[News] Firm helping Israel spy on Gaza includes genocide advocate

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/firm-helping-israel-spy-gaza-includes-genocide-advocate>
Firm helping Israel spy on Gaza includes genocide advocate

Michael F. Brown <https://electronicintifada.net/people/michael-f-brown> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 28 March
2024
------------------------------
[image: Palestinian children and adults try to secure food]

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli major general, has pushed for a
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a position which has contributed to desperate
scenes of Palestinians trying to secure food.
DPA

The Israeli military is using Corsight facial recognition technology to
collect information about Palestinians in Gaza according to
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/technology/israel-facial-recognition-gaza.html>
*The
New York Times*.

“The facial recognition program, which is run by Israel’s military
intelligence unit, including the cyber-intelligence division Unit 8200,
relies on technology from Corsight, a private Israeli company, four
intelligence officers said.”
The Israeli military also employs Google Photos. Israel’s apartheid
army detained,
interrogated and beat
<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/01/a-palestinian-poets-perilous-journey-out-of-gaza>
Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, a graduate of Syracuse University, with
the assistance of Corsight’s facial recognition technology. Other
Palestinians have been similarly detained via Corsight technology.

Abu Toha notes Palestinians have died
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-07/ty-article/.premium/27-gaza-detainees-died-in-custody-at-israeli-army-facilities-since-the-start-of-the-war/0000018e-1322-d950-a18e-f3bbaa370000>
in Israeli custody
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/world/middleeast/palestinians-detained-in-israel.html>
.

There is little complaint from western politicians. Corsight’s complicity
isn’t seen as an urgent matter.

Nor, for that matter, do most of these politicians give sufficient
attention to Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza.
Board of directors

Unmentioned by the *Times* is that Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli major
general, serves <https://www.corsight.ai/company/> on the board of
directors of Corsight.

When Eiland joined the board in January 2021, Igal Raichelgauz, chairman
and founder of the Cortica Group, stated
<https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3887496,00.html>, “We
are excited to add Giora to the company board, we believe that due to his
extensive experience in the national security field, Corsight will continue
growing into new markets and territories and lead the face recognition
market in Israel and in the world.” Corsight is a subsidiary of Cortica, a
firm focused on artificial intelligence.

Eiland is a proponent of the ethnic cleansing of the occupied territory of
Gaza.

He wrote <https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sju3uabba> for the Israeli
publication *Ynet* on 12 October that “One option is a massive and complex
ground operation, with no regard to duration and cost, while the second
option is to create conditions where life in Gaza becomes unsustainable.”

In fact, Israel has done both.

Eiland noted, without voicing dissent, that “Israel has already begun
suspending the supply of diesel, fuel, electricity and water, as well as
closing the border crossings. Yet, it remains uncertain whether these
measures are enough.”

He then moved to ethnic cleansing.

“Israel issued a stern warning to Egypt and made it clear that it would not
permit humanitarian aid from Egypt to enter Gaza. Israel needs to create a
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds
of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf.”

He said nothing of wanting such an arrangement to be temporary.

Eiland then jumped beyond an ethnic cleansing of “tens of thousands or even
hundreds of thousands.” He wrote: “The entire population of Gaza will
either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf.”

The retired general also recommended targeting civilian vehicles in Gaza.

“Every vehicle in Gaza is considered a military vehicle transporting
combatants. Therefore, there is no vehicular traffic, and it does not
matter whether it is transporting water or other critical supplies.”

Such rhetoric amounts to abetting war crimes and has had real consequences
for Palestinian children such as 6-year-old Hind Rajab who, according to
the Palestine Red Crescent, the Israeli military killed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/10/world/middleeast/hind-rajab-gaza.html>
earlier this year in a car along with other family members.

Eiland pushed collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza as well.

“The UN secretary-general has initiated humanitarian aid to Gaza. The
Israeli condition for any aid should be a visit by the Red Cross to Israeli
hostages and especially the civilians among them. Until this happens, no
aid of any kind will be permitted to enter into Gaza.”

Hinting at the overwhelming violence to come against Palestinian civilians,
Eiland wrote of the developing Israeli attack: “It is comparable to the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to the launch of an atomic bomb
in Japan.”

The Israeli military has killed
<https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/world/middleeast/military-action-americans-gaza.html>
over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October, including more than
13,000 children. The International Court of Justice deems it plausible
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/world-court-orders-israel-halt-gaza-genocide>
that Israel is engaged in genocidal actions in the small coastal territory.

Eiland wrapped up his opinion piece by declaring, “As a result, Gaza will
become a place where no human being can exist, and I say this as a means
rather than an end. I say this because there is no other option for
ensuring the security of the state of Israel. We are fighting an
existential war.”

This goes beyond ethnic cleansing to genocide talk when speaking of “a
place where no human being can exist.”
Omer Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown
University, documented
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html>
this and more from Eiland in a November opinion piece in *The New York
Times*.

He cited a column Eiland wrote
<https://www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/article/yokra13625377> in the Israeli
newspaper *Yedioth Ahronoth*. The Brown University professor quoted Eiland
as writing, “The state of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a
place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.”

Bartov also quoted Eiland for maintaining, “Creating a severe humanitarian
crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.”

Then he cited the same *Ynet* quote noted above that “Gaza will become a
place where no human being can exist.”

Bartov commented, “Apparently, no army representative or politician
denounced this statement.”

Eiland continued with the genocidal talk
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/influential-israeli-national-security-leader-makes-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza/>
in November when he wrote, “The international community warns of a
humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy
away from it, as hard as it is. After all, severe epidemics in the south of
the Strip will hasten victory.”
Corsight, with its invasive technology against a largely refugee population
dispossessed in 1948, should expect heavy criticism with a board member
calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and to make the place
uninhabitable.

Of course, Democratic Majority for Israel received scant attention when it
came to light that its board member Archie Gottesman once issued
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/dmfi-board-member-archie-gottesman-wanted-burn-gaza>
her own genocidal call against Palestinians in Gaza when she tweeted: “Gaza
is full of monsters. Time to burn the whole place.”

Ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians don’t properly register
with most western politicians who, of course, are providing weapons to
Israel to carry out the devastation in Gaza.

That Corsight carries out
<https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/corsight-ai-announces-us-expansion-due-to-market-demand-for-leading-ai-facial-recognition-technology-301514859.html>
“global operations and support in the US, UK, Singapore, Australia, and R&D
in Israel” with the backing of a board member proponent of ethnic cleansing
and genocide will not be a significant concern in Washington.

Popular concern, however, may prove to be a different matter.
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