All contacts between Morocco and Israel in the Pegasus case (and beyond)
The intervention of Giuseppe Gagliano
Morocco has become embroiled in a new espionage case, this time targeting Moroccan journalists and foreign media operators using Israeli software, demonstrating recurring relationships of collaboration with Israel in the field of espionage dating back sixty years.
THE PEGASUS CASE
The case, considered one of the biggest espionage scandals of the decade, came to light after 17 international media reported last Sunday on the use of Israeli spyware dubbed Pegasus. Their work is based on a list of 50,000 telephone numbers pre-selected by NSO customers for eventual surveillance, obtained from the Forbidden Stories network and Amnesty International.
Pegasus, which allows you to take control of a smartphone, provides access to all the contents of the device, as well as the microphone and camera. Among the user countries: Morocco.
THE USE OF PEGASUS IN MOROCCO
Since Amnesty International's 2020 revelation of Moroccan investigative journalist Omar Radi's phone infection with the same spyware, independent Moroccan journalists suspected that they too could be targeted by the surveillance program marketed by Israeli company NSO Group, regularly. accused of indirectly playing the game of authoritarian regimes.
Lists of phone numbers selected as potential targets showed, according to the investigation, that the Moroccan regime used Pegasus to systematically target journalists critical of the government and journalists from the country's main newsrooms.
The Moroccan intelligence also selected for potential surveillance a telephone used by Omar Brouksy, former correspondent of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Rabat and author of two critical books on Mohammed VI and relations between France and Morocco.
Moroccan journalists are not the only ones interested in the kingdom's secret services. About thirty French journalists and media officials are on Pegasus' target list. On several occasions, the Forbidden Stories consortium and Amnesty International's Security Lab have been able to technically establish that Pegasus infection was successful.
WHO SPYED MOROCCO
While Moroccan reports seem to have mostly targeted journalists working for so-called left-wing newsrooms, right-wing media have not been spared.
Also according to these revelations, Morocco spied, thanks to this Israeli software, more than 6,000 telephone numbers in Algeria, 1,000 in France and 500 in Turkey.
CONTACTS BETWEEN MOROCCO AND ISRAEL
The scandal just erupted was mentioned by prof. Ammar Belhimer, current Minister of Communications, in a column entitled "The eye of the Mossad", published on November 26, 2019 in the columns of the newspaper Le Soir d'Algeria .
The American newspaper, The New York Times , revealed in its December 11, 2020 edition that the announcement of the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel was the culmination of 60 years of covert collaboration. “For almost 60 years, Morocco and Israel (…) have collaborated closely but secretly on military and intelligence matters and killings (…)”, the newspaper said.
In 1965, when Arab leaders and military commanders met in Casablanca, Morocco allowed the Mossad to intercept their private meeting rooms and suites, the American newspaper in particular writes.
The wiretapping, therefore, provided Israel with an unprecedented insight into Arab thinking, capabilities and plans, which proved vital to Mossad and the Israeli defense forces in preparing for the 1967 war.
Shortly after and at the request of the Moroccan secret services, the Mossad located the Moroccan opponent Ben Barka, luring him to Paris, where both Moroccans and French are located. He was tortured to death and Mossad agents made the body disappear, which was never found.
A decade later, King Hassan II and his government became "the back road" between Israel and Egypt, and Morocco became "the place of secret meetings" between their officials, before the 1978 Camp David accords and normalization. of relations between former enemies. Israel then helped persuade the United States to provide military assistance to Morocco, according to the New York Times.
COMMENTS FROM EUROPE AND FRANCE
The Pegasus case of spying on activists, journalists and opponents around the world is "completely unacceptable" if proven, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday.
"This needs to be verified," but if true "it is completely unacceptable," the official told reporters in Prague. "Freedom of the press is a fundamental value of the European Union," said Von der Leyen.
For his part, the French government spokesman Gabriel Attal considered the facts "extremely shocking and, if true, they are extremely serious". "We are extremely attached to the freedom of the press, so it is very serious to have manipulations, techniques that aim to undermine the freedom of journalists, their freedom to investigate, to inform," he said.
THE ANALYSIS
Up to here the hard facts. Let's now pass brief considerations. Let's start with the first: there are areas in which the modus operandi of democracies is exactly the same as that of authoritarian regimes. One of these areas is intelligence.
Moving on to the second consideration: the Mossad – exactly like the French security services – have practiced – and practical – targeted assassinations both at home and outside its borders.
We come to the third consideration: the bewilderment on the part of the representatives of the European Union is the result of hypocrisy and bad faith, especially after what was revealed by Eduard Snowden about the NSA and the CIA.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/marocco-israele-pegasus-spionaggio/ on Wed, 21 Jul 2021 09:20:37 +0000.