엡스타인의 비서, 이스라엘 전 총리에게 팔란티어 50% 할인된 가격으로 내부자거래 제안
Epstein advised former Israeli PM Ehud Barak to 'look at' Palantir
Convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein advised former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to look into working with controversial tech company Palantir, according to audio released by the US Department of Justice.
In a recording of a discussion between the two men, which reportedly took place in February 2013, Epstein refers to an unnamed third person suggesting there were "two cyber companies" to "look at".
"I've never met Peter Thiel. And everybody says he sort of jumps around and acts really strange, like he's on drugs," Epstein tells Barak of the co-founder of Palantir, with the former Israeli prime minister agreeing.
"However, he has a company called Palantir... so he thought that Peter would put you on the board of Palantir... he's going to come here next week so I wanted to talk to him, if I talk to you."
Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019. Thousands of the late financier's emails have been released amid congressional pressure. Some have exposed correspondence that appears to show him working as a private diplomat and intelligence fixer for a range of political figures.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Barak, who was prime minister between 1999 and 2001, partnered with Epstein in 2015 - long after he was first convicted as a sex offender - to fund Reporty Homeland Security, a startup chaired by Barak and now renamed Carbyne.
Despite downplaying his relationship with Epstein in a roundtable discussion with the New York Times last month, Ehud Barak's name brings up 4,078 results in the Epstein files.
In December 2016, Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, forwarded a message from David Fiszel, a hedge fund manager, who says that a meeting Palantir had with US President-elect Donald Trump was "Huge for the company".
Kahn tells Epstein that Fiszel can get him shares in the tech company at what "seems like" a 50 percent discount.
Palantir and Israel
Palantir, which specialises in AI-powered military and surveillance technology, would open a headquarters in Tel Aviv in 2015 and has played a vital role in many of Israel's military operations in the occupied territories and neighbouring states.
Both Thiel and the company have been outspoken in their support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, announcing in a letter to shareholders a month after the war began in October 2023 that they were "one of a few companies in the world to stand up and announce our support for Israel, which remains steadfast."
According to writer Michael Steinberger, Israel deepened its use of the company’s technology after it launched the war on Gaza in October 2023, deploying it in numerous operations.
A report produced by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese last July said there "are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scaled-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision making".
Palantir software was used by Israel in its 2024 pager attacks in Lebanon, according to a book by Alex Karp, another co-founder of the company.
On 17 September 2024, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah members, including civilians not involved in any armed activity, were detonated across Lebanon.
Many showed “error” messages and vibrated loudly prior to exploding, luring Hezbollah members or, in some cases, their family members to stand close by at the point of detonation.
The next day more communication devices exploded, including at public funerals of Hezbollah members and civilians who had been killed the previous day.
While many Israeli figures celebrated, praised and even joked about the attacks, United Nations experts called them a “terrifying” violation of international law.
Comments
Post a Comment