“Artificial intelligence was a force multiplier,” boasted Israeli officials after Operation Guardian of the Walls, an 11-day attack on Gaza in 2021, which displaced more than 91,000 Palestinians and left behind more than 260 dead.
Nearly two years later, foreign aid, major tech companies, and new advanced surveillance systems have literally laid the groundwork for what Amnesty International calls “automated apartheid,” which is fueled by Western companies like Google and Amazon from the outside and underpinned by spyware and artificial intelligence from within.
A new era: occupation under automation
The technology of artificial intelligence, combined with a new far-right government, has caused the suppression policies of Israel’s military occupation to escalate at an unprecedented rate in recent years.
“Autonomous weapons systems rely on data processing from sensors rather than human input in selecting and striking a target,” Omar Shakir, director of the Israel-Palestine department at Human Rights Watch, told The New Arab. “These technologies facilitate the maintenance and further entrenchment of apartheid.”
Since the beginning of 2023, the Israeli army has killed over 170 Palestinians [the article was published in July ’23], including at least 30 children. More than 290 buildings belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been demolished or confiscated by force, displacing over 400 people and affecting the livelihoods or access to services for over 11,000 others.
In a recent completed 82-page report on the use of technology in Israel’s military occupation, Amnesty International described in detail how many of these atrocities are made possible by automated weapons, surveillance software, and unauthorized biometric systems, characterizing them as crimes against humanity.
“The surveillance software infiltrates devices (phones or computers) without notifying the owner. Hackers remotely activate the device’s microphone and camera to spy on the surroundings and download all the device’s data,” stated Shir Hever, coordinator of the Palestinian branch of BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions], to The New Arab.
The spyware software Pegasus, the specific system used by the Israeli military, is not only used to violate people’s privacy by archiving and scanning data, but is also used to “obtain information even from encrypted messaging services and to place false information on the device without leaving traces,” added Shir Hever.
More recently, the Israeli army came under fire for its facial recognition systems “Wolf Pack.” Nadim Nashif, general director and co-founder of the organization 7amleh [Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media], explained how “Wolf Pack” is used to facilitate Israel’s occupation. “It is an extensive surveillance database system containing profiles of almost every Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, including photographs, family histories, education and security assessments,” he said.
There are countless variations of the program—Red Wolf, Blue Wolf, and White Wolf—which gather information from Palestinians without their consent. Blue Wolf features a color-coding system that instructs soldiers either to arrest the individual or let them pass. “Israeli soldiers compete to upload the highest number of photos to the app,” Nashif explained. The latest version of Blue Wolf, Red Wolf, is now being used at illegal checkpoints in Hebron. “If the system cannot identify the person’s image, it will log them into the databases and often bar their passage,” Nashif added. A lesser-known version, White Wolf, is used on Palestinian laborers working in illegal settlements. It has the same detection, recording, and biometric data processing features as the other two.
The development of “smart city” technologies in Israel also allowed the development of these tools for monitoring and surveillance of Palestinians under the guise of “technological progress.” “Areas such as Jerusalem have smart city technology, which uses cameras, facial recognition and advanced technological systems applied at the entrances of checkpoints,” Shakir said.
With cameras turning towards homes and scanning Palestinians at checkpoints and during their daily lives, reality under Israeli occupation is becoming increasingly dystopian. “Surveillance affects our daily activities and behaviors, adding to the existing restrictions on movement and freedom. As Palestinians, we think twice before connecting to the internet, before using our phone to call a loved one or before meeting friends in public spaces. We are careful with every move, with every word,” Nashif explained.
“The residents of Hebron have become accustomed to the presence of unmanned aircraft flying over the city,” he added. “The data obtained from facial recognition surveillance technology will be used to provide information to an AI-controlled machine gun, equipped with ready-to-fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets,” explaining how the enforcement of occupation has become easier to maintain through technology.
In some cases, data collected from surveillance methods are used for Israel’s policy of “targeted assassinations,” which are carried out without legal procedures. “Unmanned aircraft, remotely controlled vehicles in the air, on water or on land, which usually carry surveillance equipment (mainly cameras), are now used as armed unmanned aircraft to commit assassinations,” Hever clarified. “It is another form of apartheid. Privacy is a privilege only for Jewish Israeli citizens, but not for the indigenous population of Palestine,” he said.
Western companies: buying and selling apartments
While this technology is developed internally by the Israeli military, the means to achieve this often come from foreign assistance, primarily from Western companies. “None of the technologies discussed here (unmanned aircraft, facial recognition, databases, etc.) are Israeli inventions,” Hever stated. “Western or multinational companies have a long history of complicity and profiting from Israel’s apartheid,” added Apoorva G., Asia-Pacific campaigns coordinator for BDS. From sports companies like Puma, large oil companies like Chevron, even infrastructure companies, such as Siemens and Hyundai, “see the oppression of Palestinians as a profitable venture…” Apoorva added.
A recent, more alarming contract between big tech companies and Israel is Project Nimbus by Amazon and Google – a $1.2 billion agreement providing cloud services to the Israeli military.
«Military operations depend on servers and digital communication, surveillance relies entirely on this technology, databases storing information about Palestinian land ownership, population databases – all of these require cloud servers. All of this will now be provided by Google and Amazon. And this project is already underway», stated Apoorva to The New Arab.
Since 2021, employees at these companies and human rights organizations have organized against the contract through the #NoTechForApartheid movement, but their efforts have not led to substantive change.
Sometimes these same companies create weapons and export them to Israeli intelligence services, thus creating a version of occupation that is bought and sold. Sophia Goodfriend, an anthropology professor at Duke University who examines the ethics and impact of new surveillance technologies, explains how the technology and defense industries intersect. “The IDF has a long history of outsourcing research and development (R&D) to private startups, which are largely staffed by veterans of Israeli intelligence services,” she said, referring to companies such as Oosto (formerly AnyVision), NSO Group, and Black Cube, which have entered into contracts to provide technology and services to Israel’s military forces.
Global violence and repression
The fact that these systems are being introduced, purchased, or sold has raised concerns among researchers and activists regarding their global reach and their impact on human rights. “These technologies are promoted by private Israeli arms companies that sell them around the world, even in violation of military embargoes,” Hever clarified. “It was recently revealed that Israeli arms companies are selling deadly weapons to the Myanmar junta,” despite the international arms embargo due to the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Rohingya.
“We know this because this is the technology that Israeli arms companies offer for sale with the slogan ‘battle-tested’,” Apoorva adds. The deployment of AI surveillance technology in repressive regimes will make these situations more unstable, especially when sold to existing military and security services. “The more advanced surveillance mechanisms become, the greater their impact in terms of violence and repression,” Nashif stated. “The use and misuse of surveillance technologies have led to disproportionate mapping, policing, and criminalization of ethnic groups worldwide. Palestinians are no exception to these repressive practices.” […]
Source: The New Arab, 3/7/2023
Original: https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-ai-big-tech-and-spyware-power-israels-occupation
Translation: Harry Tuttle