If we take "Israel" out of the equation to remove much of controversy, i dont understand why wouldnt any actor, especially government actor, take every possible step that their data remains under their sole control.
In other words, im curious why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest and in transit by keys not stored in that cloud.
This seems like a matter of national security for any government, not to have their data accessible by other parties at the whims of different jurisdiction where that cloud vendor operates.
> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
Conversely, if you don't, it's not hard to understand at all when you consider that there are oodles of American politicians, at all levels, actually publicly declaring that they put Israeli interests over US interests. What's hard to understand about _that_ is that, for some reason, it's not considered pure and simple treason.
It would still be very alarming if a democratic country like Australia or European Union taking a step like this where they tell the vendor that it will use its data and service in whatever way it sees fit, and sidestep existing policies those vendors have on the uses of their services and data.
Now maybe we can say that Israel is not a democratic system or environment, but then Microsoft would not be wholly desiring to do business serving such an entity, lest they break with US oversight.
Israel here told the vendor that whenever there is a gag on them by their government against making Israel aware of their request, the vendor is to secretly transmit a message alerting them..
> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
No, I don't think I will.
Since when is talking about Israel controversial?
Because it is obviously illegal, violates both the letter and spirit of American law.
Also because no other country has the power to get cloud vendors to do this and this one special country will face no consequences (as usual).
From the article:
"The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world"
"Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations."
The way I interpret this is Google, Amazon operates in multiple countries under multiple jurisdictions. The security services for any of these countries(including for example Egypt where Google has offices according to....Google), can produce a legal(in Egypt) order requesting Google to produce data of another customer( for example Israeli govt) and Google has to comply or leave Egypt.
It seems to me that being under constant threat of your government sensitive data being exposed at the whims of another, potentially adversarial government is not a sustainable way of operating and Im surprised that Israel havent either found ways of storing its infrastructure locally or encrypting it five way to Sunday.
This is not a comment on the specific accusation of actions by Israel but for strange reality of being a small-country government and a customer of a multi-national cloud vendor.
> why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest
If it's encrypted in the cloud, it also cannot be processed in the cloud. For AI in particular that kinda defeats the point.
It's not irrelevant that it's Israel in question. There's not many countries that have been found to be committing genocide (by UN), are actively involved in a war or where the leaders are sought by ICC.
The UN has made no such ruling. Committees don't speak for the UN.
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For every killed Israeli in the attacks on the 7th of October, Israel went and killed 18 children in retaliation. If that is not genocide then I don't know what is.
That is an elementary understanding international law.
If after Oct 7th Israel went and killed a single child in retaliation, that would be unjust. Justification and proportionality are not measured like that.
Justification is established by a valid objective to go to war. Proportionality is measured in comparison to the military objectives. The Oct 7th attack clearly justifies the removal of Hamas. The proportionality of doing so is dependent on the size of Hamas's army (20k-30k), the size of their infrastructure (500 kms of tunnels), and their ability to separate their operations and operators from civilians.
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THE talk is about IDF here.
That is insanely disingenuous. Rightly calling out a genocide by a country known to commit war crimes and violate human rights, international law, and previous peace deals is not antisemitic.
This is equivalent to you claiming that calling out ethnic cleansing campaigns in Sudan is racist. I hope that makes it clear how ridiculous that sounds.
You’re conveniently ignoring that Hamas took 200+ hostages and refused to return them throughout the war.
Just because Hamas, build the biggest underground bomb shelter network and refused to let any civilians in it and that that it operated militarily out of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, causing inevitable casualties by civilians does not make it a genocide. It makes it a terrible war. A war that Hamas started on October 7.
>>You’re conveniently ignoring that Hamas took 200+ hostages and refused to return them throughout the war.
Are you saying what I think you're saying? Holding 200+ hostages justifies killing 18 thousand children? "inevitable casualties" - what a feckless way to call what anyone else can see clearly as a systematic attempt to kill and eradicate a group of people.
Israel already held ~11k Palestinians in indefinite military detention without charges, prior to Oct 7.
AKA, hostages.
They just released 2k as part of a swap a week ago, but are still holding more hostages than Hamas: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/who-are-palestinia...
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October 7 was horrendous, but it's not like history started from a blank slate that morning.
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what is your definition of genocide?
Shooting back at militants who shot at you during cease fire?
> Redefines the meaning of genocide to fit the shape of the conflict -- a war started by Hamas on Oct 7
My man, Israel had a blockade surrounding Palestine on all sides for years prior. October 7th was a retaliation for a lot of the pain Israel had inflicted on Palestine (sorry- Greater Israel). And Bibi was well in the know and all too happy to let it happen.
> largely ignores role of Hamas in the conflict
Bibi loved and loves Hamas. Also, Israel has nuclear weapons. A lot of them.
It's like David and Goliath, except in this case David is malnourished to the extreme, has no future, no present, no past except seeing his family and friends bombed to oblivion....and only can attack Goliath with a few pebbles. Meanwhile, Goliath has plot armor and nukes.
>Frames the country as a "settler-colonial" project ignoring realities of jewish history in the region.
