Tech, Power, and Conflict in MENA – Arab Reform Initiative

Dossier Tech, Power, and Conflict in MENA

For decades, the MENA region has served as a testing ground for warfare technologies before their export to other contexts. Since October 7, 2023, these dynamics have intensified dramatically across Palestine, Lebanon, and Sudan through AI-enabled targeting systems, mass surveillance, digital erasure, cross-border assassinations, and the weaponisation of digital infrastructures.

This dossier – Tech, Power & Conflict in MENA – aims to centre regional epistemologies and challenge Western-centric frameworks that continue to position the region merely as a case study rather than an epistemic vantage point from which the entanglements of technology, warfare, and power can be understood. It brings together regional scholars, researchers, digital rights advocates, and policymakers to examine how these systems are operationalised, who enables them, how they are lived and contested, and what they reveal about the changing architectures of power in the region and beyond.

This dossier was coordinated and edited by Nada Kabbary Mousa (Mozilla Fellow 2024-2026) and Andrew Findell-Aghnatios (Program Lead - Tech & Society) and was co-funded by the Mozilla Foundation and ARI.

Israel’s Techno-Military Complex: A Historical and Political-Economy Analysis — Ahmad Ghosn

Research

9 October 2026

#Conflicts#Palestine#Technology

The European Network: Corporate Involvement and Development Funding Behind Israel’s AI-Powered Warfare in Gaza — Dima Samaro

Research

25 September 2026

#AI#Conflicts#EU#Gaza

Tech, Power, and Conflict in MENA: Foreword — Andrew Findell-Aghnatios

24 September 2026

#AI#Conflicts#Technology