Palantir's War: How U.S. Tech Fuels Genocide in Gaza and Repression at Home

With the onset of the Trump administration, the tech oligarchy has expanded its influence in dramatic fashion. Emerging out of the shadows and into the limelight is Peter Thiel's Palantir—an American software company with its hands in many different pies. Most dangerous of all is Palantir's interest in the Gaza Strip. As thousands of Gazan children lose their lives in a systematic genocide, Palantir stands to profit from the widespread destruction and chaos seen on an immeasurable scale.

Palantir designs defense systems with heavy usage of artificial intelligence technology in order to provide militaries with the tools necessary to quell their opposition. On January 12, 2024, co-founders Alex Karp and Peter Thiel took a visit to Tel Aviv to discuss contracts with Israeli defense officials. Ever since then, Palantir has played an explicit role in the genocide of the Palestinian peoples. In a digital age fueled by intelligence, Gaza has become the first victim of a rapidly expanding techno-authoritarian trend. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), back in 2021, described its efforts as the world's first "AI war". The inclusion of Palantir's presence means the IDF is getting exactly what it wants for the foreseeable future.

It's no small secret that Israel routinely targets aid trucks for Palestinians. While Israel claims time and time again that their actions were mere "mistakes", the truth is a lot darker. Artificial intelligence targeting systems give the IDF an excuse to target civilians. While Israel claims their targeting is accurate, innocent civilians and children are the ones most affected. Israel continually cites Palantir's invasive, inaccurate, and imprecise A.I targeting systems as a defense against backlash. Purposefully, the IDF cuts off humanitarian help and then says that their targeting systems identified Hamas in the area. However, reality is clear: Israel is conducting a systematic genocide of the Palestinian people with the help of advanced technology from the United States.

In Israel's pursuit of uprooting Hamas, hospitals, schools, and churches have all been targeted. A U.N. Special Rapporteur singles out Palantir as uniquely responsible for the IDF's continued poor decision-making. Crucially, it's only going to get worse from here. TITAN is Palantir's newest project, heralded as "next-generation Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance ground station enabled by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to process data received from Space, High Altitude, Aerial and Terrestrial layers." TITAN is being developed for the U.S. Army; however, early prototypes and similar technologies are sure to be tested out on Palestinians as this article is being written.

The Trump Administration is deeply connected with Palantir, whether it be through J.D. Vance's personal relationship with Peter Thiel or Trump's partnership with the private company on collecting data on Americans. Gaza is simply the beginning of a much larger scheme. In the past decade, technology used to oppress Palestinians has been brought back home to be used on migrants living in the United States. With Trump's goal of hosting the biggest deportation campaign, it is a matter of when, not if, these technologies will be implemented in towns across the United States. On the border, Palantir's technology has already been deployed. "The company has been an ICE contractor for more than a decade, spanning the Obama and Biden administrations, but its new scope of work signals an escalating role in immigration enforcement under President Trump." The principle is simple. If the technology can work to keep apartheid in check in Palestine, then the technology can work to keep immigrants oppressed back home in the U.S.

Today, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will take over the entire Gaza Strip. The U.S.-based company, Palantir, will play a key role in facilitating this process through the use of its intrusive artificial intelligence programs. It won't stop there. Palantir will not be satisfied with only Gaza. Thiel and the rest of the techno-autocrats are forming a future in which the citizens of the U.S lose their fundamental right to privacy. Inherently, our administration puts profits over lives in nearly every aspect of governance, whether it be in the Gaza Strip or right here at home.