Comment by Matl
2 days ago
Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.
They actively export it. See Pegasus
There are dozens of firms around the world, including several in the US, doing exactly the same thing.
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Which government are you comparing to?
Any other small country?
You rarely read about Finland spying on other nations, or trying to influence their politics.
There is the AIPAC, I challenge you to find anything similar from any other country.
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Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway).
Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc).
There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.
> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot
I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
> I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
Yes, they are trying their hardest with their actions to fuel a new way of antisemitism.
Turns out if you are a religious fundamental colony that occupies territory based on the bible, that gives bad rap to the whole religion.
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What is shameful about the "military stuff"? Isn't that's what is protecting you from your neighbors and their patron?
I never understood this: the Palestinian children whose family and limbs are torn from them for Israeli sport are also Semites. It seems like the ultimate erasure to claim "antisemitic" for only Jews.
Etymologically you're correct that semites refers to [all] people from middle east and horn of Africa. But the label is from the European perspective, where it was used to refer to Jews. I'm sure that if they'd had a say in it, they would not have referred to themselves as Jews.
But yeah, there is indeed some irony in the term "antisemitism" in the context you describe
European origin jews are not semites btw. Antisemitism is a misnomer, when they refer to antisemitism they refer to Jews only.
Semitic does not refer to people nor to a race of people, but to a family of languages including Hebrew and Arabic. The man who coined the term "antisemitic" used it to describe his own views which were specifically anti-Jew.
The only erasure is the attempt to diffuse the term to include Akkadians, Amharics, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Black Israelites, adherents to the Nation of Islam, all 1.3 billions Arabs, what-have-you, when it always and only ever referred to anti-Jew hatred.
There is no such thing as a "semite." It's an archaic racial category that 19th century German race science used since "anti-semite" sounds more scientific than "Jew hater." Consequently, that's why it's applied to Jews rather than a larger pseudoscientific racial group.
(More broadly, "they're semites too" is the "Elon Musk is African American" of I/P discourse. You can recognize extraordinary human tragedy without re-using race science.)
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Personally, I think you're going through a hard time. An individual and a country are different, but people do rely to some extent on the image of a country when judging an individual. I agree with your logic, so I'll give you an upvote
> Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political
We are more than two years into full-on genocide and you hesitate to be political? This position reminds me of many Russians who prefer to "stay out of politics" because there are "two sides" to the conflict and it's an uncomfortable topic for them.
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I didn't downvote you. You're Jewish (I stand side by side with Jewish brothers and sisters against Israel), you've expressed disagreements with the Israeli government. We're likely on a similar page then.
However:
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
Besides the point. I truly won't touch anything from that Apartheid, gen0cideal state.
c.f. the boycott of South Africa during Apartheid. Same principle.
Israeli designed/made chips are in phones, computers, all over the internet. Same with Israeli made software. Anyone using/posting to the internet is touching/supporting quite a few things from Israel.
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Your PM Netanyahu is a disaster. Your religious hardliners seem to love him.
Even someone neutral to sympathetic can’t help but look on in disgust at your PM and his supporters.
Edit: The point being that it tarnishes everything that Israel does, and makes fault-finding way too easy.
Let's not pin it all on Netanyuhu, he is a good representation of his society.
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No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for that matter.
My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the very top level. The head of government has a Jewish son-in-law.
Even online, I see much more pervasive criticism of my nation than yours.
Yet, listen to Zionists and I’m practically living in Weimar Germany. That dog won’t hunt.
People have criticisms of Israel. They may be fair or unfair. Address them on the merits and leave the rest of us out it. It has nothing to do with Jews qua Jews.
> My nation, the most powerful in the world,
USA?
> Yet, listen to Zionists and I’m practically living in Weimar Germany. That dog won’t hunt.
Yeah this is so detached from reality I have to ask how you arrived at this conclusion and consider reexamining the way you consume information. Both in my own personal impression and according ADL global index USA's antisemitism is a low. Because "Zionists" have pro-Israel bias they will perceive any one who support Israel positively, and no one support Israel more than USA, so they will likely view USA as positive further lessening negtive views.
It's hard to separate for some people. Unfortunately those people tend to be the worst on both sides
In general, I think (or at least hope) your experience is the more common one. But fwiw I do have a Jewish friend who was personally cussed at and threatened by his own coworker explicitly for being Jewish (well, and probably because they were from Florida if I'm being honest, but there aren't as many slurs for that). The guy who did it was fired (whole thing was recorded iirc), nobody sided with him, he was clearly off his rocker in some way - but it doesn't take much to get shaken up - it sticks with you. And my friend was understandably, shaken up.
