This summer, I had the opportunity to visit the Dutch city of Amsterdam. It’s a picturesque city known for its beautiful canals and hundreds of bridges. They were constructed in the 17th century when the Netherlands was a regional beacon of inclusiveness and religious tolerance. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, they put a stop to this. Jews comprised 80,000 members of the local population. 80% of them were deported and murdered by the time the Nazis had left. Among them was the family of Anne Frank, who later had her diary published and read by millions globally. I visited Amsterdam’s Anne Frank Museum during my stay. This museum took me through her life and the various developments in her family.
As I was there, I couldn’t help but think of how eerily similar the early stages of the Holocaust in Amsterdam were to the present situation of the Palestinians in the occupied Israeli territories. Forced resettlement, mandatory registration, segregation? These were the same human rights violations that the Palestinians are currently experiencing. However, the Holocaust was 80 years ago. In today’s age, Israel can conduct mass surveillance with ease through technologies like cameras and artificial intelligence.
Following the Second Intifada, a major uprising against the Israeli occupation that lasted from 2000 to 2005, Israel left the Gaza Strip. However, this exit was in exchange for even more oppression in the West Bank, a section of Palestine that Israel has been occupying ever since 1967.
In 1997, the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank was divided into H1, under Palestinian control, and H2, under Israeli control. H2, however, was largely ethnically Palestinian with an Israeli settler minority. The so-called “Hebron smart city initiative” was started, which consisted of a large-scale operation to construct a vast network of surveillance cameras that span just about every street in H2. Amnesty International, a human rights NGO frequently cited by the United Nations, estimates the presence of one to two CCTV cameras for every five meters walked. Often reported by residents, cameras are directed to capture the inside of resident’s homes through windows and doors.
An Israeli database dubbed Wolf Pack accompanied such initiatives across the West Bank. This vast database contains available imagery and information exclusively on Palestinians from the West Bank, such as permits, family members, license plates, and whether they are wanted by the Israeli authorities or not. The Wolf Pack database aims to store the profiles of every Palestinian in the West Bank.
Palestinians cannot opt out of having their privacy invaded because they are automatically registered, without their knowledge, into the database when they pass one of the many checkpoints needed to access basic needs such as food, healthcare, and education. Recently, the introduction of Blue Wolf has made accessing this database much more feasible. It is an app for mobile phones that lets Israeli soldiers check the information of Palestinians themselves and decide what to do with them independently. Blue Wolf has a system of public rankings that awards battalions with the most photos of Palestinians. This system incentivizes soldiers to do as much as they can to flesh out the profiles of all Palestinians. Israeli commanders, and even mere soldiers when permitted commanders, get to conduct home invasions where they arbitrarily raid Palestinian households for no other purpose than to take photos and collect biometric data at gunpoint. Palestinians living in H2 neighborhoods have also been summoned to checkpoints to collect biometric data, and those who refused saw their ability to access their homes rescinded, coercing Palestinians into giving more information about themselves.
The rabbit hole goes even further. The rise of artificial intelligence has prompted the creation of a new program, Red Wolf. This system utilizes facial recognition cameras to scan Palestinians as they enter. Rather than presenting identification documents, Palestinians have their faces compared to a database. Based on this comparison, the system either grants them passage or flags them for questioning by soldiers. Over time, soldiers can manually link faces to IDs, which helps the artificial intelligence recognize faces faster. The system also automatically enrolls anyone not recognized, adding their biometric data to the database without their knowledge or consent. Perhaps most concerning, Red Wolf can autonomously decide who can pass through the checkpoint, bypassing human intervention. It’s important to note that this system is only for Palestinians in Hebron. Jewish Israeli settlers are allowed to utilize different routes that bypass these checkpoints entirely.
So, how does this system of mass surveillance help Israel subjugate Palestinians? It helps to suppress activism.
In February 2018, Israeli forces set up a watchtower checkpoint on the steps of Damascus Gate in Jerusalem to suppress the site’s many past public protests and gatherings, which led to a drastic decrease in demonstrations. Even if protestors don’t get detained on the spot, the cameras will capture their faces, and they can be arrested later or banned from entering certain areas. The cameras thus create an environment of fear and paranoia.
More than a year after the high-profile protests at Al-Aqsa Mosque in May 2021, tensions flared again during Ramadan in 2022 (April-May). Security forces heavily restricted access for Muslim worshippers to the mosque area, leading to renewed Palestinian protests and a harsh crackdown. Checkpoints near the Old City leading to the mosque became more frequent and fortified. Israeli police used excessive force, intimidation, and harassment during routine ID and bag checks. Dozens of videos surfaced on social media between April and May 2022, documenting various methods used by Israeli security forces to stop and repress protesters. For example, Amnesty International’s investigation verified incidents where Israeli forces used technology like tablets, helmet cameras, and body cameras to detain, identify, and record individuals.
On 31 October 2022, Israeli soldiers raided the education center and offices of Youth Against Settlements and declared it a closed military zone. Only the owner of the building, activist Issa Amro, was allowed to use it for ten days. The closure was reinforced by cameras on the nearby military base and Israeli settlement. As a result of the surveillance system linked to the military closure of their premises, Palestinian activists of Youth Against Settlements have lost resources that allowed them to exercise their fundamental rights as activists and are at increased risk of violence and arbitrary arrest.
What Israel has been doing violates international law as laid out in the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention.
It violates freedom of movement. Palestinians must go through checkpoints to leave their neighborhoods and access bare necessities. It violates the right to equality and non-discrimination. The Wolf Pack database includes solely information about Palestinians and is only used to target Palestinians. Intrusive surveillance and facial recognition do not apply to Israeli citizens and settlers, who generally can move freely between the West Bank and Israel. It violates the right to privacy. Mass surveillance is incompatible with privacy, and the degree to which Palestinians are surveilled fails to meet necessity and proportionality tests, especially when cameras are directed into residencies. It violates the right to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. Mass surveillance is used to suppress activism and protests, incentivizing Palestinians not to engage in public displays of defiance against Israeli authorities.
The topic discussed in this article is only one of the many ways that Israel subjugates Palestinians. This information is not clandestine and esoteric. It is relatively easy to find. However, the reason many do not know about it is that what Palestinians have been enduring since Israel took over the West Bank is often left out of the conversation in debates about the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. It has not stopped; it has only evolved and gotten more complex and intricate as the Israeli military has gotten better and better at suppressing resistance. If you wish to educate yourself more, you can access Amnesty International’s many articles, the endless testimonies by former Israeli soldiers collected on Breaking the Silence’s website, and read in-depth books by credible academics. There is not much people can do individually, but learning about critical issues is essential to being a responsible voter and deciding how to best engage in civic participation.
Works Cited
“Automated Apartheid.” Amnesty International, 2 May 2023, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/6701/2023/en/. Accessed 29 June 2024.
Tammes, Peter. “Surviving the holocaust: Socio-demographic differences among Amsterdam jews.” European Journal of Population, vol. 33, no. 3, 23 Jan. 2017, pp. 293–318, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-016-9403-3.
Williams, Leanne. “Golden Idea: Understanding the Genius of Amsterdam’s Canals.” Insight Vacations, 17 May 2023, www.insightvacations.com/blog/amsterdam-canals/.