分类： politics

Palantir Technologies, the U.S.-based data surveillance firm long mired in controversy over its ties to human rights violations in occupied Palestinian territories, has secured more than £670 million in public sector contracts across the United Kingdom’s civilian and defence industries since 2020, triggering fierce debate over both ethical accountability and national security risks from lawmakers and advocacy groups.

The largest of these agreements include a £330 million data platform contract with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), a £240 million military AI deal with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and a £15 million contract linked to Britain’s national nuclear deterrent programme. Transparency advocates have documented at least 34 additional Palantir contracts across UK public sectors, including law enforcement, child social care, refugee resettlement initiatives, and environmental management, with many details of the agreements undisclosed to the public.

International scrutiny of Palantir’s activities intensified after the company announced a partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Defence in January 2024 to deploy its technology for “war-related missions” in Gaza, where Israeli drone strikes using targeted technology have killed hundreds of civilian non-combatants, including journalists and humanitarian aid workers. When confronted with accusations that his company’s tools facilitated the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza earlier this year, Palantir CEO Alex Karp publicly responded, “mostly terrorists, that’s true”.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese concluded that Karp’s comment confirms the company has “executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-a-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel” in occupied Palestinian territories. Separately, the U.S. Pentagon has launched an investigation into whether Palantir’s AI-powered targeting system Maven was involved in a February U.S. double-tap missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed more than 170 people, the majority of whom were children.

Human rights campaigners have condemned Palantir’s expanding footprint in UK public life. “Palantir’s software has been used to support Israel’s ongoing genocide and apartheid in occupied Gaza… a company profiting from human rights abuses should have no place in British public services, including in our NHS,” said Kristyan Benedict, crisis response manager at Amnesty International UK. “The contracts should be terminated and replaced with providers that are not contributing to genocide, apartheid and other international crimes.”

Beyond its role in the Middle East conflict, Palantir has faced repeated criticism for its extreme ideological positioning. In a 22-point public manifesto outlining the company’s core goals, Palantir was widely condemned for promoting ethnic supremacist rhetoric, claiming that “Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive” and asserting “No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than [the US]”. The manifesto also openly embraced the development of AI-powered autonomous weapons.

Founded by right-wing U.S. tech billionaire Peter Thiel, with initial partial funding from the Central Intelligence Agency, Palantir is deeply tied to far-right U.S. political networks. Thiel, who once famously declared “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, is a top donor to the Republican Party and hosted a lavish celebration for Donald Trump’s 2025 presidential inauguration at his Washington D.C. home, attended by Vice President JD Vance and leading tech CEOs including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Recent leaked documents have also exposed Thiel’s secretive annual “Dialog” retreats for 200 of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful figures, which have hosted panels on cult-building, extreme political preparation for World War III, and exploitative gender dynamics.

Newly unsealed records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation have also revealed unreported historical ties between Palantir’s leadership and the convicted sex offender. Epstein was the one who first introduced former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Thiel in 2013 and advised Barak to invest in or partner with Palantir. The records also confirm close ties between Epstein and disgraced former British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, whose lobbying firm Global Counsel has long counted Palantir as a key client. Mandelson accompanied UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on a visit to Palantir’s Washington D.C. headquarters in February 2025, and no meeting minutes have been released to the public, despite repeated Freedom of Information requests from independent media outlets including Middle East Eye.

Just months after the Washington visit, in December 2025, Palantir secured its £240 million no-bid strategic partnership with the MoD to “boost military AI” and develop an integrated battlefield “kill chain” to improve attack lethality, a deal three times larger than a 2022 contract for similar work. When questioned about the non-disclosure of the 2025 Palantir briefing, Starmer described it as a “routine meeting”, while Mandelson called the subsequent US-UK Technology Prosperity Deal that included the Palantir partnership “my personal pride and joy”.

