[In 2019 the Dutch government, for the second time within a decade, acquired an Israeli wiretapping system for its police forces. While the purchase made few headlines at the time, and even though the system is still not operational, it has sparked renewed scrutiny and criticism as revelations about the Israeli technology company NSO and its Pegasus spyware have multiplied. Mouin Rabbani, Editor of Quick Thoughts and Jadaliyya Co-Editor, interviewed Erella Grassiani, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and a specialist on the global reach of the Israeli security industry, to learn more about the controversy.]
Mouin Rabbani (MR): Over the past several years a number of Dutch agencies, including the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and the government’s in-house auditor (ARD), have warned the Dutch government about the risks of outsourcing wiretapping operations to foreign companies. These included specific about reliance upon Chinese or Israeli companies. How did the Dutch police end up employing two successive Israeli companies for its wiretapping activities?
Erella Grassiani (EG): The relationship with Israel is very important to the Netherlands. At its core is the lingering Dutch sensitivity concerning the Holocaust, which Israel politicizes at will. Dutch governments have traditionally been very reluctant to criticize Israel, even when clear violations of signed agreements are at play (as for example with the European Union-Israel Association Agreement, which prohibits the export of agricultural produce from Israel’s settlements to the EU without clear labelling). These factors would have led the government to play down warnings and concerns about employing Israeli companies.
Another key factor is that, globally, Israeli security products are surrounded by an aura of not only quality but of being the best in their class. This will have persuaded the Dutch to place their trust in these products despite being aware of the risks and liability.
To give an example, in 2019 Ferdinand Grapperhaus, at the time Minister of Justice and Security, explained his government’s decision to sign a second wiretapping contract with an Israeli company to the Dutch parliament. He stated that although he was aware that the Dutch Christian peace organization PAX, as part of the international Cluster Munitions Coalition, advocated divestment from the Israeli company Elbit Systems because of its involvement in the manufacture of prohibited cluster munitions, The Netherlands would nevertheless go ahead with the deal. This was because the contract was to be signed with Elbit subsidiary Cyber Intelligence, which Grapperhaus claimed was technically not on the PAX blacklist. Yet Elbit had been placed on the PAX list not because it manufactured cluster munitions itself, but rather because one of its other subsidiaries, Israeli Military Industries, was one of the leading manufacturers of such weapons.
MR: In 2019 Cyber Intelligence, the Elbit Systems subsidiary, won the contract to replace Verint. Amid suggestions that The Netherlands was sold a system that didn’t exist because it has in 2022 yet to be installed, this has not been the focus of criticism of the deal. focused on the willingness of the Dutch government to employ a company that manufactures prohibited armaments such as cluster bombs, and concerns that Elbit may conduct additional surveillance and eavesdropping activities on behalf of Israel. To what extend does such opposition reflect specific concerns about Elbit, and more general response resulting from the exposure of the activities of NSO/Pegasus?
EG: While cyber security specialists voiced their various objections to the Elbit/Cyber Intelligence contract at an earlier stage, media attention has been more recent and was mainly sparked by the NSO/Pegasus surveillance and eavesdropping scandals which have received considerable attention in The Netherlands.
The Dutch public is not particularly knowledgeable about the Israeli security industry. It thus came as a surprise to many that NSO’s Pegasus software was being used in so many places around the world, and its deployment against human rights activists and opposition politicians in particular came as a shock to their democratic sensibilities. As it became increasingly clear to the public that Israeli security companies eagerly sell their products to dictators around the globe and work with them to enable their human rights violations, public concerns about the involvement of such companies in The Netherlands increased. It also led to greater scrutiny of the Dutch state when questions were raised about the issues of data ownership and the transparency of wiretapping operations.
MR: The Netherlands is known to conduct surveillance and eavesdropping activities against a disproportionately high number of citizens and residents compared to other European states. What specific targets would be of interest to Israel in this regard, and do we have evidence that Israel has been conducting activities against them?
EG: It is a fact that Israeli security companies such as Elbit and NSO work together with the Israeli state. They always have. Any time such a company is able to sell its wares abroad it represents a win for Israel on multiple levels. On the one hand, it bolsters Israel’s image as a global leader in the security field. More practically, as we have seen with NSO, the Israeli state knows where the software goes to and who uses it. My own view is that it’s probably easier for the Israeli government to gather information through the international activities of private companies like Elbit and NSO than through staging its own operations in foreign countries. In the Netherlands, Israel could be interested in monitoring activists involved in campaigns against Israeli and its policies, as well as lawyers participating in cases against Israeli officials in Dutch courts or the International Criminal Court in The Hague. I should add that this is a hypothesis rather than substantiated conclusion because it remains unproven and given the nature of such activities will probably remain so.
MR: Do you think the February 2022 resolution by the European Union parliament to launch a commission of inquiry against NSO, and the recommendation by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) to ban NSO’s Pegasus spyware will affect the ability of other Israeli cyber companies like Cyber Intelligence/Elbit to operate within the European Union?
EG: I think these are important first steps. There finally seems to be greater acknowledgment that these types of software are being deployed everywhere, and that they endanger democracy and violate human rights. This, I hope, will make states more cautious about further engagement with Israeli cyber ware. However, as I’ve noted above, Israel’s image as a leading and experienced security specialist remains very strong. Additionally, Israel uses the sale of such software as an instrument of its diplomacy. While this will become much more difficult for Israel in the EU, I don’t think it will be impossible.
MR: Does this discussion have wider implications for either European governments’ continued acquiescence of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, or the intensification of digital surveillance/data mining activities by governments and corporations globally?
EG: Again, I think that the NSO/Pegasus revelations were important because they have made people aware of the inherent dangers of such programs. At the same time, states understand the major benefits they can obtain from using such products. In this respect, I don’t believe there is going to be a slowdown in the sale and use of such software globally. Furthermore, it was only when Europeans or for that matter Israelis felt that their own liberties were under attack that the outrage took hold. Such surveillance mechanisms have been used for years against Palestinians and are legitimized requirements of “national security”. Unfortunately, I think European governments will continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s violence against the Palestinians, as they have been doing for decades. Their toleration of this state of affairs is even more visible today, now that Russia is experiencing the full force of “BDS” implemented by companies, governments and universities alike, while it remains very difficult to even advocate for it against Israel.