Palestinian statehood: Recognition amidst erasure? | The Listening Post

Summary

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The Listening Post

Episode: Palestinian Statehood: Recognition Amidst Erasure?
Date: September 27, 2025
Host: Al Jazeera
Main Theme:
A probing examination of the recent wave of Western recognition of Palestinian statehood, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, media coverage, political hypocrisy, the role of AI and military technology in modern conflicts (particularly Palantir’s involvement), and broader patterns of media and tech influence on war narratives.

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Overview

This episode explores whether the synchronized moves by Western nations to recognize Palestinian statehood constitute meaningful progress or cynical political theatre, especially as these same states continue to arm Israel and offer diplomatic cover for its ongoing assault on Gaza. The episode also connects these themes to underreported crises (like Sudan’s civil war), critiques Western media's "both sides" approach and highlights the role of advanced AI warfare technology. The program ultimately dissects the persistent gap between performative gestures and substantive change in the geopolitics of Palestine.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Western Recognition of Palestinian Statehood: Symbol or Substance?

• Backdrop: Recognition by the UK, Canada, Australia, France, and Italy (conditional) arrives almost two years after Israel’s escalated military response following October 7, 2023, and amid mass starvation and devastation in Gaza.
• Main Critique (00:58–06:21):
  • Hypocrisy and Complicity: Western states still supply Israel with weapons and diplomatic support, making their diplomatic recognitions largely symbolic.
    • “What is the point of finally recognizing Palestine as a state if they are still supplying the Israelis with the weapons, the means to carry out its genocide?” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 00:58)
    • “The key word there is symbolic. Recognizing Palestinian statehood comes with no legal obligations … no ending of their arms sales to the Zionist war machine.” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 04:27)
  • Performative Diplomacy:
    • “These countries are self-aggrandizing, feeling good about themselves … But this symbolic gesture is in fact not what the movement requires, which is ending the genocide.” (Political Analyst/Critic, 04:11)
  • Lack of Direct Action:
    • “A declaration is just a declaration until those same states take concrete actions to end the occupation … You can recognize whatever you want, but it doesn’t mean anything until you take concrete steps.” (Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict, 03:58)

2. The Role of Arms Trade and Accountability (05:01–06:21)

• Canada’s “Principled Stand” is revealed to be partly deceptive; arms are funneled via the U.S. even as direct sales are paused.
  • “Instead [Canada] just laundered parts for those weapons through the US. An act of deception dressed up as morality.” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 05:01)
• Profit and Partnerships:
  • “All of these countries … train with Israeli troops, they sell weapons, they buy weapons from Israel. They haven't severed these relationships because they're still very profitable.” (Public Opinion Analyst, 05:39)
  • “The UK continues to trade and send parts of military equipment to Israel. Australia continues … So this is utter hypocrisy.” (Political Analyst/Critic, 05:59)

3. Media Coverage, Language, and “Both Sidesism” (06:21–11:45)

• Reluctance to Use “Genocide”:
  • “Let’s keep in mind that I’ve not heard virtually any Western leader use the G word … You say genocide, that compels you to bring genocide to an end…” (Media Critic/Journalist, 06:21)
• Media Downplays or Misframes the Story:
  • Western media focuses on diplomacy and “both sides” narratives, minimizing mass protests, and often treating symbolic recognitions as substantive.
  • “Western media outlets … downplayed the protest movements … still injecting elements of both sidesism into the news mix. On a story about a genocide, drawing conclusions about what the recognition of a Palestinian state would mean for Hamas...” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 10:03)
• What Extremism Means in Coverage:
  • “Any small amount of Palestinian sympathy requires a massive response from Israeli commentators. And because it is so constant, it creates this atmosphere of fear…” (Public Opinion Analyst, 08:59)
  • “Western media outlets don’t want to acknowledge that the world has changed … It would require questioning of the decades long image of Israel that they have in their minds. It would require questioning of everything.” (Public Opinion Analyst, 11:45)
• Israel’s Information Strategy (08:10–09:00):
  • “The Israeli media has been an active participant in this genocide. They have deliberately not shown regular Israelis what their military is doing … Instead, they’ve decided to elevate voices that promote ethnic cleansing…” (Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict, 08:22; 08:51)

4. Underreported Conflicts: The Case of Sudan (12:09–14:04)

• Similarity to Gaza:
  • “Displacement, engineered starvation, no safe passage for civilians, aid seekers attacked and killed, hospitals destroyed. It could be a report from Gaza, but all of this is happening in Sudan.” (Narrator/Host, 12:26)
• Media Blockade Hinders Reporting: Both Sudanese and Gaza stories are stifled due to lack of access and digital blackouts.

