Beyond merely selling their products to Israel, the NSO Group itself is an Israeli firm, founded by ex-Israeli intelligence, and whose products are subject to Israeli national export controls.
That's a level of sponsorship way beyond simply being a customer... that's state espionage served with a side of profit. It's evil when the USA does it, it's evil when the Russians do it, it's evil when China does it, it's evil when Israel does it... but nobody does anything about it because all those states would prefer strong surveillance rather than rights for activists and journalists.
Further to this there has been some recent coverage in the Israeli press about the strong relationship between NSO Group and the Israeli government. The gov used NSO and it's products as a lure to the Gulf states to bring them on-side as a wedge against Iran
> NSO is one of the most active Israeli companies in the Gulf, and its Pegasus 3 software permits law enforcement authorities to hack into cellphones, copy their contents and sometimes even to control their camera and audio recording capabilities
> Israel put NSO in touch with Arab states in the region, and Israeli representatives even took part in marketing meetings between intelligence officials in the Arab states and NSO executives. Some of the meetings were held in Israel.
Further reading on just how intertwined NSO group was with the government:
A crash course in Israeli national export control:
1. You can sell everything except for nuclear tech (and maybe even that, I don't know).
2. If the client is not officially an enemy of Israel then do whatever you want, we don't give an f'ing f'.
3. If the client _is_ officially an enemy of Israel, then all sales must be conducted through official (secret) state channels. Independent side-action will not be tolerated (see the cases of Nahum Manbar or Shim'on Sheves). This might be a hassle, but the upside is that the courts will uphold complete secrecy of your affairs and the military censorship (yes, Israel has that) will likely prevent any nasty exposes.
4. If the US throws a tantrum, then sections (1.) and (2.) are abrogated. But don't worry: There plenty of generals and other high-ranking retired officers are in key positions in politics, and a bunch of us are wanted for war crimes anyways with ICC cases pending, so... we're all friends here and we got your back.
Are you sure about that? The English translation of the export control law seem to imply that companies exporting defense equipment must have a license and that that license can be revoked whenever for almost whatever reason: http://www.exportctrl.mod.gov.il/Documents/%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A... I may be misunderstanding it though.
Is that so much different than how the U.S operates, other than Israel is really fun to demonize? The U.S arms whoever it wants to arm, Europe as well. So selling F-15's is cool but cyber hacks isn't. Got it.
There's definitely parallels to be drawn between the Israeli and the American conservative/right-wing/militant nationalist elements. Both countries operate as global bullies, using military force to subjugate externally and propaganda and fear of replacement to subjugate internally, heavily enhanced by the use of technology.
They both have this old-guard mentality of "might makes right" hegemony, which a lot of other countries (and some portion of their populations) don't like because it's broadly incompatible with a human-rights centered worldview that favors the pipe dream of peaceful multilateral democracies. Count myself as someone who dislikes this approach.
Whether it's planes or surveillance tech or reactor malware doesn't really matter, all just ammunition for their goals.
Israel at least has a survival need; it learned the (very) hard way that it has many enemies constantly seeking to destroy it. It's an us-or-them mentality hardened by centuries of oppression and decades of war.
America... now that's much harder to find an excuse for. And arguably we've spent all our resources on attacking Muslim scapegoats while China leapfrogs us. But hey, I don't make global policy, I just comment on it on the internet.
> it learned the (very) hard way that it has many enemies constantly seeking to destroy it.
While that might be true at the level of people in the Arab East, but as far as states are concerned, that isn't actually the case. Unfortunately, repressive governments in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere are supportive of Israel; and Lebanon and Syria are effectively quiescent long-term.
And that's despite Israel's best efforts to trigger enmity...
> It's an us-or-them mentality hardened by centuries of oppression and decades of war.
Israel has only existed for 73 years. And - it directly started most of the wars it fought; and one other was an attack to reclaim land occupied by a previous Israeli campaign. It's only the gulf war in which Israeli was "just attacked" (by Scud rockets from Iraq).
> And - it directly started most of the wars it fought; and one other was an attack to reclaim land occupied by a previous Israeli campaign. It's only the gulf war in which Israeli was "just attacked" (by Scud rockets from Iraq).
That's a very naive way to look at things, I really doubt you bothered looking into it deeply. Israel had little choice to go to the 1967 war, Egypt was preparing for war both rhetorically and in action (blockade of the Straits of Tiran among others). If you actually care about History and read about that period you'd understand Israel felt it was facing an existential threat. Was it the case? We don't really know. There was a good chance Egypt would have started invading. I agree that Arab states tend to sometimes speak a lot (even threatening genocide) without doing much, but Israel couldn't really know.