Critics warn that Palantir’s penetration of the UK’s most sensitive national security systems, including its nuclear deterrent programme, creates unacceptable risks for the country, particularly given the UK government’s ongoing intelligence and military support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “The British government is already deeply complicit in the genocide in Gaza. In making public services dependent on Palantir’s proprietary technology, successive UK governments will be less able to break free from this sordid company, and from its alignment with US foreign policy and militarism more broadly,” said Sam Perlo-Freedman, research coordinator at the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT). “The willingness of the British government to embrace Palantir shows their prioritisation of the interests of the arms industry, and of corporate power more generally.”

In a statement to Middle East Eye, an MoD spokesperson defended the contracting process, saying, “There are robust processes in place to ensure government contracts are awarded fairly and transparently, including for the direct award of contracts. Commercial decisions are a matter for individual departments made based on their individual needs.” Palantir UK CEO Louis Mosley has maintained that none of the Israeli military systems publicly reported to be conducting targeting operations in Gaza use Palantir software, though he has acknowledged the company does supply software to the Israeli military.

One of the most contentious of Palantir’s UK contracts is its 2023 £330 million agreement to build a centralised patient data platform for NHS England, which is up for renewal in 2027. Thiel has a long history of open hostility to the UK’s public health system, once saying the NHS “makes people sick” and describing British public support for the service as “Stockholm syndrome”. In early June 2025, cross-party MPs on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee called on the government to exercise the 2027 break clause in the contract and replace Palantir with an in-house UK-developed alternative, warning that growing public sector reliance on Palantir creates an “unacceptable point of weakness” that could leave critical services “at the mercy” of foreign actors.

Palantir first secured its foothold in the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it offered a struggling, cash-poor NHS an initial £1 contract to test its technology. Then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock used special ministerial powers to bypass national patient confidentiality rules to allow Palantir to process patient data. A 2023 report from the National Audit Office highlighted that the government’s chief commercial officer warned Palantir’s low-cost initial offer to gain a market foothold violated public procurement rules requiring open competition.

Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at UK tech campaign group Foxglove, described this as a deliberate “land and expand” strategy, similar to a free-trial subscription model that locks public bodies into long-term reliance on Palantir’s services and allows the company to raise prices over time. “This might seem like a good deal, but with Big Tech there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Campbell said. The strategy has already been called into question over a lobbying scandal: earlier this year, the Department for Health and Social Care’s permanent secretary Samantha Jones was forced to apologise for failing to declare past consultancy work with a Palantir partner firm while overseeing the awarding of the NHS contract. A DHSC spokesperson said Jones had no involvement in the contracting process and stepped down from all private sector roles before taking her position. NHS England maintains the contract was awarded through a “rigorous, competitive” tender process.

Mosley has accused critics of prioritising “ideology over patient safety”, but multiple NHS hospital trusts have rejected Palantir’s technology, saying it would reduce rather than improve digital functionality. Campbell argues the ideological alignment of the company cannot be separated from the contract. “Ultimately, if Palantir is embedded across our vital public services, and the UK’s defence and security, and one day Trump decides he wants to exert some pressure by threatening to pull the plug, who are they going to listen to?”

Concerns have also been raised over unregulated cross-sector data sharing between Palantir’s civilian and military systems. The company recently signed a $30 million contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and independent tech outlet 404 Media uncovered that Palantir is developing a tool called “Elite” that pulls data from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services records to locate undocumented people for deportation. The Doctors’ Association UK has warned that Palantir’s NHS data platform Foundry could be linked to Gotham, Palantir’s military-grade targeting software, creating unacceptable risks for patient confidentiality.

Palantir’s growing presence extends to UK local government as well. In May 2025, Labour-run Coventry City Council renewed a £750,000 contract for Palantir to provide AI tools to summarise social worker notes for children’s services, despite opposition from councillors and trade unions who raised “serious ethical questions” about the partnership. A council spokesperson said the decision followed a “comprehensive strategic review” and that “strong safeguards are in place” to protect resident data, with no automated decision-making about individual cases.

