. did more than its fair share to glom onto those lines of exploitation and keep them alive at the expense of locals. e.g. Iran is what it is today because of U.S. oil interests. The CIA installed an authoritarian Shah when Iran's (at the time) democratic government started taking control of its own oil industry (American oil companies would have had to start paying taxes). Rule under the Shah was "unpleasant" for Iranians and revolution was the direct response. Hence, theocracy.
Israel is a special case in the Middle East. The zionist movement gained state sponsors and convinced European powers (and the U.S.) to pour money in instead of sucking it out. How they did that is a question that stretches back well into the 19th century. I'd argue that a lot of it was the result of people who had their hearts in the right places. Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
> Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
Teodore Hertzl (Zionism’s founder) was explicit about the need to ethically cleanse the Palestinians from their land.
Israel is, to use a Pacific-theatre term, our unsinkable aircraft carrier. A better Pakistan.
> long history Israel has of rigging the US elections by funding their pet congressmen
Americans were, until recently, pro Israel. The funding worked because amplifying anti-Israeli sentiments among electeds lost them votes. Now that that balance of perceptions has shifted, the effect has as well. And note that pro-Israel != Israel; lots of America pro-Israeli influence is entirely homegrown.
"The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power."
Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.
First let me say that any corruption admitted to in those recordings should be prosecuted immediately, no question about it.
But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover).
Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...
Yeah, what studiously seems to be absent is a denial of the contents of the recording. Kind of as if Nixon's Watergate burglars had found damning evidence of Democratic shenanigans- just a melee between dirty handed criminals all around.
So is the allegation that this private intelligence firm tried to induce members of the government party to offer a bribe. They then published the recorded conversations.
I guess what is missing from the article is was the videos misleading or did they really get offered the bribe? Because if its the latter, its kind of hard to feel sympathy for a corrupt official getting caught even if the mechanism was problematic.
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
There was no rigging or any manipulation of votes. Current and previous government officials were caught bragging about their previous corrupt adventures. The government after some initial shock came up with a story about foreign intervention. Slovenian newspapers and journalist activist carried it all the way to Brussels in order bank on negative emotions about Israel and hopped people will think about that. There was no institutional response, because the current government has cleaned institutions of people not loyal to them. It's a rather sad situation. The society is deeply divided.
When similar thing happened in Belgium, the corrupt people were immediately punished and nobody cared who exposed them.
Interesting. I have vey limited knowledge of Slovenian politics, but it often seems that whoever gets elected ends up facing corruption charges and ends up in prison after the next election cycle.
Since Janez Jansa will be prime minister he will be charged for corruption by end of his term and this could be the third time for him to go to prison (the first instance happened under the socialist regime, so maybe that does not count).
Anyway, I do not think Israelis needed to work hard here to find some dirt.
These gentlemen (and of course they're all men) constitute the 21st century axis of evil, responsible for most of the backsliding and worsening of rule of law around the world.
I wonder when people will stop being scared to speak out. Is it once they lose their job due to stolen data? Is it once Palantir decides they are a threat and they lose their freedom? Is it once they lose their own land? Is it after starting the 10th war?
1. It's the first of the year, there will be more NoKings
2. There are many more protest besides NoKings
3. Direct Action is better than no action. We only vote once every 1/2/4 years. This helps get people moving, to take their first steps. Case in point, this year I am printing whistles and information
At the risk of stating the obvious, Black Cube is an actual private intelligence firm that sells spy services [1], while Palantir is a software firm that sells software (even if that software is used by intelligence, gov, etc). You can go spin up a free Foundry instance [2] and test it, and it doesn't have secret buttons to imprison people.
And yet both these technologies are being used to subvert democracy and suppress opposition… almost like it doesn’t need to be fully automated fascism to be fascistic.
People hate Ticketmaster. For good reason. TM throws on all these fees, clearly engages in third-party selling, makings buying difficult and jacks up prices. All of this is known. But what's less known is that artists, especially big artists, like Ticketmaster. Why? Because TM is a sacrificial anode. It takes all the hate but adding junk fees that in part go to the artist. The artist can say they're selling seats from as low as $20 in press releases while the least they will get for a seat is $30 because of all the fees.
Being hated is a service you can sell because it takes away attention from what you're doing. You get to blame this third-party but you're still absolutely complicit in everything they're doing. You see where this is going?
Israel is America's Ticketmaster. Anything bad that Israel or an Israeli firm does, the US could end today with a phone call by simply saying "we're cutting off aid if you don't stop doing". The price of this is to be the sacrificial anode for what is actually American foreign policy. There are well-funded and organized efforts to whitewash Israel's reputation and those were successful up until the last few years.
Israel is a huge supplier of spyware eg Pegasus [1]. Despotic regimes use this to spy on journalists and opposition figures and has likely been used to locate and kill them. You think we couldn't stop that? Of course we can. But we like that because, again, Israel takes the heat.
