How Israel is expanding its cybersecurity footprint in Latin America

How Israel is expanding its cybersecurity footprint in Latin America Ana Maria Monjardino on Mon, 09/14/2026 - 09:07 New security agreements with right-wing governments are opening doors for an industry whose technologies and expertise have been developed through Israel’s occupation of Palestine Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa (right) meets Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar at the Carondelet Presidential Palace in Quito on 5 August (AFP) Off As right-wing governments across Latin America embrace increasingly militarised and technology-driven approaches to organised crime, Israel is positioning its cybersecurity industry as a source of expertise, surveillance capabilities and national security solutions. The growing cooperation is opening new markets for an industry closely connected to Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, where technologies have been developed and tested through the occupation of Palestine before being marketed abroad. Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, has identified Israel’s artificial intelligence and cybersecurity expertise as a potential weapon in his promised crackdown on organised crime. “A collaboration with Israel would allow these resources to be applied directly to combating criminal structures within the national territory,” the hardline right-wing leader said. In neighbouring Ecuador, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Roberto Kury, signed agreements during a state visit on 4 August to increase cooperation on counter-terrorism and cybersecurity. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Israel and Argentina have also agreed to deepen their cooperation on artificial intelligence, in addition to a concurrent agreement to fight "terrorist" cyber-threats. The agreements point to a renewed opening for Israel’s cyber industry in Latin America as a succession of right-wing governments embraces technologically driven responses to organised crime. However, digital-rights advocates warn that the distinction between defensive cybersecurity and surveillance can become blurred when technologies developed within Israel’s military and occupation apparatus are exported to governments with weak safeguards and records of abuse. “One of the problems is that the main mindset from governments in Latin America is a risk-based approach, it is not about human-rights centred impact,” said Pepe Flores, director of programmes at R3D Mexico, an independent, non-profit digital-rights organisation. “There is an illusion of control with technology,” he told MEE. 'One of the problems is that the main mindset from governments in Latin America is a risk-based approach, it is not about human-rights centred impact' - Pepe Flores, R3D Mexico The regional shift also coincides with Washington’s growing emphasis on using cyber capabilities against transnational criminal organisations. On 12 August, US President Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum empowering federal law-enforcement agencies to use cyber tools “to disrupt transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that operate in foreign jurisdictions to attack Americans”. “President Trump is unleashing every available tool to stop foreign-based organized criminal organizations that exploit Americans in cyberspace,” the memorandum read. The push for closer cooperation with Israel comes amid a broader political shift to the right in Latin America, where several governments have aligned themselves more closely with Washington and adopted hardline approaches to organised crime, migration and national security. “New right-wing presidencies, like those of Daniel Noboa, Antonio Kast, and now Abelardo De La Espriella, have been built with an eye toward the United States. It’s like a pendulum swinging away from the likes of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Petro, and Lula da Silva,” said Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Fundacion Karisma, a civil society and digital rights organisation based in Bogota. In this context, “choosing Israel isn't simply a matter of picking the best supplier,” he told Middle East Eye, noting “nothing particularly special” about the Israeli tools themselves. “The choice of Israel is ideological, meaning that when faced with two equal suppliers, they pick the one that aligns better with their values, or one that reinforces their own stance.” (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The doctrine of defence Israel has increasingly presented itself to Latin American governments as a source of expertise in defence, cybersecurity and counter-terrorism. But “the concept of ‘defense’ has never been about simply defending oneself,” said Castañeda. “That is the official narrative but clearly it also involves defending against whatever is strategic. In other words, defending oneself can become a form of attack.” Why is Latin America becoming a breeding ground for 'fanatics of Israel'? Read More » The language of defence has long been used to justify expanding state power, from the US-led “war on terror” to the decades-long “war on drugs”. In Latin America, the language and methods associated with those campaigns are increasingly converging in the fight against what governments call “narco-terrorism”. Rights groups warn that the result has been greater militarisation and serious human rights violations, including in Ecuador and El Salvador. Israel has deployed similar rhetoric during its genocide in Gaza, repeatedly describing it as a war of defence against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people. International criticism of Israel’s cyber industry has focused on offensive technologies such as Pegasus, the notorious Israeli spyware used by governments around the world to target journalists and activists. But digital rights advocates like Flores argue that even companies marketing their products as defensive are closely connected to Israel’s military and security apparatus. “That is part of the selling point,” said Flores. “The US has pushed a narrative about using cyber-technologies to fight organised crime and dismantle cartels” and “there is a pressure to provide results immediately,” he told MEE. As a result, governments can be tempted to import Israeli tactics, but “the reality is a complex matrix where US interests, Israel’s interests and big-tech interests align”. Tried and tested in Palestine Israel’s cyber-technology industry is closely connected to its occupation of Palestine, where surveillance and other digital tools have been developed and deployed on a population that has little ability to refuse or challenge their use. