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Zarah Sultana: Palantir has no place in UK public services

From ICE to Gaza, Palantir is complicit in violent US hegemony. Why do we keep giving it contracts?

Zarah Sultana: Palantir has no place in UK public services
Palantir is supporting violent US hegemony. It has no place in UK public services | Ina Fassbender / AFP via Getty Images
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Palantir is not a normal software company. It was founded with an explicit mission which remains at the heart of its operations today: to maintain US global domination.

We know exactly what that means. Endless wars. Drone strikes. A vast machinery of surveillance and occupation stretching from Afghanistan and Iraq to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. A world in which Washington’s military reach grows ever longer, and the UK prime minister increasingly behaves less like an ally and more like a compliant poodle, nodding along to whatever the White House demands.

On an investor call last February, Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, said he was “super proud” of what his company does. Perhaps he was referring to Palantir’s role in enabling ICE to target migrant communities and tear families apart. Or perhaps he meant reports that its technology has allegedly helped the Israeli military generate “kill lists” – a practice condemned by human-rights organisations for contributing to the mass civilian casualties we are witnessing in Gaza.