BlackCore and Israel’s War On Reality
Last month, a Haaretz-Libération investigation uncovered systems for building an army of avatars, developed by Israeli company BlackCore, including a smear campaign of a left-wing French candidate and multiple attacks on John Swinney. The French government has now formally requested explanations from Israel regarding the actions attributed to BlackCore. Labour has done nothing.
BlackCore has interfered in elections in Scotland, New York, France, Angola and Togo, using large numbers of fake social media accounts to target politicians who have criticised Israel’s genocide in Gaza, French authorities have found.
Novara Media has written: “France’s disinformation watchdog, Viginum, said a private, Israel-based company named BlackCore had coordinated hundreds of accounts to post negative comments about Scottish first minister John Swinney in the run-up to the Scottish parliament elections in May. Swinney is one of the few UK politicians to have described Israel’s mass killings in Gaza as a genocide, saying last year that “it can’t be disputed”. He also led a ban on arms companies receiving financial aid if they supply Israel’s military. Viginum said Swinney, the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) and the devolved government in Edinburgh were targeted between 6 January and 8 May, with BlackCore using at least 256 coordinated accounts to post around 1,400 comments.”
Ross Greer, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, called on Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to summon the Israeli ambassador over the scandal. “Or will she continue Labour’s tradition of letting them [Israel] away with absolutely anything?” he wrote on Twitter.
Given Yvette Cooper’s funders, I’m not sure that’s going to happen anytime soon.
Remember it was Yvette Cooper who was responsible for having Palestine Action banned in the first place [Yvette Cooper vows to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws | Protest | The Guardian].
At a press conference on Thursday alongside French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Viginum chief Marc-Antoine Brillant said technical investigations had led them to suspect BlackCore.
The watchdog said BlackCore was suspected of influence operations around the world.
“This modus operandi was not limited to municipal elections in France,” he said. “It also appears to have been used to carry out foreign digital interference operations in other countries or regions, such as Angola, Togo, the elections in Scotland, and the 2025 municipal election in New York.”
Brillant did not say who had been targeted in last year’s New York City mayoral election, but winner Zohran Mamdani has repeatedly called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Before his election, Mamdani said he would enforce an international arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were he to travel to New York.
Ayse Betul at Middle Easter Eye has covered the story. They point out that Brillant said it was still unclear who had commissioned the Israeli company to meddle in French politics.
“Our investigations did not make it possible to identify the sponsor or sponsors, if indeed they exist, behind this foreign digital interference.”
Betul writes: “Last month, French authorities suspected the Israeli firm of orchestrating an online smear campaign against three mayoral candidates from the leftist pro-Palestine France Unbowed party (LFI) in the local election.
“A foreign digital interference campaign, first flagged by Viginum in March, used deceptive websites, social media accounts, and negative digital ads to smear three left-wing mayoral candidates in Marseille, Toulouse, and Roubaix with false criminal allegations, including sexual assault. A joint investigation by Liberation and Haaretz later uncovered the operation’s digital tools on a server linked to BlackCore, and two companies based in Tel Aviv.”
What is Violence?
But, while the French government had asked Israel for explanations on BlackCore’s actions, the British Government has done no such thing. In a week where the Court of Appeal in London has overruled the High Court and upheld the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group, we live in an absurdist regime which bows to a foreign power rather than supports the civil liberties of its own people.
Why will they do nothing? Well, it’s Scotland and so, who cares? Yes, they will do nothing.
The antipathy towards Scotland is hard-wired and the casual disdain for democracy a feature not a glitch of Starmer’s government. The actions of BlackCore and the inactions of the UK government, riddled with Israeli money, warp and distort reality.
Black ops and disinformation distort reality, but in truth ‘reality’ is already pretty distorted. As George Monbiot writes [The Belfast riots, Palestine Action protests. What is terrorism now – and why the hypocrisy?]:
“…while more than 3,000 people have now been arrested for holding up signs in support of the banned group, and many face terrorism charges, no one in Belfast or Southampton has been charged with terrorist offences. Nor have those who whipped up the riots online. In fact, the latter group hasn’t yet been charged with anything. If you say “I support Palestine Action”, they might put you in jail. If you incite a racist riot, they put you on TV.”
