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<\/a>\u00a1Do Not Panic!<\/a>\u00b7January 29, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n American basketball star Stephen Curry is investing in tech startups run by former IDF operatives who were integral to building Israel\u2019s digital architecture of apartheid and genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry, considered one of the sport\u2019s all-time greats and who positions himself as an advocate for social justice, has invested in the companies, both run and staffed by former Israeli spies, through his venture capital firm Penny Jar Capital.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry has made these investments alongside Israeli venture capital firms which are also deeply embedded in Israel\u2019s intelligence establishment, and American venture capital funds connected to the Zionist lobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zafran Security, which Curry\u2019s firm backed in a $30 million funding round<\/a> in 2024, is run by Sanaz Yashar<\/a>, an Iranian raised in Tehran who was recruited as a teenager by Israel and spent 15 years as a spy within Unit 8200, the arm of the IDF which intercepts and hacks communications. Her time in the IDF encompassed numerous assaults on Gaza, including the 2014 bombardment<\/a> of the territory which killed over 2,200 Palestinians and the 2018-19 March of Return which saw Israeli snipers murder hundreds and deliberately maim thousands<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yashar\u2019s co-founders at the cybersecurity start-up, Ben Seri and Snir Havdala, are also former Israeli intelligence officers. Havdala served for a decade in Unit 8200<\/a>, while Seri served in Unit 81<\/a> which is focused on building the offensive cyber weapons that Israel uses against the Palestinians, Iran and others. Yashar, Seri and Havdala were all awarded prizes for their IDF work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry has invested in Zafran alongside the US venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, whose partner Shaun Maguire is a pro-Israel fanatic and racist. Maguire organized Starlink access for the IDF<\/a>, has spent two years making racist comments<\/a> about Muslims, and in December falsely accused a Palestinian<\/a> of the mass shooting at Brown University. Sequoia is the lead investor in Zafran<\/a> and has investments in more than 60<\/a> other Israeli death-tech companies founded by ex-IDF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry is also invested in Zafran alongside another US venture firm, Menlo Ventures, and Israeli firm Cyberstarts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Menlo has made numerous investments in Israel and last year partner Mark Siegal, on a trip to Israel, said<\/a>, in comments which reveal why so many US venture firms invest in Israel, that \u201cthe Israeli tech ecosystem is critical to Israel\u2019s survival\u201d and that he sees it as \u201calmost a duty as a Jew to make sure this ecosystem continues to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s other co-investor in Zafran, Cyberstarts, was founded by Gili Raanan, a senior figure in Israel\u2019s military intelligence establishment.<\/a> Raanan spent 15 years in Unit 8200 and was awarded one of Israel\u2019s top prizes for IDF veterans, the presidential defense prize, for his role in creating Israel\u2019s apartheid infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other Israeli cyber company financially backed by Curry is cloud-security startup Upwind, founded by Amiram Shachar, Lavi Ferdman, and Liran Polak, who all met while serving in the IDF\u2019s Mamram unit<\/a>. Mamram is the computing arm which builds and maintains all the software for the Israeli military, and through which all signals intelligence is processed. Shortly after founding the firm, the three former Mamram agents hired chief operating officer Tomer Hadassi<\/a>, a Unit 8200 veteran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an October 2023 LinkedIn post<\/a>, Upwind said that \u2018many\u2019 of their team in Israel had been drafted as reservists to participate in the genocide of Gaza. On LinkedIn last year, Upwind CEO Shachar posted<\/a> a picture of himself with Curry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s Penny Jar Capital first invested in Upwind in 2023<\/a> when the Israeli company raised $50 million, and earlier this week Penny Jar participated in a much larger funding round<\/a> of $250 million, alongside Silicon Valley-based Bessemer Partners. The partner at Bessemer who led their investment in Upwind is Adam Fisher, a joint US-Israeli citizen who called on Israel to \u201cpound Gaza with an unprecedented response\u201d<\/a> after October 7th. Fisher has also collaborated with the IDF,<\/a> denied the scale of death in Gaza and made numerous racist statements on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest investors in Upwind is Greylock Partners, which last year appointed Unit 8200 veteran Mor Chen<\/a> to lead its Israel investments. Chen had previously been head of the 8200 accelerator<\/a>, a special Israeli government-funded unit responsible for converting Unit 8200 apartheid technologies into commercially viable products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Zafran and Upwind are headquartered in the US with R&D operations in Israel. The majority of staff at both