The US has been using Israel as high-tech offshore military R&D for at least the past 40 years. The US "gives" $4 Billion in "military aid" to Israel each year.
You may also be aware that Israel invaded territory in 1967 which it continues to occupy in flagrant violation of "international law," and that this occupation continues to be violently resisted.
Those are a few of the more salient reasons why Israel is a hotbed of military/cyber/border/security technology. It's all developed, tested, and deployed against a vulnerable occupied population, then sold to the "friendly" (ahem) nations of the world.
I think they have a really strong culture/ecosystem around cybersecurity given the close relationships between the IDF and the startup ecosystem and given how many Israelis serve, there's likely much more understanding (if not interest) of govtech/defensetech compared to the U.S. where it's an all volunteer force and not that much crossover in Silicon Valley and DoD, although lots of folks trying to change that like DIU, AFWERX, SOFWERX, etc.
Russians, Chinese, and Americans prefer keeping these capabilities internal to their militaries. Israel seems to want to use cyber weapons exporting for building diplomatic ties.
And Google's Project Zero is just as productive at finding 0-days - they just conduct responsible disclosure instead of selling the 0-days they discover.
Jews have taken the flack for centuries in Europe, I notice in the West the financials are not looking so good, you know facebook, Bank of England now rolling back the £800+bn quantitative easing (money printing) to support the financial crisis, so a bit of division being whipped up with stuff like this, usually means there's some high level falling out taking place.
If you think the NSO/KSA/and others are the only one's at it, think again.
In the 90's I used to get hassled by the police with more frequent stop and searches pulled over when driving. Why? Because I was learning about firewalls over the dialup internet and of course, GCHQ have total surveillance but playing down capabilities is a valid military tactic.
Never under estimate the military or more importantly the security services in a country. Those shadowy operators who hate the spotlight!
I imagine they cut deals with the spy agencies and other authorities there to be able have much fewer regulations on what they are working on, particularly if they share it at a very discounted price with the Israeli government.