5. The AI-Militarization Complex: Palantir and War Tech (14:04–24:36)

• Palantir’s Role:
  • AI in Active Warfare: Palantir’s data and AI tools (e.g., AI targeting, predictive analytics) are aiding the Israeli military, accelerating and intensifying violence while branding themselves through Hollywood-style ads.
    • “We’ve seen over the last few years automated warfare leads to immense amounts of civilian casualties, destruction, inaccuracy ... After watching automated warfare in the real world … it looks ridiculous because it is a completely fabricated image.” (Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower, 15:49)
  • Philosophy and Branding: CEO Alex Karp and Peter Thiel position their involvement openly and even belligerently.
    • “Karp has been quite clear about his willingness to kill people in an effort to sustain Western civilization … [he] didn’t really bat an eyelid at the fact that his tools were being used to kill Palestinians…” (Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict, 21:57)
    • “These promotional videos deal very much in … producing a mood … and that vibe is dark. It elicits a sense of danger … to produce a very, very effective emotion and that is fear.” (Political Analyst/Critic, 16:38)
  • Tech and War Narratives: The startup aesthetic and business PR obscures the real violence of modern warfare.
    • “Palantir has in many ways perfected the ability of covering up what is a complex, bloody, violent reality … with a sleek startup type, one-click solution aesthetic.” (Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict, 23:54)

6. Control Over Media & Information Flow (24:36–end)

• Battle Over Social Media and News Outlets:
  • TikTok is “a safe haven for pro Palestinian content.” Plans for pro-Israel billionaire Larry Ellison to acquire it, possibly to alter its algorithm and censor content.
    • “Israel is losing the information war in Gaza, so it is shooting the messengers there. Journalists and one of its billionaire backers is set to silence pro Palestinian forces online in America.” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 25:52)

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Notable Quotes

• On Tokenism vs. Real Accountability:
  "A declaration is just a declaration until those same states take concrete actions to end the occupation and most urgently to end the genocide."
  — Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict [03:58]

• On Arms Trade Hypocrisy:
  “This is utter hypocrisy because you cannot say that you care about Palestinian self-determination and then continue to arm the very country that is destroying the supposed states that you're recognizing.”
  — Political Analyst/Critic [05:59]

• On Western Media’s Language:
  “Genocide is the crime of crimes. You say genocide, that compels you to bring genocide to an end as rapidly as possible. And that's why they've been reluctant to want to get there.”
  — Media Critic/Journalist [06:21]

• On Media Shifts:
  “Mass demonstrations that have the Israeli media talking about this massive wave of anti-Semitism that is apparently afflicting these places ... Any small amount of Palestinian sympathy requires a massive response from Israeli commentators.”
  — Public Opinion Analyst [08:59]

• On Palantir’s War Branding:
  “What you see here is Palantir kind of attempting to mask over that reality. And that is why they tried trying to make these tools seem like Michael Bay Productions … it is a completely fabricated image of what automated warfare really looks like.”
  — Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower [15:49]

• On Tech, War, and Accountability:
  “Palantir has in many ways perfected the ability of covering up what is a complex, bloody, violent reality that is sustained, say, war and in the case at hand, genocide, with a sleek startup type one click solution aesthetic, from the battlefield to the boardroom.”
  — Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict [23:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:58: Introduction and critique of Western governments' timing and motives in recognizing Palestinian statehood
• 03:09–06:21: Discussion on performative diplomacy, arms sales, and complicity
• 06:21–11:45: Analysis of media coverage, language, protests, and public opinion
• 12:09–14:04: Segment on Sudan as an underreported parallel crisis
• 14:04–24:36: Deep dive into Palantir, the rise of AI in war, and the media’s treatment of this trend
• 24:36–end: Commentary on the battle for control of digital information platforms (TikTok, CBS) and the implications for pro-Palestinian narratives

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Memorable Moments

• Italy’s Shift After General Strike: “Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hardcore supporter of Israel, caved. She announced Italy will also recognize Palestinian statehood if certain conditions are met.” (Main Commentator/Analyst, 07:11)
• AI & War Marketing: The episode dissects Palantir’s “Hollywood trailer”-like marketing as emblematic of tech’s disconnect from the blood-and-death reality on the ground.
• Digital War Zone: The closing reflections on TikTok's role and ongoing efforts by Israeli-aligned billionaires to buy up platforms to control the narrative.