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); "The skill being monetised is not intelligence in the abstract - plenty of countries have that. It is knowing how to run population-scale surveillance on people who cannot refuse,” said Lama Nazeeh, advocacy manager at 7amleh, the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement. “That is the intellectual property, and every Palestinian is an unconsenting contributor. “Since 2017 Israeli authorities have used predictive policing algorithms that scrape social media to generate recommendations on who to detain. Thousands have been arrested on that basis, and the systems are error-prone,” Nazeeh told MEE. The use of surveillance technology is part of a wider system of digital repression, she said. Furthermore, "our 2025 documentation recorded 3,452 digital rights violations against Palestinians, 538 censorship complaints and 2,910 cases of hate speech and incitement,” she said. “The absence of consent is not an unfortunate side effect, it is a design requirement.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and Colombia's President Abelardo de la Espriella (C) shake hands during a bilateral agreements signing ceremony in Barranquilla, Colombia on 8 September (AFP) The increased use of facial-recognition technology in the occupied Palestinian territories is part of an official move towards what has been described as a “frictionless” occupation, supposedly reducing interactions between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers by leaving identification to machines. Facial recognition systems, like Corsight AI in Gaza, Oosto in the occupied West Bank and Mabat 2000 in occupied East Jerusalem, have all been used as part of Israel’s extensive surveillance apparatus. “Anywhere else deploying a biometric system at scale involves a procurement process, a data protection authority, legal basis, courts that enjoin you, journalists with access and a population that can refuse. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there is none of that,” said Nazeeh. Technologies and expertise associated with this system are subsequently marketed overseas, often as defensive or civilian security solutions. Corsight AI’s facial-recognition software, for example, has been deployed in hospitals in Mexico and schools in Brazil. In Gaza, the Israeli military’s Unit 8200, an elite cyber-intelligence division, has used the company’s technology to identify and track Palestinians. The commercial deployments are not necessarily used for the same purposes as Israel’s military surveillance. But rights advocates say their common technological and institutional origins raise questions about safeguards, oversight and how such systems could be used by governments seeking increasingly intrusive security powers. The Israeli company Cellebrite, meanwhile, announced in 2023 that it was supplying a digital intelligence system to the federal forces of an unnamed Latin American country. Cellebrite, like many Israeli technology companies, has recruited personnel from Unit 8200. How did the far right take over Latin America? Read More » Many prominent figures in Israel’s technology sector have backgrounds in the unit, which has been described as a crucial training ground for the country’s cybersecurity industry. Out of Israel’s 700 cyber-technology companies, an astounding 80 percent of founders served in Unit 8200, according to a study cited by Haaretz. They include Check Point founder Gil Shwed and its chief executive, Nadav Zafrir. Check Point says it is committed to “empowering Latin America businesses and governments with cutting-edge security solutions to combat rising cyber threats”. The company recently met a delegation from Honduras’s National Telecommunications Commission to discuss the planned implementation of a national cybersecurity strategy. Check Point has also partnered with Israel Aerospace Industries, one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers, through the Israeli Cyber Companies Consortium, or IC3. The consortium was established in 2016 with the endorsement of the Israeli government to bring together cybersecurity companies and provide national-level cyber-defence systems to governments and international clients. In 2017, the consortium announced that it had secured a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to establish a national cyber centre in an unnamed Latin American country. The project included national-level threat monitoring, intelligence sharing, forensic tools, cyber training and systems designed to detect and investigate attacks. A longstanding relationship The expansion of Israel’s cyber industry in Latin America follows a much longer history of military and security cooperation. During the latter half of the 20th century, Israel supplied weapons, training and security assistance to Latin American governments and armed forces implicated in campaigns against Indigenous communities and left-wing movements. These tools and tactics were “conveniently tested on occupied Palestinians, then marketed as ‘battle-tested’,” Antony Loewenstein wrote in his book The Palestine Laboratory. 'That history [of relations] justified secrecy. It justified the use of weapons, violence, killing of people and the notion that [people] should not complain' - Juan Diego Castaneda, co-director of Fundacion Karisma The significance of the Israeli arms industry did not lie merely in the number of weapons and pieces of equipment exported. As Bishara Bahbah wrote in his seminal 1988 book, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection, “the significance lies in what has become Israel's absolute imperative to export arms. “From this dependence on arms exports, all else is derivative,” he wrote, pointing to Israel’s close cooperation with authoritarian regimes and its involvement in the “global strategies” of the US. “The history of relations [between Latin America, the US and Israel] forms the broader context in which we find ourselves today,” said Castaneda. “In other words, it shouldn't come as a surprise that these threads are converging again.” The government of former Colombian president Gustavo Petro, which broke diplomatic relations with Israel over the war in Gaza, represented an exception to that history. “What we’re seeing now is [a return to] the norm,” Castaneda told MEE. From Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, digital-rights advocates warn that the combination of militarised security policies and increasingly intrusive technologies could facilitate surveillance and abuse. For Castaneda, Colombia’s new administration will provide an important test of how that combination operates in practice. “We have to keep watching how the Abelardo de la Espriella administration evolves and how it reconnects with Colombia’s long history of asserting that national security requires exceptional solutions,” he said. “That history justified secrecy. It justified the use of weapons, violence, killing of people and the notion that we should not complain.” Latin America News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0