Shortly after the October 7 attacks on Israel, Google CEO Sundar Pichai issued a statement on social media, expressing sympathy for Israelis without mentioning Palestinians. Other tech executives – including from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM – have also offered enthusiastic support for Israel.
Since then, they have remained largely silent as the Israeli army has massacred nearly 35,000 Palestinians, including more than 14,500 children, destroyed hundreds of schools and all universities, and devastated Palestinian homes, health infrastructure, mosques and heritage sites.
To achieve this shocking level of destruction, the Israeli military was aided by artificial intelligence (AI) programs designed to produce targets with little human oversight. It’s unclear to what extent foreign tech giants are directly involved in these projects, but we can say with certainty that they provide much of the basic infrastructure needed to build them, including advanced computer chips, software and cloud computing.
In the midst of this AI-assisted genocide, Big Tech in the United States is quietly continuing its business as usual with Israel. Intel announced a $25 billion investment in a chip factory located in Israel, while Microsoft launched a new Azure cloud region in the country.
None of this should come as a surprise. For decades, Silicon Valley has supported Israel’s apartheid regime, providing the cutting-edge technology and investment needed to power its economy and occupy Palestine.
Just as they did in South Africa in the 20th century, the largest US-based tech companies today see an opportunity to profit from Israeli apartheid – a byproduct of state-led digital colonialism -United.
AI-assisted genocide
Big Tech has been complicit in Israel’s occupation, dispossession and abuse of Palestinians in various ways. Perhaps best known is his support for pervasive Israeli surveillance of the occupied indigenous population.
In March 2021, Google and Amazon signed a $1.2 billion deal for cloud computing services for the Israeli government and defense establishment. The two companies provide Israel with the capacity to store, process and analyze data including facial recognition, emotion recognition, biometrics and demographic information under what is known as Project Nimbus.
The deal received considerable attention in mainstream media after workers at Google and Amazon demanded an end to the contract by launching the No Tech for Apartheid campaign. Anticipating this response, Google and Amazon signed a contract with Israel guaranteeing the continuity of services in the event of a boycott campaign. So far, they have held firm and continue to provide Israel with cloud computing services.
Details about Nimbus are hidden from the public, but Google employees have raised fears that Nimbus may participate in AI-infused Israeli military massacres. These concerns have been amplified by reports that the Israeli military is using a new AI-powered system such as “Lavender” and “The Gospel” to decide targets for its bombing of Gaza. According to a former Israeli intelligence official, the gospel facilitates a “mass murder factory” where “the emphasis is on quantity, not quality.”
Meanwhile, recent reports have revealed that Google is working directly with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, despite the ongoing genocide. The company also allows Israeli forces to use its Google Photos facial recognition service to scan the faces of Palestinians across Gaza for its dystopian “blacklist.”
Silicon Valley and Apartheid Surveillance
Yet AI-assisted genocide is just the tip of the iceberg. For decades, American technology companies and investors have quietly aided and abetted Israel’s system of digital apartheid. One of the most egregious examples is IBM, which was also the main supplier of computers for the South African apartheid regime’s national population register and the enhanced passport system used to sort people by race and impose segregation.
According to Who Profits, an independent research center dedicated to exposing commercial involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land and population, “IBM designed and operates the Israeli Population Authority’s Eitan system , Immigration and Borders (PIBA)… where personal information about the occupied Palestinian and Syrian people collected by Israel is stored and managed. The system contains information collected through Israel’s national population database as well as at borders and major checkpoints.
The PIBA is also part of Israel’s permit system that requires Palestinians over the age of 16 to carry a “smart” card, containing their photograph, address, fingerprints and other biometric identifiers. Much like in apartheid South Africa’s passport system, the cards also serve as permits that determine the rights of Palestinians to cross Israeli checkpoints for any reason, including work, family reunification, religious rituals or travel abroad.
Microsoft, for its part, provided cloud computing space for the Israeli army’s “Almunasseq” application used to issue permits to Palestinians in the occupied territories. In the past, it also held a stake in surveillance company AnyVision (renamed Oosto), which provides real-time facial recognition services to Israeli authorities. Other companies, such as Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Dell, provide technology to Israeli military and prison authorities.
Building Israel’s technological superiority
In addition to aiding Israel’s surveillance apparatus, Silicon Valley also provides essential support to Israel’s business sector, helping it maintain and grow a modern, high-tech economy.
For example, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all launched major cloud computing centers in Israel, providing businesses with infrastructure critical to data-driven products and services. Intel is the nation’s largest private employer, having begun operations in 1974.
Along with hundreds of other multinationals, Microsoft hosts its own research and development (R&D) center in Israel and has launched a chip development center in Haifa. Nvidia, the billion-dollar chip giant fueling the AI revolution, also announced it was expanding its already significant R&D operations in Israel. The list goes on.
Venture capitalists are also essential to the growth of Israel’s local technology sector, which is home to 10 percent of the world’s unicorns (companies worth at least $1 billion), accounts for 14 percent of jobs and generates about 20 percent hundred of the country’s GDP. Since 2019, $32 billion has been invested in Israeli companies, 51% of which is led or co-led by US-based investors.
Social media companies also lent a helping hand to apartheid and the Israeli occupation. In 2022, an external report commissioned by Meta found that Facebook and Instagram’s speech policies demonstrated bias against Palestinians. These long-standing practices of blatant censorship against Palestinians continue today.
In December, Human Rights Watch reported that Meta continues to suppress pro-Palestinian posts on Facebook and Instagram. Of the 1,050 cases reviewed, 1,049 involved peaceful pro-Palestinian content that was censored or removed – despite allowing a significant amount of pro-Palestinian content – and one takedown in favor of Israel. The company is even considering censoring the word “Zionist.”
Other organizations accused of censoring pro-Palestinian voices include X (formerly Twitter), YouTube and even Chinese-owned TikTok. Western governments, including the United States and the European Union, have put pressure on major social media companies to review and censor content deemed “terrorist” or favorable to Palestine.
Big Tech censorship extends beyond everyday users. Political organizations like Hamas are banned by social media giants. Meanwhile, the Israeli military, government and other terrorist organs of the Israeli state post freely, with broad support.
Digital colonialism
It is no surprise that major US-based technology companies are partnering with and investing in Israel, supporting its genocidal and apartheid activities.
The big tech companies are modern East Indian companies; they are an extension of American imperial power. They are colonizing the global digital economy and reinforcing the divide between North and South. As a result, the United States benefits from ownership of digital infrastructure and knowledge and resource extraction from the South.
Digital colonialism is embedded in the DNA of big tech. Its close relationship with the Israeli military is not only lucrative, but also serves the broader geopolitical interests of the American Empire, from which it benefits.
Tech companies’ support for Israel reveals their false image as companies advocating anti-racism and human rights. In reality, they are complicit in Israeli crimes, as are other organs of American imperialism. What we are witnessing is US-Israeli apartheid, colonial conquest and genocide, fueled by US tech giants.
But just as the United States and other Western governments are feeling the pressure from legal cases against them for their role in the genocide in Gaza, so are Western companies. American tech giants clearly bear responsibility for what is happening in Palestine. They are on the wrong side of history, just as they were during apartheid in South Africa. With enough popular pressure, Big Tech collaborators will soon find their way to court.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