So Israel interfering in Slovenia's elections is the least surprising thing I've heard. I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. You will find Israeli influence in probably every election.
Your broader point is true but the characterization of Israel as an extension of America is not.
Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America.
America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.
I agree with everything you said except that the US is able to stop it. Think about it: Wouldn't Israel simply use these same tools in the US to install a puppet president they can easily manipulate?
Yeah, I’ve come to the same realization. Israel does the dirty work for the US and they take all the heat. If the U.S. really wanted Israel to stop, all they need to do is take out special privileges Israel gets and put down economic sanctions.
But could they? You are somehow assuming that all this "dirty work" as you call it is only done on behalf of others and not used to ensure continued ("unwavering") support for themselves.
All of this might be true if Israel didn't have undue influence over the American officials who are authorized to pick up that phone. But they do, and so the phone doesn't get picked up.
Also, if your parable about Ticketmaster were true. But it isn't. Most artists do indeed dislike them; the paltry kickback isn't worth the... bad blood... it sends their way. And it's weird that your read is that most artists secretly hold their fans in contempt. I don't know what kind of person just assumes that of others, except that they're that way themselves, maybe.
Israel really needs to stop interfering in other countries'
elections. That's not acceptable. We don't interfere when
their population votes for warcriminals either.
So many countries (Russia is reported to be helping Orban, for example) meddle in other countries' affairs, even when it doesn't affect them at all, directly or indirectly. These days a lot of damage can be done online (propaganda, riling people up, fake news etc) for very little money - how does one even begin to counter this? Especially if you are a small country/poor with limited resources
Sheldon Adelson's backing helped Netanyahu a lot, and not just by funding the free Israel Hayom newspaper (which generally assumes a right-wing, pro-Netanyahu editorial stance).
If you think for a second that the Israeli state allows this company to sell its services to anyone who is opposed to their interests, you really don't understand how defense companies and states work.
My point is a simple one: the company was hired by someone. Was it the opposition party? To say this is entirely Israel's doing implies the Slovenian party that benefits just happens to have gotten lucky. The reality is likely considerably murkier than that.
Any company that sells this type of services exists as an extension of its parent state. Any contract it offers, especially to a political entity in another state, will be scrutinized by state authorities and allowed by them or not. Sometimes, those contracts will be forced on the company based on state-level negotiations.
Noone is saying that the party that contracted this company (if indeed it was a Slovenian party and not the Israeli state itself) for this service doesn't carry blame. But both the company itself and the state of Israel carry just as much blame for offering, permitting, and carrying out such services.
By your logic, if someone were to found a legal private paid assassin company in France, and then the opposition party in Germany hired this company to assassinate the German chancellor, you'd say that it's unfair for Germany to blame France for this.
Curious: can you show the research steps you took to reach this conclusion? Really curious how we can all easily determine which companies are and aren't CIA fronts!
Joel Zamel, an Israeli intelligence veteran, led the Israeli intel company Psy-Group, which worked closely with Netanyahu and the Trump campaign circle, including Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.
Psy-Group partnered with Cambridge Analytica (later Emerdata) to influence the 2016 US elections using social media data.
The Black Cube intel firm, staffed by former Mossad agents, was employed by Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in harvesting Facebook data.
Harvey Weinstein Hired ex-Mossad Agents to Track Women Accusing Him of Sexual Assault
Weinstein hired Israeli firm Black Cube to research his accusers and to scuttle reports of his sexual abuse
Black Cube operatives posed as activists, abuse victims and sources for journalists
When your religion tells you that you're the creator of the universe's Chosen People™, you're going to develop a society-wide narcissistic complex and behave like everyone else is inferior to you and fair game for manipulation, killing, etc.
> Doesn't matter, half of HN will still defend them.
And I would say half can't/won't speak about this. I try to stray away from these discussions sometimes because I feel worried that someone is going to take any comment out of context within these messages which is a bit of a strange way of self censorship actually and I feel like I might not be the only one. It's also worth mentioning that I have found this to be the case especially for Israel.
For example, I feel valid criticizing the current American Regime and Americans themselves would agree with me at a a much higher proportion/magnitude compared to Israel in which from my small sample bias of online acquaintances, I only had one Jewish (Living in America, not Israeli) person agree that Israel is doing some pretty horrendous things and although do take this with a grain of salt as something they told me but they said that Zionism and Antisemitism are effectively something comparable as within the Jewish religion, There is an idea of the world hating the Jews as being a pre-condition within Jewish religion for them to win within the end-times theology of the jewish faith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog I think they were referencing this: Zechariah 14:2 states, "I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it." The idea is that the Jewish people will have no earthly allies left.
This site definitely has a cohort of completely unhinged war mongers. The same names (and a bunch of random new accounts) never fail to show up to defend genocide or any other atrocities being committed.