> Unfortunately, repressive governments in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere are supportive of Israel; and Lebanon and Syria are effectively quiescent long-term.
IMO that's the direct result of Israel being strong militarily, a reluctant status quo arrived at by the immense competence of the IDF. Earlier in history much of the Arab world would've much preferred Israel to not have existed at all. They Israelis had to carve out a niche for themselves through sheer force of will (and firepower).
> And - it directly started most of the wars it fought; and one other was an attack to reclaim land occupied by a previous Israeli campaign.
I don't think that's a very fair framing of the situation. I despise Israeli militancy, and I feel sorry for the Palestinians, and I wish we wouldn't support Israel's efforts to displace them... but that land has been contested since biblical times.
For many centuries the Jews lacked a proper homeland, and that did not at all end well for them. Most of the world's population lives on stolen or conquered land. Who "originally" owned the now-contested area isn't really relevant; both sides claim it as their ancestral homeland (and both sides are partially right, as far as I can tell as an outsider). More importantly, both sides live there now, regardless of who got there "first".
If Israel gave up arms, it would cease to exist within the week. If Israel did not so strongly defend itself, as in the Six-Day War, it would almost certainly have ceased to exist by now. Some of the Arab world tolerates Israel and may make tactical decisions to cooperate with them on limited bases. But that is a very far cry from outright accepting them as a friendly neighbor, E.U. style. Israel's survival needs are unlike those of most other developed nations in the world, who are largely surrounded by stable neighbors... it's comparable maybe only to Taiwan, Ukraine, South Korea, and other situations facing immediate volatility.
This isn't to excuse (what I consider) the excessive use of force on the Israeli part, but it's the excessive that I take issue with. If they didn't use force at all (or at least threaten to and actually have the capacity for), they really wouldn't exist for very long... history has shown that time and time again, and it's the very reason Israel was founded as such. They have been challenged, life-or-death style, in a way that very few other countries have been or foreseeably will be. If the USA lost a war, maybe we'd fail to accomplish some geopolitical objective... but it's unlikely the country would simply disappear altogether. If Israel lost a war, it's the next Holocaust.
> hey both have this old-guard mentality of "might makes right" hegemony, which a lot of other countries (and some portion of their populations) don't like because it's broadly incompatible with a human-rights centered worldview that favors the pipe dream of peaceful multilateral democracies.
At least you are honest enough to say it's a pipe dream.
It really is.
The world is pretty brutal and liberal democracy is a value shared by a minority of humanity. If liberal democracy wants to survive it sometimes has to defend itself. The minimum it needs is an army to protect its people.
Does that absolve U.S or Israel from every arms sell they do? Probably not. But it's a broad context we need to understand when we talk about this issue.
> which a lot of other countries (and some portion of their populations) don't like because it's broadly incompatible with a human-rights centered worldview
I understand that's the liberal and progressive thing to say. But if you really think about it, it reeks from hypocrisy. The "progressive" countries (who are they exactly?) like Canada, Sweden, Australia etc all need the U.S to protect them. They wouldn't want the U.S to go away, not in a million years.
> The world is pretty brutal and liberal democracy is a value shared by a minority of humanity. If liberal democracy wants to survive it sometimes has to defend itself. The minimum it needs is an army to protect its people.
Yes, I agree to a large extent. Most of the world's strong extant states were forged in war (or is a quasi vassal state to one which was). We didn't get here by being nice to each other. A strong defensive military is something I think every state would be wise to have, so long as human nature remains what it is... we're not wizened philosopher-kings, more just horny, hungry apes.
The distinction I draw is in foreign interference in matters that do not directly threaten us. I would rather see us resign from our role as world police/bully and focus more on domestic affairs, severely scaling back our force projection abilities (namely, carrier groups whose homeland defense uses are limited). I don't believe in this idea that "the only way to protect ourselves is to shape the world in our image, and forcibly subjugate those who will not willingly convert". Yes, there are shitty dictators out there, there is real evil in the world, but we're no angels and we've done a really shitty job of trying to make other countries better (with limited exceptions, like post-WW2 Japan and Germany).