Financial questions have also been raised about the cost of Palantir’s contracts to UK taxpayers. Palantir initially provided its services for the UK government’s Homes for Ukraine refugee hosting programme for free for six months, before securing subsequent 12-month contracts that rose from £4.5 million to £5.5 million year-over-year. In 2026, a UK government department confirmed it saved millions of pounds after replacing Palantir’s system with an in-house built alternative. Additionally, Palantir paid an effective tax rate of just 8% on its £25.3 million in pre-tax UK profits in 2024, far below the 25% statutory rate for large businesses.

In law enforcement, London Mayor Sadiq Khan initially blocked a proposed £50 million Metropolitan Police contract with Palantir in May 2025, citing clear, serious violations of procurement rules and noting the deal failed to demonstrate value for money, as well as his own “concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values”. But Khan reversed his decision after Palantir launched legal action against the veto, approving a 12-month pilot project with an option for extension. A 2025 investigation by Liberty Investigates found that a Palantir contract with East of England police forces will build a mass surveillance network that pulls together sensitive personal data including citizens’ political opinions, religious beliefs, health records, trade union membership, sexual orientation, and race. When the Good Law Project, a UK legal advocacy and campaign group, sent freedom of information requests to all 45 UK police forces, three quarters refused to confirm or deny whether they hold a contract with Palantir, deepening transparency concerns.

Multiple human rights and open government advocates warn that Palantir’s expanding UK surveillance operations pose a fundamental threat to civil liberties, particularly amid the rise of far-right political forces in the UK. “A world where all the governments want hyper surveillance is a world where Palantir is super profitable,” said Duncan McCann, head of tech and data at the Good Law Project. McCann noted that the core risk is not that Palantir will sell public data, but that it enables governments to use mass surveillance for authoritarian ends, a dynamic that is particularly dangerous as the far-right Reform Party pushes for mass deportation programmes. “Ultimately, surveillance works well with the new far right, and it works really well for Palantir, and that is why they seem such great bedfellows. This is why it has evolved into a firm which is turbocharging fascism and authoritarianism.”

For 15 years of leadership under Kim Jong Un, one secret has remained among the most tightly guarded in the isolated authoritarian state: the public identity of his mother. Within North Korea’s ruling ideology, the legitimacy of the Kim family’s dynastic rule hinges entirely on the mythologized “Mount Paektu bloodline”—a lineage tied to Dangun, the legendary founder of the Korean people, and cultivated for decades to frame the Kims as inherently entitled to power. But the truth of Kim Jong Un’s maternal heritage directly undermines this foundational narrative, making his mother’s identity not just a state secret, but a potential existential threat to the regime.

Mount Paektu, the volcanic peak straddling the China-North Korea border, has long been central to the Kim dynasty’s legitimacy-building. Myth holds it is the birthplace of Dangun, founder of Korea’s first ancient kingdom. Centuries later, North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung framed the mountain as his guerrilla hideout during Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula, while his son and successor Kim Jong Il was officially proclaimed to have been born on the mountain’s sacred slopes—despite widespread evidence of his actual birth in the Soviet Union. As former exiled North Korean diplomat Ryu Hyun-woo noted in his book *Kim Jong Un’s Secret Vault*, Kim Jong Un’s rise to power as an untested man in his 20s was enabled solely by this carefully constructed Paektu bloodline narrative.

The reality of Kim’s maternal origins tells a far different story. Historians and biographers have documented that Kim Jong Un’s mother, Ko Yong Hui, was born in 1952 in Osaka, Japan, to ethnic Korean parents originally from Jeju Island, off the southern coast of modern-day South Korea. Ko’s family were Zainichi Koreans—ethnic Koreans who resided in Japan during its 1910–1945 colonial rule of Korea. When Ko was around 10 years old, her family joined an estimated 93,000 Zainichi Koreans who resettled in North Korea between 1959 and 1984, lured by state promises of free healthcare, education, and stable employment.

