According to the movement, “at the heart of it is the Predator software and the Intellexa ecosystem”. It notes that the government has admitted licensing the export of Predator, while the European Parliament has described the use of spyware as a serious threat to the rule of law and fundamental rights. “These are surveillance tools, designed from the start for political control,” BDS Greece states.
It stresses that Israeli spyware companies “do not operate independently of the state”, drawing personnel, expertise and legitimacy from Israel’s military and intelligence services. These technologies, it argues, “were first developed and tested in occupied Palestine, under conditions of apartheid, mass surveillance, documentation and repression of an entire people”.
“When such technologies are introduced to Greece,” the statement continues, “the model of power that gave birth to them is introduced with them: a society under constant surveillance and control, immediate suppression of dissent, and the normalisation of monitoring journalists, political opponents, trade unionists, activists, social movements and even government and friendly political figures.”
BDS Greece also warns of a second dimension: that the Israeli state uses ostensibly “private” spyware companies to conduct illegal or semi-legal surveillance for allied governments, shielding itself from direct exposure. At the same time, the companies maintain the technical capacity to monitor the client government itself, creating “a relationship of dependence where the ‘security provider’ also becomes the recipient of critical information”.
The movement raises unresolved questions about reports that Israeli spyware was used to monitor, among others, the leadership of the Armed Forces. It argues that the scandal cannot be separated from “the overall strategic alignment of the Greek government with the state of Israel: military agreements, joint exercises, purchases of extremely expensive weapons systems, the sale of Greek defence companies to Israeli ones, cooperation with companies such as ELBIT and the integration of surveillance technologies”.
BDS Greece underscores that all this is taking place “while Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and systematic violations of international and humanitarian law”. It argues that Greece, instead of protecting democracy and the security of its citizens, “is opening the door wide to a militaristic expansionist state that has turned the repression of an occupied people into a ‘battle-tested’ exportable product”.
BDS Greece concludes with the following demands:
• complete clarification of the wiretapping scandal and punishment of those responsible
• a ban on the use of any spy software
• immediate expulsion of all Israeli surveillance, repression and ‘security’ companies and closure of their Greek subsidiaries
• termination of all cooperation with the state of Israel
• Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
“Solidarity with the Palestinian people also includes defending democracy here. Freedom in Palestine — No to the surveillance state,” the statement ends.
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