I know that because I used to live in Seattle, and unfortunately I had a really scary experience of being threatened (he yelled "I'm going to kill you b****") and chased down by a homeless man for nothing other than being a woman on the same street as him. So I saw my own perspective shift when it happened first hand. I was no longer excited about living downtown in a big city after that experience.
So what I'm saying is, neither me nor my friend took the experience and made it a defining thing. He still lives where he does, didn't blame the community or anything. And I'm back to taking public transit, talking to strangers on the sidewalk, and all the other stuff that comes with spending time downtown in a big city. But this time the city is Charlotte, my home city. It's probably not any safer than Seattle (maybe worse), but experiences shape perception, and I've always had really good experiences on Charlotte, including with homeless people. I could say it's because Charlotte has more police presence lately, or because there's not visible tent camps or open drug usage. But deep down, I know, crazy people are always gonna be out there, and the most trivial thing can make you a target.
So I really get the pull by people who have experienced victimization like that to talk about it. You feel kinda crazy if you don't, because you are surrounded by people who say it never happens because they've never seen it. That was such a big part I think of the Floyd protests - a lot of white people lived in a bubble and didn't know how pervasive overly violent interactions with the police can be (though the ironic part is that a lot of white people still don't realize that they can also be targeted by police with just as much malice). Most American black people already knew first or second-hand that police brutality was real and not uncommon - but until it was undeniable on video, it was treated by others as if it never happened.
So there's some honest middle ground somewhere, but the extremists are the one who have the most to gain from convincing people to believe otherwise.
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I have stood up for Jews since I was a kid, often saying "I'm Jewish" when racists/antisemitic jokes were told and I have been called those things. I've heard people say all kinds of horrific stuff about Jews. In this very thread we have:
"This is definitely made easier by the fact that the arrogance, the endless lawyering, the shady dealings, the greediness, the constant switching between attacking and playing the victim, they all match to a tee the most known historical antisemitic tropes." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48515906
"Large American investment companies that were also both founded by Jewish people. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, though" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48516750
there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...
IDF conscripts astroturf on social media all day, and a lot of people do the same for free on behalf of the concept of Israel
Don’t worry about the deflections and karma flagging censorship as consensus, because its not
Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world, and think losing a perception game will result in their eradication perpetuated by everyone around them. This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that, so I can empathize, but not at the expense of fiction. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want the corrosive traits in their culture to be checked and go away.
Put all those PhD’s that some people are so proud of into other pursuits.
> Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world [...] This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that
Actually it goes way further. It seems that a large part of Jewish religion and culture is centered on the idea of being persecuted. A quick list goes from the Egyptian slavery, to the attack by the Amalekites, to the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, to Haman's plot to exterminate Jews in Persia... and we're still at the book of Esther, 5th century BCE. The list goes on and on. Each of these is commemorated in a religious or civil ceremony: Passover, Purim, Hanukkah, etc.
This is to say, Judaism is built around grievance. And grievance in turn, if kept unchecked, is dangerous because it can justify unethical behaviours that are seen as reparatory.
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"parents and grandparents,"
You don't have to go into historical events. This is still happening now.
Jews are still fighting for their survival and the moment Israel stops fighting, millions of Jews will die.
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> Independent of who is in the right there, they are losing the media war.
Honestly, I like that nobody's getting fired anymore. I like that consensus has shifted on consensus-driven forums until the IDF conscripts wake up. Generations of that and nobody's opinion actually changed, people independently perceived the same things and speaking was merely suppressed by private sector and communities. Partially by our own governments too.
Now the behavior of Israeli administrations and some settlers is all so indefensible that people can sort their thoughts out about things together, publicly.
Even the astroturfing is disingenuous, people are saying the exact same points that Jewish Israeli protesters are saying towards their own government in Israel. But the fear of non-Jewish people flipping on them is even greater, so when we say the same things its paraded around as something that it isn't.
Just get US out of it.
> Israel had to fight multiple wars to avoid extinction
Israel should never have been created in the first place. Generally when people invade other's land and start ethnically cleansing it, they will come under attack from people practicing self-defense. In other words, 100% of hostility created from Israel is self-inflicted.
At this point just file it under "Tech-washing".
As if Rudolph Höss' innovations in chemical and civil engineering somehow excuse Auschwitz.
People need to start being clear about subversion and inhumanity exported from Israel and not attempt to bookkeep that against their B2B SaaS'.