The thing is, sustainable peace through militant nationalism is also a pipe dream. It's never stable for long and it creates vast power differentials that breeds discontent and violence; eventually it bleeds back over to us. I'd bet, measured across a few decades, our forays in Afghanistan and Iraq will create more terrorists than we've actually stopped... our administrations think in 4-8 year terms, not 20+, incurring foreign policy debts that later generations will have to try to pay off in an increasingly unstable world compounded by not just virally-amplified ideologies but also skyrocketing inequality and climate change. There is no military force that can keep an unstable, discontent world of ~8 billion apes in check for long.
Absent either a world dictatorship or peaceful multilateral democracies, I'd settle for regional hegemonies and old-school spheres of influence instead... we stay out of China's way, they stay out of ours, we trade peacefully. That means some nations will fall, whether it's Israel (possible, but unlikely?) or Taiwan (probably), Ukraine, etc. Sucks for those countries, but by % of world population, I believe that will result in greater overall peace and prosperity.
Shrug. It's all pipe dreams. Always has been. Some of us just have bigger pipes, I guess.
> which a lot of other countries (and some portion of their populations) don't like because it's broadly incompatible with a human-rights centered worldview
>> I understand that's the liberal and progressive thing to say. But if you really think about it, it reeks from hypocrisy. The "progressive" countries (who are they exactly?) like Canada, Sweden, Australia etc all need the U.S to protect them. They wouldn't want the U.S to go away, not in a million years.
Yeah, even a self-identified progressive, I unfortunately still mostly agree with you. Most of the liberals/progressives I've discussed foreign affairs with seem to have a pretty limited understanding of (or even interest in) military history. Not that I'm an expert by any stretch, but I do worry that they naively see the world as an unreasonably safe place. I don't think it is.
The American progressive strong suit is in domestic affairs -- leftist populism, basically -- not military strategy or even foreign policy at large.
Broadly, I suppose I believe in big hugs for my fellow citizens, big talks with our competitors, and big guns for our enemies (but we sure as heck shouldn't shoot first).
> Canada, Sweden, Australia etc all need the U.S to protect them
Y'know, Trump wasn't right about much, but maybe NATO really ought to pay its fair share in regional defense. Our forces are so disproportionate that NATO is less like an alliance and more like a protectorate. It can't just forever be "the Western world will fall apart absent American carriers"... if for no other reason than hypersonic missiles. We cemented global hegemon status in the post-WW2 years, but it's not a responsibility we should have to single-handedly carry into the indefinite future. If our allies need to build up their defenses, maybe we could encourage them by gradually bringing ours home. And if we have fewer foreign expeditions, cool, maybe we'd make fewer enemies.
In other words, I think our military should be strong enough to defend against homeland invasions and provide limit support to our allies, but not so strong that it runs the entire world's geosecurity. Somewhere in between is the question of what to do about Eurasia and specifically China... ideally we'd find some Cold-War like balance of mutually assured destruction, with neither side really wanting a hot war. Even better would be if we just cooperated economically with them and worked together on climate change, and let them run their social experiment while we run ours. We need to stop thinking we can singlehandedly liberate the world from oppression, or bring light to darkness, or whatever. We're just another country with big guns and small hearts... there's been many through history, none of which ended particularly well.
Every Israeli citizen, except religious extremists, serves in the IDF or equivalent; if you look useful to the intelligence apparatus, that's where you'll end up.
You literally cannot find an Israeli company that isn't founded, run, and staffed by people with military or intelligence links, unless you're only dealing with religious extremists.
A bit more nuanced; Israeli Arab Muslims (besides Bedouins) and Arab Christians don't go to the army besides some very small number of volunteers. Bedouins are a special case but I think going to the army isn't as prevalent with them as it used to be.
Druze all go to the army but they are not Muslim and don't see themselves as connected to the Palestinians.
It makes it a nothingburger. Your Israeli barista has past involvement with the security forces. In and of itself it's basically a meaningless statement.
Yeah, an intelligence firm founded by ex intelligence is absolutely a coincidence. There's no chance they would use their skills or connections in their new firm.
The very wikipedia article you linked to says that the NSO Group is owned by " Novalpina Capital" They describe themselves this way:
> Novalpina Capital is an independent European private equity firm that focuses on making control equity investments in middle market companies throughout the continent. Novalpina Capital has a solution-orientated, entrepreneurial approach to investing and creating value in its portfolio companies.
> Novalpina Capital was established by Stephen Peel, Stefan Kowski and Bastian Lueken in 2017. The Founding Partners bring combined experience of 48 years in private equity investing, including senior positions in the European operations of leading global private equity investment firms, and have a shared history of working together for nearly a decade.
