The scenario absolutely applies with NSO Group. They are not the only business in Israel that engages in extrajudicial conduct abroad. They are not the only company being protected by the state. Just an extremely egregious, inhumane one that personally offends the sizable class of self-conscious smartphone users. It's bad PR.

I know you know this, but Yitzhak Rabin was killed with Netanyahu's support, Likud's full awareness of the threat on his life, and Shin Bet's implicit cooperation: https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/rabins-murder-and-a...

  In March 1994, for example, [Netanyahu] participated in a protest near Ra’anana that was organized by the extremist Kahane Chai movement. Photographs show Bibi walking in front of a coffin beside which was a man carrying a pole with a hangman’s noose attached.

  On October 5, 1995, exactly one month before the assassination, Bibi organized and addressed an anti-Rabin rally in Jerusalem’s Zion Square where protesters chanted “Death to Rabin.” Bibi did nothing to quiet those chants. Itamar Rabinovich, Rabin’s former ambassador to Washington and later biographer, said of that event, “Netanyahu’s incitement at the time crossed the line.”

  When Shin Bet chief Carmi Gillon warned Netanyahu that there was a plot on Rabin’s life and urged him to help tone down the hateful rhetoric he and others were using, Bibi refused to do so.

So yes, perhaps the Mossad had nothing to do with it. It doesn't change the violent rhetoric of Likud, or how they enable Mossad to perpetuate their violent objectives though. This corrupt, lethal and oppressive mentality is baked-in to Likud political strategy and deliberately suppresses voices that encourage peace or nonviolence.

> The pager attack was designed by Mossad, no reason to believe any particular relation to Likud.

Mossad reports directly to the prime minister of Israel, who was a Likud politician. Do you think that the Mossad carried out the complete attack without Likud involvement? I won't have my intelligence insulted so readily. It wouldn't surprise me if it was Likud's urging that pushed the Mossad to research and develop the attack.