Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv to establish spy bases on strategic Yemeni island
Long before the new chapter of relations between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, the Emiratis had worked with Israeli surveillance experts and firms.
In fact, the first visit to the UAE by an Israeli official
was made by the head of Mossad to discuss “cooperation in the field of security
and issues of common interest”.
Now with normalized ties, and given a history of cooperation
between the two sides, there are fears that the agreement might pave the way
for more repression of Emirati journalists and rights activists at home, and of
course, an uptick in cyber-attacks and surveillance operations in the region
and beyond.
Shortly after the trip, it was revealed that Abu Dhabi and
Tel Aviv are involved in a joint surveillance project in Yemen.
The two sides were reportedly working silently on a plan to
establish spy bases on the strategic Yemeni island of Socotra.
According to JForumm, the official site of the Jewish and
French-speaking community, “The purpose of such a spy station would be to
collect intelligence across the region, particularly from the Bab el-Mandeb
Strait, a sea route chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the south of
Yemen, along with the Gulf of Aden and the Middle East.”
We have different aspects of Cyber Intelligence; Cyber
Intelligence covers the domestic threat and the external threat. And in this
case we have the Emiratis who like to control the opposition groups and like to
make sure that they monitor their own officials and other citizens or political
parties, including many foreign companies on their soil. But above all, the
collaboration between Israel and the Emirates is mainly directed toward Iran to
make sure that they can also control the nearby country and also the Iranian
company that are acting on the, they are working (in the UAE).
While the Emirati authorities are engaged in regional
surveillance for their regional ambitions, which is to become the leading power
of the Middle East, they need Israel’s spying hardware and software to maintain
the status quo within the borders.
In fact, Abu Dhabi has long been engaged in muting
dissenting voices with the help of Israeli cyber-surveillance companies.
The Falcon Eye surveillance system
For example, in 2015, Abu Dhabi contracted Israeli Asia
Global Technology for a civil surveillance project called Falcon Eye.
A source privy to the project told Middle East Eye,
"Every person is monitored from the moment they leave the doorstep to the
moment they return to it."
The Israelis managed to collect strong capability. And
they've signed an agreement with the United States on cybersecurity deals, and
also they have this recent agreement that goes back into three years where the
narrative is not very new.
Every year they invest between 450 to $500. million on the
collaboration on cyber security. Even if the normalisation of relationship was
announced, only very recently in the last few months, but the collaboration
between Israel and the Emirates, go back to several years.
Perhaps, one of the high-profile cases refers to the Emirati
human rights activist Ahmad Mansoor who was targeted by the Israeli Pegasus spyware,
developed by NSO Group Technologies.
According to the Citizen Lab, “On August 10 and 11, 2016,
Mansoor received SMS text messages on his iPhone promising “new secrets” about
detainees tortured in UAE jails if he clicked on an included link.
Instead of clicking on the link, Mansoor sent the messages
to Citizen Lab researchers who recognized the links as belonging to NSO Group,
an Israel-based “cyber war” company.”
They feel the wave of democracy coming in, and they feel
that the countries are asking to[for] reform, and people want their voice to be
heard. And those who are within them to be in power[sic]. And today the royal
families, the kings and Emirates, represent, first of all their interest to
remain in power.
This is where the collaboration between Israel and the
Emiratis can [come in handy] for the Emirati authorities, because they want to
feel how strong is this threat coming toward them and how it's threatening
their regime. Therefore, if this full control of all communications, internet,
the main exchange of ideas, communication, locally, domestically and with the
outside world. That is related to any potential threat against the Emirati
regime.
To impress their Emirati customers, NSO Group gave them two
secretly recorded phone calls of a London-based Arab newspaper editor, Abdul
Aziz al-Khamis.
But the Emiratis have gradually shown that they don’t like to
be mere consumers when it comes to surveillance technology.
In 2017, Emirati company DarkMatter reportedly recruited a
number of former NSO employees, with salaries as high as $1 million. The
company hacked the iPhones of hundreds of activists and political leaders,
according to a Reuters special report.
Any social media that is allowed in any country,
particularly in the Middle East, the government needs to have full control of
it, including communication like WhatsApp, Viber, ToToK, Twitter and Facebook,
all these social media that are an open space, and they can provide Cyberintelligence,
with an open source intelligence, they give indication to the states of the
level of threat, as I said earlier, if it is growing, how much is it growing,
who are the most active people, who will likely represent danger to their well
being or security or regime, for advertising democracy? Who are attacking this
personality or another key figure in the state? So all these social media
networks that are an open platform, are very closely monitored. And when they
are not when the government doesn't have access to it, then it blocks it.
Therefore, when it is not blocked, and is available, it means the government
has access and can control what's going on.
In 2019, an investigation by The New York Times found ToTok,
a free messaging app launched in the UAE by Emirati company Group 42, was
actually used by the Emirati government "to try to track every
conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who
install it on their phones."
Just before the normalization deal, Group 42 said it had
signed a cooperation deal with Israel Aerospace Industries' Elta Division over
coronavirus solutions.
In the words of
Andreas Krieg of King's College London, "With Israeli technology
being world leading and the UAE building a 21st century surveillance state with
deep penetration into countries in the region, both have seen this as a
win-win. Such relationships are only possible because the Israeli security
establishment has sanctioned it."
For the security-minded leadership in Abu Dhabi, warmer full
relations with Tel Aviv is a good opportunity for them to build up their police
state even if it necessitates the betrayal of the Palestinian cause
internationally and underdevelopment of a real civil society nationally.
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