firms, according to LinkedIn bios, have served in Israeli military intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry is also investing in Upwind alongside his former Golden State Warriors teammate Omri Casspi, an Israeli basketball player who, after his retirement, founded a venture capital firm<\/a> to invest in Israeli start-ups and IDF spin-outs. Casspi\u2019s firm has also received investment from Sequoia Capital. Casspi, who has said his goal is to help build \u201cZionism 2.0,\u201d<\/a> organised Elon Musk\u2019s visit to Israel in November 2023, where he met Netanyahu, and has been a vocal cheerleader for Israel\u2019s genocide of Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Curry has never said anything about the genocide of Gaza, in 2023 his wife Ayesha has posted a donation appeal from the Palestine Children\u2019s Relief Fund<\/a> to her 7.8 million followers. And while he has been silent over Gaza, Curry has modelled himself as an advocate for equality and justice, speaking up about racism and joining numerous NBA and other social justice projects<\/a>. He is also a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party and acted as the co-chair<\/a> for a Michelle Obama voting initiative. Curry also responded to the murder of Alex Pretti by saying it was \u201cbeautiful\u201d<\/a> to see people protesting in response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet when it comes to Israel, Curry, like so many celebrities who align themselves with pro-social causes, aligns his politics and his finances with racism, apartheid and mass murder. He may feign rhetorical support for anti-ICE protestors, but he aligns himself materially with a military that trains the ICE and Border Patrol<\/a> agents who murder US citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s financial backing for Israeli security state spin-outs has not gone unnoticed in Tel Aviv. Show Faith by Works, an Israeli propaganda and intelligence operation targeting US churchgoers with pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian messaging, last year listed Curry<\/a> as a celebrity who could be hired to reproduce pro-Israel messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s investments demonstrate how Israel\u2019s security establishment co-opts high-profile cultural influencers to provide the country, and its military-derived technology, with legitimacy. Investing in the digital creators of apartheid and genocide helps normalize Israel, the IDF and the horrors it inflicts daily on the Palestinians. Zionists know this very well, which is why billions in US venture capital flows to Israeli technologies and their IDF founders every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now Curry, despite his condemnations of racism and grandstanding as an advocate for social justice, is teaming up with open racists to invest in technologies derived from apartheid and genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s investments also help bring Israeli intelligence deeper into the digital fabric of the US, with Zafran and Upwind software used by multiple Fortune 500 companies. And in a recent post<\/a>, Upwind founder Shachar said the company will soon be added to the US government\u2019s list of certified cyber security providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given Israel\u2019s history of spying on the US<\/a>, and the already significant access ex-Israeli spies have to critical digital systems<\/a>, this story raises further questions about the security of digital and cloud systems in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The previously unreported story of Curry\u2019s ties to Israel and his connections with Israeli military intelligence underscores once again how pervasive Zionist influences are in the west, and how Zionist networks purposefully cultivate influential cultural figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry\u2019s Israeli relationships also highlight the fake progressivism of so many Democrats who decry racism and inequality then collaborate with one of the most racist, unequal societies on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s an incredibly slanted anti-israel piece, but the investment connections are very interesting. And the conclusion is on point about these celebrities being operatives that play a role that doesn’t necessarily reflect their true values and beliefs. And they’ve actively built up Curry’s person with his game show, commercials, TV show appearances… And Israeli intelligence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-tech","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15548,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545\/revisions\/15548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Less than three years after being named the NBA\u2019s 2023 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion, the league\u2019s all-time three-point leader has begun quietly pouring tens of millions into tech ventures owned and operated by Israeli spies.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Zafran Security<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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(Photo: Arik Sultan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nUpwind<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Casspi and \u201cZionism 2.0\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Cultural influencer<\/h4>\n\n\n\n