Despite opposition from various Israeli security agencies and the government’s attorney general and legal adviser, Gali Baharav-Miara, the executive of Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the creation of a commission to investigate the alleged illegal police use of cyber espionage systems in Israel.
The Pegasus Commission – named by the local media – refers to the sophisticated cybernetic instrument created by the Herzliya-based company NSO to penetrate and control mobile phones without their owners knowing they are being spied on and followed. As of 2021 and before it was the subject of controversy in Israel, Pegasus has been widely cited -and not in a positive way- internationally. Official complaints and journalistic information pointed to the illegal use of the software Israeli in various countries, including Spain, to enter in mobiles in a follow-up that would go beyond the two objectives established in the contracts signed between NSO and the client States, such as the fight against terrorism and organized crime.
The Israeli commission, promoted by the Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, will investigate the behavior of the Police, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Government Legal Department and the internal police investigation department in everything related to the purchase, monitoring and collection of information on technological instruments on citizens and offices in Israel. The investigation may also cover cases such as that of the prime minister who, after being charged in 2019 for three corruption cases, is being tried by the Jerusalem district court.
On January 18, 2022, the economic daily Calcalist revealed that the Israeli Police resorted to Pegasus and did not request judicial permission to spy on citizens in their country. Six months later, a commission from the Ministry of Justice found some irregularities committed by the Police but discredited the vast majority of accusations of Calcalist They referred to espionage, for example, of officials, mayors, businessmen, protesters and even Netanyahu’s son.
In recent days, Baharav-Miara had warned the government of the damage that the new commission could cause to national security and warned that Netanyahu could incur a clear conflict of interest. In this sense, the opposition accuses Levin of creating the commission with the aim of further damaging public confidence in agents, prosecutors and judges and, above all, influencing the prime minister’s judicial process after alleging alleged illegal wiretapping in his environment. . Investigating the police investigation, a public demand by Netanyahu after his indictment, could influence his trial, the opposition warns. And they remember that the former judge chosen to chair the commission, Moshe Drori, has been very critical of the Prosecutor’s Office and the form of the judicial process against Netanyahu. “No evidence presented in the Netanyahu trial was obtained by Pegasus,” says Channel 12 legal commentator Guy Peleg.