You either find some of the most humble, down to earth, open source contributing people who value human life in it of itself within this forum who share as much knowledge/try to do good for the world, or you find people as you mention who completely disregard the previous ideals. There isn't much in-between.
I do think that there is some utilitarian aspect to it. Some people might genuinely believe that the losses to human livelihoods/human lives because of AI (yes even with these AI drones now with the deal @OpenAI), the end reality would still make everything worth it and within this distorted view of the future, they believe that everything happening in present is alright for the future and that itself can be used to propose some disgusting idea like eugenics which people might become okay with, as such.
And its very easy to switch somewhere within the past of a person being the former to the latter through the ladder steps of altruism to transhumanism to essentially the things we hear from AI hypebros. All the while, a benefit is that especially right now, selling AI sells for profit right now whereas people can question about the morality later/justify it through these distorted lenses that I mentioned.
We should have some benchmark project that bluntly describes the issues with each democracy. Like, did elected officials dramatically change in appearance (length, ears, nose, teeth, chin, eyes), election agenda points that don't match execution, issues with method of voting, issues with vote counting etc
Israel has created a whole industry around "politics" as a service. Between rampant spying in multiple countries using Predator etc and slimy campaings like this, you can buy governments for an increasingly affordable price.
I once made a list of various issues raised in various elections in various countries. The instances describe a whole spectrum of cheating. The only consistent factor is that no one believes there was cheating. The funniest was an order to change punchcards that made the holes not line up. People still found room to not see a problem with it.
The tapes show prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing corruption, illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds.
Is there any evidence that the tape is fraudulent? The article doesn't provide any. I wonder if anybody even read the article other than words "Israeli firm" and jumped to a lynching
Giora Eiland is the architect of "General's Plan". If anything, this scumbag criminal should have been locked up the moment he touched down in Ljubljana with his "company".
"The plan, conceived by retired major general and former head of the National Security Council Giora Eiland and presented to the Knesset by a group of several retired Israeli generals, proposed giving approximately 300,000 Palestinians a one-week evacuation period to depart from the northern third of Gaza before designating it a military exclusion zone. Under this strategy, anyone remaining in the area would be considered a combatant. The plan would then implement a complete siege that would block essential supplies until militant surrender, denying all essential supplies including medicine, fuel, food, and water"
Am I mistaken but in theory aren't Solvenia and Isreal technically allies ?
I'm not naive to believe intelligence agencies don't target each other in many ways, but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. I would love to see an example being made out of them here.
That said, bar sanctions, Isreali 'private' companies like this seem to have carte blanch on whatever they want to do. No sanctions, no fines, not even investigations will happen I fear.
When it comes to IL most of the EU's countries leadership strategy comes down to getting willingly fucked and getting their population fucked for literally no benefit, just so that elites will not be temporarily called "anti-semitic".
It's nuts. Israel's idea of being an ally is fucking all their allies over, with useless war they can't win but that will erase and reverse within a few weeks all benefit countries like mine (Czechia) ever derived from a bilateral trade with them, just based on increased energy prices alone. (Compared to Slovenia, it's well deserved here, though. Czechs should suffer, to learn.)
This little stuff, like meddling in elections, is nothing, compared to big effects of IL state policy.
Israel doesn't have allies aside from US, they nurture a herd of masochist sycophant states.
> but general voting interference seems quite brazzen.
It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese.
https://archive.ph/LwhOj
Recently, there were municipal elections in France, and there was Israeli interference there as well [0] (the article is pay-walled and in French but it's written in the title at least).
[0]: https://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/politique/53391-la-campagne-...
So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters.
The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
Same Slovenia which Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico was shot and critically injured in 2024 after, certainly not related, his government's opposition to military assistance to Ukraine and of hypocritical face of the EU inaction against Israel "treatment" of Palestinians.
Nope, not the same Slovenia. That Slovenia was actually Slovakia.
It seems to me that interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war.
> interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war
Requires a rigorous definition of interference.
The allegations here—trying to catch politicians on tape being sleazy and then releasing them with sketchy editing-doesn’t seem to rise to the level of calling for a kinetic response.
Yes, and the EU, due to this fragmentation, seems to be a fertile playground for all this unacceptable interference by foreign powers.
Actually, no. The decentralization of power means that it takes a lot more effort to subvert each country individually, rather than propping up a few candidates for the entire region like they do in the US.
They only need one country for veto rights.
The EU is perfectly capable of collaborating even when it can't reach full consensus or when it wants to include peripheral states without them becoming full members. See for example the Schengen area, Eurozone, European Economic Area, and more recently (and specifically to circumvent member state vetos) when the enhanced cooperation procedures were invoked to lend money to Ukraine.
Exactly, see what is happening in Hungary.
Controlling Hungary is enough to veto some support for Ukraine.
No because any attempt at interference would in that case trigger article 5 of NATO.
That’s true but that fragmentation is also what limits the propagation of fractures. You can see it like sandboxing.