Neil Mackay at the Herald has written: “A UK parliamentary inquiry should be established to investigate the behaviour of Russia, China and Iran. The Israeli firm BlackCore should now also be included.”
He added: “An agency like France’s Viginum should be established so we have a rolling security operation against foreign interference. Any Britons found working for foreign states should face the full force of the law.”
This is all true but it will never happen. The whole affair reveals the stark reality of being tied to the British State. The need for an independent Scotland with an independent foreign policy is more obvious than ever.
The march in favour of the continued British military occupation of Lossiemouth took place on Sunday the 7th of November, 2010. Amongst those marching alongside the actor Ewan McGregor, whose brother was a Tornado jet fighter pilot, were the leaders of the 4 main political parties, including Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland whose raison d’être was to give Scotland back its independence after 3 centuries of British colonial mis-rule. None of those Scottish National Party supporters in attendance appear to have seen any contradiction in joining a campaign whose aim was to save a Royal Air Force property in fact constituted 1400 acres of fenced off land on the western periphery of a wee Scottish coastal town 160 miles or so north of the Edinburgh parliament. But then, Salmond being a politician was in the business of trying to keep as many folk on side as possible in order to sustain his electoral mandate & nothing ever pleased a baying mob as much as the thought of yet more carnage wrought upon poorly equipped militias & innocent civilians trying to get on with their lives in whichever Middle Eastern country was next to be bombed into 150 million pieces.
Apologies, Corrected version: The march in favour of the continued British military occupation of Lossiemouth took place on Sunday the 7th of November, 2010. Amongst those marching alongside the actor Ewan McGregor, whose brother was a Tornado jet fighter pilot, were the leaders of the 4 main political parties, including Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland, whose raison d’être was to give Scotland back its independence after 3 centuries of British colonial mis-rule. None of those Scottish National Party supporters in attendance appear to have seen any contradiction in joining a campaign whose aim was to save a Royal Air Force property that in fact constituted 1400 acres of fenced off land on the western periphery of a wee Scottish coastal town 160 miles or so north of the Edinburgh parliament. But then, Salmond being a politician was in the business of trying to keep as many folk on side as possible in order to sustain his electoral mandate & nothing ever pleased a baying mob as much as the thought of yet more carnage wrought upon poorly equipped militias & innocent civilians trying to get on with their lives in whichever Middle Eastern country was next to be bombed into 150 million pieces.
George Monbiot is right, of course, and this is also described by Stephen Huggins in America’s Use of Terror: From colonial times to the A-bomb (2019), particularly in his chapters on definitions of terrorism, lynching as terror theatre and sections on ‘spontaneous’ terror and vigilante violence against innocents. While Huggins’ book has some notable omissions (for indigenous residential school terror, read something like Mary Annette Pember’s Medicine River), it covers these aspects very well.
Neoliberal state terror, another related aspect that is also seldom named by corporate media, is described in Ruth Blakeley’s State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South (2009). In Chapter 6: State Terrorism after 9/11, Introduction, Blakeley writes:
p124 “Many of the acts of state terrorism explored in this chapter can be traced back to the Cold War, and even as far back as the practices used by the early European and American imperialists”.
Middle East Eye is also good at providing historical and regional contexts.
These authors also cover bureaucratic terror, which some immigrants will face (along with various pernicious taxation and welfare rule regimes). One form of terror uses blatantly unjust and perverse definitions of terrorism and extremism. Another, lawfare (like slapps) against journalists and whistleblowers:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/17/slapps-legislation-stop-lawfare-journalists-whistleblowers
although in occupied Palestine, Israel commonly just murders journalists and silences whistleblowers without legal figleafs.
