The Ethos of Semitism and its Generative Influence on the US Military AI Industry

The ethos of Semitism:

Do you want to live in their narrative?

Netanyahu expressed the ethos of Semitism when, while announcing the start of Israel's genocide of Palestinians in November 2023, he alluded to the Jewish story of the Amalekites (quoted from NPR):

NETANYAHU: (Through interpreter) You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.

FADEL: Speaking Hebrew, he's comparing Hamas to the nation of Amalek in a passage from the Book of Samuel. That passage says to smite the Amalekites after the nation launched a vicious surprise attack on the Jewish people. Motti Inbari is a professor of religion at the University of North Carolina, Pembroke.

MOTTI INBARI: The biblical commandment is to completely destroy all of Amalek. And when I'm talking about completely destroy, we're talking about killing each and every one of them - including babies, including their property, including the animals - everything.

Judaism is a religion (a narrative) and Jews are a "race" (a human community that through bloodline genealogy distinguishes itself from other communities); in Netanyahu's announcement religion and "race" are conflated, making Judaism a racist religion. He claims, by the authority of the religious narrative, his "race" is granted the same license to commit genocide that his ancestors did. By extension, Netanyahu's deity is a racist, which is no big surprise since all deities are human inventions constituted by collective projections of fear and desire.

The ethos of Semitism is, then, the ethos of a "race" that presumes a "sacred" right to commit genocide, and then goes ahead and commits it.

The generative influence of the ethos of Semitism on the emergent US military AI industry:

I have written a short history of how this ethos was and is used by non-Jewish settler colonists to sanctify genocide, using Harvard's witch-hunting Increase Mather as North America's perfect example. In 1676, he fomented the genocide of the Wampanoags by asserting that:

"we finde that the second Generation, of them who came out of Egypt whilst yet in the Wilderness having also a difficult undertaking before them, being to engage with their Heathen Enemies, and in other respects their state and case to be parallel with ours, they did most solemnly renew their covenant with God.

when the Canaanites fought against Israel, and took some of them Prisoners (just as it is with us) and Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites, Numb. 21.1,2,3."

We are enduring a replay of the use of the Hebrew Bible narrative—Netanyahu's Amakelites—to sacralize Israel's and the USA's joint genocide of Palestinians. This replay involves not just that genocide but also destruction our educational system, the norms and institutional of international law, the UN, and our checks-and balances democracy.

For the ethos of Semitism is the binary opposite of the ethos of the American Creed, which is based on the multicultural ethos, and natural law, of human equality. Fascism prevails over liberalism, in short, as a result.

As the ethos of Semitism prevails in this "culture war", we experience the life that Netanyahu returns us to: one of constant racist violence, of an unending state of war of all against all, and of a patriarchal, theocratic, unreasonable, unjust, dumb, authoritarian governance of might is right.

And so, the Tech Bros that sucked up to Trump are perfectly positioned to have the US government pay them to replace a human military with an AI military. A thorough dehumanization on a global level is already underway, and tech titans are eager to increase their incomes by accelerating it—none so obviously as Mark Zuckerberg whose social media platforms are used to surveil and, with the collaboration of the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency, control mass populations and repress liberal attempts to restore democratic norms.

Democracy and peace are the last things the Tech Bros are interested in; what they want is for all social discourse, political expression, economic activity and now military weapon systems to be forced into their privately-owned digital domains, where they can control everything and charge whatever they want; from MSNBC News:

"Under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta is plunging headfirst into the world of military technology. Literally.

Last month, in a joint statement, the social media and technology giant announced it’s working with defense contractor Anduril to develop virtual reality devices that will deploy artificial intelligence to train military service members." The Wall Street Journal reports that:

"The system, called EagleEye, will carry sensors that enhance soldiers’ hearing and vision — detecting drones flying miles away or sighting hidden targets, for instance. It will also let soldiers operate and interact with AI-powered weapon systems. Anduril’s autonomy software and Meta’s AI models will underpin the devices." Palmer Luckey is the "genius" behind Anduril and brother in law of Matt Gaetz, the famously corrupt Republican congressman who "paid for sex—including with a 17-year-old—and abused illegal drugs during his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives".

Luckey provides a perfect example of how the ethos of Semitism generates the goals and technology of today's US military:

"Luckey, founder of the defense tech company Anduril Industries, rejected the “lockstep narrative” presented by the media that he is “racist” or “sexist,” pointing toward his strong support for Israel as an example of his support for minority groups. 

“I’m actually a radical Zionist,” Luckey said. 

When asked by Ryan to elaborate on what he meant, Luckey explained that Jews have the right to maintain a state for their own self-defense. He argued that the Holocaust proved the need for a Jewish state, and without it Jews are at risk of facing violence. 

“I strongly believe in the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. People are like, That’s so problematic, though. It’s so ethnostate adjacent.’ I said, ‘I don’t care,'” Luckey said. “After what happened to them in World War II, they deserve a place where they can do their own thing and protect their own people without getting wrecked by everybody else who hates them.”

Luckey does not care: if Israelis are racist or committing genocide. Carelessness is how he MAGA—and how our future is being constructed by savages like him who invent and deploy cutting edge technologies to kill us for profit while invoking the presence of their shared invention, a deity constructed of their own projected zionofascist fears and Matt Gaetzian desires.