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Tone & Style

The episode strikes a critical, urgent tone, combining hard-hitting analysis with a clear skepticism towards Western states and business leaders' stated motives. Language often mirrors the gravity of the topics, with a sharp focus on hypocrisy, complicity, and the real-world costs of symbolic politics.

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For listeners seeking to understand the real stakes of Western recognition for Palestine, the role of arms sales and tech in modern warfare, and how media narratives are manufactured and manipulated, this episode of The Listening Post provides an unflinching, deeply nuanced guide.

Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

This week on True Crime Reports.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Esmond.

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[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Western governments, Israel's longtime allies among them, are starting to sing a different tune. But what is the point of finally recognizing Palestine as a state if they are still supplying the Israelis with the weapons, the means to carry out its genocide? An important story going largely untold Sudan and the challenges of reporting from a country three years into its civil war, plus AI making its presence felt on modern warfare and the sales pitch that companies like Palantir are using to market their technology. We're roughly 10 days out from the second anniversary of the October 7th attacks of 2023, almost two years into a genocidal Israeli response that now has Palestinians starving in Gaza. And some Western leaders have chosen this moment to do something they had long recognizing Palestinian statehood, as if that's what those Palestinians are hungering for right now. The uk, Canada, Australia and France all issued their declarations, omitting the part about how they have been empowering Israel, supplying it with weapons and providing it with diplomatic cover. But those governments could no longer ignore the public outrage over this genocide and had to do something, even if it was performative. And there's still no end in sight to the weapons getting shipped from those states to Israel, and not much in the way of accountability for the blood those same governments have on their hands. And that's what's missing in much of the coverage that's been coming out of the Western media on these developments. Boil it down and what they're talking about is diplomacy, when the real story has been and remains one of complicity. If you were a Palestinian in Gaza desperately trying to survive in a dystopian hellscape one made in Israel, the United.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

Kingdom formally recognizes the state of Palestine.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

What would you make of Western leaders responding to a genocide almost two years in with mere acts of diplomacy?

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

Canada recognizes the state of Palestine.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

States that have not only tolerated that genocide have helped arm the perpetrators. The Commonwealth of Australia recognises the state of Palestine declaring through statements that reeked of Western self importance that they now recognize a Palestinian state.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Je declar que la France reconnaiz aujourduit l' estat de Palestine.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

A land the Israelis have made unrecognizable.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

A declaration is just a declaration until those same states take concrete actions to end the occupation and most urgently to end the genocide. You can recognize whatever you want, but it doesn't mean anything until you take concrete steps to follow up on it.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

These countries are self aggrandizing themselves, feeling good about themselves, like they have done something bold, something courageous. But this symbolic gesture is in fact not what the movement requires, which is ending the genocide.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

The key word there is symbolic. Recognizing Palestinian statehood comes with no legal obligations for the countries involved. No disruption in their trading relationship with Israel, no ending of their arms sales to the Zionist war machine. Countries like Canada, whose government announced long ago that it would no longer send weapons to Israel as though it was taking a principled stand.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

We will not have any form of.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

Arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Instead it just laundered parts for those weapons through the us. An act of deception dressed up as morality.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

Canada announced approximately a year ago that it was halting the approval of new weapons sales to Israel, saying look what we're doing, we're actually making substantive strides. But a significant amount of the weapons manufactured in Canada that winds up in Israel is assembled in the United States. So that is what is now being attacked is this American Canadian armament supply chain.