A deal with foreign intelligence is a dead with the devil that comes with a lifetime of subservience. And subservience to foreign powers is a greater evil than yo usual internal corruption. At least the locally corrupt in a democracy have some interest in things going somewhat well in their country. The foreign actors only care about theirs.
If this were really taken seriously there would be much more war.
Russia and China are definitely interfering in the US (to spread discord, ex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_interference_in_the_20...), so should the US formally declare war against them?
What I do think is that nations should 1) interfere back, and 2) make their citizens more resilient to foreign propaganda. And I specifically don't mean building a firewall. In fact do the opposite: if a firewalled nation is leaking out propaganda, ensure firewall-breaking tools leak in.
"Black Cube" - wonder what they're going for there. Maybe "Sinister Obelisk" was taken.
Black cube is a common form of symbolism in occult/Kabbalah traditions
As well as Islam (the Kaaba).
They wanted everyone to know they are the bad guys, just like Black Rock.
It works, to be honest - I would never let Beige Rock manage my money.
Just more cultural appropriation. Black Cube, Blackrock, Blackstone... And not a black person in sight. Someone even took Blackstreet which was already ours. /s
Quick question: Could they also be manipulating this message board's voting?
If they could get people to install a mobile UI app that fetches instructions on what to up/down-vote, what to flag/vouch then they could and unlikely anyone would notice.
It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things.
Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.
Online community spam/brigading has been a normal occurrence since I've been running a message board 15 years ago. At least in Europe.
Seeing a sudden flood of new messages from low use accounts around elections or referendums is normal these days.
I think a larger question to ask is if could they also be manipulating the people themselves who are reading these message boards prior to this post which later impacts such message board's voting.
Of course. So are their allies in the Trump admin, note also the abuse of the flagging mechanism to take down any news that might not portray them in the best light.
Politics are indiscriminately flagged. People don't come to HN to read politics.
assume this is the case on every platform
Lol. If Israel could manipulate HN do you think so many anti-Israel posts would appear on the front page, and each mitigating or nuanced comment about Israel would be flagged so quickly? No, Israel does not control or manipulate HN.
They do it in a more subtle way on HN. They use friendly journalists to push technologies and solutions they have backend access too. Obviously the HN crowd is a very a tough crowd the fool, but it does not mean they are not trying.
Notice how the tech media will decide particular companies as the only ones worth talking about in certain segments. It's not only money behind this, there are other motivations.
The desperation of the state is becoming apparent. Look for more election interference in the future. It will be more sophisticated. And likely can be traced in past elections.
I think it's also true that government officials around the world are less inclined to just go along with it, since Israel has lost control of public perception. So the tactics have to become more brazen and forceful to achieve the same results, increasing the risk of exposure and/or blowback.
I don't think for a minute that this stuff is anything new ... to the contrary. I think what is new is that, every time they step in it, the whole world now quickly knows.
Israel has recently invaded Lebanon, started a regional war with Iran, and has been recognized as committing genocide in Gaza.
The UN believes the IDF uses rape as a matter of policy and has published a report with quite a bit of evidence.
Hearing Israel is meddling with elections is like, yeah, if you are doing that other stuff I'm not shocked when you also do this.
This instance is a kindergarten if you compare Victor Orban doing phone calls during EU sessions from toilet to report secrets to Russia.
so, interfering with elections is "kindergarten", compared to leaking secrets?
It's insane the power and influence Israelis have.
In the US it's blatant, from the insane amounts of money and weaponry sent to Israel (why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly? It's not like they are neither poor nor US owes them) to the recent events in the middle east.
But even in Europe. Here in Italy the coalition government has multiple high profile politicians that just happen to be shareholders or CEOs of security companies owned by Israelis. And just so it happens that the same security and communication companies get lots of work by the Italian government. And when journalists brought this up because they didn't report it to neither the government nor parliament, nothing happened anyway.
It's a scandal really, but if you write or say it, you're labeled as anti semitic, so criticizing and surfacing this terrible stuff is always controversial.
Actually - it's not Israeli influence. It's pro-Israel influence. Important difference. This includes lobby organisations funded or founded by wealthy Jews, conservative Christian lobbyists, pro-arms trade interests, and geopolitical interests (essentially Israel acts as a US military proxy they can use to keep the middle east in check). Not quite Israel secretly pulling strings (which is quite rightly dismissed as traditional boring anti-semetic conspiracy theory wearing a different hat), more of an alignment of interests, which dictator Netenyahu is currently taking advantage of to pursue his own career agenda (complete destruction of Iran and security of Israel from the mindset of a paranoid Israeli nationalist). Naturally, this involves attempting to buy out journalists and promote propaganda - and the Israeli attempts to do this are usually rather inept. What's far more effective is the already existing domestic pro-Israel lobby groups that have a completely above board, and vastly more effective way of funding Israel (and the vastly more powerful US military-financial-geopolitical interests).