Capital may be liquid, but staff nationalities, values, ideals, and goals...not so much.
This isn't some far-flung conspiracy about dark forces puppeteering seemingly innocent companies. It's just people valuing profit over concern for human rights. It's a surveillance firm, what would you expect? What would be a benevolent use of this technology even be?
None of this seems like 'sponsorship' to me, it seems more like 'restriction' or 'regulation'. 'Sponsorship' implies that someone is providing a level of funding beyond just being a paying customer. Is there any evidence that the government of Israel (or any of the other governments you mention) are actually providing loans or share capital to NSO Group?
I agree that the word 'sponsorship' has been quite diluted, as you point out, but it should mean something more than 'be a customer of'. Do I sponsor my local sports team when I buy tickets to a game? Am I sponsoring Netflix by subscribing? Do I sponsor my local government by paying property taxes? On the flip side, does my government sponsor me by granting a driver's license?
It's used throughout the comments and the topic generally. I don't call it out (for meaning a state with borders aligned with an ethnicity) because I get the point being made.
As for sponsorship, states sponsor their industries by providing labor trained at public expense, promoting them abroad through trade agreements, access to trade representation etc. so there is the technical definition of sponsorship met.
The revolving door between Unit 8200 and surveillance startups is documented as is Israel's courting of KSA and the UAE with access to intelligence sharing and capabilities as a bargaining chip. And why wouldn't they? It's good for the state and its industry. Just sucks for everyone else.
The definition of sponsorship doesn't matter when it is met in every sense of the word.
Because that's worked out so well until now. So may as well make a little cash on the side of it, eh?
Do you think the path to end tyranny was so smooth in developed countries? Think back through Western revolutionary history and now immediately forget the name of every leader the moment you think of them - because that's what's happening, right now, in these countries at this exact stage of their political development. The technology now exists to make effective popular resistance impossible. Every possible rebellion strangled at birth. Every potential leader, every sympathetic journalist, religious or opposition figure, immediately identified, located and silenced.
And apparently that's worth a comfortable 6 figure salary to a lot of engineers and managers in comfortable, developed countries.
Do you really think you'd be in the position you're in if your ancestors never had the chance to remove their despotic king/emperor/dear leader? If you don't think it would be another North Korea, maybe it's because of some ahistorical belief that your culture is inherently more civilised. So you probably don't see the racism that's implicit in your statement.
From my experience in the Middle East, seeing people march for an end to corruption, for justice, for a chance for their kids, I realise I hardly know anyone back home as brave, as prepared to risk everything for their political and civil rights. They aren't marching for another ruler. They deserve a chance.
I don't care about NSO at all, they can shut down tomorrow for all I care.
I'm just saying if the alternative is between something like the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood type movements - to something like the military regime Egypt has now or whatever the Saudis came up with, I take the latter. What you said about resistance being impossible - it won't get any better under a radical Islamic rule as we are seeing in Iran.
All I am saying it can get way worse. it CAN become North Korea. What we have now in several areas there may be the best we can get for now.
And a big part of how I feel about this is about self survival - the Iranian regime hates the West (and especially the U.S but not only) in very deep ways that Saudi Arabia/UAE/Egypt/etc do not. That's how it is. As long as it is what it is selling stuff to Saudi Arabia doesn't sound super terrible.
They don't just use sales to oppose the Muslim Brotherhood! They are bombing innocent Yemenis who have ZERO connection to Iran. They backed Salafis, like Al-Qaeda for decades (forgotten about those guys?) They use them to jail journalists for reporting on corruption, women rights activists for driving. People just trying to make their countries a bit better.
You say "if the alternative is between...", and then proceed to just accept the false choice that it's either tyranny or anarchy, using that reasoning to give a pass to the scum making a buck from some of the most disgusting regimes on the planet. Western countries took generations of incremental improvements to arrive here, all while tyrants always used that argument to try stay on top.
You're uncritically buying the line that Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood are the worst (which could be argued) but the other less so, because they are on "our side". If you prioritise human rights, that lives on both sides are equally valuable (and I suspect from this thread that you don't) then such a distinction is meaningless.
It's a fear-driven siege mentality and terribly short sighted to think that in the region that brought us Gadhafi, Saddam, Daesh and the Mujahaddin, somehow KSA, Egypt or the UAE will magically always align with however your interests evolve.
