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#microsoft#israel#genocide#gaza#https#defense#government#google#rights#azure
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Discussion (69 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
> Among the cloud giants, Microsoft is considered the most vulnerable to anti-Israel protests and allegations of the use made by the Ministry of Defense on Azure, its cloud platforms, since it is the only company among the three major cloud companies that has not signed a special agreement with the Israeli government and the Ministry of Defense. The industry says that Haimovich, who is known as a prominent salesman with the government sector, was appointed country general manager, among other things, due to Microsoft's plans to retain and increase business with the government sector, despite not winning the Nimbus tender.
> In 2021, Israel awarded Amazon and Google the Nimbus cloud tender, encouraging government bodies and public organizations to migrate to these services, at the expense of Microsoft. In return, Amazon and Google pledged to establish service areas in data centers on Israeli soil, in order to avoid exposing security or government data to foreign regulation.
This is a good thing.
American companies should not be allowing their tech to be used to in the gross ongoing human rights violations in Israel/Gaza/West Bank.
Google and Amazon knew their tech could be used for human rights abuses in Israel (their lawyers warned them so) but ignored that in favour of $$$ per the EFF:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-ackn...
IOW this isn't an ethical or moral stance against what the Ministry of Defense was doing, it's purely because they could potentially get in trouble with the EU for abetting the genocide.
It makes Americans seethe with rage ofcourse- only Americans are allowed to put pressure on corporations.
You are incorrect. Microsoft has made clear that it is related to all of its Azure services that were misused with regards to its terms of services, not just those in Europe.
Here is Microsoft's original statement when it began this investigation:
"The Guardian, on that date, reported that multiple individuals have asserted that the IDF is using Azure for the storage of data files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage."
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/05/15/stateme...
Fully agreed, but also a hard sell given that America itself does not recognize what is happening there as a genocide.
Something something man understanding depending on his salary.
Americans only give a shit about the price of gas and eggs. Whoever has to die to keep those down is apparently fine with the majority of our population.
This has nothing to do with a declaration of genocide. Both Amazon and Google respectively have made commitments to not enable human rights violations:
https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/human-rights/principl...
https://about.google/company-info/human-rights/
GENEVA – Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today. The Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.
Do they have a choice?
The state of Pennsylvania is 13 million; would MSFT losing PA do them serious financial damage?
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsof...
Good grief. Let's maybe not parrot out nation state propaganda with zero critical thinking on what's being said.
If Microsoft was given more attention by AIPAC or it's billionaires, it would've been the same.
Watching the rise of fascism in america should really remind everyone that theres far more going on then a single idiot driving far right fascism.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/microsoft-blo...
Ok but ... isn't Microsoft forced, by law, to cooperate with the US government and US military? So why is that then not an ethical (or other) issue?
To me this seems inconsistent. The only "necessity" I see is for Microsoft to be penalised by EU laws, which could explain that "investigation" to some extent. But the EU in general is super-weak. They even give data from EU citizens to the US government as-is, without any problem, so I don't quite buy into that explanation. Is there another explanation that makes more sense?
A semblance of civilian life does not mean genocide did not or is not taking place. Wholesale population displacement, destruction of a significant percentage of civilian structures, bombings, raids, land and sea blockades, statements from leaders that suggest genocidal intent... these point in the other direction.
Would it only be genocide only if no child in Gaza was smiling? If no one was getting married, no one singing, no one relaxing amid the horror? Inhumanity of this level of extreme only occurs literally when everyone is dead. I guess that's the line you have in mind?
These are all things that happen during war. Explain why this war is different. All war is bad. I genuinely don't see how this is not a war but a genocide.
The fixation on the term "genocide" has been a major own-goal for advocates of Palestinians. It was deliberately defined to be a difficult bar to clear. "Warm crimes" and "ethnic cleansing" are easy claims to make in the region, and ordinary people don't care about the distinction between "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide"; that term would have served just as well, without the escape hatch "genocide" provides.
There are also other Gaza 5K events in U.S. cities, including Dallas and Milwaukee, depending on the year and location.
Also, it is definitely not "by any modern definition" a genocide. Ireland is currently trying to broaden the definition of the term just to indict Israel [2]
[1] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/palestine-marathon-returns-gaza-we...
[2] https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/409187
(...to occur on servers in the European Union, where Microsoft could get in trouble for it)
Sooner or later they’ll participate. And then you would have moved your workload for no reason.
It's not that Microsoft was against this, it's that Microsoft was against themselves getting in trouble for this with the EU.