How to Profit from Genocide (2)
After sketching out the historical and recent context of Albanian–Israeli relations in my writing from last week, I would now like to address the question what the Albanian government is gaining from openly siding with and supporting a government that by its own admission is involved in war crimes and genocide. Israel has showed its appreciation for Albania’s seemingly unconditional support for the creation of the utterly inhumane hellscape that is Gaza nowadays in several ways, concretely following up on intentions already expressed ten years ago.
In the field of healthcare, Albanian Health Minister Albana Koçiu recently signed a memorandum of understanding with her Israeli counterpart Uriel Busso to collaborate on “developing medical projects, fostering digital health innovation,” and so on. Busso underlined that Albania’s material support Israel’s war effort formed the basis for this agreement: “During the war, we witnessed the Albanian people’s warm expressions of solidarity with the citizens of Israel, their steadfast support for the release of hostages, and their consistent show of true friendship.”
In April 2024, Israeli Minister of Tourism Haim Katz visited Tirana, declaring: “You convinced us to be the best ambassadors of Tirana and Albania in Israel. In my capacity as Minister of Tourism I will do my best to have more direct flights, so that we more Israelis come here. As someone told me during one my visits, you are more than brothers for us.” And, indeed, in April 2025 El-Al opened a low-cost direct flight connection between Tel Aviv and Tirana, which an Israeli migrant entrepreneur, who also wrote a puff piece for The Jerusalem Post, approvingly called “the Wild West.”
So it may be evident that Prime Minister Edi Rama is trying to convert the goodwill he has created through his allegiance to a genocidal regime into trade opportunities and foreign direct investment. Albania’s symbolic profit from the genocide of the Jews is thus compounded with the material profit from the genocide of the Palestinians.
But there is another aspect to this relation that deserves closer scrutiny. We can find it signaled in a statement from September 19, 2024 by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in which he links Albanian support of Israel to a perceived common enemy: Iran.
Ever since that dark day in October, Albania has placed itself firmly on the right side of history. Your country has shown, again and again, that you stand with the people of Israel, as we fight to defend our borders and our civilization. […]
Unfortunately, we are fighting more than one terrorist enemy simultaneously. The trail of blood linking all of the agents of hate is Iran, and its cruel, antisemitic fixation with the destruction of the State of Israel.
This perception of Iran as “enemy” of Albania precedes the Rama government, as we may gather from a statement by former Prime Minister Sali Berisha at the United Nations General Assembly in 2011: “Iran and its leader, [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, are the new Nazis, and the world must learn from the Holocaust and stop them before it’s too late.”1
However, Albanian–Iranian relations only really take a turn for the worst when in 2013 Albania started accepting members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a formerly armed Iranian Islamist–Marxist dissident group that once upon a time were thought to be the “regime change” actors that US right-wing anti-Iran hawks were looking for. In brief, the Iranian government wasn’t enamored with the Albanian hospitality extended to its enemies, and relations between the two countries deteriorated. After expelling the Iranian ambassador in 2018, the government claimed in 2019 to have uncovered an “Iranian terrorist network” in Albania. After a particurly damaging cyberattack in July 2022, Albania cut all diplomatic ties with Iran. Several days later, Israel offered Albania assistance in the field of cyberdefense.
In October 2022, Prime Minister Rama made a three-day visit to Israel, meeting with then caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid to discuss “overcoming common challenges faced by the two countries, with an emphasis on the Iranian threat.” Lapid stated: “Israel will assist as much as possible in the effort against Iran. We see this as a national interest and an historical obligation.” Rama then visited Israel’s National Cyber Directorate. Israel is currently one of the world leaders in digital surveillance technology, precisely because it employs this technology on a massive and invasive scale to control the Palestinian population and violate their human rights.
In January 2023, Albanian National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cybersecurity (AKCESK) director Igli Tafa paid a visit to Israel, and in the same year a memorandum of understanding was signed between AKCESK and Israel, the only memorandum with a state actor to date. This was then followed by another Memorandum of Understanding between the Israeli and Albanian Ministries of Defense “to promote joint security and defense infrastructure” and expanding Israeli military exports to Albania. In June 2024, AKCESK was renamed National Authority for Cybersecurity (AKSK) after the promulgation of the new Law 25/2024 on Cybersecurity. The AKSK became established directly under the authority of the Prime Minister.