This demonic rhetoric would not be valid in any other circumstance.
> ... because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
> If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal ...
Perhaps, but - talk to someone who's done PR work for startups. Ask them what it would take for an Israeli startup working on, say, home bagel-making machines to get the sort of world-wide media attention that any Israeli creep-tech firm can get - for free - by association with a few nefarious deeds.
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That last swipe was religious flamebait and that is not allowed on HN, so please edit it (and anything like it) out of your posts here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: this is excessive and abusive: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... HN is no place for conducting religious battle. Please do no more of this here.
(And yes, in case that is wondering, this applies equally regardless of which religion and who is doing it.)
yeah as if anyone is actually gonna do that...
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Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact.
No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions.
As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate.
Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7].
And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht.
Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird.
It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683
This is just cringe conspiracy stuff. Selling CNE tooling is a business (I don't know how big you want to call it) all over the world. Israel is not a global headquarters for it.
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I'll direct you to the Nat Turner rebellion [1]. Or the practice of "necklacing" in apartheid South AFrica [2]. Or the Mau Mau rebellion [3]. As Nelson Mandela put it [4]:
> A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.
History didn't begin on October 7. October 7 was the culmination of (then) 75 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, colonial violence, collective punishment, starvation, the denial of clean water, the denial of electricity and other basics and making conditions generally unlivable. Israeli tactics included "mowing the grass" [5] and putting Palestinians "on a diet" [6][7]. Palestinians are often held without trial [8] and when there is a trial it's a sham in front of a military tribunal. And this doesn't even touch the constant settler violence in the West Bank.
One reason we say the oppressor sets the level of violence is what happens with peaceful protests, such as the Great March of Return [9]. What happened? Israelis used them as target practice [10][11].
October 7 was violent, no question. but there were also a lot of lies about what happened [12][13][14].
And whatever you think about the tactics or outcomes of October 7, Israel has done an October 7 every day since October 7.
One point:
> the people in the ghetto were on the verge of being shipped off to concentration camps and being killed in gas chambers
There's actually no evidence they knew that. The Nazis went to great lengths to deceive such populations that they were being resettled.
and
> they had been suffering from rampant disease and starvation before the fighting.
Which is different, how?
> ... proscribed terrorist groups ...
That's how state violence works. It makes things illegal. There was a time when slavery was legal. Does that make opposing it wrong? Apartheid in South Africa was legal. Apartheid in Israel is "legal".
[1]: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/nat-turner-in-gaza/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing
[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-trut...
[4]: https://eamonka.com/2010/03/25/6-great-quotes-from-mandelas-...
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
[6]: https://imeu.org/resources/resources/putting-palestinians-on...
[7]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/02/25/israel-denied-pasta-to-...
[8]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/200910_withou...
[9]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-gre...
[10]: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/two-years-on-people-inju...
[11]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma...
[12]: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/nyt-screams/
[13]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-...
[14]: https://www.thepipd.com/content/blog/israeli-major-disinform...
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The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
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They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
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Did they? Like, which exactly?
Rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
He later worked at NASA.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Apart from other mentions, they also did cutting edge research on nuclear power and weapons. Some of the scientists understood how massive an undertaking that was, however the political leadership apparently did not, or the world would look different today.
The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse in 1938, and completed in 1941. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. [c] Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
Hypothermia research, sleep deprivation research, etc. really cruel stuff.
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Cant believe people like you get to vote
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Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
Maybe US OFAC has missed one particular state
Is the UK a US ally? Is Japan?
If you only focus on one country for some strange reason that you can't explain, people are going to notice. That shouldn't surprise you.
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Russians do not do that. It is contrary to our culture.
There was a lord (knyaz) in old times who even warned enemies that he is going to attack them. Of course it is not as advantageous as a covert approach. But it is very Russian.
When you hear otherwise it is those other entities targeting you, that's all.
Russia’s involvement with foreign assets is pretty well-documented. Maybe not on a hysterical level where someone believes Russian government stole elections in USA, but they definitely meddled and continue to meddle in affairs of neighbouring countries and EU, both through information campaigns and via direct actions and influence.
Talking about stuff from early Middle Ages (князи), it has zero relevance to modern culture. Russia is anything but isolationist as it should be clear since 2014/2022.
Games three-letter agencies play are the same everywhere and have zero relation to the culture. 2016 meddling did happen of course. It was also negligible and led to a huge overreaction, extremely similar to the US meddling in Russian elections in 1996 where Clinton admin indirectly prevented Nemtsov from running by supporting unpopular Yeltsin (and NGOs did a ton of "work" which barely affected anything, the main reason Yeltsin won was Filatov running the campaign, oversized spending and collusion with the media aka Xerox affair, and the "admin resource" he had).