> why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly?
The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced.
I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.
We primarily fund the other Middle Eastern countries to keep Israel safe. Were it not for Israel, we would just have normal diplomatic relations with them.
I wouldn't go that far. The U.S. and other European powers have a long history of involvement in Middle East politics. Significant parts of the Middle East were once parts of various European empires. Many of them gained their independence only to find there were still a lot of strings and (pipe)lines of exploitation attached.
The U.S. did more than its fair share to glom onto those lines of exploitation and keep them alive at the expense of locals. e.g. Iran is what it is today because of U.S. oil interests. The CIA installed an authoritarian Shah when Iran's (at the time) democratic government started taking control of its own oil industry (American oil companies would have had to start paying taxes). Rule under the Shah was "unpleasant" for Iranians and revolution was the direct response. Hence, theocracy.
Israel is a special case in the Middle East. The zionist movement gained state sponsors and convinced European powers (and the U.S.) to pour money in instead of sucking it out. How they did that is a question that stretches back well into the 19th century. I'd argue that a lot of it was the result of people who had their hearts in the right places. Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
> Things just went sideways when it came to Israelis and Palestinians co-existing peacefully. At least some of the idealists of the early zionist movement honestly believed the influx of Jewish people would be a benefit to Arabs already living in Palestine.
Teodore Hertzl (Zionism’s founder) was explicit about the need to ethically cleanse the Palestinians from their land.
Israel controls no strategic resources, unlike the other allies the USA has in the Middle East.
Your comment completely ignores the long history Israel has of rigging the US elections by funding their pet congressmen.
> Israel controls no strategic resources
Israel is, to use a Pacific-theatre term, our unsinkable aircraft carrier. A better Pakistan.
> long history Israel has of rigging the US elections by funding their pet congressmen
Americans were, until recently, pro Israel. The funding worked because amplifying anti-Israeli sentiments among electeds lost them votes. Now that that balance of perceptions has shifted, the effect has as well. And note that pro-Israel != Israel; lots of America pro-Israeli influence is entirely homegrown.
Here are the videos: https://www.anti-corruption2026.com/
They are speaking in English. Only appendices 1-5 are available.
Alternate source due to paywall: https://www.politico.eu/article/black-cube-leak-tape-corrupt...
"The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power."
Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.
First let me say that any corruption admitted to in those recordings should be prosecuted immediately, no question about it.
But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover).
Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...
Yeah, what studiously seems to be absent is a denial of the contents of the recording. Kind of as if Nixon's Watergate burglars had found damning evidence of Democratic shenanigans- just a melee between dirty handed criminals all around.
If I had a choice in my country, and all else being equal, I would prefer the scum not supporting either Israel or Russia
So is the allegation that this private intelligence firm tried to induce members of the government party to offer a bribe. They then published the recorded conversations.
I guess what is missing from the article is was the videos misleading or did they really get offered the bribe? Because if its the latter, its kind of hard to feel sympathy for a corrupt official getting caught even if the mechanism was problematic.
The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.
A bribe in a low trust society is not the same as a bribe in a high trust society.
In this context, a bribe is irrelevant compared to the act of election interference by a foreign actor.
Appearently not to the electors or this scheme wouldn't have worked.
There was no rigging or any manipulation of votes. Current and previous government officials were caught bragging about their previous corrupt adventures. The government after some initial shock came up with a story about foreign intervention. Slovenian newspapers and journalist activist carried it all the way to Brussels in order bank on negative emotions about Israel and hopped people will think about that. There was no institutional response, because the current government has cleaned institutions of people not loyal to them. It's a rather sad situation. The society is deeply divided. When similar thing happened in Belgium, the corrupt people were immediately punished and nobody cared who exposed them.
Interesting. I have vey limited knowledge of Slovenian politics, but it often seems that whoever gets elected ends up facing corruption charges and ends up in prison after the next election cycle.
Since Janez Jansa will be prime minister he will be charged for corruption by end of his term and this could be the third time for him to go to prison (the first instance happened under the socialist regime, so maybe that does not count).
Anyway, I do not think Israelis needed to work hard here to find some dirt.
and Russia is now doing the same in Hungary... :(
Israel under Netanyahu is part of the international antidemocratic axis of imperialist autocracy.
Other members, in no particular order:
Orban, Trump, Putin, Babis, Thiel, Bolsonaro, Ellison, Milei, Nawrocki.
These gentlemen (and of course they're all men) constitute the 21st century axis of evil, responsible for most of the backsliding and worsening of rule of law around the world.
Nawrocki is just incompetent (and to be fair that was his selling point for PiS). Now - Kaczynski, that's where true evil lies
Hey now, there’s a few axis girlbosses out there! Don’t forget Sana’s skin in the game.
Not Meloni, then?
This list might be non-exhaustive. Good point on Meloni, she's a bit of a special case. Turns out women can be evil, too!
