Israel, Venture Capital Collaboration and the Genocide of Palestinians
I want to open this by re-iterating my unconditional support for Palestine, my horror at the genocide Israel is committing, my insistence that this is entirely the fault of Israel, who have stolen what does not belong to them, and has been staunch in refusing to give the land back, trapping Palestinians in an open air prison and subjecting them to relentless campaigns of violence and death since they first showed up to conquer and steal. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Palestine and I wish them victory, even against this seemingly unstoppable force. I condemn, to the highest of my humanity, this ongoing genocide, and I am praying especially for the women and children of Palestine.
As an expert in venture capital I want to record and offer, some information and thoughts on the relationship between Israel and venture capital, in light of these developments. It is important to document in this time, complicity both leading up to and ongoing.
Fascist venture capitalists have long enjoyed a relationship with Israel. Israeli investor firm Vintage Investment Partners funds Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst, two monster venture firms where we see significant investments in weapons startups and war hawking, coming to a fever pitch over the last five years. These fascists have also funded a number of Israeli startups, most significantly for our purposes in weapons systems. Toka, an Israeli “cyber defense startup”, is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, and features a rash of Israeli war criminals, with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in a key leadership position, as well as former Brigadier General and Chief of Israel Defense Forces in cyber. Toka has a focus on intelligence and enabling covert operations. An Andreessen Horowitz partner went in on Sarona Ventures, an Israeli fund to support the Israeli startup ecosystem. Israeli weapons company Elbit has been collaborating for years with Andreessen Horowitz’s Anduril, on the lethal US/Mexico border and its human rights abuses. Elon Musk just met with Benjamin Netanyahu in September, less than a month before these events unfolding, and has met the circumstances of war by offering free charging of Teslas in Israel, as it mass-murders children. Additionally, it was brought to my attention by Lowkey, appearing on the The Electronic Intifada live stream, that Musk is a “direct participant in Israeli war games”: in another collaboration between fascist venture capitalists and the Israeli military, SpaceX launched a surveillance satellite for Israeli company ImageSat International in 2022, developed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries, also including technologies from Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems. This shows the kind of complex, repeated, and ongoing partnerships between fascist venture capitalists and the genocidal Israeli state.
In early October, 500 venture capital firms signed the “Venture Capital Community Statement of Support for Israel,” stating:
“Israel has been an enduring partner to the global innovation ecosystem, fostering groundbreaking technological advancements and startup innovation. The nation's contribution to the world in terms of technology, research, and entrepreneurship is invaluable, and we hold deep respect for its unwavering commitment to progress…
In the spirit of peace and unity, we encourage the global venture community to support and engage with Israeli startups, entrepreneurs, and investors as they navigate through these challenging times. We believe in a brighter and more prosperous future for the region. We will continue to enable the talented entrepreneurs and startups in Israel and abroad to continue their vital work in shaping a better future for all.”
This was signed by key venture firms primarily from US and Israel, at the heart of technological power, including Almeda Ventures, Altitude Ventures, Apollo Projects (Sam Altman’s side fund), Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer, Blumberg, General Catalyst, Gotham Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, NFX, Not Boring Capital, Vintage Investment Partners and 8VC.
Importantly, OpenAI, funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Founder’s Fund and Elon Musk, did a very public delegation to Israel this summer, where CEO Sam Altman met with Israeli president Isaac Herzog. Sam Altman stated that Israel “will have ‘huge role’ to play in AI revolution”, and “encouraged Israeli developers and entrepreneurs to delve into the unchartered territory of AI, which they predict has a huge number of opportunities and positive applications.” This is particularly alarming as Founder’s Fund and Andreessen Horowitz have started an entire fleet of weapons startups driven by artificial intelligence. Further, “Netanyahu said that during a phone conversation with Altman, the tech entrepreneur also expressed confidence that Israel could become a ‘main global player in the field.’ During the conversation, the two discussed ‘opportunities and challenges facing the world and the State of Israel in connection to AI,’ according to the Prime Minister’s Office. Part of the conversation also focused on cooperation in the field of AI development.”
These are only some of many data points that are easily available via Google search, that paint a significant picture of fascist venture capitalists collaborating with the genocidal Israeli state, a trade of weapons, intelligence, delegation, startups, intelligence and military officers, and money.
