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- Hacker News
- I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for the company or good?by zby
- If our press was honest, every story you heard about Russia would have been about Israel instead. Israel is overwhelmingly America's worst enemy and they distract from that by pretending Russia/Iran/China/Qatar is. No other country blackmails our politicians or steals so much of our money, military resources, soldier lives as much as Israel. There's no close competitor even.
Yet we're never told that explicitly and it's never framed as the abusive relationship that it is.
Makes you really wonder who the press works for.
by unselect5917 - It is called HASBARA, spreading lies with Israeli government money received from USA as aid.by juliusceasar
- Israel has been getting away with this for years: https://www.france24.com/en/technology/20230215-israeli-firm...by stats111
- I'm surprised that they dare to target NYC. I think NSO Group restricted Pegasus so that no US adversary would be retained as a client and the US would not be targeted.by eunos
- They think they can do whatever they want. And thus far, they have been right about that.by daishi55
- The current US administration would have likely been in favor of it. Long term it’s a bad idea but it wouldn’t be the first time we saw groups like this only thinking about the short term.by afavour
- Is this the same company that Slovenia was asking the EU for help with regarding the company's meddling in the election process?by Carbon1603
- Not quite. That was Black Cube, a second Israeli spy firm accused of election meddling: https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-golob-slovenia-eu-pro...by verteu
- The same Israeli BlackCore that masqueraded as a humanitarian fund for Gaza and stole the money?
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-0...
Lowest of the low.
by ebbi - Quite revealing when this comment has been getting downvoted. I guess some people support the fact that some people dishonestly raise money for a humanitarian cause and then steal that money.by ebbi
- The israeli ambassador in France should already have been kicked out a while ago for a myriad of reasons, I'm ashamed my country is so spineless.by Zealotux
- Rogue states will attack Western democracy. It's a tale as old as... Well, actually, in the past few years, this one has done more on that front than all the others combined.by vkou
- Europeans couldn't even get Israel out of a silly pop song contest, so it seems a bit hopeless to expect any actual political action.
- "Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."
This is a very well executed bit of diplomacy.
by stuaxo - Nonsense, it'll end up with merely some public head scratching and shrugs, and a "gee whiz monsieur, it sure is a mystery to us too".
Interesting that whatever they wanted to do backfired in NYC.
- I confused BlackCore with Black Cube, a different Israeli private oppo research and dirty tricks group of former intelligence agents. They gained attention for their dirty campaigns against Harvey Weinstein's accusers, NSOs critics and Hungarian opposition.by thinkcontext
- Not to be confused with Blackrock or Blackstone, both large American investment companies with their own shady operations.
- As a New Yorker this doesn’t shock me too much. The level of “Mamdani is an anti-Semite” sentiment I saw online (Reddit particularly) felt truly hysterical. And wasn’t matched by any equivalent in the offline world.by afavour
- On the flipside the level of deep love and praise for Bernie Sanders did not translate into an equivilent outcome in real life. (And I say that as a Bernie supporter).
Its a hard lesson to learn that there is so much astroturfing in both directions that you have to learn to ignore the noise.
by saturn8601 - I like and have come to, on certain policies and candidates, ally with Mamdani. But I’m struggling to find the relevance to New York City in this article beyond supposition. I went in ready to find a foreign attack on our homeland and come away grasping at straws.
- The 2026 budget for Hasbara is $730 million. That's a lot of push.by karim79
- Well previous NYC mayors felt the need to travel to Israel and talk to them about how good of a job he did for them, so it is quite a changeby thatguy0900
- I suspect that many people, like me, now hear "antisemitic" as "anti Israel" and assume it's a politically motivated slur without justification. This is not good. As racism and actual antisemitism continues to be very real, any conflating or exaggeration of a real problem diminishes people's willingness to address the real problems.by altacc
- As a newyorker who was raised a modern orthdox jew, but left that world for the world arts, the last few years have been weird.
On the one hand, it's been the first time I've no longer been able to take for granted that everyone in a room agrees with my political views and doesn't pre-judge me based on my background. On the other hand, I've gone back home to the suburbs and heard some really ridiculous hyperbole about what it's like in NYC.
Then there's the fact that while I support Isreal, I don't support all its actions. Nor do a lot of people in the [Orthodox] Jewish community, but they are afraid to speakup too much.
Modern orthdoox jews are kind of like Mitt Romney is for Mormons. Observant of all the rules, but also raised with a full secular education, encouraged to go to college, and expected to participate in society rather than isolate in thier community.
by AbstractH24 - The NY Times coverage of him is abhorrently biased. Every time I see an article about him, the headline, summary, and article itself feel like the editors were desperate to paint him in as negative a light as possible.
The man has almost overnight gotten the city to start doing things that benefit the general public, nto just the wealthy. Actions on bike lane projects that were stalled and actually taking action against slumlords.
All that barely gets a mention, but they seem obsessed with trying to find fault with everything he does.
During the NBA finals, he paid for his own ticket but they still took him to task for its expense ($1000) and the ticket coming from the "VIP ticket pool" like this was some abuse of his position or unethical of him.
Of course the mayor gets access to the VIP pool of tickets? And he didn't abuse the privilege to get tickets for anyone else - not staff, not family, not friends. Just him.
by KennyBlanken - They have to be kind of panicking that the smear tactics keep backfiring.
Didn't stop Mamdani. Won't stop Platner.
At this point it is amusing to see them pissing away so many millions of dollars to stop a public opinion tide that has no chance of being stopped.