Israel’s Silent Cyberpower Is Reshaping the Middle East
As its cyber-espionage sector continues to grow, Israel is starting to face questions about who its technology is empowering
“New secrets about torture of Emiratis in state prisons.” So read a text message sent in 2016 to the iPhone of Ahmed Mansoor, a prominent human rights activist from the United Arab Emirates.
It was followed by a link. Mansoor did not tap it. Conscious of previous attempts to hack his communications, he forwarded the message to a security researcher at the digital rights watchdog Citizen Lab. What happened next would be a crucial step in a story that is quietly reshaping the Middle East.
According to an investigation by Citizen Lab, the link led to spyware created by the Israeli technology company NSO Group. Citizen Lab wrote that the existence of the spyware highlighted the “continuing lack of effective human rights policies and due diligence” at such companies based in democratic countries. Under Israel’s export laws, NSO Group would presumably have had to obtain a license to sell its products to the UAE. “The human rights abuses perpetrated by the UAE,” Citizen Lab wrote, “must not have outweighed authorities’ other motivations to approve the export.”