Little was heard publicly about Israeli assistance in the realm of cybersecurity, until early May 2025, when it was reported that the AKSK had mandated the installation of so-called Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) devices at Albanian mobile Internet Service Providers (ISPs) One and Vodafone. DPI allows for the detailed inspection of the content of the data packages sent via internet connections, which is in essence a form of surveillance technology.
Ostensibly, the DPI devices were installed following the Decision of the Council of Ministers of March 6 to ban access to social media platform TikTok for a period of twelve months, which in itself represents a questionable interference into citizen’s digital rights and freedom of expression, especially considering the fact that the national election campaign period was about to start. Now, the DPI devices in question, designed to intercept and block access to the TikTok platform, had been leased to the Albanian government by Israel’s National Cyber Directorate.
According to an April 11, 2025 report of the AKSK, titled “Information about the implementation of necessary technologies to block the platform TikTok in the Republic of Albania,” DPI offers a “technical solution for providers of mobile and fixed internet” with “full blocking efficiency.” The report claims that the DPI devices will only inspect the “header” of the data package with routing information (to the TikTok platform), the actual content (“payload”) of the package (containing potentially detailed personal information) would be shielded from inspection. The report stresses that “THERE IS NO TECHNICAL POSSIBILITY” to analyze the payload.
However, the DPI devices reportedly offered by the Israeli state in exchange for Albania’s unequivocal support for the genocide of the Palestinian people can, in fact, do much more than just reading the headers. According to its product description, the Allot Service Gateway 9700, which is the DPI device in question, “maintains accurate Layer-7 visibility and control of user application traffic across multiple platforms even when asymmetric upstream and/or downstream IP flows are processed by different appliances.” “Layer-7 visibility” here means that the DPI device is capable of looking into the “headers and data protocol structures as well as the payload of the message” – thus directly contradicting the claims of AKSK. Inquiries with the Albanian government to confirm the precise technical specifications and origin of the devices that the AKSK has installed at Albanian ISPs have so far received no accurate response.
The deployment of advanced eavesdropping devices by the Albanian government at all Albanian ISPs is alarming precisely because of its dismal track record with regard to digital security and privacy, with massive hacks and leaks over the years remaining unaddressed, exposing the entire Albanian population to identity theft and other forms of online fraud.
Furthermore, the spyware and digital surveillance technology developed by Israeli companies has been frequently used as diplomatic bargaining chip, while enabling illiberal regimes to roll out massive surveillance schemes. So the fact that Albanian “leases” these devices from a state that has an obviously terrible track record with regard to human rights, using digital surveillance on a massive, unprecedented scale against the Palestinian population, makes the whole situation even more problematic.
We see time and time again that surveillance technology ostensibly acquired to combat “terrorism” from outside is inevitably turned toward the civilian population at home. Albania is no different. There is a clear connection between the initial cyberdefense concerns of Albania and Israel over their shared enemy Iran, which led to a collaboration between its national cybersecurity agencies, subsequently leading to digital surveillance and the suppression of the freedom of expression of the Albanian people using Israeli technology used to further a genocidal project.
The Albanian political complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, for example by supplying fuel and trafficking arms in violation of the International Court of Justice interim measures, is directly linked to the supply of surveillance technology and control of the Albanian people. Supporting oppression abroad is inextricably linked to oppression at home.
And let us not forget that the Gaza genocide is, despite its unfathomable magnitude and cruelty, only one of the many human rights disasters that we are faced with in our current epoch. Albania itself has become home to Italian migrant camps that deploy modes of surveillance that are very akin to these deployed by Israel against the Palestinians. Activists have confirmed with local Albanian police that the Albanian authorities – despite being formally uninvolved in the camps – fingerprint the detainees for unknown purposes. Meanwhile, the conditions in these camps, though incomparable to Gaza, are still such that in May 2025, Hamid Badoui, a Moroccan migrant to Italy, committed suicide after being detained in the Albanian Gjadër camp for a month, and human rights activists have reported several other suicide attempts and clashes between migrants and the police on social media. None of this seems to elicit any of the commiseration that the Albanian government expresses toward Israel.
To conclude, the close partnership between Israel and Albania is so alarming precisely because whether at a large or a small scale, the systematic implementation of state-sanctioned human rights violations necessitates a hypercharged state surveillance system – no such government can survive otherwise. Rama is learning from Israel, and Albanians risk paying the price.
The Albanian Mechanism is part of Manifesto GREAT WAVE.