The Israeli army is once again marketing itself as a high-tech superpower, talking up the automated weaponry and supercomputing surveillance tech being “battle-tested” in its war on Gaza. Military spokespeople hope the same old slogans will distract from the fact that Israel is far from achieving its stated goals of eliminating Hamas and bringing the remaining hostages home, despite this being one of the most destructive military campaigns in modern history. As investors drop cash on Israeli weapons start-ups at faster and faster rates, defense tech CEOs are poised to be this war’s only victors.
Moreover, and more consequentially for Palestinians, technology’s promise to bring greater precision to warfare is apparently absent from Israel’s current assault. Targeted suicide drones have not stopped the Israeli army from blasting out entire neighborhoods with 2,000-pound bombs, damaging or destroying 70 percent of the homes in Gaza. Algorithmically enhanced sniper rifles have done little to deter troops from firing at civilians, including three Israeli hostages. And AI-powered targeting systems have failed to protect the lives of more than 8,000 children killed in Israeli airstrikes.
While Palestinians will bear the brunt of the violence enabled by new weapons and surveillance systems, it’s unclear how much Israelis will gain in the long run. The industry makes up a miniscule portion of the economy of the so-called “start-up nation,” whose civilian industries are reeling after months of war. Even former military and political leaders have publicly expressed concern that the war — with hundreds of thousands of reservists pulled from their jobs and studies, millions of dollars diverted from public budgets and toward the war effort, and the increasingly right-wing leanings of a political establishment bent on retribution — will do little to safeguard Israeli national security long-term.