[Public Opinion Analyst]

All of these countries, they train with Israeli troops, they sell weapons, they buy weapons from Israel. They haven't severed these relationships because they're still very profitable. There is no incentive on the Western world's part to sever those ties. Even if Palestine is currently being subjected to a genocide.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

The UK continues to trade and send parts of military equipment to Israel. Australia continues to have military equipment that goes to Israel. So this is utter hypocrisy because you cannot say that you care about Palestinian self determination and then continue to arm the very country that is destroying the supposed states that you're recognizing.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

Let's keep in mind that I've not heard virtually any Western leader use the G word when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Genocide is the crime of crimes. You say genocide, that compels you to bring genocide to an end as rapidly as possible. And that's why they've been reluctant to want to get there.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Setting aside the hypocrisy for the moment and focusing on the timing, what Took those governments so long to act, even symbolically. And why now? One year ago, the UN set a deadline giving the Israelis 12 months to evacuate all settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel has done the opposite, expanding its settlements, including on the west bank and East Jerusalem. Stealing more Palestinian land, taking more lives. That deadline has passed at a time when Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza, openly starving Palestinians, while the global resistance perseveres. Movements that span oceans, linking cities like London, Berlin, New York and Sydney. Italians have taken it a step further through a general strike over the genocide this week involving half a million people that affected tens of millions more the next day. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hardcore supporter of Israel, caved. She announced Italy will also recognize Palestinian statehood if certain conditions are met. Politicians tend to be opportunistic. Their careers can depend on it. Leaders like Emmanuel Macron, who see persistent unrest on the French streets and are now growing more blunt about Israel to its face.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

To accomplish destroying the image and the credibility of Israel, not just in the region, but in public opinions everywhere.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Macron chose to deliver that message through an Israeli news channel. And he had his reasons.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

The Israeli media has been an active participant in this genocide. They have deliberately not shown regular Israelis what their military is doing to Palestinians in Gaza. Israelis have simply not been exposed to that because the Israeli media has not been showing that to them. Instead, they've decided to elevate voices that promote ethnic cleansing and the destruction of Gaza.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Derek Hanitzachon Elashmid Et Kolmash Misha.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

And.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Bil Timur Ravim so instead of serving the Israeli public, the Israeli media has been part of this great crime of genocide. For the past two years.

[Public Opinion Analyst]

There has never been a shift in public opinion in places like the United States, in Germany, in the UK against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians. Mass demonstrations that have the Israeli media talking about this massive wave of anti Semitism that is apparently afflicting these places. Even at the Emmys, people wearing ceasefire pins, Javier Bardem wearing keffiyehs brought significant Israeli responses within their media. Any small amount of Palestinian sympathy requires a massive response from Israeli commentators. And because it is so constant, it creates this atmosphere of fear and trepidation about what is ahead for the country.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Western media outlets that have often downplayed the protest movements that are now forcing more and more countries to try to bring Israel under control are still injecting elements of both sidesism into the news mix. On a story about a genocide, drawing conclusions about what the recognition of a Palestinian state would mean. For Hamas, the optics involved giving Palestine.

[Narrator/Host]

Statehood today, at this moment in this conflict does give a propaganda win to Hamas.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

This is a huge reward for Hamas.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

It is a framework straight out of the global North. A journalistic mindset that produces mainstream output that has proven to be no match for the horrific viral videos traveling the world on our phones and feeds of Israeli war crimes. And the overdue recognition of Palestinian statehood, however performative, provides the proof of that.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

The Western media has been woefully under reporting what's been going on in Gaza. The British press, the American press in particular, and this is part of the Western image towards Israel, the Prime Minister.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Of the State of Israel as the.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

Just compensation for the Holocaust in the Second World War. But as Israel began its war on Gaza, on the 2.2 million Palestinians who lived there, almost all of them civilians, that slowly began to change. First of all public opinion and then following far behind political opinion, that this is a different sort of country.

[Public Opinion Analyst]

I think Western media outlets don't want to acknowledge that the world has changed. To acknowledge that the world has changed would be to question the entire Western liberal order. It would require questioning of the decades long image of Israel that they have in their minds. It would require questioning of everything.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Sudan is now into year three of a civil war. One of the most underreported news stories out there. And the accounts that have been trickling out bear some disturbing similarities to what Israel has been inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. Meenakshi Ravi is here with more repeated.

[Narrator/Host]

Displacement, engineered starvation, no safe passage for civilians, aid seekers attacked and killed, hospitals destroyed. It could be a report from Gaza, but all of this is happening in Sudan. Since April 2023, war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and the Sudanese Armed Forces, the SAF has ravaged the country and currently fighting is fiercest in the region of South Kordofan, while the RSF is intensifying a siege on the northwestern city of Al Fashr. For more than a year, the RSF has blocked food and aid and has repeatedly bombed the city. News only trickles out of Al Fashr. Sudan has faced frequent Internet blackouts and both the RSF and the SAF have repeatedly targeted domestic media. International media have also for the most part been locked out of the country, particularly from the RSF held regions. One foreign journalist who has stayed with this story has been Yusra el bagher of UK's Sky News. This month she and her team finally broke through to North Darfur after two years of trying. She heard graphic accounts from those able to escape Al Fashr. These camps are full of horror stories.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

That have been hidden from the world.