This is shamelessly captured in a new, pro-Israel write-up on how Israeli tech startups, many funded by American venture capitalists, are “mobilizi[ing] in the wake of attacks,” this out from popular industry news and data site Crunchbase. This pro-Israel article and the sentiment it stokes, in the face of an immediately ongoing genocide, itself speaks to the collaboration between the venture capital machinery and Israel’s open war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Importantly, the piece highlights the extent to which venture capitalists have collaborated with Israel via technology, startups and venture funding: “Since 2019, $32 billion has been invested in companies headquartered in Israel, according to Crunchbase data. Of that investment amount, around 51% were led or co-led by U.S.-based investors. Many Israeli tech companies have a dual presence in the U.S. and strong connections with American investors, some of whom have worked to support their portfolio companies based in the country.”
Importantly, these startup workers are far from “innocent civilians”, but rather, “Lior Simon, general partner at Cyberstarts in Israel, told Crunchbase News many founders and tech employees — both within her firm’s portfolio and beyond — are part of Israel’s elite intelligence units and combat units and were called up for reserve duty as recent events unfolded… Simon also said Israel’s tech expertise has proven invaluable as volunteers developed innovative solutions within 24 hours, including facial recognition technologies to aid national search efforts and a logistics platform for collecting military equipment.”
So essentially what has been happening all along is the transfer of billions of dollars into Israeli intelligence and military under the guise of venture capital. The article highlights the immediate complicity of American venture capital in the active genocide of the Palestinian people. Israeli startups, and their venture capitalist collaborators, are all mobilizing to further genocide as we speak:
“Staff at Boston-based Battery Ventures, which employs about 10 people in Tel Aviv, helped evacuate people from areas near the border and delivered food, a spokesperson for the firm told The Information.” I must emphasize that this “aid” is going to those responsible for the active genocide of the Palestinian people, with Al Jazeera reporting yesterday “About half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million is under 18.”
Fascist venture capitalists associated with Andreessen Horowitz and Pronomos Capital, and obsessed with starting their own sovereign state, have long held Israel as a model for the creation of their own sovereign state. This is most clearly documented in the book, the Network State, from Andreessen Horowitz and Pronomos Capital venture capitalists. The book is a blueprint for how venture capital can create its own nation, by building sovereign cities in Africa and Central America, and uniting them in a new, distributed state.
It repeatedly cites Israel as an inspiration, going so far as to say “Herzl’s work is a major inspiration for this book” and referring to the desired venture capital state as a “distributed Zion”. The book finds a kindred spirit to the violent establishment of their own state, praising Israel’s achievements: “Their status as a nation state changed with time. The Jewish people were once a stateless nation, a diaspora group united by common ancestry and tradition without a land or government to call their own. Then, within living memory, they founded the state of Israel.” The book cites Christopher Columbus and the British Empire as additional inspirations.
It is important to recognize that the venture fascist relationship and affinity stems from the desire of venture capital to emulate Israel, in militarization, in violently establishing its own state, killing the people who actually own the land, and maintaining a fascistic military rule, eventually leading to genocide. To venture capitalists, genocide is a natural part of pushing forward human, technological and economic advancement, and something that they look up to, support, etc.
The enormity of this situation is so great, and we are in such shock, and have limited information as of now, that this post will only serve as an initial treatment. Of course, military intelligence Israeli startup Toka, backed by Silicon Valley venture fascists a16z, is likely being used; the startup’s leadership again including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Elon Musk’s move with Tesla, announcing free charging for Tesla vehicles in Israel, is a highly visible show of support from the venture fascists. And particularly concerning as these pro-Israel venture fascists own Twitter now; one of the other, if less heralded, purchasers was Andreessen Horowitz, with strong relationships to Israel. We have a pro-genocide venture fascist leadership running the most important piece of global communications infrastructure for social uprising and unrest, for human emergency, at this darkest hour.
Venture fascists additionally have a number of weapons startups, chief among them Anduril and Palantir, all of which brag of large scale death using AI, drones and surveillance. I am deeply concerned, and believe, that venture fascist weapons systems may be used in the ongoing genocide, and that further, this will be used to justify a militarization that began long ago, and to forward the aggressive war agenda and weapons startups build-out, happening now, with weapons startups including Toka, Hadrian, Mach Industries, Skydio, ShieldAI, Epirus, Palantir, Anduril, and joining them from stealth in the past few weeks is Castelion, also funded by a16z, building long-range strike hypersonic weapons. (More in this post on the boom of venture-fascist backed lethal weapons startups). ShieldAI, funded by a16z, creates battlefield autonomous drone swarms and aircraft systems; its Nova 2 drone was “named by joint US and Israeli forces as the ‘Most Mission Capable Indoor Drone’ in the world,” designed for large buildings and subterranean structures. “As Nova 2 autonomously clears, people are detected and auto-populated on a map while vibration notifications alert the user. In real time, Nova 2 builds 3D multi-story maps, providing an unrivaled common operating picture of the battlefield.”
