Israel’s NSO Group said lobbying, unsuccessfully, to be removed from US blacklist

Israel’s NSO Group, which is behind the notorious Pegasus software used in many alleged cases of rights abuses around the world, is leading a widescale lobbying campaign to get the United States to remove it from the government’s blacklist, a report says.

However, the ProPublica report says the efforts have so far been unsuccessful, and the company has failed get a response or set up a meeting between NSO officials and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

The report says NSO “has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year in payments to lobbyists, public relations companies and law firms,” citing “public records filed under the Foreign Agent Registration Act and conversations with people familiar with the effort.”

The firms have, in turn, “approached members of the U.S. House and Senate, as well as various media outlets and think tanks across the U.S., on NSO’s behalf.”

NSO has also sought for the matter to be raised during this week’s meeting between Prime Minister Yair Lapid and US President Joe Biden when the latter visits Israel, the report says.