I wonder when people will stop being scared to speak out. Is it once they lose their job due to stolen data? Is it once Palantir decides they are a threat and they lose their freedom? Is it once they lose their own land? Is it after starting the 10th war?
NoKings is this weekend, millions are speaking out together
Yes. The problem is, it is only this weekend.
1. It's the first of the year, there will be more NoKings
2. There are many more protest besides NoKings
3. Direct Action is better than no action. We only vote once every 1/2/4 years. This helps get people moving, to take their first steps. Case in point, this year I am printing whistles and information
At the risk of stating the obvious, Black Cube is an actual private intelligence firm that sells spy services [1], while Palantir is a software firm that sells software (even if that software is used by intelligence, gov, etc). You can go spin up a free Foundry instance [2] and test it, and it doesn't have secret buttons to imprison people.
[1] https://www.blackcube.com/
[2] https://www.palantir.com/developers/
Yes, they are master hackers - they even hacked the scrollbar on their web page.
And yet both these technologies are being used to subvert democracy and suppress opposition… almost like it doesn’t need to be fully automated fascism to be fascistic.
Kind of them to put the evil right in the name.
I want to talk about Ticketmaster.
People hate Ticketmaster. For good reason. TM throws on all these fees, clearly engages in third-party selling, makings buying difficult and jacks up prices. All of this is known. But what's less known is that artists, especially big artists, like Ticketmaster. Why? Because TM is a sacrificial anode. It takes all the hate but adding junk fees that in part go to the artist. The artist can say they're selling seats from as low as $20 in press releases while the least they will get for a seat is $30 because of all the fees.
Being hated is a service you can sell because it takes away attention from what you're doing. You get to blame this third-party but you're still absolutely complicit in everything they're doing. You see where this is going?
Israel is America's Ticketmaster. Anything bad that Israel or an Israeli firm does, the US could end today with a phone call by simply saying "we're cutting off aid if you don't stop doing". The price of this is to be the sacrificial anode for what is actually American foreign policy. There are well-funded and organized efforts to whitewash Israel's reputation and those were successful up until the last few years.
Israel is a huge supplier of spyware eg Pegasus [1]. Despotic regimes use this to spy on journalists and opposition figures and has likely been used to locate and kill them. You think we couldn't stop that? Of course we can. But we like that because, again, Israel takes the heat.
So Israel interfering in Slovenia's elections is the least surprising thing I've heard. I'd be surprised if it wasn't true. You will find Israeli influence in probably every election.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
Your broader point is true but the characterization of Israel as an extension of America is not.
Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America.
America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.
> This is a service they offer to the world, not just America.
It's a service that they offer first and foremost to themselves and against anyone else, including America.
I agree with everything you said except that the US is able to stop it. Think about it: Wouldn't Israel simply use these same tools in the US to install a puppet president they can easily manipulate?
Can we even prove it hasn't already happened?
Who would be the Terry A. Davis of Israel-as-Ticketmaster?
Yeah, I’ve come to the same realization. Israel does the dirty work for the US and they take all the heat. If the U.S. really wanted Israel to stop, all they need to do is take out special privileges Israel gets and put down economic sanctions.
> If the U.S. really wanted Israel to stop
But could they? You are somehow assuming that all this "dirty work" as you call it is only done on behalf of others and not used to ensure continued ("unwavering") support for themselves.
As the Qatari emir said in the wake of the recent Middle Eastern conflict, it's clear who's running the show geopolitically. Cui bono?
All of this might be true if Israel didn't have undue influence over the American officials who are authorized to pick up that phone. But they do, and so the phone doesn't get picked up.
Also, if your parable about Ticketmaster were true. But it isn't. Most artists do indeed dislike them; the paltry kickback isn't worth the... bad blood... it sends their way. And it's weird that your read is that most artists secretly hold their fans in contempt. I don't know what kind of person just assumes that of others, except that they're that way themselves, maybe.
I’m not a fan of comparing a cruel, genocidal government to a site that jacks up the prices on concert tickets, personally.
Israel really needs to stop interfering in other countries' elections. That's not acceptable. We don't interfere when their population votes for warcriminals either.
So many countries (Russia is reported to be helping Orban, for example) meddle in other countries' affairs, even when it doesn't affect them at all, directly or indirectly. These days a lot of damage can be done online (propaganda, riling people up, fake news etc) for very little money - how does one even begin to counter this? Especially if you are a small country/poor with limited resources
Is “we” referring to the United States?
Sheldon Adelson's backing helped Netanyahu a lot, and not just by funding the free Israel Hayom newspaper (which generally assumes a right-wing, pro-Netanyahu editorial stance).
This isn't Israel the state, it's a private company that's based in Israel.
If you think for a second that the Israeli state allows this company to sell its services to anyone who is opposed to their interests, you really don't understand how defense companies and states work.
Sure, a private company that just happens to have had multiple former Mossad directors on their board.