The Ukraine war, as well as the new massive escalation of genocidal war against Palestine, is a huge boon to the weapons agenda of venture fascists. In Ukraine, Palantir, Anduril, Skydio and Starlink have all been used and negotiated directly with the government there.
Palmer Luckey, the general of the venture fascist military as founder and CEO of Anduril, has used this most somber occasion to remind everyone of a 2022 video of him speaking at a startup conference, the theme being that Silicon Valley has neglected national security (weapons startups), putting us all in danger; the title of the talk being “Current Year is Too Late to Care About Current Thing”, and the October 9th tweet “Now is a good time to reflect on why Current Year is Too Late to care about Current Thing.”
In the linked talk, Palmer Luckey states: “For issues like defense and national security, the stakes are too high, and the relevant timelines far too long, for people to start caring about things at the moment that they need to start caring about them.” This is an early example of the opportunism that we will see, as the top war hawks from venture capital seize on this horror to pat themselves on the back for their vision and promote their technology war agendas. As if a bet on war was ever the underdog. This instance is particularly concerning as, even beyond Palmer Luckey’s absurd ego, it suggests pretty plainly that this was somehow the result of lack of military development or competitiveness or modernization with venture fascist technology — indeed, several users asked Luckey about the military tech failures of Israel following up on the statement; when in reality, Israel’s military is giant, incredibly well funded, overwhelming totally and utterly, without question, Palestine. The opportunism is abhorrent.
Update: At a WSJ business conference event on October 16th, the CEO of Anduril stated: “Israel has my unqualified support. They have the support of Anduril in a moral sense. I obviously can’t talk about what we’re doing over there specifically. That’d be a question for a different day.” I feel like “what we’re doing over there specifically” implies that there is, in fact something being done over there, specifically, in the first place. If this is indeed the case, this is a direct example of AI being used to kill children in a genocide. Indeed, a recent article from the Intercept discusses the relative secrecy blanketing arms usage and dealing to Israel,
“Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance flows to Israel “on a near-daily basis,” he continued, “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.””
Consider that in May 2021, horrific Israeli aggression against Palestine was called “the first AI war”, with widespread usage of these technologies. This is a full year and a half prior to the launch of ChatGPT, and far after Palantir, with offices in Tel Aviv, was using AI technologies for its sick creepy shit of various kinds. Quote from the IDF on the 2021 assault:
““For the first time, artificial intelligence was a key component and power multiplier in fighting the enemy,” an IDF Intelligence Corps senior officer said. “This is a first-of-its-kind campaign for the IDF. We implemented new methods of operation and used technological developments that were a force multiplier for the entire IDF.””
Venture fascists have showed overwhelming support for the ongoing genocide and mass murder of children. The head of Lux Capital, one of the producers of weapons startups, has called the Palestinians under genocide “savage animals”: “Shame disgrace condemnation on these savage animals and any who support them celebrating this inhumanity. The Palestinian people are held hostage by Hamas and Iranian backed terrorists.” A venture capitalist from Sequoia, in firm support of the genocide, has called the Palestinians “barbarians at the gate”: “Just so you understand why Israelis have been so vigilant in the past… … it was living with knowledge that there were barbarians at the gates To those of you that criticized even the tiniest missteps, where are you now?” This comment can not be divorced from the focus on lethal borders in the creation of the venture capital military, with the Elbit/Anduril collaboration at the US/Mexico border being a major launching pad and opener to the military agenda. The same venture capitalist has also used the opportunity to promote the venture capital weapons agenda, and using a popular VC talking point, stating “A weak America leads to a chaotic world.” This echoes Palmer’s implication that this is somehow related to a lack of weapons startups that they directly benefit from. An opportunistic and disgusting stance. A venture fascist from Founder’s Fund has been busy stoking the genocide as well, agitating for the US to declare war on Palestine, asking, “Why is a foreign ‘government’ killing at least 22 Americans not an Act of War against the US too?” The same venture fascist quote-tweeted an “academic”, “Even amidst this horrific travesty, Israeli security services maintain their ethics and morality” with a pointed “Exactly”, as Israelis opened full genocidal attack on the children of Palestine. Andreessen Horowitz and YCombinator venture capitalists have been rabidly sharing pro-Israel propaganda, many via cowardly RTing of disgusting pro-genocide commentary.
Update: Palantir, funded by Founder’s Fund and the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, ran a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times on 10/15/23, saying “Palantir Stands with Israel”, as the massacre of children in Palestine continued. Palantir, an AI weapons and intelligence company, has had a long-lasting relationship with Israel, and has long had offices there. We can confidently assume their weapons tech is being used to forward this genocide.
