Engadget frames Israel’s surveillance of Palestinian telecommunications as extraordinary, but such practices are common in national security contexts. The U.S. National Security Agency, for example, collects vast amounts of metadata and content under laws like FISA and EO 12333. Surveillance of hostile entities is standard policy in many democracies. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-f...
Israel faces real and ongoing threats from groups such as Hamas, which has a record of carrying out attacks on civilians and is officially designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S., EU and others (https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/terrorism-and-illici...). Monitoring communications within the territories controlled by such entities is a rational, defensive measure.
As for storage on Microsoft servers, Israel, like many governments, uses U.S.-based cloud services with strict contracts and data protections. The U.S. government itself stores classified data on Microsoft Azure through its government cloud services (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/government/). The implication that Microsoft’s involvement is unusual or illicit is misleading.
Criticism of Israeli policy should account for its security context. The article omits this.
nielsbot•2h ago
> Engadget frames Israel’s surveillance of Palestinian telecommunications as extraordinary, but such practices are common in national security contexts
It's still bad
> Israel faces real and ongoing threats from groups such as Hamas
Israel helped put Hamas in power, FWIW. Maybe instead of stealing Palestians' land, Israel should give them citizenship and voting rights. It's the moral thing to do.
> Criticism of Israeli policy should account for its security context
Criticism of Israeli policy should account for their colonialism and war crimes. It's a moral issue. The rest be damned.
spwa4•1h ago
Your demand is nothing short of the end of Israel, the end of self-determination of a large population that cannot even run away, to say nothing of the cost. This is completely and totally unreasonable and the answer to that is no.
Palestinians have made violently made clear, many times, if they would live in peace with Israel and Israeli citizens. That answer was no. In other words: you're asking millions of people to live under constant physcial threat. This is totally unreasonable. The answer is no.
On top of that, the muslims of the middle east have been eradicating minorities, and a lot of them, since the end of WW1. They are still doing it whenever they get the chance, for example in Syria, in Egypt, arguably even in Sudan. Asking the Jews (and 10 other even smaller groups) to become a minority without self determination is nothing short of asking them to die.
It also won't solve the problem. Palestine, if truly left to itself, would face immediate economic collapse. The only economic activity, the only way for Palestinians to get goods from outside, is to fight Israel. That is what gets them funding. That is the only basis of their economy. The middle east and Iran are not sponsoring Palestinians out of the goodness of their hearts, they're doing it out of racism against Jews, against Jews having self-determination.
Oil use, and price, will collapse and the aid to Palestinians will dry up and the situation will "resolve".
Daishiman•2h ago
> Criticism of Israeli policy should account for its security context. The article omits this.
The context of being an occupying power also factors into this too?
westpfelia•1h ago
What the NSA is doing should be considered illegal wiretapping. None of this is ok. And trying to justify it is insane. Look at the Snowden leaks. Lets you know everthing you need to know about what our "spy" agencies are actually doing.
7952•1h ago
Funny to talk about "context" while narrowing the frame of reference.
Another piece of context is polling showing that a majority of Israeli citizens support the forced expulsion of Gazan citizens and even Arab Israeli citizens.
It would be nice of Microsoft would decline this business. Wonder if we can muster enough public pressure to force them to.
gbil•1h ago
Too many connections on too many levels for this to happen, from MS having a huge R&D office in Israel to political connections between the countries involved etc.
nelox•2h ago
Israel faces real and ongoing threats from groups such as Hamas, which has a record of carrying out attacks on civilians and is officially designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S., EU and others (https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/terrorism-and-illici...). Monitoring communications within the territories controlled by such entities is a rational, defensive measure.
As for storage on Microsoft servers, Israel, like many governments, uses U.S.-based cloud services with strict contracts and data protections. The U.S. government itself stores classified data on Microsoft Azure through its government cloud services (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/government/). The implication that Microsoft’s involvement is unusual or illicit is misleading.
Criticism of Israeli policy should account for its security context. The article omits this.
nielsbot•2h ago
It's still bad
> Israel faces real and ongoing threats from groups such as Hamas
Israel helped put Hamas in power, FWIW. Maybe instead of stealing Palestians' land, Israel should give them citizenship and voting rights. It's the moral thing to do.
> Criticism of Israeli policy should account for its security context
Criticism of Israeli policy should account for their colonialism and war crimes. It's a moral issue. The rest be damned.
spwa4•1h ago
Palestinians have made violently made clear, many times, if they would live in peace with Israel and Israeli citizens. That answer was no. In other words: you're asking millions of people to live under constant physcial threat. This is totally unreasonable. The answer is no.
On top of that, the muslims of the middle east have been eradicating minorities, and a lot of them, since the end of WW1. They are still doing it whenever they get the chance, for example in Syria, in Egypt, arguably even in Sudan. Asking the Jews (and 10 other even smaller groups) to become a minority without self determination is nothing short of asking them to die.
It also won't solve the problem. Palestine, if truly left to itself, would face immediate economic collapse. The only economic activity, the only way for Palestinians to get goods from outside, is to fight Israel. That is what gets them funding. That is the only basis of their economy. The middle east and Iran are not sponsoring Palestinians out of the goodness of their hearts, they're doing it out of racism against Jews, against Jews having self-determination.
Oil use, and price, will collapse and the aid to Palestinians will dry up and the situation will "resolve".
Daishiman•2h ago
The context of being an occupying power also factors into this too?
westpfelia•1h ago
7952•1h ago
Another piece of context is polling showing that a majority of Israeli citizens support the forced expulsion of Gazan citizens and even Arab Israeli citizens.
underdeserver•1h ago
text0404•1h ago