Huggins writes that terror may come from trauma and feelings of helplessness. Terrorism conditions its audience through a form of theatre of injustices to create impotent rage. Terrorism is more concerned with inflicting a psychological state than physical violence: anticipation, dread. While various definitions include perpetrator, action, victim, violence, under imperial pressure the UN’s 2005 ‘Consensus’ on Terror dropped state as perpetrator. By focusing on the effect on terrorised victim, regardless of perpetrator, Huggins like Monbiot and Blakeley links all these phenomena and suggests that the methods of producing terror often come from the same toolbox, no matter the scale or bodycount, and often employed by one’s own government, community or neighbours… but also corporations, mercenaries, militias, religious groups, foreign ‘allies’ and international military treaty organisations.
Difficult to come to any other conclusion other than High Court decision to rule proscription of PA was based on legal principles while Court of Appeal decision to overturn High Court decision was based on political considerations.
Richard Sanders has an excellent short summary on how the Filton 4 were treated on Doubledown News. In brief they were prosecuted and convicted on criminal damage charges and sentenced by Judge, without informing anyone, as if it was a terrorism conviction.
These developments are concerning enough on their own but when you consider there is a real possibility of a far right government at Westminster within next few years they become chilling.
Hmm, I think probably they were sentenced for going over the score on police officers one of whom happened to be a female officer. That’s not cool.
Mark
If they had been sentenced for the damage and assault charges they were convicted for they would have received a sentence appropriate to these charges. Due to the time they have been held on prison prior to trial being taken into consideration they would have nearly completed their sentence now. No one would have complained about this outcome.
Due to judge unilaterally and without informing anyone deciding to sentence under terrorism tariffs, which was never discussed during trial, these people now face much longer sentences and other long term consequences.
The judge stopped defendants making any statements explaining and justifying their actions and even threatened to prosecute their counsel.
While I do not necessarily approve of the actions of these particular defendants I do think they are entitled to a fair judicial process. I also think they are entitled to a hearing as to why they undertook their actions to allow a jury to decide on their criminality.
I am also extremely worried by the precedent the judge’s actions sets.
Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said it was “gut-wrenching to see someone jailed for breaking someone’s back with a sledgehammer”
You are paraphrasing Zac Polanski not quoting his words hence you shouldn’t be using inverted commas.
That’s not positive action – it’s GBH. He’s lucky he didn’t get attempted murder.
there’s some mad middle class fannies about that should have been given the requisite 2 & a half paper rounds
Mark and Billy- you have completely missed the point I was making.
Here is the short version:
The Fulton defendants were charged, prosecuted and convicted by a jury under criminal charges. It doesn’t matter what you, me or Zac Polanski think about the case it is the jury’s opinion that ultimately counts in law.
The judge then unilaterally sentenced them as if they had been convicted under terrorism charges. If the judge thought the defendants acted as terrorists he should insisted that they be charged , prosecuted and convicted under terrorism charges. He didn’t do this because he realised the jury probably wouldn’t have convicted the defendants under a terrorism charges. That is what is unjust about the case. It is that simple guys.
The defendant was charged and convicted with GBH without intent. Their defence was that they were pepper sprayed and blindly reacted to a call for help from a colleague.
The normal sentence for GBH without intent is about 5 years. PA may well annoy a lot of people including authorities and government but they don’t cause or intend to cause terror amongst the general public which was the long established definition of being a terrorist.
I am not justifying this person’s actions and agree they should do the time for the GBH crime. My sympathy lies with the policewoman who was injured. I am merely laying out the facts of the case.
15 & a half years later I was unfortunately back in the town mentioned above & had been back for some considerable time. It was mid-June & the previous evening I had taken a daunder up the river & through the plantation of pine before visiting the grave of my grandparents. For some reason my old friends Polis Halipa were doing a circuit within the confines of the cemetery in one of their many automobiles. These days whenever I clocked them I went silent, gave them not the slightest hint I was aware of their presence or indeed, existence. No doubt some busy body had reported me for taking advantage of the fresh air & decent weather when I should like any normal person be in the boozer watching the England game. Strange that Johnny Plod should be patrolling a cemetery containing one living person with no intention of causing any trouble when World Cup 2026 was in full swing. Perhaps they wished to observe my body language & by some subliminal new & improved method of calculation available only via digital tech application reach a conclusion on the eventual score line so they could place their bets accordingly.
Bible John the 3rd