House of Saud and fog: 8 things to know for December 9

1. Spy friends: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reports that Israel signed off on NSO Group’s sale of Pegasus phone hacking technology to Saudi Arabia, citing former US officials.

• The Saudis were widely rumored to have used the technology as part of a cyber war waged against dissidents, including Jamal Khashoggi, though it was not clear if Israel’s Defense Ministry had authorized the sale, as it is supposed to by law. This seems to answer that question.
• “The Saudis knew that Israel, their historical nemesis, had the most sophisticated cyber tools. And according to American, European and Saudi sources, the Saudis increasingly looked to buy technology from Israeli cyber companies,” Ignatius writes.
• “The result was one of the most intriguing intelligence alliances in the history of the Middle East, as Israeli companies began sharing with the Saudis some of its cyber secrets. It was a devil’s bargain: Israel gained a secret Sunni Arab ally against Iran (and also an opportunity through cyber cooperation to gather information about the kingdom), and MBS obtained new tools to combat his internal enemies,” he adds.
• According to the report, the sale was run through a Luxembourg company called Q Cyber Technologies, whose online footprint is basically just that it’s a shady subsidiary of NSO.
• Unlike NSO it has a website, though it provides almost no info. A whois lookup of the site shows that it uses a product called WhoisGuard to make sure nobody can find out who it actually is.
• NSO and Q Cyber won’t confirm the report. The Defense Ministry meanwhile, is just as opaque, telling Haaretz that “the Defense Export Control Agency (DECA) strictly provides licenses to security exporters in accordance to the law, the standards and the commitments that the State of Israel is committed to, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government entities. The Defense Ministry does not provide details about the Israeli government’s policy on giving export licenses or about the licenses themselves for defense and strategic reasons. For this reason, we cannot comment on the question whether the aforementioned license exists.”

2. Playing Jared: Israel also features prominently in a New York Times story about White House adviser Jared Kushner’s troubling contacts with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, which occurred without official oversight and apparently continued after the killing of Khashoggi came to light.

• According to the story, MBS and Co. apparently dangled a willingness to play ball on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and other Trump-friendly proposals as a way to gain nearly carte blanche American backing, citing a slideshow apparently prepared by the Saudis laying out their plan.
• “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” the paper quotes a former White House official saying.
• But as the story notes, most of MBS’s promises have amounted to little, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace push, which his father, who is still the actual sovereign, seems to be actively resisting.

3. Shrinking gulf: Nonetheless, Israel seems to be pushing ahead with a drive to get Saudi Arabia to open up diplomatically, according to Hadashot News.

• The report offers few details, but says the US and Mossad chief Yossi Cohen are involved in the diplomatic effort. It’s the latest of a series of reports about ties with Arab states in the works, after Netanyahu cryptically hinted recently that there were more diplomatic openings to come after re-engaging with Chad.
• According to the TV channel, Netanyahu wants open ties before the next Israeli elections, which are slated for November but could come earlier.

4. There may not be ties yet, but the Saudis are apparently already thinking like certain right-wing Israelis and Americans: A report in Saudi-based al-Arabiya attempting to smear female Muslim US representatives-elect Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib is the type of thing one would more likely expect to find in a right-wing Israeli or American news site.

• The story attempts to prove that the two are Muslim Brotherhood plants working to establish some sort of Sharia-dominated caliphate in the US, by trying to show that they are connected to pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour.
• “Those sponsoring and supporting the two Muslim women to reach the US Congress adopted a tactic to infiltrate through their immigrant and Black minority communities in general, and women’s groups in particular,” the baffling hit piece reads.

Extraordinary. Note this puzzling critique: "The common ground between Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib is that both are anti-Trump and his political team and options, especially his foreign policy." In other words, they are exactly where most Americans are today. https://t.co/MBMalNhBVd

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— Shibley Telhami (@ShibleyTelhami) December 9, 2018

5. If Netanyahu wants ties before elections he may have to hurry: The Kan state broadcaster reports that the Jewish Home and Kulanu parties have agreed to back the so-called Gideon Sa’ar law in exchange for an agreement to dissolve the Knesset and call new elections right after it passes.