And not ignoring Palestine, which had existed for 12 centuries before the birth of Christ?
> My man, Israel had a blockade surrounding Palestine on all sides for years prior.
A blockade that was specifically accounted for the the preceding ceasefire agreement that was in place on Oct 6th.
> David and Goliath
Yet, it is David who keeps starting this fight, losing, then calling Goliath unjust because his ability to punch back is greater.
> And not ignoring Palestine, which had existed for 12 centuries before the birth of Christ?
Nope not ignoring. Both groups have a long history in the region. Arabs through colonization centuries ago. Heck, "Palestine" even comes from the Jewish word for invader (the naming is not connected to the arabization of Palestine).
The Jewish history in the region became the Palestinian history of the region. The Palestinians are literally the direct descendants of the Israelites said to be in prior history. This is per David Ben Gurion.
Any legitimate sources for this claim?
David Ben Gurion is my source for you. He wrote a book in Yiddish. https://www.ameinu.net/frontier/jf_11-99_rosenthal.html
A) you know that Gaza has border with another country that is not Israel
B) you’re missing out on cause and effect here — could it be that Israeli started blocking import of goods that can be used for military purposes shortly after Hamas gain control of Gaza in 2007 and started shooting missiles at Israel
Israel controls the Egypt border as well. They permit goods to go and stop when they wish with Egypt providing the control.
B) they implemented immediately after Hamas won the election, including the West Bank. Until they were forced out.
Timelines disagree with you: A) after disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and all the way until this war, Israel did not control the border between Gaza and Egypt. Egypt did
B) 2005 - Israel withdraws from Gaza
Jan 2026 - Hamas wins popular elections
Feb 2026 - rocket and mortar attacks launched by new Hamas govt begin. 179 attacks in February alon
Feb 2026 - international sanctions and tightened Israeli border control begins
You meant to say 2006.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/08/israel1
I see a different picture in 2006 Feb. not rocket attacks.
UN's Chronological review of Events related to "the question of Palestine": https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-203280/
Feb 2
"A Qassam rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip landed in an open area south of the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Another Qassam rocket landed near the southern Israeli town of Sderot and a third one landed near the Al-Muntar (Erez) crossing. There were no injuries or damage resulting from the strikes. "
Feb 3
"Four Israelis were wounded when Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. Islamic Jihad had claimed responsibility for the attack. Two more rockets landed near Ashkelon, causing some damage. IDF artillery shelled the northern Gaza Strip. "
Feb 7
"Four Qassam rockets landed in Israel, north of the Gaza Strip. They damaged buildings, but there were no injuries. "
I can continue, but you can look at the above link and absolutely see that indiscriminate rockets attacks from Gaza into Israel in 2006 (as well as before and after).
It makes total sense for Israel to prevent movements of goods that can be used to build this sort of weaponry in Gaza.
Of course there is a wikipedia page that tracks some of these attacks for the past few decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...
So yes, there is a cause and effect behind so-called blockade of Gaza by Israel(ie Egypt had a border with Gaza and they chose to enforce it the way they deeemed neccessary for their national security)
Yes. Keep reading that same Wikipedia article and you will find that groups in Gaza had independently been firing rockets against the direction of Hamas who at least by may was trying to enter into peace agreements with Israel.
Edit: to bring it back, Israel put blockade on the entire Palestinian Territories until Hamas was removed.
So to summarize -- Palestinian militants have been firing rockets from Gaza into Israel after Israel pulled out of Gaza.
As a result, Israel put a blockade on goods that can be used for military purposes from entering Gaza from Israel
The border between egypt and Gaza has NOT been controlled by Israel until after october 7. It was controlled by Egypt. As far as i understand, Egypt also restricted movement of people and goods to Gaza.
Look at the article you linked to again. It says clearly Israel put a blockade because Hamas had taken over on the territories until Hamas was taken out. In West Bank, Israel lifted the blockade after Hamas was removed.
There is a Wikipedia article on the gate. How it was under Israel control until 2005 and after it was given to Egypt with Israel cameras watching what was going in and out. And canceling any imports they deemed so. Exports were permitted by Israel but not by Egypt. So nothing was exported.
> If we take "Israel" out of the equation
Then this whole story would disintegrate.
I am baffled by the manufactured outrage this story is generating. "oh no. <country> is sidestepping the NSA which we loudly proclaim to be evil at every opportunity, and (gasp) imposing their own conditions and bullying gigantic tech companies which are even more evil."
This from the same group of people who insist that europe should host their own data.
>Then this whole story would disintegrate.
American companies sidestepping law related to international relationships between the US and other countries in order to benefit a foreign state??
That story would disintegrate? In what universe?
> American companies sidestepping law related to international relationships between the US and other countries in order to benefit a foreign state??
Assuming it's even true, there is no side-stepping international relations between the US and other countries.
If Egypt were to issue a legal order with a gag clause ordering Amazon to release Israeli data, and Amazon were to signal that fact to Israel, how does this involve the US at all?
Seems like you did not understand the story.