Coincidences are funny sometimes :-)
That's like saying that Raytheon doesn't advance US interests in the world
gee I wonder what does the private company gain from defaming another country's "pro-Palestine" party.
...money?
My point is a simple one: the company was hired by someone. Was it the opposition party? To say this is entirely Israel's doing implies the Slovenian party that benefits just happens to have gotten lucky. The reality is likely considerably murkier than that.
Any company that sells this type of services exists as an extension of its parent state. Any contract it offers, especially to a political entity in another state, will be scrutinized by state authorities and allowed by them or not. Sometimes, those contracts will be forced on the company based on state-level negotiations.
Noone is saying that the party that contracted this company (if indeed it was a Slovenian party and not the Israeli state itself) for this service doesn't carry blame. But both the company itself and the state of Israel carry just as much blame for offering, permitting, and carrying out such services.
By your logic, if someone were to found a legal private paid assassin company in France, and then the opposition party in Germany hired this company to assassinate the German chancellor, you'd say that it's unfair for Germany to blame France for this.
Would Black Cube have accepted a client that was very pro-Palestinian and was trying to lure voters away from the pro-Israel party?
And to say it's not Israel's doing implies that Israel just happens to have gotten lucky.
To say that this is entirely the Slovenian party's fault implies that Israel cannot govern their own state. Both are complicit.
> implies that Israel cannot govern their own state
Or more simply that what the Israeli company did, is not illegal in Israel.
I can guarantee you that it is very illegal if you target the wrong government.
Selective prosecution is a recurring issue under Israeli jurisprudence.
Okay, sure. Is Slovenia the wrong government?
NED is not a CIA front sweatie, it's just a private institute
>NED is not a CIA front sweatie
Curious: can you show the research steps you took to reach this conclusion? Really curious how we can all easily determine which companies are and aren't CIA fronts!
Oh thats adorable
Already downvoted to hell. Will leave frontpage in 5-10 mins with 273 points in 1 hour. Shame.
Joel Zamel, an Israeli intelligence veteran, led the Israeli intel company Psy-Group, which worked closely with Netanyahu and the Trump campaign circle, including Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.
Psy-Group partnered with Cambridge Analytica (later Emerdata) to influence the 2016 US elections using social media data.
The Black Cube intel firm, staffed by former Mossad agents, was employed by Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in harvesting Facebook data.
Harvey Weinstein Hired ex-Mossad Agents to Track Women Accusing Him of Sexual Assault
Weinstein hired Israeli firm Black Cube to research his accusers and to scuttle reports of his sexual abuse
Black Cube operatives posed as activists, abuse victims and sources for journalists
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2017-11-07/ty-article/report...
Why are they like this... There are elite cultures that just live and don't bother anyone. Israel isn't one of them.
When your religion tells you that you're the creator of the universe's Chosen People™, you're going to develop a society-wide narcissistic complex and behave like everyone else is inferior to you and fair game for manipulation, killing, etc.
Isn't that more the U.S. evangelical view of Christianity?
(Although obviously there are of course Jewish thinkers who believe in ethnic superiority, but many also reject it.)
Doesn't matter, half of HN will still defend them.
Always baffles me why some people think and act like being proud of their state/country/race and criticizing its actions are mutually exclusive.
Because its actions are exclusively critiquable and little to commiserate.
Tell my fellow Americans this too.
I'm quite convinced that Israelis have an edge in communication and socials.
And god forbid how easily you're labeled as anti semitic for bringing up facts about Israeli spying and lobbying in the west.
Hell, in Italy, neo nazi hooligans go protest for Israel with hundreds of police defending them.
Whereas genuine pro Palestinian protests (99 times out of 100 peaceful) met nothing but batons and condemnation.
Even the tv narratives about these events is disgusting.
It's clear the Israelis know how to do their job.
> Doesn't matter, half of HN will still defend them.
And I would say half can't/won't speak about this. I try to stray away from these discussions sometimes because I feel worried that someone is going to take any comment out of context within these messages which is a bit of a strange way of self censorship actually and I feel like I might not be the only one. It's also worth mentioning that I have found this to be the case especially for Israel.
For example, I feel valid criticizing the current American Regime and Americans themselves would agree with me at a a much higher proportion/magnitude compared to Israel in which from my small sample bias of online acquaintances, I only had one Jewish (Living in America, not Israeli) person agree that Israel is doing some pretty horrendous things and although do take this with a grain of salt as something they told me but they said that Zionism and Antisemitism are effectively something comparable as within the Jewish religion, There is an idea of the world hating the Jews as being a pre-condition within Jewish religion for them to win within the end-times theology of the jewish faith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog I think they were referencing this: Zechariah 14:2 states, "I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it." The idea is that the Jewish people will have no earthly allies left.
This site definitely has a cohort of completely unhinged war mongers. The same names (and a bunch of random new accounts) never fail to show up to defend genocide or any other atrocities being committed.
