International probe needed over NSO, says Israeli human rights lawyer

BEN LYNFIELD: Eitay Mack says NSO’s ‘symbiotic relationship’ with the Israeli government will prevent any serious probe; only an international commission can get to the truth

JERUSALEM -- ISRAELI SPYWARE maker NSO enjoys a "symbiotic relationship" with the Israeli government and therefore no serious probe will be launched into its sale of "Pegasus" spyware to governments around the world that are believed to have used it to monitor and suppress dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.

The only way to get to the truth is for countries around the world to establish an international commission.

That is the assessment of Eitay Mack, one of Israel's leading activists against weapons sales to human rights abusing regimes. He spoke to The Jewish Independent several days after a defence ministry delegation visited NSO offices in Herzliya ostensibly "to examine the reports and claims concerning it," according to a ministry spokesman.

Last month, the findings of a global investigation involving 17 news organizations including the Guardian and Haaretz were released after the examination of a database of 50,000 leaked phone numbers potentially selected as targets for hacking by clients of NSO.

The media organisations were able to specify ten governments believed to be responsible for selecting the targets, including Israeli normalisation partners the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco and Saudi Arabia, which has reportedly established covert ties with Israel.

NSO has denied any wrongdoing and the defence ministry says it regulates export of cyber products.

"What we have here is not NSO going out of control," said Mack,a lawyer who for the past decade has sought to expose and block arms and technology sales to South Sudan, Burma, Azerbaijan, Russia and many other autocratic regimes.  

"NSO is a company that advances the interests of the defence establishment. It is a symbiotic relationship." Each deal by NSO with a country is licensed by the Defence Ministry, making any ministry of defence checks on NSO "not serious," Mack claims.

"The cat guards the cream, eats the cream and also investigates who ate the cream," he says.  "They can't investigate themselves; what is needed is an international commission."

According to a recent New York Times report, NSO sold Pegasus to Saudi Arabia in 2017 and the kingdom used the spyware as part of a ruthless effort to eliminate dissent and hunt down dissidents abroad.

Just before last year's Abraham Accords between Israel and Bahrain and the UAE, Haaretz reported that NSO had sold its spyware to the UAE, where freedom of expression and dissent are rigorously curtailed.

Mack insists that NSO and the Defence Ministry work hand in hand and symbiotically forge covert ties with despotic regimes around the world to gain their recognition or other benefits, including support in international organisations. He terms this "Pegasus diplomacy". Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat declined to comment on Mack’s claims to The Jewish Independent.

"NSO is a for profit organisation," says Mack. "So the Ministry of Defence and Mossad want to build a relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and other states while these states want security assistance. The most comfortable thing to provide is surveillance mechanisms and the leading company. The one in greatest demand in this is NSO.

"Everything fits like a pot and its lid. It all works out. NSO makes money and the government of Israel gains connections."

NSO said in a statement posted on its website that the allegations against it were "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories" and added that the sources were not reliable. "After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in the report." It added that NSO sells its tools to vetted governments "for the sole purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts".

Israel's Defence Ministry also sought to indicate there was no wrongdoing on its part. In a statement, it said: "The state of Israel regulates marketing and export of cyber products in accordance with the 2007 Defence Export Control Act ….

“As a matter of policy, the State of Israel approves the export of cyber products exclusively to governmental entities, for lawful use, and only for the purpose of preventing and investigating crime and counter terrorism.

“In cases where exported items are used in violation of export licenses or end use certificates, appropriate measures are taken. Israel does not have access to the information gathered by NSO clients."

Mack, 40, who wears the yarmulka of an Orthodox Jew, is considered one of the most important human rights activists in Israel. He takes on the defence ministry on a voluntary basis, trying to put its exports on the national agenda.

Working out of a modest office in West Jerusalem adorned with the iconic picture of a demonstrator facing a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square, he has also filed many suits to gain payment of damages for Palestinians wounded by Israeli security forces. One was a news agency employee whose arm was broken by soldiers in the occupied West Bank village of Kafr Kadum. He makes his living as legal adviser to NGOs that monitor and combat the occupation.

Despite the current scandal, which has reverberated abroad but not in Israel, Mack does not believe NSO will be reined in or that the defence ministry will change its export policies.

"I don't see things changing unless all presidential palaces officially turn to Israel and there are discussions in the UN and Knesset. There is a good chance that at the moment, nothing will change."

For example, he does not envision France exerting major pressure, even though its president, Emanuel Macron was a potential target. Macron is preoccupied with the coronavirus, climate crisis and other issues, says Mack. He believes the Europeans are just concerned that Israeli spyware won't be used against them, not that it won't be used at all.

Within Israel, MK Tamar Zandberg of the left-wing Meretz party, who used to back Mack's efforts while in opposition, has gone silent about the scandal now that Meretz is in the governing coalition, and Zandberg is a minister. Asked if the party had any view of the spyware scandal, Meretz spokesman Hillel Partok declined to respond.

Mack says he will nonetheless continue his efforts. He has ties with human rights activists in many countries with egregious regimes, including Vietnam, Colombia and Mexico. "I want to help them and I get inspiration from them; I want to help these people whom we are simply endangering," he says.

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In first, Israeli spyware found on UK phone; the target: a British human rights lawyer (Haaretz)

Israel's immoral arms export must end – Yossi Melman (Haaretz)

Photo: Eitay Mack attends a court hearing on Amnesty International's legal bid to have Israel revoke the export license of the Israeli NSO surveillance firm, at Tel Aviv's District Court, January 16, 2020. (Reuters/Corinna Kern)