How the Franco-Anglo-American Deep State Is Flexing Upon Palantir
The paradox goes mainstream in The Nation...
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Palantir Paradox: How is Palantir doing precise targeting in Ukraine but the Israeli Defense Forces are doing indiscriminate targeting in Palestine?
Really makes you think.
Now The Nation’s James Bamford is writing about it in great detail.
Earlier this month saw a continuation of that [genocidal] effort, with the targeting of three well-marked and fully approved aid vehicles belonging to World Central Kitchen, killing their seven occupants and ensuring that the food would never reach those dying of starvation. The targeting was precise—placing missiles dead center in the aid agency’s rooftop logos. Israel, however, said it was simply a mistake, similar to the “mistaken” killing of nearly 200 other aid workers in just a matter of months—more than all the aid workers killed in all the wars in the rest of the world over the last 30 years combined, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
Such horrendous “mistakes” are hard to understand, considering the enormous amount of advanced targeting AI hardware and software provided to the Israeli miliary and spy agencies—some of it by one American company in particular: Palantir Technologies. “We stand with Israel,” the Denver-based company said in posts on X and LinkedIn. “The board of directors of Palantir will be gathering in Tel Aviv next week for its first meeting of the new year. Our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.” As one of the world’s most advanced data-mining companies, with ties to the CIA, Palantir’s “work” was supplying Israel’s military and intelligence agencies with advanced and powerful targeting capabilities—the precise capabilities that allowed Israel to place three drone-fired missiles into three clearly marked aid vehicles.
“I am pretty encouraged about talent here and that we are getting the best people,” Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of the company, told a group soon after arriving in Tel Aviv last January. “What I see in Israel is this hybrid of talent that is qualitative and argumentative.” Immediately after the talk, Karp traveled to a military headquarters where he signed an upgraded agreement with Israel’s Ministry of Defense. “Both parties have mutually agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions,” said Executive Vice President Josh Harris.
The project involved selling the ministry an Artificial Intelligence Platform that uses reams of classified intelligence reports to make life-or-death determinations about which targets to attack. In an understatement several years ago, Karp admitted, “Our product is used on occasion to kill people,” the morality of which even he himself occasionally questions. “I have asked myself, ‘If I were younger at college, would I be protesting me?’” Recently, a number of Karp’s employees decided to quit rather than be involved with a company supporting the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And in London’s Soho Square, dozens of pro-Palestine protesters and health workers gathered at Palantir’s UK headquarters to accuse the firm of being “complicit” in war crimes.
Palantir’s AI machines need data for fuel—data in the form of intelligence reports on Palestinians in the occupied territories. And for decades a key and highly secret source of that data for Israel has been the US National Security Agency, according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. After fleeing to Hong Kong in 2013 with a pocket full of flash drives containing some of the agency’s highest secrets, Snowden ended up in Moscow where, soon after he arrived, I met with him for Wired magazine. And in the interview, he told me that “one of the biggest abuses” he saw while at the agency was how the NSA secretly provided Israel with raw, unredacted phone and e-mail communications between Palestinian Americans in the US and their relatives in the occupied territories. Snowden was concerned that as a result of sharing those private conversations with Israel, the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would be at great risk of being targeted for arrest or worse.
Bamford is very important. He’s the bard of the Anglo-American deep state (with a French twist, given his time at the Sorbonne). I highly recommend his work on the NSA which had a transformative effect on my career. Did you know that Palantir lost access to the NSA in 2017? Curious detail.
Bamford is an extremely important writer whose 2023 book, Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence, went into a great detail about all the foreign spies, moles and saboteurs are collapsing America’s counterintelligence.
I care a lot about that counterintelligence work. It’s why I recruited Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel to be a confidential informant for the FBI and ultimately why I outed Thiel as a confidential informant when I grew concerned about how he was abusing that relationship, especially as concerns his relationship with the Israelis.
When we speak about Palantir we often forget that we’re really talking about Peter who owns the lion’s share of the controlling interests.
Let me teach you a listen we learned at Clearview, Peter! “Don’t give a thug your product.” I repeat, “Don’t give a thug your product.”
And that seems to be exactly what has happened with Palantir in Israel where an Israeli settler working for the IDF murdered seven aid workers.
With the World Central Kitchen killings Palantir may not like hearing this but it’s now the I.G. Farben and the Krupp of the national security space.
The only path for Palantir going forward is the warm embrace of Uncle Sam. But how to get there?
Let me help the trial lawyers who will represent the World Central Kitchen victims, including a personal friend of mine,
Did Palantir provide adequate training for its targeting system? If so, who provided that training?
Did Palantir check to make sure that those using the system didn’t harbor genocidal intent? It looks like the settler who pulled the trigger supported killing aid workers.
What processes is Palantir using to guarantee that its customers are using their products in a humane way?
How many of the dead aid workers in Israel were killed by IDF agents using Palantir?
Did Alex Karp’s pro-Israel bias preclude asking appropriate questions about Palantir’s targeting software and its use in Gaza?
To what extent did Thiel’s relationship with Israeli blackmailers contribute to his poor judgment to buy a home from the Israeli cult NXIM? You know, the home where he stuck his now deceased lover?
To what extent did Thiel’s relationship with alleged Israeli spy Ben Frankel, who once worked for Thiel ally Jeff Giesea, affect his approach to Israel?
To what extend did Palantir efforts to get Julian Assange or Edward Snowden merely serve the bidding of the Israeli government?
To what extent was the recent decision by Peter Thiel to sell over $175M+ in Palantir stock an indication that he knows that AI is overhyped — and genocidal?
Now I like Peter Thiel but I also like the rule of law. Sadly, like most of my loves, the feeling isn't mutual, alas. Peter should be more grateful that I protected him when I didn’t have to. Instead he’s upset that I outed his closeness with foreign intelligence.
What gives? Look, man, we’ve been giving you a chance. Behave yourself. We don’t want to Musk you.
All those NHS contracts, all those Ukrainian deals, come on, man. You think those happened because you guys are good at your jobs? You think the deals you’re getting in the Latin American countries we swept are because we like you? In the words of the wife of a CIA asset, don’t you ever get to thinking you’re irreplaceable.
You should have been paying attention when France did that special on Clearview and included a section on you. This was not an accident.
Until then, I agree with the Center for American Progress: "US law is unequivocal: countries that obstruct US humanitarian aid cannot receive US military aid…"
But what of the tech companies which provide that military aid? Surely we have responsibilities too…
In fact, we do. We can’t just be following orders. Or we’ll be disciplined by trial lawyers. As well we should be.