This board sure attracts hordes of alt right apologists and anarcho capitalists.
And in general a huge lack of empathy and obsession with power and money.
I guess it's normal given the coupling to the #1 VC incubator of the #1 country that obsesses over power and money.
You either find some of the most humble, down to earth, open source contributing people who value human life in it of itself within this forum who share as much knowledge/try to do good for the world, or you find people as you mention who completely disregard the previous ideals. There isn't much in-between.
I do think that there is some utilitarian aspect to it. Some people might genuinely believe that the losses to human livelihoods/human lives because of AI (yes even with these AI drones now with the deal @OpenAI), the end reality would still make everything worth it and within this distorted view of the future, they believe that everything happening in present is alright for the future and that itself can be used to propose some disgusting idea like eugenics which people might become okay with, as such.
And its very easy to switch somewhere within the past of a person being the former to the latter through the ladder steps of altruism to transhumanism to essentially the things we hear from AI hypebros. All the while, a benefit is that especially right now, selling AI sells for profit right now whereas people can question about the morality later/justify it through these distorted lenses that I mentioned.
Worth a watch, Can't recommend this video enough,
AI is a Eugenics Project : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SSxfa3da58
At this point its extremely clear and important to understand
It doesnt matter how men, bodies / hours / time / millions and billions you spend building a defensive
They will infiltrate with less than 500k
And come out on top
100% of the time
This is a fundamental human problem that needs fixing across the entire planet
It does not matter what country or secret groups are involved or how much life or death is truly at stake
There is a 100000% chance some dumbass is willing to fuck if all up for a small bribe
We should have some benchmark project that bluntly describes the issues with each democracy. Like, did elected officials dramatically change in appearance (length, ears, nose, teeth, chin, eyes), election agenda points that don't match execution, issues with method of voting, issues with vote counting etc
So Hitler was right about jews? Anti semitism actually has grounds? Asking purely out of curiosity.
Israel has created a whole industry around "politics" as a service. Between rampant spying in multiple countries using Predator etc and slimy campaings like this, you can buy governments for an increasingly affordable price.
It might be cheaper than we think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU
I'm SO surprised more people don't know about this... I'm always dismissed when I say the elections are rigged.
I once made a list of various issues raised in various elections in various countries. The instances describe a whole spectrum of cheating. The only consistent factor is that no one believes there was cheating. The funniest was an order to change punchcards that made the holes not line up. People still found room to not see a problem with it.
The tapes show prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing corruption, illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds. Is there any evidence that the tape is fraudulent? The article doesn't provide any. I wonder if anybody even read the article other than words "Israeli firm" and jumped to a lynching
Giora Eiland is the architect of "General's Plan". If anything, this scumbag criminal should have been locked up the moment he touched down in Ljubljana with his "company".
"The plan, conceived by retired major general and former head of the National Security Council Giora Eiland and presented to the Knesset by a group of several retired Israeli generals, proposed giving approximately 300,000 Palestinians a one-week evacuation period to depart from the northern third of Gaza before designating it a military exclusion zone. Under this strategy, anyone remaining in the area would be considered a combatant. The plan would then implement a complete siege that would block essential supplies until militant surrender, denying all essential supplies including medicine, fuel, food, and water"
Am I mistaken but in theory aren't Solvenia and Isreal technically allies ?
I'm not naive to believe intelligence agencies don't target each other in many ways, but general voting interference seems quite brazzen. I would love to see an example being made out of them here.
That said, bar sanctions, Isreali 'private' companies like this seem to have carte blanch on whatever they want to do. No sanctions, no fines, not even investigations will happen I fear.
How are they technically allies? Israel is not in eu or nato.
If you mean broadly, western-minded, yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for israel lately
> yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for Israel lately
hasn't everyone though ? Does that mean Isreal is in the clear to interfere ?
> Israel is not in eu or nato. No of course not, but there is an alignment technically, I guess the western minded.
Ireland is not a NATO member but there would be some backlash from hearing Isreal was interfearing in elections.
No, most of the EU has not condemned the atrocities in Gaza. Slovenia did, it recognized Palestine and banned weapon sales
When it comes to IL most of the EU's countries leadership strategy comes down to getting willingly fucked and getting their population fucked for literally no benefit, just so that elites will not be temporarily called "anti-semitic".
It's nuts. Israel's idea of being an ally is fucking all their allies over, with useless war they can't win but that will erase and reverse within a few weeks all benefit countries like mine (Czechia) ever derived from a bilateral trade with them, just based on increased energy prices alone. (Compared to Slovenia, it's well deserved here, though. Czechs should suffer, to learn.)
This little stuff, like meddling in elections, is nothing, compared to big effects of IL state policy.
Israel doesn't have allies aside from US, they nurture a herd of masochist sycophant states.
> but general voting interference seems quite brazzen.
It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-sc...