While early Zainichi migrants were initially envied for the cash, clothing, and appliances they brought from Japan, they were quickly labeled “jjaepo”—a derogatory term for people deemed contaminated by foreign capitalist ideologies. Under North Korea’s strict hierarchical social classification system called songbun, jjaepo fall into the “wavering class,” positioned between the regime’s trusted core class and the marginalized hostile class. They face constant state surveillance and are routinely barred from elite universities and high-level government positions. This stands in stark contradiction to the regime’s narrative of pure, sacred Paektu bloodline. “The [regime’s] Paektu bloodline is seen as sacred,” explains Kim Hyung-su of the Northern Research Association. “So the idea of the leader being a jjaepo’s son is unimaginable.”

Unlike most Zainichi Korean migrants, Ko avoided the lower-caste fate of her community after catching the attention of Kim Jong Il, who was already being groomed as Kim Il Sung’s successor. At the time, Kim Jong Il was already in an arranged political marriage to Kim Young Sook, daughter of a high-ranking military official, and had two other known mistresses. But Ko, a performer with the elite Mansudae Art Troupe, won Kim Jong Il’s attention through her natural beauty and dancing skill, according to Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi, who published a book on Ko in 2025. The pair went on to have three children together, though their relationship was never officially recognized by the North Korean regime.

Because children born outside of official wedlock carry severe social stigma in North Korea, Ko and her children were sequestered in the coastal town of Wonsan, 130 miles outside of Pyongyang, where Kim Jong Il’s official wife resided. Even so, Gomi notes Ko lived what he describes as a “Cinderella-like life” of elite privilege hidden from public view. Still, she was never publicly recognized as Kim Il Sung’s daughter-in-law, and the founding leader never appeared in public with Ko’s children. Dr. Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute notes that if Ko had won Kim Il Sung’s approval, photos of him with his grandchildren would have been widely distributed to the public.

After Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, Kim Jong Il took power, and Ko became the de facto first lady of North Korea. She accompanied Kim on military inspections, built close ties to his inner circle, and even was consulted on policy decisions before they were finalized, according to Kenji Fujimoto, Kim Jong Il’s former personal chef. A 2011 state documentary included footage of Ko joining Kim on local tours, but it never named her or disclosed her social background. The film was only screened for senior party officials in 2012 before it was leaked, spreading to ordinary citizens via smuggled USB drives. “As it spread… people’s curiosity about Ko Yong Hui skyrocketed, so the regime quickly recalled [the documentary],” Dr. Cheong explains, adding that her background could directly call the regime’s legitimacy into question. Ko died of breast cancer at a Paris hospital in 2004, and her death was never acknowledged or reported by North Korean state media.

The question of how Kim Jong Un, the second son of an unacknowledged mistress, ultimately inherited power begins with the elimination of other potential heirs. Kim Jong Il’s official wife only had daughters, who were barred from succession under the dynasty’s patriarchal norms. His first son with another mistress, Kim Jong Nam, was long considered a potential candidate until he fell out of favor: Gomi, who corresponded with Kim Jong Nam for years, notes that he openly questioned North Korea’s hereditary system and advocated for political reform, and gained a reputation for a jet-setting, party-focused lifestyle that included frequent trips to foreign casinos. After years in exile in Macau, Kim Jong Nam was assassinated with a lethal nerve agent at a Malaysian airport in 2017. Kim Jong Un’s older brother Kim Jong Chul was also ruled out, with former diplomat Ryu reporting that he was disqualified due to a severe opium addiction.

Ko, aware that her family would face peril if her son did not take power, actively pushed to position Kim Jong Un as the next heir on the advice of her own sister, according to journalist Anna Fifield in her book *The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un*. Kim Jong Un quickly became his father’s favorite, with analysts citing his strong leadership demeanor and competitive nature. Though he briefly studied in Switzerland as a teenager, he remained far more isolated from foreign influence than his older half-brother Kim Jong Nam. When Kim Jong Il died in 2011, 27-year-old Kim Jong Un secured his position as the third supreme leader of North Korea, and has since elevated his sister Kim Yo Jong to a senior role leading the country’s powerful propaganda department, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

