French President Emmanuel Macron called Naftali Bennett on Thursday and demanded clarification from him about the NSO affair, as revealed this evening (Saturday night) on Channel 12.
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The conversation took place after Morocco allegedly used the Israeli 'Pegasus' software to penetrate the personal phone of the French president and other senior officials.
Macron expressed his displeasure and asked Bennett to make sure that Israel takes the issue seriously.
Bennett, for his part, conveyed a message to Macron that the incident occurred before he took office, and that the current government was exposed to the scope of the phenomenon through various publications.
Bennett pledged in a conversation with Macron that the incident was being reviewed at the highest levels and promised that the necessary conclusions would be drawn as soon as possible.
At the same time, the Americans also expressed their concern to officials in the Israeli security establishment.
NSO CEO Shalev Julio said in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper: "We would be very happy if there was an investigation into the affair, so that we could clear our name.".
He said, "We have no connection to the published list, and if it turns out that there was a customer who misused our system, they will be disconnected immediately. We have proven this in the past, including the largest customers we had, and we stopped working with them.".
Julio defines Pegasus as "life-saving software," and claims that in a world where conversations are encrypted, there is currently no other alternative to fighting serious crime and terrorism.
He noted that NSO refused to sell to 90 countries around the world for fear that they would misuse the software.
