American report: Ben Salman talks to Netanyahu in favor of renewing NSO license | Israel today

Benjamin Netanyahu had a telephone conversation with the Saudi heir during his tenure as prime minister about a license for the NSO company to use the Pegasus spyware, the American newspaper The New York Times reported this morning (Friday).

The Netanyahu bureau denied that a conversation had taken place on this issue.

According to the report, during 2019 NSO company agreed to restart the Pegasus spyware in Saudi Arabia.

This was after the activity was stopped following a recommendation of an ethics committee set up by the company in light of the case of the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Hashukaji at the consulate in Istanbul, and the suspicion that the software was used to locate it.

This is despite the fact that the company denied that the feature was used to spy on Hashukaji. 

The New York Times reported that it was important for Netanyahu to please the Saudis at the time, as he was in the midst of a secret political initiative to establish his political legacy - establishing official relations between Israel and some Arab states. Against this background, in September 2020 Netanyahu Trump and the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have signed Abrahamic agreements that heralded a new era in the region.

The report said that behind the scenes of the peace agreement was a "Middle East bazaar" of arms trade.

For example, it was noted that the Trump administration agreed to sell F-35s and UAVs to the UAE and tried to allay fears in Israel.

Netanyahu.

Worked to establish relations with Arab countries, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon

A month later, the export license to Saudi Arabia expired and the Ministry of Defense in Israel had to decide whether to renew it or not.

Relying on Saudi Arabia's use of Pegasus software, the Ministry of Defense refused to do so.

Without the license, NSO would not have been able to provide ongoing maintenance for the software and the system would have crashed.

According to the publication, many talks took place between the aides of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and senior members of the NSO, the Mossad and the Ministry of Defense, but they were unable to resolve the issue.

Following this, the regent made an urgent phone call to then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to sources who learned of the call.

According to the report, Ben Salman was interested in renewing the Saudi license for Pegasus.

The New York Times reported that the Saudi prince had significant leverage at the time, as his father King Salman did not officially sign the Abrahamic treaties, but offered the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain his tacit consent.

The Saudis also allowed a key part of the Avraham agreements to advance to the next stage using Saudi airspace for the first time by Israeli planes, which made their way to the Persian Gulf.

If the Saudis had changed their minds on the issue, an important element in the agreements could have collapsed.

According to the report, Netanyahu was apparently not updated on the developing crisis surrounding the license, but after talking to Muhammad bin Salman, his bureau ordered the Defense Ministry to resolve the issue immediately.

At the time, it was reported, a government official called NSO headquarters for Saudi systems to be restarted, but the person in charge at headquarters rejected the request without a signed license.

It was further alleged that when it was said that the order came directly from Netanyahu, the NSO employee agreed to receive the electronic mail from the Ministry of Defense.

Shortly afterwards, Pegasus was restarted.

Opposition leader Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the claim that Netanyahu spoke to foreign leaders as prime minister and offered them these systems in exchange for a political or other achievement is a complete lie. All sales of this system or similar products of Israeli companies to foreign countries are approved and supervised. Of the Ministry of Defense, as required by Israeli law. " 

Shahar Kleiman and Ariel Kahana participated in the preparation of the article

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