In a revealing conversation on the Superhumanizer podcast, renowned historian Professor Ilan Pappé traces a chilling connection between past and present: how Israel's methods of controlling Palestinians have evolved from paper files to artificial intelligence, while the underlying logic of dehumanization remains unchanged.
"The village files were the most amazing project," explains Pappé, describing how in the 1940s, Zionist forces meticulously documented every Palestinian village. Young Jewish scouts, disguised as hikers or bird watchers, would map out "every path, every house, every well, every cemetery" in Palestinian communities.
This wasn't innocent record-keeping. These detailed files later became the blueprint for ethnic cleansing. As Pappé documented in his groundbreaking book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," these files helped Zionist forces systematically empty over 500 Palestinian villages in 1948, displacing approximately 750,000 Palestinians in what became known as the Nakba (catastrophe).
What makes this history particularly relevant today is how Israeli officials continue to use the Nakba as a threat. "If you see the messages of the Israeli army to the people of Gaza," Pappé notes, "they use the Nakba as intimidation." After October 7, 2023, leading Israeli politicians openly declared that Palestinians would "experience another Nakba."
Today's methods of control have evolved dramatically. Israel now employs what Human Rights Watch describes as sophisticated surveillance technologies to monitor Palestinians. This includes facial recognition technology at checkpoints, AI-powered surveillance cameras, and advanced targeting systems.
In April 2024, The Guardian reported on Israel's use of facial recognition systems in Gaza and beyond, with Amnesty International researcher Matt Mahmoudi discussing how the technology serves as a tool of mass surveillance. According to NPR's December 2023 report, the Israeli military has confirmed it's using artificial intelligence to select many targets in Gaza in real-time.
Perhaps most disturbing is what Pappé describes as the "gamification" of violence. Modern targeting systems allow operators to eliminate people remotely, "pressing a button to eliminate a green figure who's lit up because of the temperature of their body." As Pappé observes, "It has nothing to do with a face-to-face interaction with another human being."
"Israel is a laboratory where you can in real life experiment with the latest development in this field," Pappé states bluntly. This experimentation has real consequences. Since October 2023, over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with women and children making up a significant portion of casualties.
The technology enabling this violence isn't developed in isolation. Universities, multinational corporations, and foreign governments are all implicated in what Pappé calls "complicity." In February 2025, the Associated Press reported that U.S. tech giants have quietly empowered Israel to track and kill many more alleged militants more quickly in Gaza and Lebanon through advanced AI and cloud computing services.
This explains why student encampments across American universities have demanded their institutions examine connections to companies developing surveillance and weapons technologies used against Palestinians.
Despite the technological evolution, Pappé emphasizes that we're dealing with "symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself." The core issue remains what scholar Patrick Wolfe called "the logic of the elimination of the native."
This logic manifests in extreme dehumanization. In Israel, Pappé observes a "total dehumanization" where even killing children is justified by claiming "we're not really killing babies, we're killing the potential terrorists of the future."
This dehumanization has intensified with the rise of what Pappé terms "messianic Zionists" who justify violence through religious interpretation. "For them it's not even the dehumanization of the Palestinians because of their struggle against colonialism," he explains. "It's the dehumanization of the Palestinian through the Bible."
The technologies enabling this surveillance and violence require global participation. "One country, one state like Israel cannot produce everything," Pappé notes. "There are a lot of other companies, multinational companies, corporations that are part of these technologies."
This global complicity extends to universities where research develops these technologies. According to Amnesty International's May 2023 report, Israel's use of facial recognition technology against Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem has entrenched apartheid. The report documents how Israel has deployed this technology as part of its systematic discrimination against Palestinians.
Yet this same global interconnection creates opportunities for resistance. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targets these international connections. Student protesters demanding universities divest from companies supplying surveillance technology to Israel represent what Pappé calls "rewarding" signs of change.
For Pappé, understanding this evolution from village files to AI surveillance is crucial for breaking the cycle of violence. By recognizing the continuous thread of dehumanization running through Israel's history, we can better understand both the current crisis and potential paths forward.
"All of it is the symptoms of the main problem," Pappé reminds us. "We need to remember and understand the origins of the violence as much as confirm the symptoms of the violence."
As technology continues advancing, the question remains whether global awareness and solidarity movements can effectively challenge these systems of control and dehumanization before they become even more sophisticated and deadly.
Human Rights Watch (2024, September 10). "Questions and Answers: Israeli Military's Use of Digital Tools in Gaza." https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/10/questions-and-answers-israeli-militarys-use-digital-tools-gaza
The Guardian (2024, April 19 ). "How Israel uses facial-recognition systems in Gaza and beyond." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/19/idf-facial-recognition-surveillance-palestinians
NPR (2023, December 14 ). "Israel is using an AI system to find targets in Gaza. Experts say it's just the start." https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an-ai-system-to-find-targets-in-gaza-experts-say-its-just-the-st
United Nations OCHA (2024, November 5 ). "Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip." https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-5-november-2024
Associated Press (2025, February 18 ). "As Israel uses US-made AI models in war, concerns arise." https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-ai-technology-737bc17af7b03e98c29cec4e15d0f108
Amnesty International (2023, May 2 ). "Israeli authorities using facial recognition to entrench apartheid." https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/israel-opt-israeli-authorities-are-using-facial-recognition-technology-to-entrench-apartheid/
Pappé, Ilan (2006 ). "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." Oneworld Publications.
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