Even after more than a decade in power, the secret of his mother’s origins continues to shape the North Korean leader’s public behavior. Analysts point to the fact that Kim Jong Un’s birthday has never been declared a national holiday, unlike the birthdays of his grandfather and father—drawing attention to his birth would inevitably raise uncomfortable questions about his mother and his childhood sequestration outside Pyongyang. Experts also argue that his decision to publicly introduce his wife Ri Sol Ju early in his rule was shaped by this secrecy: unlike Ko, Ri comes from an upper-middle class Pyongyang family with a solid songbun status, a former singer with an elite performance troupe who studied classical music in China, per South Korean intelligence.

“The sense of illegitimacy and resentment Kim Jong Un experienced because of his mother’s background paradoxically became a powerful motivation for him to publicly reveal his wife Ri Sol Ju and daughter Ju Ae at an early stage,” Gomi says, adding these public displays stem from a “perceived ‘deficiency’” surrounding Ko’s origins. For the North Korean regime, the risk of this secret coming to light is catastrophic. Ryu argues that if Ko’s Japanese-born Zainichi Korean origins became widely known to the North Korean public, “it would not only shake his legitimacy but also destabilise the hereditary system at its roots. It would have the impact of a nuclear bomb on North Korean society.”

Tensions in the Middle East reignited dramatically on Friday when former U.S. President Donald Trump announced the resumption of military strikes against Iranian targets, just days after the two sides reached a fragile ceasefire memorandum and hours after an alleged drone attack on a commercial cargo vessel in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz. The escalation comes as the U.S., Israel, and Lebanon signed a separate trilateral framework to de-escalate conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, raising urgent questions about whether regional ceasefire efforts can hold.

In recent months, successive public statements from U.S. President Donald Trump suggesting Syria take charge of addressing the Hezbollah issue have rekindled deep-seated anxiety in Lebanon over a potential return of Syrian military involvement to the country, even as Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his administration have repeatedly rejected any plans for armed intervention. Trump’s increasingly explicit framing of a Syrian role has also exposed apparent inconsistencies in the Biden administration’s earlier messaging, directly contradicting a previous categorical denial from U.S. Ambassador to Syria Tom Barrack, who dismissed claims Washington had pressured Damascus to deploy troops into Lebanon as “false and inaccurate.”

The most recent comments from Trump came during a June 21 interview with Fox News, where the U.S. leader expressed open disappointment with Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hezbollah, criticizing the operation for its widespread collateral damage. “They can’t do anything without knocking buildings down,” Trump told the outlet, adding “I’m close to giving it over to Syria.” Notably, Trump offered no additional context to clarify his use of the phrase “giving it over,” leaving observers uncertain whether he was referencing a full-scale Syrian military operation, regional political mediation, targeted pressure on Hezbollah, enhanced cross-border security coordination, or expanded cooperation with Lebanon’s central government. Even so, his remarks mark the latest in a string of public signals that the White House has actively explored assigning Damascus a formal role in managing the Lebanese armed group.

The discourse around a potential Syrian involvement first emerged in public view on March 17, when Reuters published a report claiming U.S. officials had encouraged Damascus to consider deploying military forces into eastern Lebanon to support efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Citing five anonymous sources with direct knowledge of the behind-the-scenes talks, the outlet noted that Syrian officials had already expressed reluctance to move forward with the proposal, warning that intervention could drag Syria into a wider regional conflict and reignite volatile sectarian tensions in both Syria and Lebanon. According to the report, the proposal was first raised during bilateral talks between U.S. and Syrian officials in 2025, before being revisited in late February, shortly after the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Within hours of the report’s publication, Barrack issued a forceful public rejection of the claims, writing on the social platform X that “Reporting regarding the United States encouraging Syria to send forces into Lebanon is false and inaccurate.”

