{ "archive_path": "archive/1789380357.750576", "base_url": "www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america", "basename": "how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-14 10:05", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.middleeasteye.net", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america.html" }, "domain": 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"ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-14T13:30:36.070575+00:00", "status": "failed" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpkyq3x53f", "https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-israel-expanding-cybersecurity-latin-america" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-14T13:30:36.056021+00:00", "index_texts": [ "As right-wing governments across Latin America embrace increasingly militarised and technology-driven approaches to organised crime, Israel is positioning its cybersecurity industry as a source of expertise, surveillance capabilities and national security solutions.\n\nThe growing cooperation is opening new markets for an industry closely connected to Israel\u2019s military and intelligence establishment, where technologies have been developed and tested through the occupation of Palestine before being marketed abroad.\n\nColombia\u2019s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has identified Israel\u2019s artificial intelligence and cybersecurity expertise as a potential weapon in his promised crackdown on organised crime.\n\n\u201cA collaboration with Israel would allow these resources to be applied directly to combating criminal structures within the national territory,\u201d the hardline right-wing leader said.\n\nIn neighbouring Ecuador, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Roberto Kury, signed agreements during a state visit on 4 August to increase cooperation on counter-terrorism and cybersecurity.\n New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch\n \n \n Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on\n Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters\n \n \n\nIsrael and Argentina have also agreed to deepen their cooperation on artificial intelligence, in addition to a concurrent agreement to fight \"terrorist\" cyber-threats.\n\nThe agreements point to a renewed opening for Israel\u2019s cyber industry in Latin America as a succession of right-wing governments embraces technologically driven responses to organised crime.\n\nHowever, digital-rights advocates warn that the distinction between defensive cybersecurity and surveillance can become blurred when technologies developed within Israel\u2019s military and occupation apparatus are exported to governments with weak safeguards and records of abuse.\n\n\u201cOne of the problems is that the main mindset from governments in Latin America is a risk-based approach, it is not about human-rights centred impact,\u201d said Pepe Flores, director of programmes at R3D Mexico, an independent, non-profit digital-rights organisation. \u201cThere is an illusion of control with technology,\u201d he told MEE.\n\n\n'One of the problems is that the main mindset from governments in Latin America is a risk-based approach, it is not about human-rights centred impact'\n\n-\u00a0Pepe Flores, R3D Mexico\n\n\nThe regional shift also coincides with Washington\u2019s growing emphasis on using cyber capabilities against transnational criminal organisations.\n\nOn 12 August, US President Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum empowering federal law-enforcement agencies to use cyber tools \u201cto disrupt transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans\u201d.\n\n\u201cPresident Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-based organized criminal organizations that exploit Americans in cyberspace,\u201d the memorandum read.\n\nThe push for closer cooperation with Israel comes amid a broader political shift to the right in Latin America, where several governments have aligned themselves more closely with Washington and adopted hardline approaches to organised crime, migration and national security.\n\n\u201cNew right-wing presidencies, like those of Daniel Noboa, Antonio Kast, and now Abelardo De La Espriella, have been built with an eye toward the United States. It\u2019s like a pendulum swinging away from the likes of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Petro, and Lula da Silva,\u201d said Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Fundacion Karisma, a civil society and digital rights organisation based in Bogota.\n\nIn this context, \u201cchoosing Israel isn't simply a matter of picking the best supplier,\u201d he told Middle East Eye, noting \u201cnothing particularly special\u201d about the Israeli tools themselves.\n\n\u201cThe choice of Israel is ideological, meaning that when faced with two equal suppliers, they pick the one that aligns better with their values, or one that reinforces their own stance.