Surveillance as a Service: The Global Impact of Israeli “Defense” Technologies

IT IS THROUGH collective awareness and action that we can all build and contribute to privacy-preserving technologies that aim to protect people everywhere from the prevalence of surveillance and suppression of dissent and self-determination. It is equally important to hold companies accountable and recognize the source and enablers of surveillance tech, especially now as we see these technologies being aggressively utilized in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

This post delves into the impact of Israeli surveillance technologies in Palestine, illustrating how localized instances of its use can have extensive repercussions that pave the way for the widespread acceptance and global adoption of such practices.

The examples below demonstrate the alarming sophistication of surveillance capitalism and its increasingly global footprint. They also explore how Israeli spyware and surveillance companies navigate global scrutiny by rebranding and establishing offices worldwide, all while a network of venture capital firms facilitate their operations and help them avoid much-needed accountability.

• Elbit Systems is a leading military tech exporter in Israel, specializing in various advanced surveillance technologies, terrifyingly deployed in space, air, sea and ground operations that have killed thousands. Its surveillance systems, drones, and other high-tech tools, which are used to enforce Israel’s violent occupations and Jewish supremacism, are in high demand worldwide.
• This pervasive surveillance technology doesn’t end in Palestine, but it often starts with it.
• Since at least 2014, Elbit Systems has been deploying these tools at the US Southern Border as well as in the UAE and UK. Some of these deals occur via a subsidiary of Elbit Systems of America called Kollsman Inc, which is involved in a controversial death of an employee during a work trip to Saudi Arabia.
• These relationships are further strengthened through VC investments. The UAE invested at least $100 million in Israeli VC firms, which is not surprising, considering it is a longtime customer of its spyware tools. An Israeli-owned company, for example, is behind Abu Dhabi’s mass surveillance system, in a contract worth $600m. Dubai also operates a back-channel for Arab countries who wish to deploy Israeli surveillance technologies through a local entity called Black Wall Global, which is led by Israeli intelligence veterans. 
• In similarly structured deals, Israeli companies like IntuView have contracts with Saudi Arabia for efforts that include scanning Saudi citizens’ data. Its advisory board consists of a former head of Mossad and a former director of the CIA.
• The technology is becoming increasingly advanced and appealing to numerous governments. Israel, with the assistance of US companies, is deploying robots equipped with numerous sensors and cameras to surveil buildings and open spaces.
• AI-based systems like “The Gospel” largely consist of drone footage taken surreptitiously of homes and businesses, intercepted computer and phone communications, surveillance data, and information drawn from monitoring the movements and behavior patterns of individuals and large groups –all to create bombing targets. 
• In a similar setup, through a program called “Lavender“, Israel is using AI to determine and follow and strike assassination targets with little human oversight through information collected via mass surveillance of Gaza residents. The report highlights how many of these attacks result in the mass killing of civilians and entire families, often in their own homes. 
• Spyware has always been a highly lucrative and increasingly prominent business in Israel. Instrusive malware/spyware/hacking that is illegal in most countries is allowed, and openly sold, in and by Israel. Citizen Lab has spent years uncovering sophisticated spyware from Israeli companies like NSO, which contracts with governments with a long history of imprisoning, murdering and silencing dissidents and surveilling completely legal organizations, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE. These governments normalize relations with Israel largely to facilitate access to such technologies, which they then deploy to oppress their own citizens. (Note that these, according to the Jewish-controlled US media and government, are the “good” Arab states — the ones that “play ball” with the Washington/Tel-Aviv axis.)
• Israel-based Voyager Labs actively marketed and sold surveillance tools which have been used to profile and intimidate journalists and activists, including by Colombian military intelligence. They recently moved their headquarters to the US to continue building such tools with a team of “world-class AI researchers.”
• US-Israeli company Verint, whose products include surveillance cameras and analysis software to monitor and analyze large voice and video data sets, had sold their technology to numerous governments. That recent “friend request” from an innocent-sounding account may actually be one of the hundreds of thousands of fake accounts they create to collect intelligence on you.
• These companies don’t operate alone. When facing scrutiny or exposure, they spin off new entities, often with the backing of venture capital firms that are equally complicit. Verint, for example, spun off a separate company called Cognyte to continue its lucrative deals, which even a maverick Israeli activist lawyer says was “aiding and abetting crimes against humanity.” A New York-based hedge fund, Edenbrook Capital, is among its largest shareholders. 
• Another and more recent example is Dream Security from the former CEO of Pegasus Software. Their latest round was raised in a deal that was co-led with Los Angeles-based VC firm Group 11. This demonstrates a troubling cycle of evasion. Like mafia shell companies endlessly morphing and buying each other’s shares and properties until investigators give up, just keeping track of one Jewish company’s tornado-speed spinoffs and purchases is a full-time job. This practice, along with their state-level allies, also makes these IDF- and Mossad-murder-enablers almost impossible to sue effectively.
• Corsight, an Israeli company, has been exposed as using facial recognition and Google Photos to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent. For all we know — its operations are largely secret — it is used on dissident Americans and Europeans, too. To date, Google has declined to answer questions on this, despite (supposedly) prohibiting their tech from being used for “immediate harm.” Apart from being an egregious privacy violation, the technology also misidentifies people, putting their lives at risk. Canadian-Israeli VC firm, AWZ ventures, is among its lead investors. Their tools are also deployed by the US Department of Homeland Security for facial recognition purposes.
• AnyVision, an Israeli company with an international presence, is behind “advanced tactical surveillance” software used to monitor the movements of Palestinians (and likely many, many other non-Jewish peoples). Its CEO is a former operating partner at SoftBank’s investment arm, which co-led a large fundraising round for the company alongside Eldridge, a nominally American holding company headquartered in Connecticut. A few months after the extent of their surveillance systems were exposed in US schools, they rebranded to Oosto and resumed operations.
• One of the most prominent examples of these collaborations remains Palantir, which also continues to win major contracts with the UK government and various US agencies, most recently the US army on an AI-powered targeting system, and who will once again supply its surveillance products to Israel in a new “strategic partnership.” 

As shown above, these technologies, initially used to enforce violent occupation, Jewish supremacism, and genocide have found a lucrative global market, stretching far beyond the confines of Palestine.

The export of military systems by Israel reveals a harrowing journey of surveillance technologies from local deployments in Palestine to worldwide distribution, with a disturbing and alarming trend of normalization and acceptance of the literal murders as well as virtual imprisonment of its victims that are committed in the process of their creation and testing. The complicity of venture capital in the proliferation of such technologies highlights the intricate web of interests that prioritize power and profit for Jews.

Many tech workers read this site, and may want to think twice before doing any work which enables the Jewish machine of worldwide oppression of non-Jews. Many of you also have investment portfolios, and we highly recommend that you align your investments with your values.

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Source: based on an article at The Tor Project