[Narrator/Host]

Thousands of people who fled Al Fashr and lost loved ones to brutal violence and famine. One more thing. As has been the case in Gaza, a key source of information has been the soldiers RSF troops filming their atrocities and posting them online. Should the RSF ever end up in an international court on charges of war crimes, those videos could be used by prosecutors as evidence.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Thanks, Meena. Among the things that AI is transforming is the way that wars are being fought. Autonomous weapons systems and targeting that relies on artificial intelligence are accelerating attacks and often increasing the intensity of that violence as well. In Silicon Valley, tech CEOs often sell their wares by saying that this technology can revolutionize the future of warfare. And of all the companies involved in this AI driven military tech boom, one stands out. Palantir, the data analytics firm, has won billions of dollars in contracts with the Pentagon, the U.S. immigration Enforcement Agency, ICE and the Israeli military. Palantir's marketing department brands the company emphatically as America First. It makes no apologies for the need to kill people if that's what it takes to protect Western interests. The Listening Post's Tarek Nafa now on Palantir, the company selling a sleek one click solution to warfare.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

It's been designed to look like a trailer for a Hollywood blockbuster. A sophisticated AI powered mission carried out across international borders. When you watch the ads of data analytics firm Palantir, it's difficult to figure out exactly what the company does. Once a Sebastian Pinto used to produce adverts for Palantir. After he left, he criticized the company's work with the Israeli military.

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

We've seen over the last few years automated warfare leads to immense amounts of civilian casualties, destruction, inaccuracy. So what you see here is Palantir kind of attempting to mask over that reality. And that is why they tried trying to make these tools seem like Michael Bay Productions. After leaving Palantir, after watching automated warfare in the real world and its effects, how it kills not only war fighters, but entire families, journalists, people who work at hospitals, emergency workers. I look at this and it looks ridiculous because it is a completely fabricated image of what automated warfare really looks like.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

These promotional videos deal very much in conjuring up a mood or producing a mood or to use a term that is popular in that arena to produce a vibe. And that vibe is dark. It elicits a sense of danger. So it isn't a appealing to necessarily rational ways of thinking. About Palantir's products, but it produces a way of tapping into a very, very effective emotion and that is fear. And so it really occludes the fact that war is always horrific. This idea that wars are clean or they can be done in a way that no lives will be harmed. That is an illusion.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

From the mass monitoring and surveillance of non US citizens in America to the tools it is providing the Israeli military, Palantir's automated solutions are under scrutiny around the world. The company's co founders, Peter Thiel and Alex Karp have repeatedly expressed their unwavering support for Israel.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

I'm not on top of all the.

[Public Opinion Analyst]

Details of what's going on in Israel.

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

Because my bias is to defer to Israel.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

Following the October 7 attacks, they met with Israel's president, Isaac Herzog and agreed to what both parties called a strategic partnership. Palantir was contracted to supply technology that would help the Israeli military's war related missions. Though it has been vague about exactly.

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

What that means, Palantir fundamentally does what a lot of data companies do. They collect data, they make that data readable, they derive analytics from that data and then they help automate actions. A lot of companies do this. But what makes Palantir different is, is where they apply these systems and how they use them. And what you see in Gaza is Palantir's tools being used to support a state that is at war with managing its information, deriving insights from that information, everything that is involved in the execution of the target.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

In modern warfare, it is hard to definitively establish exactly how much the Israeli authorities depend on Palantir products for their military objectives in Gaza. But it is clear that Palantir is providing some pretty critical infrastructure, including AI targeting systems that they are using to draw up kill lists and to impart violence and destruction and the complete decimation of civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

AIP leverages large language models to allow operators to quickly ask questions.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

You have an entire suite of AI tools including an LLM based language interface that allows for soldiers to make better targeting decisions. And knowing even in Palantir's own words that their relationship with Israel is long standing and goes back to before the war, makes us believe that Palantir is quite critical to the operations of the Israeli military.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