There are three options:
1. Israel is doing this in an outsized way compared to everyone else
2. Israel is extremely poor at doing it because it keeps getting caught
3. All the reporting is controlled by the antisemitic media conglomerates ruled by a shadowy council funded by Qatari money
I expect you to deny 1, 2 is an impossibility to you, 3 is the most likely I'd hear even though it's highly reminiscent of something...
Looking forward to option 4. I hope it's something more original than shouting "blood libel!".
False trichotomy 4. Small amount of people make sure to look and echo everything that paint Israel in bad light and this work, we know this work because this entire post is about a company (small amount of people) influencing New York and Scotland votes.
Also it is entirely possible all 1+2+4 hold
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I think it's pretty objective. It's honestly possibly even a bit of a pro Israel framing given how passive and soft it is.
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Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
> why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state.
I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately.
Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out.
I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'.
One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias.
It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible
In addition to this malware, which comes from an Israeli company and is used for the purpose of subverting democratic elections in foreign countries (we don't really know who mandated these interventions, but the target, John Swinney and fellow ministers, have been vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and have imposed a form of sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces by withholding state grants to arms firms that supply the IDF and freezing support for exports to Israel), they have also infiltrated some countries like the UK and US with very powerful pro-Israel lobbies acting behind the curtain by directly contacting prominent politicians.
In the UK, the Israeli company Elbit Systems produces arms for Israel through its British subsidiary, which holds major Ministry of Defence contracts including the Watchkeeper drone programme (worth over £800 million) and the Jupiter training system (around £130 million) – sources: UK Companies House and MoD contract notices. People protesting for Palestinians at Elbit sites have been arrested: between 2020 and June 2024, over 140 arrests were made at more than 50 actions by Palestine Action, but police and court records show that no terrorism charges were filed, and the High Court rejected a legal challenge against policing of these protests in May 2024. Two main lobbies cover both major parties in the UK: Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.
In the US, a similar two‑party structure exists but with far greater financial power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC spent over $4.5 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, mostly to defeat progressive Democrats critical of Israel, including successfully spending $14.5 million to unseat Congressman Jamaal Bowman (source: Federal Election Commission filings). The Democratic Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition mirror the UK's Labour and Conservative lobby groups, while the US provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid – a sharp contrast to the UK's limited sanctions on the IDF. Unlike the UK, no US protester has been arrested under terrorism laws for actions against arms companies supplying Israel.
In practice, Israel and Russia do similar things: they affect or subvert foreign elections by manipulating information and social media, and they directly influence politics via foundations, think tanks, and by cultivating politicians and influencers. For Russia, this includes organisations like the Russian House in Washington and sympathetic think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation – though the Heritage Foundation is American, Russian state media and proxies have actively courted its positions.
Russia has also influenced figures like Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly echoes Kremlin talking points, and JD Vance, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine; no public evidence proves formal recruitment, but both have amplified narratives favourable to Moscow and JD Vance made a powerful endorsement of Orban, a corrupted pro-russian statesman, in the past election in Hungary.
There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran.
Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Israelis never interact with Palestinians.
To suggest that a sector of Israeli startups exists on the experience of people "suppressing Palestinians" is definitely biased, absurd, and is a slippery slope.
> There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians.
I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory.
Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians.
So yes, it's very much related.
Well that and the fact that Iran is (was) the other peer military adversary in the region, with forces deployed on Israel's border, and with a longstanding declared intent of eradicating Israel.
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> over Palestinian territory
This could mean anything from a couple of ghettos to all of the modern state of Israel depending on what you think Palestinian territory is or should be.
If you take the approach that all of it is Palestinian territory and the state of Israel shouldn't exist, then yeah, sure? that's different from the assertion that all of the intelligence related businesses in Israel are founded because of direct experience in conflict with the Palestinian people.
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Iran is not strictly "an obstacle" to Israeli hegemony. Its ideology since the 1970s clearly states the destruction of Israel as its goal. It clashed with Israel over Iran's desire to set up a Shia vassal state in Lebanon and it killed Jews and Israelis all over the world through terror (e.g. AMIA bombing in Argentina)
The Palestinians are merely a tool for Iran to gain influence, Hezbollah and Shias in Iraq were far more important for them historically
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Everything is israel is and always will be related to palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their land