Israel’s failure in the West Bank can hardly be put down to a lack of resources. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) deploy 25 combat battalions there. Shin Bet, the powerful security agency, has networks of agents and informers throughout. But these are used mostly to protect the 500,000 or so Israeli settlers, and against the threat of terrorist attacks, not to assist the more than 3m Palestinians who live in the territory. This has largely been the case since Israel replaced Jordan as occupier of the West Bank in 1967. What has changed is the behaviour of many “outlaw” settlers. Never before have they acted as violently as today. Crucially, never before have they enjoyed the impunity the current government gives them. Since the Hamas attack in October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, over 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Only rarely does the IDF intervene against settlers. In Qusra, for example, an entire battalion was recently deployed against those who were invading Palestinian homes. But the soldiers found themselves fruitlessly chasing youngsters over the hills. Troops from another unit joined the settlers in prayers. No arrests were made. The ineffectual response can be explained by the stance of Israel’s government. The IDF knows that Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, sides squarely with the most extreme settlers. It appears that the IDF was dispatched to Qusra only after American diplomatic pressure which arose because an American citizen owns a home there. Mr Netanyahu has appointed radical settlers, who support ethnic cleansing, to key cabinet positions. In the rare cases when the IDF has sought to rein in violent settlers, the defence minister, Israel Katz, has berated his generals. The government has authorised around 200 settler outposts in less than four years. This just whets the settlers’ appetite for more. In the months leading up to Israel’s election on October 27th the situation could get even worse. The settlers will probably attempt more land grabs, fearing the vote may lead to a new government that will curb their aggression. Meanwhile, for Israel’s long-serving prime minister, an alliance with the far right has become the key to remaining in office. Mr Netanyahu will keep enabling the settlers unless he is forced to back down.
As Palestinians come to believe they face inevitable eviction, the danger is of conflagration in the West Bank or even another intifada. Such an uprising would be a disaster for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Yet Mr Netanyahu seems willing to take the risk, if it helps his chances of political survival. That would fit a pattern. Mr Netanyahu has rejected the latest agreement brokered by America for the disarmament of Hamas and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, lest it anger the far right. He has continued to order air strikes in Lebanon and Syria, despite the chance to agree on more secure borders. Behind in the polls, he is doubling down on empty promises to vanquish Israel’s enemies. Only pressure from Donald Trump might get him to ease off. This Israeli government may be in its final months. Its potential to cause damage remains. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/08/20/israel-is-flirting-with-the-next- intifada
Britain would be bonkers to ditch Palantir Whatever the company’s flaws, its critics have taken a worryingly illiberal turn Aug 20th 2026 MAKING DATABASE-management seem transgressive is a feat. Palantir, a technology firm, has managed it by publishing manifestos bemoaning the West’s hollowed-out civic culture, by working with trigger-happy American border enforcers and Israeli soldiers, and by having a chairman who is fond of invoking the Antichrist. That the firm is named after J.R.R. Tolkien’s creepy all-seeing orbs may not have helped. Britain is spooked. It may boot Palantir out of the National Health Service (NHS), where the firm has a contract to manage medical data. Two parliamentary committees have recommended doing so. London’s mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, has blocked its work with the Metropolitan Police. Palantir
has probably over-sold its software’s impact. Its boasts (echoed by the NHS) of enabling 110,000 extra surgeries look exaggerated. By British standards, its lobbying is brash. Still, ditching Palantir would be a mistake. Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Met, says that, without Palantir’s time-saving software, hundreds of officers will be pulled from front-line policing. It seems to be doing a better job of digitising the NHS than the government’s latest effort, which devolved into a costly mess. If the firm’s public-sector clients deem its contributions valuable, that is a reason to keep it. Losing its technology could further maul Britain’s mangled state capacity. One set of criticisms concerns Palantir’s business model. The conspiratorially minded fret that the firm could steal and sell British data. More sober types worry about “lock-in”, where Palantir burrows deep into the state, ensconces itself, then overcharges for its services. These fears stem from a misunderstanding of what Palantir does. It licenses software and sends consultants (“forward-deployed engineers”) to handle data. But those data remain firmly in the hands of the clients. Lock-in is a worry—and also something all vendors desire. It is up to buyers to ensure that contracts are fair. And if Palantir does become indispensable, that would mean its software is keeping hospital beds free and criminals jailed. More misguided objections concern Palantir’s politics. Parliament’s science, innovation and technology committee cited a “mismatch with UK values” as a reason to cut ties. It warned of Palantir’s involvement in the American government’s “highly controversial policies and activities” and criticism by its chairman, Peter Thiel, of “the concept of a national health service”. Everyone is entitled to their views on state-run health care or Donald Trump’s mass deportations (The Economist has plenty). Still, working with the elected government of a British ally or having a chairman with thoughts on health policy should not disqualify a contractor. A government awarding business on the basis of politics is illiberal. It also sounds a lot like the MAGA tactics of punishing individuals and institutions, such as law firms, asset managers or universities, for annoying Mr Trump. This is precisely the sort of thing many of Palantir’s British critics deplore.
The last set of worries has to do with technological sovereignty. Plenty of governments are reliant on American tech and under Mr Trump, America has become a less reliable partner. In June it briefly ordered Anthropic to stop letting foreigners use its latest artificial-intelligence models. European politicians point out that some advanced weapons they get from America, such as F-35 fighter jets, have “kill switches” that could disable them remotely (which America has denied) or risk losing technical support from their makers on a presidential whim. One German state has replaced Microsoft Teams with a domestic video-call app. In a world of geopolitical fracture, governments may sometimes want homegrown alternatives to foreign technology. The best way to nurture these is to give domestic incumbents and startups an incentive to innovate. Cosseting local firms by blocking foreign competition has the opposite effect. In any case, no British firm can match Palantir’s offering. As for the Anthropic incident, that was more the administration’s bungled response to a legitimate worry about powerful AI hacking-tools getting into the wrong hands than an attempt to weaponise other countries’ reliance on American tech. Were the White House to attempt such weaponisation, Palantir and its fellow American tech giants would resist it, given the sizeable share of revenues they derive from Europe, including Britain. In Tolkien’s books, the truth offered by palantirs is seldom straightforward. Repeatedly, those peering into them misinterpret out-of-context information and make dire, self-destructive choices. The British critics of Palantir, the company, risk falling into the same trap. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/08/20/britain-would-be-bonkers-to-ditch- palantir
Jason Arday was treated as a symbol, not a man Both his supporters and detractors dehumanised the tragic fabulist Aug 20th 2026 On August 14th Jason Arday was found dead, apparently from suicide, at his home in London. For those who loved this 41-year-old Cambridge professor, it is a tragedy. For the world it is a warning of the destruction bad ideas can wreak. The bad idea here is that people should be judged not by their individual character and abilities, but by their race, disability or other politically charged attributes. Mr Arday became the University of Cambridge’s youngest-ever black professor in 2023, before being engulfed by a scandal over plagiarism and faked research. He bore responsibility for his own downfall. Yet just as troubling is the way both his supporters and detractors even now reduce him to a symbol.