Palantir got its start with an investment from in Qutel, the CIA's venture capital firm. From the beginning, the company's founders tried to cultivate a mythology around their ability to use data and predictive models to find, identify and eliminate America's enemies.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

What we do is we use what legal scholars call predicate based research. So we would look at you and then we would go out and say, oh, there's lots of different things in your life that may be indicative of someone involved in bad behavior.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

After it went public in 2020, Palantir went on a PR blitz, broadcasting ads at sports events, placing them in airports and on college campuses. Both Peter Thiel and Alex Karp have deeply entrenched themselves in Donald Trump's White House. As Palantir's CEO, Karp has styled himself as a deviant philosopher.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

He.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

He has a doctorate in neoclassical social theory and recently published the Technological Republic, a book marketed as a sweeping indictment of the West's culture of complacency.

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

One of the first things to realize about Peter Thiel and Alex Karp is that they do not come from a technical engineering background, but are both deeply sociological thinkers. They understand philosophy of language, information, and how those tools can be weaponized. Palantir as a workplace is a place where you're continually surrounded by narratives that indicate that you're exceptional, that you're working on the hardest problems, that you're helping the biggest institutions support democracy.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with with the very best in the world, and when it's necessary to scare enemies and on occasion, kill them.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

One of the things that Palantir's leadership has been particularly good at doing is to set up a sort of a clash of civilizations narrative in which the west is in peril.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

It is in the service of our nation and with great thought and applying the ethics of war, which America does. Sometimes you have to kill the other side.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Alex Karp has been quite clear about his willingness to kill people in an effort to sustain Western civilization, that in fact, he didn't really bat an eyelid at the fact that his tools were being used to kill Palestinians, even if they were terrorists, in his words, AI.

[Former Palantir Employee/Whistleblower]

New technology from volunteer to kill Palestinian, mostly terrorists.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

That's true.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

So these are really bellicose, overtly bellicose statements that he deals in. And the fact that he's very much in the public eye suggests that this is not accidental, but that this is a part of Palantir's marketing campaign and branding that both Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and others in that environment, functioning as what I like to call hypeman kind of defense influences.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

We're doing it, and I'm sure you're.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Enjoying this as much as I am.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

That makes such outrageous claims that the Narrative slowly shifts. The narrative shifts towards, oh, well, yes, maybe the world is broken. Well, maybe, yes, we are in perpetual crisis. Maybe we need this urgency.

[Documentary Reporter/Narrator]

Both Alex Karp and Peter Thiel have become the poet poster boys for a wave of techno militarism sweeping the US Their embrace of the technology of war is part of a vibe shift in Silicon Valley, which has tech CEOs clamoring for Pentagon contracts and even enlisting in the military. Yet mainstream media coverage of figures like Karp and Thiel has too often fixated on their maverick personalities and business success rather than interrogating them on the technologies they build.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

You are absolutely phenomenal.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Let's just start with today's event.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

You get a chance to strut your stuff. You're showing new tools, new capabilities and.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

A string of deals.

[Media Critic/Journalist]

Talk to us about that.

[Expert/Analyst on Middle East Conflict]

Palantir has in many ways perfected the ability of covering up what is a complex, bloody, violent reality that is sustained, say, war and in the case at hand, genocide. With a sleek startup type one click solution aesthetic, from the battlefield to the boardroom, more scrutiny within the media, I think could shift the narrative and the dial on how we see the Palantir of the world not just as benign startup, but that they are actually playing an active political role, even in things like genocide.

[Main Commentator/Analyst]

Finally, ever since the outset of the genocide in Gaza, TikTok has grown into a kind of safe haven for pro Palestinian content. Influencers and activists get more reach there than on other platforms like YouTube and X. So it would be in Tel Aviv's interest if one of Israel's supporters were to wrestle control of the platform from its Chinese owners, then retrain the algorithm to scrub genocide from our site. Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, the tech company. He was recently named by the Jerusalem Post as one of six Jewish billionaires who have become the, quote, backbone of Israel's wartime funding. And he's now leading a group that's about to take a controlling stake in TikTok. Meanwhile, his son, David Ellison, is taking control of Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, and he's reportedly bringing in a pro Israel journalist, Bari Weiss, to steer CBS's editorial direction. So there you have it. Israel is losing the information war in Gaza, so it is shooting the messengers there. Journalists and one of its billionaire backers is set to silence pro Palestinian forces online in America.

[Political Analyst/Critic]

SA.