The ongoing Israel-Palestine conflagration is about territory and identity.
It is also proving to be potent ground for the evolving role of tech in war and conflict. As defender – and attacker.
As Hamas hit Israel on October 7, 2023, nearly 3,000 cheap rockets and small drones breached the country’s famed Iron Dome – the mobile, smart shield meant to detect, intercept, and destroy short-range aerial assaults. Its credibility as one of the world’s most advanced and interconnected defensive systems has been shaken – as well as Israel’s tech-first approach to national defence. In the subsequent weeks, reports revealed that intelligence warnings from look-out units along the nation’s borders had been ignored. More, a 40-page document detailing the exact attack plan that Hamas executed, wasn't taken seriously.
But while Iron Dome’s failure spells trouble for imagining tech as the ultimate provider of security, Israel’s use of AI to rain down retaliation on Gaza in a never-ending offensive is creating dangerous new precedents. Through cold-blooded algorithmic targeting programs like `The Gospel’ that marks buildings and structures potentially housing Hamas militants – and are contributing to the largest number of Palestinian civilian casualties ever, upward of 26,000 by the time of writing. Or an expansive facial recognition program that runs on proprietary Israeli technology as well as Google Photos to root out faces of potential enemy-friendlies from grainy drone footage of crowds.
But as AI increasingly calls the shots – kill lists, gunsights, drones – a former chief of Mossad is batting for the human element.
Efraim Halevy joined Israel’s formidable espionage agency in 1961 and rose up the ranks to eventually serve as its head between 1998 and 2001. Post-retirement, he headed the National Security Council until mid-2003. He has also served as Israel’s emissary to negotiate with Jordan (helping bring about the 1994 peace treaty between the two neighbours) and ambassador to the EU.
During his decades at the forefront of intelligence, national security, and diplomacy, Halvey has seen tech emerge and loom large – from the computer becoming command central during 9/11 to Israel’s increasing adoption of tech as arsenal. While he accepts that technological encroachment into spy games and statecraft will only redouble in future, he’s firmly of the view that the flesh-and-blood component will never disappear. “Artificial intelligence in many cases can be misleading because people do not simply live and operate in a very systematic manner. You cannot make it without humans.” Is Israel's heavy dependence on tech – and pride in its cutting-edge capacities – the reason for the massive intelligence failure to anticiapte the October 7 attack?
Halevy has been called a “firm votary of dialogue” by former Indian spymaster Amarjit Singh Dulat. (He also proved successful in establishing ties with counterparts in countries with which Israel did not have diplomatic ties with, including Arab countries.) Does he believe that a lasting peace in the Middle East can emerge from the embers of a bloody, brutal war – turbocharged by tech?
At SYNAPSE, Efraim Halvey will face tough questions. On intelligence failures and artificial intelligence. Israel’s current indiscriminate use of precision technology. The growing applications of tech versus its limitations. The consequences of a de-personalisation and ‘point-and-click’ gamification of war. And where he positions the human amidst the country's reliance on increasingly powerful tech.
