Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Google CEO Sundar Pichai issued a statement on social media expressing sympathy for Israelis without mentioning the Palestinians. Other technology executives, including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM, similarly offered enthusiastic support for Israel.
Since then, Israeli forces have massacred nearly 35,000 Palestinians, including more than 14,500 children, destroyed hundreds of schools and all universities, and destroyed Palestinian housing, medical infrastructure, mosques, and ruins. Yet they have remained largely silent.
To carry out this shocking level of destruction, the Israeli military is aided by artificial intelligence (AI) programs designed to generate targets with little human oversight. It is not clear how directly involved foreign tech giants are in these projects, but it is likely that they will supply much of the core infrastructure needed to build them, including advanced computer chips, software and cloud computing. I can say with certainty that it is.
Amid this AI-assisted carnage, American Big Tech companies are quietly continuing to do business as usual with Israel. Intel announced a $25 billion investment in a chip factory in Israel, while Microsoft launched a new Azure cloud region in the country.
This is not surprising. Silicon Valley has supported Israel's apartheid regime for decades, supplying it with the advanced technology and investment needed to strengthen its economy and occupy Palestine.
As in South Africa in the 20th century, today's largest US-based technology companies see an opportunity to profit from Israeli apartheid, a byproduct of US-led digital colonialism.
AI-assisted genocide
Big Tech has been complicit in Israel's occupation, dispossession, and abuse of Palestinians in many ways. Perhaps best known is support for widespread Israeli surveillance of occupied indigenous peoples.
In March 2021, Google signed a $1.2 billion deal with Amazon for cloud computing services for the Israeli government and defense agencies. The companies will provide Israel with the ability to store, process and analyze data such as facial recognition, emotion recognition, biometrics and demographic information, known as “Project Nimbus.”
The deal received considerable attention in mainstream media after Google and Amazon employees launched the “No Technology for Apartheid” campaign to demand an end to the contract. Anticipating this reaction, Google and Amazon signed deals with Israel that guarantee continued service in the event of a boycott campaign. To this day, they remain steadfast and continue to supply cloud computing services to Israel.
Details about Nimbus have not been made public, but Google employees have expressed concerns that the company is using AI to service Israeli military genocide. These concerns were further amplified by reports that the Israeli military is using new AI-powered systems such as Lavender and The Gospel to determine targets for bombing in Gaza. According to one former Israeli intelligence official, the Gospels promote a “mass assassination factory” where “quantity is valued rather than quality.”
Meanwhile, recent reports have revealed that Google is working directly with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, even as the massacres continue. The company is also allowing the Israeli military to use Google Photos' facial recognition service to scan the faces of Palestinians across the Gaza Strip to create a dystopian “hit list.”
Silicon Valley and Apartheid Surveillance
But AI-induced genocide is just the tip of the iceberg. For decades, American tech companies and investors have secretly aided and abetted Israel's system of digital apartheid. One of the most egregious examples is IBM. IBM was also a major supplier of computers for South Africa's apartheid regime's national population register and upgraded passport system, which was used to classify people by race and enforce segregation.
According to Who Profits, an independent research center dedicated to exposing commercial involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands and populations, “IBM Designed and operated [PIBA]…Personal information of occupied Palestinians and Syrians collected by Israel is stored and managed. ” The system includes information collected at borders and major checkpoints through Israel's national population database.
PIBA is also part of Israel's permit system, which requires Palestinians over the age of 16 to carry a “smart” card containing a photo, address, fingerprint and other biometric information. Similar to apartheid South Africa's passport system, the card serves as a permit that determines Palestinians' right to pass through Israeli checkpoints for any purpose, including work, family reunions, religious ceremonies, and international travel. Also plays a role.
Microsoft provided cloud computing space for the Israeli military's Al-Munasek app, which is used to issue permits to Palestinians in the occupied territories. In the past, it also held shares in AnyVision (renamed Oosto), a surveillance company that provides real-time facial recognition services to Israeli authorities. Other companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, and Dell, also provide technology to serve Israel's military and military authorities.
Building Israel's technological advantage
In addition to supporting Israel's surveillance institutions, Silicon Valley provides important support to Israel's business sector and helps maintain and develop its high-tech modern economy.
For example, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all launched large cloud computing centers in Israel, providing essential business infrastructure for data-driven products and services. Intel is the country's largest private employer, which he began operating in 1974.
Like hundreds of other multinational companies, Microsoft has based its own research and development (R&D) center in Israel and launched a chip development center in Haifa. Nvidia, the multitrillion-dollar chip giant driving the AI revolution, also announced it would expand its already large research and development operations in Israel. The list goes on.
Venture capitalists are also responsible for the growth of Israel's local technology sector, which is home to 10 percent of the world's unicorns (companies valued at $1 billion or more), accounts for 14 percent of jobs, and generates about 20 percent of the country's GDP. It is also very important. Since 2019, $32 billion has been invested in Israeli companies, 51% of which are led or co-led by US-based investors.
Social media companies also support Israeli apartheid and occupation. In 2022, an external report commissioned by Meta found that Facebook and Instagram's speech policies showed bias against Palestinians. This years of blatant censorship of Palestinians continues today.
In December, Human Rights Watch reported that Mehta continued to crack down on pro-Palestinian posts on Facebook and Instagram. Of the 1,050 cases investigated, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or suppressed, even though a significant amount of pro-Palestinian content was allowed, and one case involved Israeli Removed with support. The company is even considering censoring the word “Zionist.”
Other organizations have also been accused of censoring pro-Palestinian voices, including X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and even Chinese-owned TikTok. Western governments, including the United States and the European Union, are putting pressure on major social media companies to screen and censor content deemed “terrorist” or pro-Palestinian.
Big Tech censorship extends beyond everyday users. Political groups like Hamas are banned by social media giants. Meanwhile, the Israeli military, government, and other Israeli state terrorist organizations freely engage in terrorist postings with widespread support.
digital colonialism
It is no surprise that US-based Big Tech companies partner with, invest in, and support Israel's genocidal and apartheid activities.
Big Tech companies are modern-day East India companies. They are an extension of American imperial power. They will colonize the world's digital economy and strengthen the divide between North and South. As a result, the United States benefits from ownership of digital infrastructure and knowledge and the extraction of resources from the Global South.
Digital colonialism is in Big Tech’s DNA. Close ties with the Israeli military not only provide benefits, but also serve and benefit from the broader geopolitical interests of the American Empire.
Tech companies' support for Israel exposes their false image of being anti-racist and pro-human rights companies. In reality, they are complicit in Israel's crimes, as are other organizations of American imperialism. What we are witnessing is American and Israeli apartheid, colonial conquest, and genocide by American technology giants.
But just as the United States and other Western governments feel that legal action is being taken against them for their role in the massacre in Gaza, so too do Western companies. US tech giants have a clear responsibility for what is happening in Palestine. They are on the wrong side of history, just as they were in apartheid South Africa. With enough public pressure, Big Tech's collaborators will soon be in court.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
