The Pegasus Spyware Scandal- How the Israelis Steal under the US/European Umbrella!


Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli cyber arms firm NSO Group. The spyware can be covertly installed on mobile phones (and other devices) running most versions of iOS and Android. iOS is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. As of 2016, Pegasus was capable of reading text messages, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing the target device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps. 

According to an analysis by the German newspaper Die Zeit, the following incumbent and former heads of state and government have been targeted, implying possible full access to their mobile phones data:
     • Noureddine Bedoui, former Prime Minister of Algeria
     • Mostafa Madbouly, Prime Minister of Egypt 
     • Charles Michel, former Prime Minister of Belgium and current President of the European                         Council
     • Emmanuel Macron, President of France
     • Édouard Philippe, former Prime Minister of France
  •  Édith Chabre, wife of Édouard Philippe 
  • o Most French ministers o Numerous French diplomats 
  •  Barham Salih, President of Iraq  Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan
  •   Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon 
  •  Mohammed VI, King of Morocco 
  •  Saadeddine Othmani, Prime Minister of Morocco
  • • Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan 
  •  Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa 
  •  Ruhaana Rugunda, former Prime Minister of Uganda 
  •  Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, former Prime Minister of Yemen 

In India, PM Modi’s government has used Pegasus to spy on the opposition leaders, union ministers, journalists, administrators such as India’s election commissioner, and minority leaders. Reportedly, Former PM Nawaz Sharif used Pegasus to spy on his political opponents, including Imran Khan, as well as civil and military bureaucrats. Pegasus is classified as a weapon that, on the face of it, is exported to the other governments only after clearance from the Israeli government. 

Reportedly, the spyware was cleared for export to the government of India after the meeting between PM Modi and the former Israeli PM Netanyahu after the two of them met in Israel during Modi’s official visit to Israel in July 2017. If the Pegasus software was used to snoop on Imran Khan, it was most probably provided by the Modi government to Nawaz Sharif because Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. 

In the past, Israel had been stealing cutting-edge military technologies and materials, not only from France, Switzerland, and Belgium but also from the United States. During these Israeli theft operations, all these countries looked the other way while the Israelis got away with the targeted material, equipment, and blueprints. 

 In 1968 the Belgian and West German governments had helped Israel in hijacking a ship loaded with raw Uranium which was then used in Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Also in 1968 again, France secretly dispatched 50 embargoed Mirage aircraft to Israel and facilitated the transfer of Mirage blueprints to Israel through a French-speaking engineer in Switzerland. In 1969, France had helped Israel steal five missile boats from Cherbourg port on the English Channel coast.

  Peter Ostrovsky, a rogue Mossad agent, in his book “The Other Side of Deception,” mentions how the United States allows Israel to steal military technology from the American companies while the American government looks the other way. Like many other shady Israeli companies, NSO Group, the Israeli front company that markets the Pegasus spyware, had teamed up with Francisco Partners, an American private equity firm that focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services and processes. In March 2014, Francisco Partners acquired a 60 % majority stake in the NSO Group. In February 2019 the NSO Group bought back Francisco Partners’ shares and became an independent company. 

We are talking about 2017 when PM Modi had made an official visit to Israel. During this visit, Israel had agreed to sell the Pegasus spyware to India. In the same year, the American firm Francisco Partners still held the majority shares in the NSO group. You can understand the extent to which the Americans sponsor the Israelis in their dicey global operations. 

 Having said that, what is new in the revelations about the Pegasus scam? Governments the world over, without any differentiation between the First, the Second, and the Third World countries have been indulging in snooping on their political rivals and the bureaucrats whose loyalties were considered circumspect by their bosses. This was done, and still being done with impunity by the rulers of as wide a range of countries as India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, to name a few. Then why do newspapers like America’s Washington Post and the Israeli Haaretz have to disclose these reprehensible spying operations years after they were conducted?

Those who have read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” would know the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. The novel symbolizes the events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. George Orwell, the author who coined the phrase "Big Brother is watching you", used it as an allegory to intense surveillance by the secret services. In the novel, Big Brother is the supreme ruler of Oceania, the leader of the Party, an accomplished war hero, a master inventor and philosopher, and the original instigator of the revolution that brought the Party to power. The Party uses the image of Big Brother to instill a sense of loyalty and fear in the populace. 

So, in fact, the United States, the quintessential Big Brother, and Israel, the American poodle, are signaling to the governments around the world how vulnerable and helpless they are against these global bullies. Such disclosures also help the US to put its “Strategic Allies” like India in their place.

Saleem Akhtar Malik 
July 23, 2021

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