Despite these denials, regional outlet Middle East Eye (MEE) subsequently reported that Sharaa held a meeting with leaders of Syrian armed factions shortly after the Reuters report to discuss the circulating claims. A Syrian source briefed on the gathering told MEE that “Those present agreed that Syria had neither the intention nor the desire to intervene militarily in Lebanon.” A separate senior Lebanese source also confirmed to MEE that Lebanese authorities in Beirut had received multiple formal reassurances that Damascus had no plans to deploy troops across the shared border. The outlet further reported that Syrian officials have begun coordinating with regional allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey to push back against U.S. pressure for intervention. A second senior Syrian source told MEE that to avoid directly complying with Washington’s demands, Sharaa has laid out a series of preconditions for any Syrian involvement that would be nearly impossible for the U.S. to meet.

Trump first floated the idea of a Syrian role in Lebanon publicly during a June 5 appearance on NBC’s *Meet the Press*, where he called for a more “surgical” campaign against Hezbollah and suggested Washington could either directly assist the effort or “recommend Syria” take the lead. “We can help them with that, or we can recommend Syria,” Trump said at the time, praising Sharaa and claiming the Syrian leader “would love to help.” While that initial stop stopped short of an explicit call for Syrian troops to enter Lebanon, Trump adopted a far more direct tone during a press availability at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 16. “I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because, to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it,” he told reporters. He doubled down on his criticism of Israel’s campaign, arguing it has progressed too slowly, caused unnecessary civilian casualties, and destroyed large swathes of residential infrastructure. He also reiterated his praise for Sharaa, claiming the Syrian leader has done an “amazing job” consolidating state control across Syria and “does not like” Hezbollah.

The following day, when pressed by reporters to confirm whether he had directly discussed the Hezbollah issue with Sharaa, Trump confirmed the conversation had occurred but declined to share whether the Syrian leader had agreed to take on a role, saying only that he would address the matter at a later date. The exchange confirmed that Trump’s proposal was not merely an abstract suggestion for Israeli policymakers, but that the prospect of a Syrian role had already been raised directly with the Damascus government.

In recent weeks, Sharaa has moved aggressively to quell growing speculation over potential intervention. During a June 11 meeting with dignitaries from the Damascus countryside, he dismissed reports of an imminent Syrian military entry into Lebanon as baseless rumors. Later, in an interview with Al Arabiya, Syrian presidential adviser Ahmed Muwaffaq Zaidan confirmed that Washington had proposed Syrian involvement amid the ongoing regional escalation, but said Damascus had rejected any military or security role in Lebanon. He added that Syria supports extending the authority of Lebanon’s central government across all of its territory, but that this goal should be achieved by strengthening Lebanese state institutions rather than deploying Syrian troops.

Sharaa expanded on this position in a June 21 interview with Al Mashhad TV, pushing back against claims that Trump’s comments were a signal Syrian forces would enter Lebanon imminently. He argued Trump’s remarks had been misinterpreted, explaining that the U.S. president had raised concerns over the ongoing war and discussed potential Syrian contributions to a peaceful, secure resolution, rather than calling for an invasion. Sharaa emphasized that Syria’s top priority is ending the war and halting Israeli bombardment, noting that Damascus has discussed political, economic, and social pathways forward with U.S. officials. “Our vision is based on supporting the Lebanese state once again, strengthening its institutions, and seeking a solution that everyone believes in,” he said. “We are looking for economic channels between Lebanon and Syria, not military ones.” Sharaa also noted that Damascus is open to dialogue with all Lebanese political factions, including Hezbollah, acknowledging that the group’s role in Syria’s civil war left a “deep Syrian wound” but adding he would meet with Hezbollah representatives if it advanced the shared interests of both Lebanon and Syria.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun welcomed Sharaa’s public clarification, saying the reassurances had been well received in Beirut and helped put an end to rampant speculation over a Syrian military role. While Syrian statements have eased immediate public anxiety in Lebanon’s capital, Trump’s repeated calls for a Syrian role, paired with conflicting accounts of earlier U.S.-Syrian talks, have left lingering, unresolved questions about what role Washington ultimately expects Damascus to play in the future of Hezbollah and Lebanese stability.