Thread by @AnshelPfeffer

Israel waking up to a bombshell report in Calcalist that dozens of politicians, activists, businesspeople and journalists were targeted by the NSO’s hacking tool Pegasus. It seems inevitable now that a national commission of enquiry will be needed

And as always it’s tied to Netanyahu. The previous PM brought a spy-chief from the Shin Bet as national police commissioner and urged him to use surveillance tech developed for the security service. Commissioner Alsheikh was to be Netanyahu’s secret police
haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…

The irony is that Alsheikh (allegedly) took Netanyahu’s urging so literally, the police (allegedly) used Pegasus also against members of Netanyahu’s circle and (not allegedly) Alsheikh spearheaded the Netanyahu investigations. Which may end up now impacting on Netanyahu’s trial.>

The other irony as @alufbenn points out here is that Netanyahu was NSO’s most energetic salesman hawking Pegasus to foreign leaders around the world. Now it looks like Pegasus may have had a part in his own downfall. haaretz.com/israel-news/.p…

Netanyahu’s proxies trying to make this case only about abuse of police powers in investigation against him but it’s much wider of course. It’s not just an officer who went rogue. Every lawyer in a criminal case will now demand to know if Pegasus was used against their client.>

The obvious step would be a public commission of enquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge into all aspects of the use of Pegasus and ties between the government and NSO. That’s very unlikely to happen as it will open massive Pandora’s box in all directions, not just on Netanyahu>

1. The foreign leaders Netanyahu sold Pegasus are still around and the current government won’t want to harm relations with them 2. Pegasus is of course in use by Israel’s intelligence services against foreign and Palestinian targets. They’ll want to keep that aspect under wraps>

3. Netanyahu may have been the main Pegasus salesman but senior members of the current government including Bennett have also had ties with the NSO group. There’s enough shit here to cover everyone. Bottom line, the enquiry will probably only cover domestic police use of Pegasus>

But even a limited enquiry can become extremely damaging. Currently the fall-guy is ex-commissioner Alsheikh who (allegedly) brought these systems into police use but Alsheikh knows everything and forgot nothing. What orders were given to him, who the system was used against etc>

Alsheikh was deputy Shin Bet chief and police commissioner under Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s people are now trying to pin on Alsheikh an “illegal witch-hunt” against their boss but if Alsheikh suddenly becomes the accused, he knows enough to open up several new cans of worms on Bibi.

Here’s the original report in Calcalist in English. (The details are shocking but also, there’s been absolutely no sourcing to this entire series)
calcalistech.com/ctech/articles…