Any Israeli citizen in that age bracket today is going to be running a real risk of killing people. They don't have a choice (dodging the draft doesn't count as a choice). If you're going to hold that over for them for the rest of their lives I don't know how that's distinct from racism (or countryism if you prefer).
Yes. The "just following orders" excuse has been tried in the past. People didn't buy it then and we won't buy it now.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-soldiers-arrest-ab...
If the IDF wants to name the specific individuals from Unit 8200 who were involved in maiming or killing civilians including children by blowing up electronics in their faces, that might change things. Then it'd be a lot easier for people to avoid having concerns about that entire unit. Not naming them seems a lot like tacit support by the IDF for the actions of those in Unit 8200 who killed those children. Otherwise, people very well may have concerns about that entire unit. That's not "racism."
So it's okay to blame vets of Unit 8200 for its actions 10 years after they founded Snyk (I have no idea how long after they left the unit) on the grounds that the intelligence arm of the IDF doesn't name names? So just in case and in the face of all the facts of the timelines, we should make sure to drag out these people's former mandatory service and remind everyone they served alongside bad guys 10+ years ago?
I'm not okay with blaming soldiers for following orders. When it's that or getting shot by your own side, there isn't a real choice. But I can't even begin to understand the mindset that would blame soldiers for the orders that other, unrelated soldiers followed more than 10 years later. That's some next-level hatred.
FSB agents worked there for decades and chose that instead of any number of other things they could have done. Unit 8200 conscripts worked there for at most 2 years 8 months and chose it instead of a different, more gun-blazing branch of the military.
Mandatory military service completely changes the profile of the vets in a way that makes all these comparisons totally irrational. They're founded in fear and hatred for Israelis, not any reasonable similarity.
Also, okay then let's switch it up to the Russian army. Would you use a product with known ties to some electronic warfare russian army unit. Or rather, would you consider any doubts or hesitations over using said product to be "russophobic"?
I'm not defending the state, I'm defending the individuals who were conscripted.
The entire point of this subthread is that it's heinous to confuse the two.
> Would you use a product with known ties to some electronic warfare russian army unit. Or rather, would you consider any doubts or hesitations over using said product to be "russophobic"?
If I suddenly learned that some founding members of the JetBrains team had previously been conscripted into the Russian army and had served in a cyberwarfare unit, that would change absolutely nothing for me. And yes, I do consider the backlash against JetBrains in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine to have been highly rusophobic.
In the sense that this is just a direct result of Israel's actions. They staged an incredibly powerful intelligence coup with the blown up pagers. Now I agree that if you aren't involved in middle Eastern politics, there's no reason to be scared of Israeli products (even if made by ex-israeli soldiers). But I completely understand where the reputational damage comes from, it was such a well executed operation that it does cast more doubts on anything related to Israel.
My point about conscription was that it is worse in the sense that most Israeli citizens can be de-facto coerced into becoming an agent of the state, making Israeli products inherently more suspicious (and more tied to state policy, regardless of the individuals involved). As you say, most Israelis don't necessarily chose to be in the army. A lot of Hamas fighters are also basically conscripts, but that nuance wouldn't matter for most either.
There's also just the purely ideological angle, which is also what happened to anything touching Russia back in 2022. That's the angle that I agree is mostly unjustifiable.
If you truly believe that you'd risk your government's wrath instead of just picking the least dangerous and least likely to kill people branch of your military, then feel free to throw stones. For myself, my plan if the draft were reinstated in the US while I was still of that age was to find out how to join a cyberwarfare division, which would have led me straight to Unit 8200 if I were Israeli.
I know it’s not this simple in matters of war, but if someone believes their government is systematically committing moral atrocities, it seems reasonable to consider civil disobedience as an option even if the consequences are severe.
You’re right that we in the US are lucky not to be faced with a choice like this (for now), but I still think it’s a choice.
Just months ago, some of those "kids who are very good with computers" caused compromised pagers to explode, with no knowledge of who would be near them. Civilians, including children, died as a result. It is right to think people who are "good with computers" in this way might not have the best intentions in their other applications of computers.