Thanks to NSO they ARE a step closer to North Korea and destabilising the region in the long term with repression and misery. But you're only interested in short term outcomes for Israel/Western countries, kicking the can down the road when the consequences of such sales will have unknown impacts for decades.
After seeing how it's played out, it's just exhausting to see this kind of mentality after all these years, lost lives and lessons apparently unlearned. Along with greed, this mentality is why the mercenary surveillance industry exists. For the sake of everyones kids both need to end.
> They are bombing innocent Yemenis who have ZERO connection to Iran
The Houthis are an extremely well armed group supported by Iran, please read about the topic you are uninformed. I am not saying what's going on there isn't tragic but it's far from "good guys vs bad guys". Iran had a role in what happened in Yemen as it had a role in what happened in Syria.
Saudi Arabia is as far from liberalism as Iran, I acknowledge that. But they have much less of a will to export "the revolution" to other places - unlike Iran. They kinda mind their own business most of the time.
> You're uncritically buying the line that Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood are the worst (which could be argued) but the other less so, because they are on "our side".
You are being uncritical as well. If you have any info that suggests otherwise you can share it, otherwise don't just contradict me and call me uncritical.
> If you prioritise human rights, that lives on both sides are equally valuable
I prioritise human rights within reason. Since the Arab Spring we've seen the whole area can in fact get much worse for humans very quickly. "Democratizing" a place like Egypt probably means bringing a hostile (to the West and to freedom in general) Islamic Caliphate of some sort, which I don't like.
Yeah yeah, I read the news too. I'm not going to go into my personal experience, but from my time there knowing political actors, I followed the Houthi rebellion and southern secession movement, and the Iran connection very closely. The link had always been tenuous and was cynically and successfully played up by Saleh to gather billions in Saudi and US financial and military aid, before he switched sides and was killed before he could switch back. Until that point the evidence pointed to the Houthis purchasing weapons from a corrupt Yemeni military. Saleh was Zaydi, a fact conveniently overlooked by the media in an attempt to lazily drive a Shia vs. Sunni narrative that people ate up bought. There is only evidence of Iran getting involved after the Houthis took Sana'a, where as KSA had been destabilising the Houthi border region, funding Salafists and building extremist madrassas for decades before then. That's not even in dispute.
"But (KSA) have much less of a will to export "the revolution" to other places - unlike Iran. They kinda mind their own business most of the time." This is laughably ill informed. They've built over 10,000 new Hanbali, Salafist Wahabi madrassas in Pakistan over the past 50 years. Sent extremist imams everywhere from the Philippines, Indonesia, Mali, Bosnia, UK, the Netherlands. Backing the Janjaweed and ISIS affiliated groups around the world. You don't like an Islamic Caliphate? ISIS's principle enemy was not the US, not Israel but Iran which fought them with existential zeal in Iraq. Ignore the posturing, check the last time Iran actually invaded a country. Educate yourself. Stop just repeating the news.
Soo just how is the statement "They are bombing innocent Yemenis who have ZERO connection to Iran" contradicted by anything you've added? It's just a fact, as is the fact that KSA also bomb militants, using them and Iran as the pretext to do whatever they want, including using economic warfare against one of the poorest, hungriest populations in the world.
It's the standard 'but they're killing the bad guys' guilt-by-association, collective punishment line you seem strangely prepared to toe as a justification for brushing off the well documented bombing of innocent civilians. That mindset is probably the single biggest perpetuator of human rights violations on all sides in the Middle East. The casual cruelty of that and the ignorance are bad enough, but to then actively say "As long as it is what it is selling stuff to Saudi Arabia doesn't sound super terrible.", brushing off criticism of both the KSA and those making a buck off the situation, is abhorrent.
You'll happily buy the old, and false, pick-your-poison, brutal dictator vs. extremist Islamism dichotomy that lets you overlook human rights by "our sons of bitches", even while knowing how obviously bad that has worked out until today. But sure, you're "prioritising it within reason". Please. That's just the easy way out.
I don't want to be harsh but you don't seem to be well informed, reasoned or particularly concerned with ethical choices on this issue. Don't think I have much more to add.
the NSO Group itself is an Israeli firm, founded by ex-Israeli intelligence, and whose products are subject to Israeli national export controls.
All this means is that the NSO Group is an Israeli company staffed by Israeli citizens. I don't know what export controls have to do with anything since those apply categories of products, regardless of whether or not you have business with the Israeli government.
