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

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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.

> it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism

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.

> 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.

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

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

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.)

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.

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

> 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.

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.

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

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.

> 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.

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

yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...

"sanctuary from muslim massacres" I hope you at least get paid to support genocide. Doing it for free would somehow be worse.

> Independent of who is in the right there, they are losing the media war.

Honestly, I like that nobody's getting fired anymore. I like that consensus has shifted on consensus-driven forums until the IDF conscripts wake up. Generations of that and nobody's opinion actually changed, people independently perceived the same things and speaking was merely suppressed by private sector and communities. Partially by our own governments too.

Now the behavior of Israeli administrations and some settlers is all so indefensible that people can sort their thoughts out about things together, publicly.

Even the astroturfing is disingenuous, people are saying the exact same points that Jewish Israeli protesters are saying towards their own government in Israel. But the fear of non-Jewish people flipping on them is even greater, so when we say the same things its paraded around as something that it isn't.

Just get US out of it.

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

He later worked at NASA.

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

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.

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

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

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

Cant believe people like you get to vote

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I'll direct you to the Nat Turner rebellion [1]. Or the practice of "necklacing" in apartheid South AFrica [2]. Or the Mau Mau rebellion [3]. As Nelson Mandela put it [4]:

> A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.

History didn't begin on October 7. October 7 was the culmination of (then) 75 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, colonial violence, collective punishment, starvation, the denial of clean water, the denial of electricity and other basics and making conditions generally unlivable. Israeli tactics included "mowing the grass" [5] and putting Palestinians "on a diet" [6][7]. Palestinians are often held without trial [8] and when there is a trial it's a sham in front of a military tribunal. And this doesn't even touch the constant settler violence in the West Bank.

One reason we say the oppressor sets the level of violence is what happens with peaceful protests, such as the Great March of Return [9]. What happened? Israelis used them as target practice [10][11].

October 7 was violent, no question. but there were also a lot of lies about what happened [12][13][14].

And whatever you think about the tactics or outcomes of October 7, Israel has done an October 7 every day since October 7.

One point:

> the people in the ghetto were on the verge of being shipped off to concentration camps and being killed in gas chambers

There's actually no evidence they knew that. The Nazis went to great lengths to deceive such populations that they were being resettled.

and

> they had been suffering from rampant disease and starvation before the fighting.

Which is different, how?

> ... proscribed terrorist groups ...

That's how state violence works. It makes things illegal. There was a time when slavery was legal. Does that make opposing it wrong? Apartheid in South Africa was legal. Apartheid in Israel is "legal".

[1]: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/nat-turner-in-gaza/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-trut...

[4]: https://eamonka.com/2010/03/25/6-great-quotes-from-mandelas-...

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass

[6]: https://imeu.org/resources/resources/putting-palestinians-on...

[7]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/02/25/israel-denied-pasta-to-...

[8]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/200910_withou...

[9]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-gre...

[10]: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/two-years-on-people-inju...

[11]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma...

[12]: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/nyt-screams/

[13]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-...

[14]: https://www.thepipd.com/content/blog/israeli-major-disinform...

Maybe US OFAC has missed one particular state

Is the UK a US ally? Is Japan?

If you only focus on one country for some strange reason that you can't explain, people are going to notice. That shouldn't surprise you.

Russia’s involvement with foreign assets is pretty well-documented. Maybe not on a hysterical level where someone believes Russian government stole elections in USA, but they definitely meddled and continue to meddle in affairs of neighbouring countries and EU, both through information campaigns and via direct actions and influence.

Talking about stuff from early Middle Ages (князи), it has zero relevance to modern culture. Russia is anything but isolationist as it should be clear since 2014/2022.

Games three-letter agencies play are the same everywhere and have zero relation to the culture. 2016 meddling did happen of course. It was also negligible and led to a huge overreaction, extremely similar to the US meddling in Russian elections in 1996 where Clinton admin indirectly prevented Nemtsov from running by supporting unpopular Yeltsin (and NGOs did a ton of "work" which barely affected anything, the main reason Yeltsin won was Filatov running the campaign, oversized spending and collusion with the media aka Xerox affair, and the "admin resource" he had).

False trichotomy 4. Small amount of people make sure to look and echo everything that paint Israel in bad light and this work, we know this work because this entire post is about a company (small amount of people) influencing New York and Scotland votes.

Also it is entirely possible all 1+2+4 hold