\u201d\n\nThe doctrine of defence\n\nIsrael has increasingly presented itself to Latin American governments as a source of expertise in defence, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism.\n\nBut \u201cthe concept of \u2018defense\u2019 has never been about simply defending oneself,\u201d said Castaneda. \u201cThat is the official narrative but clearly it also involves defending against whatever is strategic. In other words, defending oneself can become a form of attack.\u201d\n\n\n \n\nWhy is Latin America becoming a breeding ground for 'fanatics of Israel'?\n Read More \u00bb\n\n\nThe language of defence has long been used to justify expanding state power, from the US-led \u201cwar on terror\u201d to the decades-long \u201cwar on drugs\u201d.\n\nIn Latin America, the language and methods associated with those campaigns are increasingly converging in the fight against what governments call \u201cnarco-terrorism\u201d. Rights\u00a0groups warn that the result has been greater militarisation and serious human rights violations, including in Ecuador and El Salvador.\n\nIsrael has deployed similar rhetoric during its genocide in Gaza, repeatedly describing it as a war of defence against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.\n\nInternational criticism of Israel\u2019s cyber industry has focused on offensive technologies such as Pegasus, the notorious Israeli spyware used by governments around the world to target journalists and activists.\n\nBut many companies closely connected to Israel\u2019s military and security apparatus are marketing their products as defensive.\u00a0\n\n\u201cThat is part of the selling point,\u201d said Flores.\n\n\u201cThe US has pushed a narrative about using cyber-technologies to fight organised crime and dismantle cartels\u201d and \u201cthere is a pressure to provide results immediately,\u201d he told MEE.\n\nAs a result, governments can be tempted to import Israeli tactics, but \u201cthe reality is a complex matrix where US interests, Israel\u2019s interests and big-tech interests align\u201d.\n\nTried and tested in Palestine\n\nIsrael\u2019s cyber-technology industry is closely connected to its occupation of Palestine, where surveillance and other digital tools have been developed and deployed on a population that has little ability to refuse or challenge their use.\n\n\"The skill being monetised is not intelligence in the abstract - plenty of countries have that. It is knowing how to run population-scale surveillance on people who cannot refuse,\u201d said Lama Nazeeh, advocacy manager at 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement.\n\n\u201cThat is the intellectual property, and every Palestinian is an unconsenting contributor.\n\n\u201cSince 2017 Israeli authorities have used predictive policing algorithms that scrape social media to generate recommendations on who to detain. Thousands have been arrested on that basis, and the systems are error-prone,\u201d Nazeeh told MEE.\n\nThe use of surveillance technology is part of a wider system of digital repression, she said.\n\nFurthermore, \"our 2025 documentation recorded 3,452 digital rights violations against Palestinians, 538 censorship complaints and 2,910 cases of hate speech and incitement,\u201d she said. \u201cThe absence of consent is not an unfortunate side effect, it is a design requirement.\u201d\n\n \n \n \n\n\n\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Colombia's President Abelardo de la Espriella (C) shake hands during a bilateral agreements signing ceremony in Barranquilla, Colombia on 8 September (AFP)\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe increased use of facial-recognition technology in the occupied Palestinian territories is part of an official move towards what has been described as a \u201cfrictionless\u201d occupation, supposedly reducing interactions between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers by leaving identification to machines.\n\nFacial recognition systems, like Corsight AI in Gaza, Oosto in the occupied West Bank and Mabat 2000 in occupied East Jerusalem, have all been used as part of Israel\u2019s extensive surveillance apparatus.\n\n\u201cAnywhere else deploying a biometric system at scale involves a procurement process, a data protection authority, legal basis, courts that enjoin you, journalists with access and a population that can refuse. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there is none of that,\u201d said Nazeeh.\n\nTechnologies and expertise associated with this system are subsequently marketed overseas, often as defensive or civilian security solutions.\n\nCorsight AI\u2019s facial-recognition software, for example, has been deployed in hospitals in Mexico and schools in Brazil. In Gaza, the Israeli military\u2019s Unit 8200, an elite cyber-intelligence division, has used the company\u2019s technology to identify and track Palestinians.