Israel's meddling in Indian Politics

Pegasus Spygate is the big story in India and the world these days. In India, its one of the greatest scandals of all time. Illegal surveillance of opposition politicians, journalists, activists, businessmen and all kinds of people has created a storm in India. But there is another dimension to the story which remains untouched so far.

To give a very brief summary of Pegasus scandal. Pegasus is a Cyber weapon sold by Israeli company NSO to Governments of "vetted" nations. Entities like NSO are not like ordinary corporations doing usual commercial business with nations, selling their services to anybody & everybody. Companies like NSO are connected to Israeli military establishment & intelligence and only certain specific parties/foreign Governments can avail their services. These vetted parties/foreign Governments are approved by Israeli establishment and Israeli political leadership for commercial businesses.  That means a state like Pakistan cannot do business with NSO. Only a friendly & trusted country with good foreign relations and mutual interests with Israel can do business with NSO.

 

Pegasus is basically a spyware application that discreetly hijacks phones of targeted person and starts transmitting user data to hijackers. The spyware attacks targeted phone through various means including just a missed call on Whatsapp (called zero click method). Once installed, the spyware starts sending user data like passwords, contacts, photos, messages, GPS location etc to hijackers. Since ordinary phone calls & messaging over normal telecom services are not secure, people these days use services like Whatsapp which have encryption based calling & messaging. But Pegasus can bypass this protection and sieve through everything. The phone camera and microphone of target smartphone starts snooping and sending data to hijackers.

 

Its scary that such surveillance, which was proclaimed to be meant for use against terrorists is being actually used against journalists, activists, rival politicians, businessmen & pretty much everyone which Modi regime considers to be a persons of interest. Also this surveillance is not really sanctioned by state agencies through official means, this is most likely "off the books" illegal private operation. They can be termed as espionage because its different than official state sanctioned surveillance. It looks pretty clear that much of the use of Pegasus in India is a private operation carried out by Modi & Shah. I don't think IB, RAW, NIA or any other agency is involved in official capacity in using of Pegasus specially in cases of surveillance and hacking of journalists and rival politicians of BJP because that would be outrageously illegal.

 

As scary as the use of Pegasus spyware in India is, equally troubling part is how can Israeli company sell this Cyber weapon & their services to someone like Modi & Shah. And lets be clear, when talking about NSO, lets expand it to Israeli establishment because its connected to NSO. The question is not just - Why NSO sold this cyber weapon to Modi regime which abused it in worst ways possible? The question is actually more serious - Why did Israeli establishment approved the sale of cyber weapons to someone like Modi regime?  Also lets be clear, while selling their services & cyber weapons to foreign Governments, NSO obviously has certain terms & conditions in agreement of sale. For what purpose, the cyber weapons will be used and who will be used against. I think this is all the part of vetting process

 

News reports suggest that Netanyahu was personally involved in diplomatic marketing of Pegasus & NSO services to several nations including India & Saudi Arabia (read 1, 2 & 3). So the more serious question is - How much Israeli establishment and Israeli political government knew about abuse of Pegasus in India? The friendship of Netanyahu and Modi is touted by the BJP Govt. Netanyahu belongs to the coterie of reactionary politicians like Modi, Trump & Bolsanaro - right wing corrupted sociopath demagogues. This amounts to brazen interference by Israelis in Indian politics. While Netanyahu may have been giving favors to Modi, its actually working against the Indian state, India's democracy & India's national interest. If my thinking is correct, then Israel has inflicted a deep wound in diplomatic relations between two countries. Surprisingly, Indian media and defense experts have not looked into this dimension of scandal. Its also worth noting that NSO selling of cyber weapons to various Governments was going on since last several years but the scandal has emerged after the departure of Netanyahu from office. It looks like Netanyahu was personally invested into this spyware diplomacy.  

 

Apart from Indian Democracy, India's national security is also compromised by illegal private surveillance. There is no guarantee that data attained by hacking of targeted people remains only in hands of Modi regime. The Pegasus hacking is a complex operation and its unclear who organize & filter all the raw data into concrete information & intelligence. Its possible that this data can also fall into hands of other parties, foreign governments or private entities who may use the information for their own vested interests. But what's certain is that Israeli Government was aware of things done with NSO cyber weapons and allowed all the illegal things to happen.