The world’s eyes will be on Lionel Messi on Wednesday night, as Argentina face England in the World Cup semi-final. The diminutive superstar has gained a massive following across the planet, not least in Israel, thanks to his numerous business and security connections with the Apartheid State. From being the face of an Israeli A.I. company led and run by Israeli spies, entrusting his private security to a team of Israel secret agents, MintPress explores the reasons why Benjamin Netanyahu considers him to be his favorite football player.
by Alan MacLeod
Part 1 - Palling Up With Ex-Israeli Spooks
As the world’s foremost football star, Lionel Messi is understandably protective of his image. The Argentinian forward carefully picks and chooses whom he is associated with, and has signed lucrative long-term deals with enormous global brands, such as Adidas, Pepsi, and Mastercard.
That is why many were surprised when, in 2020, he announced a partnership with OrCam, a relatively small Israeli A.I. firm that makes wearable artificial vision devices (similar to Google Glass). OrCam markets itself as helping visually impaired people live more fulfilling lives. Messi became its global brand ambassador and the face of the company.
More controversially, however, OrCam is an outgrowth of the Israeli national security state, employing dozens of former agents of Israeli military spying agency, Unit 8200, many in highly influential positions. Chief among these is Adi Levitski, a longtime intelligence officer with Unit 8200, who, in 2024, was appointed director of operations at OrCam.
Many OrCam staff were commanders in the shadowy spy agency, responsible for some of the worst crimes of the post-October 7 2023 war, as well as many of the most scandalous international hacking and surveillance operations. Mor Shamy, for example, rose to become head of intelligence analysis at Unit 8200 by 2015, and would later be hired as an algorithm developer at OrCam. Working alongside him was Matan Albeck, the former head of Unit 8200’s data analysis department.
Despite major layoffs in recent years, the company continues to be largely staffed by former spooks, with a revolving door existing between the two entities. Some, such as Eliya Segev and Eli Corn, went from OrCam into Unit 8200, while Amitai Edrei’s resume show that he worked for both OrCam and Unit 8200 at the same time, underscoring the close relationship between the two.
For Messi, this should have been a major red flag in working with OrCam, as Unit 8200 is the prime designer and operator of Israel’s hi-tech genocide in Gaza and beyond. And its agents are responsible for producing much of the world’s most invasive spyware.
Using big data collected by its massive digital Palestinian dragnet, the organization created massive A.I.-generated kill lists of Gazans, and carried out tens of thousands of drone bombing operations that was the centerpiece of the destruction in Gaza.
Its agents also developed highly-invasive spyware, such as Pegasus, which was used to spy on tens of thousands of foreign leaders, journalists, activists, and human rights advocates across the world. The Israeli government sold Pegasus to dictatorships and authoritarian regimes globally, helping them crack down on human rights. Perhaps the most well-known case of this was Saudi Arabia, who used Pegasus to monitor Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, before dismembering him with a bone saw in their embassy in Türkiye.
It is, therefore, highly questionable that Messi should decide to become the face of such a company.
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