It must be stated here that venture capitalists wield, via economic power and power over funding and employment, as well as control of the media landscape, an incredible amount of power over the workers of the technology field; their support of the genocide will only further push these workers to the right, and support the further creation of a violently radicalized, right-wing and increasingly fascist “worker” body. They are using this not to call for peace, but to dehumanize, radicalize, raise money, and push war and fascism.
Clearly, the theatre of war is a boon for fascist venture capitalists, as they use this to instigate for more weapons and wars, which means returns on their investments in weapons startups, and to continue to build diplomatic alliances with rogue states that they believe will bolster their own claims of sovereignty, of diplomatic recognition, and of the growth of venture capital into a global fascist financial power, and the transition to venture-class economies, and the exchange of venture funding between itself and Israel and other rogue states. Palmer Luckey himself has guilelessly stated the true motivation of the venture fascist military build-out,
“With global tensions rising over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s desire to claim Taiwan, Luckey sees opportunity for Anduril as Silicon Valley cozies up to the idea of war. ‘Everyone who cares about Ukraine is also watching Taiwan, because they know that Taiwan going south is an actual existential threat to many of their investments,’ he said. ‘And so I think you’re seeing a lot of hawkishness on the part of venture capitalists, that is largely tied to their investment in companies that cannot survive if Taiwan either shuts down temporarily their semiconductor industry, or permanently has it burned to the ground or something like that.’”
Emphasis my own. Returns are the primary propulsive effort of the venture fascist military build out and engagement. Money.
In Ukraine, an article in El Monde from January 2023 highlights how the war has promoted the development of a venture capital / tech economy: “Many of the oligarchs who had topped the rankings since the country's independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, have been replaced for the first time by tech entrepreneurs, who now occupy seven of the top 20 places.” In this case we see how conflict regions are proving fertile ground for the transformation into venture capital economy — I.e., one that financially benefits the venture capital and tech classes.
To this point, we must highlight the particularly disgusting response to the genocide of Palestinians, comments by the dictator and human rights abuser, Bukele of El Salvador, who has welcomed venture capital colonial takeover, installing venture capitalists in the government and turning over land and resources to them, forcing the venture capital economic system on the country, and has detained and locked up over 77,000 people without due process, in order to “clean up” for the foreign tech and venture class he courts. This bloodthirsty monster of course revels in the genocide, and sees a mirror to them in his own fascist attacks on his people: “As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I'm sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians. Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause would make a great mistake siding with those criminals. It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality. The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers, and let the good people thrive. Palestinians should do the same: get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive. That's the only way forward.”
Typically couched in cowardice, this is an obvious call to genocide, with the genocidal trope and propagandas of “savage beasts” and “animals”, language of “completely disappear” and “get rid of these animals”.
This is the country in the most advanced stage of venture capital takeover, and it is no coincidence that we find its fascist dictator, its fascist collaborator leader, frothing at the mouth for blood. Rather, this is the ONLY result of the venture fascist economy and drive.
I deeply fear and condemn what is sure to be the additional fusing and collaboration between fascist venture capital and Israel in the coming weeks and months and years; in the form of weapons support, in my opinion nearly guaranteed, financial exchange, creation of venture funds and venture startups, particularly weapons, border tech and surveillance/“cyber security”, delegation and increased and perhaps more formalized relations between tech elite and Israel, and increasing exchange of executive talent between IDF / Mossad leaders with the venture fascist apparatus.
The primary thing that venture fascists have to fear with their imperial expansion, militarization and ongoing establishment of literal sovereign cities and zones in Nigeria, among other target sites in Africa, Honduras, El Salvador, the Mediterranean and Palau, among others, and with more sure to come as the venture capital louse feeds on the blood of children, war crime and human rights abuse — the primary thing that venture fascists have to fear is the rightful sovereignty of the states and peoples it is invading, exploiting and subjugating. In these areas, as colonizers, imperialists, and invaders, they face the same challenge as Israel: subjugating and getting rid of the people it is invading and exploiting.
While the relationship of venture fascists with Israel here has long been a matter of human rights crisis, there is good reason to believe that recent events will be a massive acceleration of the relationship between venture fascists and the genocidal Israel, that this relationship is already being leveraged into this act of genocide, and will be a key site that we must resist the material machinations of these death dealers.
This calls us once more, to take a materialist view of venture capital’s growth as a fascist power, and not content ourselves with philosophical banter about the nature of AI, as it is being used actively in war zones to commit atrocities against children, as it has been on the US/Mexico border this whole time.
Palestine forever. May their genocidists and its collaborators meet only justice, defeat and humiliation.