It's a little disingenuous to suggest that an intelligence firm founded by state intelligence officers is just another "Israeli company staffed by Israeli citizens", as though it were a street-corner restaurant. Other threads here have mentioned the close ties between that company and the government. Is this really controversial? Who else would a hardcore surveillance company's primary customers be..? Cheating spouses?
Export controls means, one, that the product they're selling is likely a concern of national security, unlike, say, your average lockpick kit or GPS tracker. Two, it means the state gets to selectively pick and choose who it shares this technology with, using it as a tool of statecraft/diplomacy/subterfuge/sabotage. It's a recognition of the value of the technology, along with a desire to limit its availability to Israel's enemies.
NSO's own website says "NSO Group, develops best-in-class technology to help government agencies detect and prevent a wide-range of local and global threats." It wouldn't exist if not for state sponsorship.
It's a little disingenuous to suggest that an intelligence firm founded by state intelligence officers is just another "Israeli company staffed by Israeli citizens", as though it were a street-corner restaurant. Other threads here have mentioned the close ties between that company and the government.
I have no problem believing that Israel "sponsors" them, but your justifications are baseless. Ex-intelligence officers are not government officials, they are civilians. And government contracts don't imply "sponsorship" in the usual sense, e.g. a landscaping company would not be said to be "state-sponsored" just because they are contracted to work around a government property.
You, and Apple, have to demonstrate how Israel materially supports the NSO Group outside of usual business practices.
Export controls means, one, that the product they're selling is likely a concern of national security, unlike, say, your average lockpick kit or GPS tracker.
GPS devices of almost any kind are subject to ITAR/EAR in the USA. It is extremely easy to run afoul of weapons export controls and there is quite a large market for ITAR-free products. It means extraordinarily little if a product is subject to these type of controls.
> I have no problem believing that Israel "sponsors" them, but your justifications are baseless. Ex-intelligence officers are not government officials, they are civilians. And government contracts don't imply "sponsorship" in the usual sense, e.g. a landscaping company would not be said to be "state-sponsored" just because they are contracted to work around a government property.
I am no longer sure what we're arguing about. Is it the meaning of the word "sponsor"? That's not my word choice, that was just what the OP used and I mirrored it.
I think the bigger point is that states (no matter WHICH state) are funding private companies to surveil citizens in a way that genuinely threatens what few civil rights they have left.
Secondarily, are we arguing about the degree of connection between NSO, the company, and the State of Israel? If so, I used "sponsorship" in the revolving door sense, as in intimate relationships between the staff and government officials, not entirely unlike the US and Blackwater/Xe/Academi or Halliburton or Diebold/Premier. The discomfort there is not just in the amount of dollars exchanged, but in the offloading of legal and criminal responsibility to what is essentially a front company used to do the dirty work of the state. Outsourced oppression.
> GPS devices of almost any kind are subject to ITAR/EAR in the USA. It is extremely easy to run afoul of weapons export controls and there is quite a large market for ITAR-free products. It means extraordinarily little if a product is subject to these type of controls.
OK, without looking this up, I'll take your word for it and I stand corrected. Sorry for the mistake about GPS. But that's really a technicality. Surveillance tech of this sort IS a weapon, capable of suppressing not just external enemies but internal citizens, especially if it falls into the hands of nations participating in "Five Eyes"-style surveillance exchanges of each other's citizens. And this in particular is a lot more dangerous than a GPS receiver. And unlike GPS, it has no real "benevolent" civilian purpose. Its primary (only?) customers are oppressive states.
Sorry if this wasn't clear -- I thought it was implied -- but the worry behind the state-private connection here is that this company is getting the kind of resources (and thus effectiveness) that only states can provide, thus making it a dangerous tool. Another implied fear is that the NSO group can also get special extrajudicial treatment because of their usefulness and close connections to the Israeli state, and thus risk breaking checks and balances in a way that a landscaping company would simply not.
I feel like we're running circles around semantics here. Am I fundamentally misunderstanding your argument?
Export controls of weapons, not simply customs laws. Every NSO group contract needs Israeli government approval similar to how Lockheed Martin cannot simply sell weapons to any country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group
That's a level of sponsorship way beyond simply being a customer... that's state espionage served with a side of profit. It's evil when the USA does it, it's evil when the Russians do it, it's evil when China does it, it's evil when Israel does it... but nobody does anything about it because all those states would prefer strong surveillance rather than rights for activists and journalists.