2024-04-11 15:22:41
Since their thunderous revelations last week on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, Israeli-Palestinian media +972 Magazine et Local Call have seen their daily lives change. “We have never received so much attention. Even the White House and the Secretary General of the United Nations reacted in less than forty-eight hours, boasts their co-founder, Israeli journalist Haggai Matar. This shows that we are counting on the path that leads to the end of the war. »
This investigation describes the existence of “Lavender”, a program developed and used by the IDF to identify targets in the Gaza Strip using AI. All with “little human supervision” et “a permissive policy regarding human losses”, specifies its author, Israeli reporter Yuval Abraham.
“But our revelations sparked diametrically opposed reactions on our two sites: on +972, English, traffic exploded and we were inundated with requests; on Local Call, in Hebrew, there were almost no repeats”, notes without surprise Haggai Matar, met in his house in south Tel Aviv.
“October 7 is not the start of a conflict”
Because composed of Israeli and Palestinian journalists, +972 and Local Call are UFOs in the media landscape. “We live on both sides, which allows us to ask questions that others don’t ask, he explains, while giving his newborn a bottle. We continue to denounce the apartheid regime and to contextualize, to remember that October 7 is not the start of a conflict but an almost predictable development. »
This discourse contrasts radically with that of other newspapers and television stations, on which Haggai Matar takes an uncompromising view. “Apart from the daily Haaretz, the best known abroad but very little read in Israel, all the media put themselves at the service of national morality, support for the troops and the war effort. » Values at odds with those of the journalist, a figure of local activism, who spent two years in prison for conscientious objection during the second intifada (2000-2005). “For six months, no media has shown what is happening in Gaza. They ignore the Palestinians or only talk about them when violence affects Israelis, or when Joe Biden increases international pressure. »
The editorial staff still cannot believe that the investigation passed through the caudal forks of military censorship, to which each article is necessarily subject. Since the start of the war, he reveals, around 600 articles have been completely censored, and several thousand redacted. Out of proportion to the 100 to 300 rejected on average in previous years. “Either the military doesn’t see the problem or they see this as good press. What we write is shocking to many, but all it takes is for a military purchasing manager in Saudi Arabia or India to believe that Lavender is worth it for the program to be exported… the journalist advances, worried. This is only the beginning of the military use of artificial intelligence. And in some time, many people will understand that in this matter, Israel is experimenting on the Palestinians. »
“More and more sources and whistleblowers”
The revelations about Lavender follow a article published by +972 in November 2023 in which a former Israeli intelligence officer claimed, on condition of anonymity, that AI was transforming into “a factory of mass murder”. Since then, a virtuous circle has been set in motion. “More and more sources and whistleblowers are contacting us, note Haggai Matar. They appreciate our precision and say: “What you wrote is nothing compared to what I’m going to tell you.” » This time, six Israeli intelligence officers helped break the story.
Faced with the scale of the investigation, how can we not worry about the security of the editorial staff? “Our first fear is for our journalists still in Gaza. There have never been so many reporters killed in years there. We can clearly see who is being targeted. One of them lost his entire family, he explains, revolted by this war behind closed doors. In the West Bank, settlers and the army read our articles and are increasingly dangerous. And in Israel, we pay attention. We’re not at the point where we have to have bodyguards, but we’re ready if we have to. »
In the very right-wing neighborhood where he lives, Haggai Matar has not always been reassured. In the first weeks of the war, the anxiety came primarily from the rockets falling in the neighborhood. “We have no shelter at home. It was terrifying,” he remembers. “Then the house of a journalist friend was attacked by a far-right gang. There, I told myself that they could very well set fire to the shed in the garden, kill my cats… And then things calmed down. It’s hard to see the nuances of fear when you live here. When are we in danger or safe? I’m less worried now. But it can come back, he admits, putting down the bottle, his baby in his arms. The problem is more global: how to raise your children in a constantly dangerous country and in such a nationalist society? Several friends and family members have already made the choice to leave. »
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A small team of journalists in Israel and Palestine
Né and 2010, +972 is the only Israeli-Palestinian editorial team in the country, led since September 2023 by editor-in-chief Ghousoon Bisharat, a Palestinian from Nazareth previously working for Al-Jazeera, Sky News and ABC.
The independent English-speaking media +972, which owes its name to the telephone code of Israel, and its Hebrew counterpart, Local Call, each have four editors, six editors and dozens of regular contributors based in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip.
To date, two journalists from the Gaza Strip have left the enclave and two are in the process of being so. He will then remain a regular contributor on site.
The author of the Lavender investigation, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, was awarded at the beginning of March at the Berlin Film Festival, for No Other Land, a documentary made with Palestinians Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, on forced evictions and the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israel in the occupied West Bank.
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