What about High Tech and Perpetual Military Occupation

 I stumbled upon the author of this article, Mairav Zonszein in another tweet about how neither judges nor diplomats are coming to save Sheikh Jarrah. 

Now, while the issue of discussion is not related to that, I just find it useful to remind my forgetful self on the connection of how my interest arrives to today's discussion. 

Because this is a personal write-up where it documents my process of learning, I find it useful to explore the terms 'high tech' and 'perpetual military occupation' since those are not of the terms I am acquainted with. 

High tech or high technology, according to Oxford dictionary, refers to advanced technological developments. To contextualise, the article touches about the permission granted by the Israeli Ministry of Defense in matters pertaining to the hacking of software particularly in authoritarian governments. 

Perpetual military on the other hand refers to endless war. 

According to the article, there are 2 issues at hands which are being dealt at different magnitudes by the Israeli officials. What seemed to be of the center of attention was the energy invested in Ben & Jerry's termination of transport of goods in the occupied Palestine territories by 2023. Its interesting to learn that the author then proceeded to note that first, boycott is an inaccurate term for divestment story and second, the role Israeli technology serves in global antidemocratic practices. As a reader, I am most intrigued by what defines antidemocratic practices, then how does it evolve from state democratic practices into a global scale. 

Source; Kettering.org

Its also interesting how the author drew a pattern of uniformity in Israeli officials' reactions which reflects their political consensus. She then went on noting the how intrusive the cybersurvellience industry is in the biometric data collection of millions of Palestinians lives in an attempt to control their movements and lives. This was something I am not made aware of till I came across this article. Just how belligerent are they to monitor and store the lives of Palestinians as if keeping them in an open-air prison is not sufficient to their detriment. I feel like now that we are made aware of this awry information, it is worth noting that the tech company responsible for this is an Israeli company under the name, AnyVision. Author also included the description made for the goal of surveillance which is to complete government control in public spaces. This is then manifested in the wide network of cameras to surveil every part of the Old City of Jerusalem. 

So, drawing back on the Israeli officials' reactions towards the 2 issues, author made the illiberal policies apparent in regard to the military rule of the occupied territories and vague sovereignty Israel has acquired through the annexation between 1948 and 1967. 

This post is made for personal learning purposes. Any errors in facts I shall not be responsible for. Read at your own risk and correct me if you have the time to. 

Read more: Israel Wants to Have Its Ice Cream and Cybersecurity, Too