Comment by bostik
Israel has a mandatory military service, and they have been cultivating technical talent development in their armed forces for a long time. So I would think that the arrow of causality runs the opposite way.
In other words: virtually every Israeli has been in the military, and for the technically competent ones, were likely to be recruited into their offensive intelligence unit. Coupled with a government whose industrial strategy has been to promote business development in this sector, we are in a situation where practically every single founder of an Israeli tech company has a military service background.
Those with (offensive) infosec mindset end up founding infosec focused businesses, knowing that there is readily available investment available for them. As a result, the Venn diagram between the unit members and infosec business founders is likely to show a pretty big overlap.
And if you look at it more broadly, most Israelis served in the army which maintains an occupation which is illegal under international law, that is most countries on the planet deem it illegal. So, when I meet an Israeli, the instant thought that runs through my head would be: did this person participate in the human rights abuses? They might very well not have, but the possibility is there. This is a scary situation for me as well, because I do not want to be discriminating and prejudiced against anyone, but the facts are straight.