Pegasus: US and Israel strengthen connections

Written by: (Contributed) on 26 November 2025

The appointment of a top US spook to a high-level corporate position with an Israeli-based business entity has revealed far more than meets the eye of a casual observer. The US diplomatic relationship with Israel has many highly secretive links. The appointment has also shown the linkage between the military-industrial complex remains an important defence and security consideration; the former use business entities as front companies for a variety of purposes.

Australia has not been a passive bystander in the bigger picture of such pressing developments.

In early November the Israeli-based NSO Group announced the appointment of David Friedman, a former US ambassador to Israel and lawyer for Donald Trump, as their new executive chairman. (1) The corporate business is behind the Pegasus spyware: sensitive eavesdropping and surveillance technologies with facilities for hacking into mobile telephones and other devices through links in standard messages.

It has been noted that Pegasus spyware was programmed to use WhatsApp to hack into mobile phones automatically, without the target having to operate or tap into mail arriving on their handsets. (2) The spyware can convert a smartphone into an espionage device which can access files, message banks, microphones and cameras. (3) Pegasus is classic tradecraft for covert operations in the shadowy world of espionage; the data collected is then analysed, profiled and also used to establish networks which might be useful for further intelligence purposes and is therefore filed in vast troves for use at a later date and time.

NSO was established in 2010, just before the so-called Arab Spring, where supposed pro-democracy and anti-government protest movements sought to topple ruling administrations regarded as hostile to Israel. The protest movements included jihadists who sought the establishment of autocratic caliphates, backed secretly by the US for a variety of opaque agendas. (4)

Israel, as a hub for 'US interests' in the Middle East, quite clearly formed a substantial part of the hidden agendas. In fact, the senior nature of the US spook, together with his stated curricular background and non-stated extra-curricular roles, reveal two important considerations: the close working relationship between the two sides of the military-industrial complex and the close diplomatic links between the US and Israel.

Studies of the NSO organisation have revealed it has close working links with Unit 8200 of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF); established in the earliest days of the previous Cold War, the signals-intelligence (SIGINT) special unit, likewise, has strong links with the Israeli defence corporate sector. With a stated annual budget of above $3 billion, the unit employs several thousand personnel. (5) It has a long list of alumni who after military service find other employment in the secretive world of the defence sector. (6)

Intelligence services have a long history of using businesses as 'fronts' for intelligence-gathering; IDF Unit 8200 would appear no different. (7) Legitimate-appearing businesses can be easily be established and used to provide cover for covert operations; the Sayanim, who are volunteers, likewise, provide MOSSAD with 'ground human' provision, and, 'without its Sayanim MOSSAD could not operate'. (8)

While US-Israeli diplomacy is also openly conducted and strongly based through official channels, other, more secretive diplomatic links, remain vital. The so-called Jonathan Institute, for example, founded in 1979 by Benjamin Netanyahu, 'became the emblematic think-tank of Israeli and US government officials'. (9) It has extensive links with MOSSAD, and has been noted for having 'provided the framework for the anti-UN sentiment that has consumed Washington'. (10) The institute remains the power-base for the Israeli far-right.

It would also be almost inconceivable that US intelligence facilities such as Pine Gap in Central Australia were not directly linked into Unit 8200. Research has established that there are seven separate intelligence-sharing agreements between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Pine Gap, and the Israeli Signals Directorate, which provide intelligence for the Israeli military. (11) The issue of complicity, therefore, has arisen.

To what extent, therefore, the Israeli intelligence services, in their various capacities, are able to operate in Australia remains a matter of concern. They obviously do; but how?

A recent Australian military tribunal, for example, found that Israel was hosting secret training courses for Australians which, following their graduation and return home, 'could be considered a natural recruiting pool for MOSSAD'. (12) The fact the individual concerned, who was facing serious disciplinary charges and eventually lost his security clearance for not revealing the nature of the Israeli training, was employed by the Sydney Community Service Group (CSG), 'an organisation that provides security and intelligence services to the Australian Jewish community', has raised other considerations. (13)

Whether the CGS is formally or informally linked into Israeli intelligence-based organisations was not revealed in official military and diplomatic documentation, although it remained more than a distinct possibility, in the shadowy intrigues of intelligence-gathering and covert operations: Sayanim?

Australia's close diplomatic relationship with the US, likewise, has also carried dilemmas which Canberra may have to deal with in the future: a statement issued by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillar, while addressing the National Press Club in Canberra, for example, that, 'if the Albanese government continued to be part of the supply chain that helped create weapons being used by Israel, they could be liable in the international court', has raised serious questions about passive involvement with genocide through active association and unquestioning participation with US-led military and intelligence facilities. (14)

And ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law: We need an independent foreign policy!

1. Israeli spyware maker gets new owners and seeks to mend reputation, Australian, 11 November 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. See: 9/11 and America's secret terror campaign, Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research, 10 September 2010.
5. Official Website: Unit 8200, 7 June 2025; and, Wikipedia – IDF Unit 8200, SIGINT.
6. Ibid., IDF Unit 8200, List of companies founded by alumni; and, From IDF to Inc., SecurityWeek, 28 February 2018.
7. Front. Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, London, 2002), page 110.
8. Gideon's Spies, Gordon Thomas, (London, 1999), pp. 54-55.
9. Covert Action, Edited by Ellen Ray and William H. Shaap, (Victoria, 2003), page 51.
10. Ibid., page 3, page 164.
11. Pine Gap is a place of counter-insurgency, Militarism in the NT, 2025, (California, 94104).
12. See: Australian Army Reservist security clearance revoked over loyalty to Israel, Paul Gregoire, 5 March 2025, (Fact checked).
13. Ibid.
14. Labor M.P.s like Nazis: ex-UN commissioner, Australian, 5 November 2025.