• The law, which will make it so only the leader of a party can be chosen to form a government, is seen as one of the major hurdles Netanyahu wanted to pass before agreeing to elections, amid fears that President Reuven Rivlin could pick someone else in Likud to form a government and be prime minister, particularly popular former minister Gideon Sa’ar.

6. Who’s your sugar daddy, leftist? Israel Hayom reports that Netanyahu wants to push through another law before elections, which will force groups that donate to campaigns to disclose their donors.

• While sunshine is the best disinfectant, this drive seems plainly politicized: “The prime minister has spoken with all coalition heads, minus Kulanu’s Moshe Kahlon, who is in the US, and told them that according to information he received, leftists have enlisted many donors who plan on spending millions of shekels, via NGOs, in a bid to cause him to not be elected again,” the paper reports.
• The tabloid notes that the law would be combined with two other proposals on the Knesset docket meant to crimp spending by groups that don’t donate to the right — the so-called V-15 law meant to limit campaign spending from NGOs, and the so-called Soros law meant to limit funding from groups seen as “anti-Israel.”
• Haaretz’s lead editorial draws attention to a law to be considered Sunday that would expand the size of a community that can have a screening committee from 400 families to 700 families.
• The committees, which are common in Israel but which the courts have chipped away at, are used in many cases to keep Arabs, homosexuals, blacks or others from moving into certain communities.
• “This law not only legitimizes racism, exclusion, isolationism and elitism, it encourages and stokes it. The law’s criteria are vague and actually make it possible for the members of a community to exclude people they consider undesirable,” the editorial reads. “Expanding the law will dramatically increase the harm.”

7. Digging in the rain: Israel’s operation to find and destroy tunnels on the northern border found new success over the weekend, with what the army says is the discovery of a second attack tunnel, though there had been reports of a second tunnel being discovered before the weekend.

• The army says the tunnel was still being dug and has now been outfitted with explosives should Hezbollah try to continue using it until the army can go in to destroy it.
• Many news reports on the tunnel focus on the fact that the work is continuing despite wet weather.
• “Saturday saw heavy rain and dense fog throughout Israel, turning the ground along the border where soldiers are operating to a thick mud. According to IDF officials, the inclement weather is making the army’s search efforts more difficult, but they are nevertheless continuing,” ToI’s Judah Ari Gross notes.
• According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the army trained for the digging operation in a European country with similar soil before launching the operation, without naming which country.
• Israel Hayom writes that the army considered taking a break for the weekend, both for the weather and to give the tired soldiers a break for Shabbat, but decided against it.
• “The decision was to not take the foot off the gas pedal until all the tunnels are found, so everyone had to work over the weekend as well.”

8. Tunnel diplomacy: Yedioth reports that the army is looking to reinforce, rather than destroy, one of the two tunnels found so far in order to bring diplomats and other foreign dignitaries to it on tours as part of its propaganda/public advocacy efforts, much as it does on the border with Gaza.

• There’s no word on whether it will open to the public, as South Korea has done with tunnels dig by North Korea under the DMZ.
• In al-Arabiya (yup, them again), columnist Ali al-Amin seems to indicate that Hezbollah isn’t that far off from North Korea in its inability to engage in state-building, writing that it’s only good at destroying states.
• But this is no pro-Israel diatribe, as one of his main complaints seems to be that Hezbollah has maintained a secure border with Israel instead of attacking it: “Hezbollah which caused havoc with its involvement in all regions of the Arab world is the same organization that has been extremely disciplined when it comes to causing harm to Israel’s security. The southern borders of Lebanon with Palestine have become the typical example of stability in the Middle East. Hezbollah is even incapable of talking about crossing the road to Jerusalem, a remark it has often made during the Syrian war.”