\n\nThe commercial deployments are not necessarily used for the same purposes as Israel\u2019s military surveillance. But rights advocates say their common technological and institutional origins raise questions about safeguards, oversight and how such systems could be used by governments seeking increasingly intrusive security powers.\n\nThe Israeli company Cellebrite, meanwhile, announced in 2023 that it was supplying a digital intelligence system to the federal forces of an unnamed Latin American country. Cellebrite, like many Israeli technology companies, has recruited personnel from Unit 8200.\n\n\n \n\nHow did the far right take over Latin America?\n Read More \u00bb\n\n\nMany prominent figures in Israel\u2019s technology sector have backgrounds in the unit, which has been described as a crucial training ground for the country\u2019s cybersecurity industry. Out of Israel\u2019s 700 cyber-technology companies, an astounding 80 percent\u00a0of founders served in Unit 8200, according to a study cited by Haaretz.\u00a0\u00a0\n\nThey include Check Point founder Gil Shwed and its chief executive, Nadav Zafrir. Check Point says it is committed to \u201cempowering Latin America businesses and governments with cutting-edge security solutions to combat rising cyber threats\u201d.\n\nThe company recently met a delegation from Honduras\u2019s National Telecommunications Commission to discuss the planned implementation of a national cybersecurity strategy.\n\nCheck Point has also partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries, one of Israel\u2019s largest weapons manufacturers, through the Israeli Cyber Companies Consortium, or IC3.\n\nThe consortium was established in 2016 with the endorsement of the Israeli government to bring together cybersecurity companies and provide national-level cyber-defence systems to governments and international clients.\n\nIn 2017, the consortium announced that it had secured a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to establish a national cyber centre in an unnamed Latin American country.\n\nThe project included national-level threat monitoring, intelligence sharing, forensic tools, cyber training and systems designed to detect and investigate attacks.\n\nA longstanding relationship\n\nThe expansion of Israel\u2019s cyber industry in Latin America follows a much longer history of military and security cooperation.\n\nDuring the latter half of the 20th century, Israel supplied weapons, training and security assistance to Latin American governments and armed forces implicated in campaigns against Indigenous communities and left-wing movements.\n\nThese tools and tactics were \u201cconveniently tested on occupied Palestinians, then marketed as \u2018battle-tested\u2019,\u201d Antony Loewenstein wrote in his book The Palestine Laboratory.\n\n\n'That history [of relations] justified secrecy. It justified the use of weapons, violence, killing of people and the notion that [people] should not complain'\n\n-\u00a0Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Fundacion Karisma\n\n\nThe significance of the Israeli arms industry did not lie merely in the number of weapons and pieces of equipment exported.\n\nAs Bishara Bahbah wrote in his seminal 1988 book, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection, \u201cthe significance lies in what has become Israel's absolute imperative to export arms.\n\n\u201cFrom this dependence on arms exports, all else is derivative,\u201d he wrote, pointing to Israel\u2019s close cooperation with authoritarian regimes and its involvement in the \u201cglobal strategies\u201d of the US.\n\n\u201cThe history of relations [between Latin America, the US and Israel] forms the broader context in which we find ourselves today,\u201d said Castaneda. \u201cIn other words, it shouldn't come as a surprise that these threads are converging again.\u201d\n\nThe government of former Colombian president Gustavo Petro, which broke diplomatic relations with Israel over the war in Gaza, represented an exception to that history.\n\n\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing now is [a return to] the norm,\u201d Castaneda told MEE.\n\nFrom Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, digital-rights advocates warn that the combination of militarised security policies and increasingly intrusive technologies could facilitate surveillance and abuse.\n\nFor Castaneda, Colombia\u2019s new administration will provide an important test of how that combination operates in practice.\n\n\u201cWe have to keep watching how the Abelardo de la Espriella administration evolves and how it reconnects with Colombia\u2019s long history of asserting that national security requires exceptional solutions,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cThat history justified secrecy. 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