> 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...
I'm not trying to argue pro Israel or what not, I just wish they'd focus on their core mission.
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...
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.
The current president of the UN HRC is from Indonesia, which has been backsliding dramatically on human rights over the last decade. I’ll expect to see a UNHRC report on that roughly never.
The UN is a political tool at best, and frankly a joke.
Look, you have to understand that you and I are looking at this from a western lense. The west is EXTREMELY pro-israel. So your Overton window isnt just shifted a little buddy. It's fucking whiplashed alllllll the way to one side. So yes, from your perspective or mine the UN might appear as not pro Israel.
But um, they are, and quite a bit too. Again, if you want to see actual real anti-israel reporting, read stuff from Iran. You will surely notice it sounds very, very different from how the UN portrays Israel.
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...
I am so confused by these statements. Microsoft and other private companies do not have to knowingly violate human rights in the service of the US government whether it is war or not.
https://www.justsecurity.org/113820/us-corporate-interests-h...
https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-l...
Yup you are correct. In parallel to the ICJ genocide case of South Africa v Israel, there is a case against Germany for its action in support of Israel on that exact topic:
It makes Americans seethe with rage ofcourse- only Americans are allowed to put pressure on corporations.
Do they have a choice?
The state of Pennsylvania is 13 million; would MSFT losing PA do them serious financial damage?
Obviously you can't post like this here. Since you have a history of posting this (and worse) on HN, we've banned the account. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.
HN users have a range of views on this and other divisive topics, and that's fine - but we don't allow religious or nationalistic slurs, celebration of violence, and so on.
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
And it's also a state whose prime minister is wanted for crimes against humanity. And the population mostly supports those crimes.
Not true.
The West Bank is being annexed by Israel and transformed into a racist state, where Jews have more rights than Arabs
Not the actions of a "free democratic state"
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.
Maybe there is some solidarity but rightoids love oppressors and lefties love non-discrimination.
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.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/microsoft-blo...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-ackn...
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?
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.
The Gaza genocide is the ongoing,[19][20] intentional, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war. It encompasses mass killings, deliberate starvation, infliction of serious bodily and mental harm, and prevention of births. Other acts include blockading, destroying civilian infrastructure, destroying healthcare facilities, killing healthcare workers and aid-seekers, causing mass forced displacement, committing sexual violence, and destroying educational, religious, and cultural sites.[21] The genocide has been recognised by a United Nations special committee[22] and commission of inquiry,[21] the International Association of Genocide Scholars,[23][24] multiple human rights groups,[c] state governments, numerous genocide studies and international law scholars,[30][31] and other experts.[32]
You've rattled off a list of war crimes, many of which I agree with you about unreservedly, all of which are colorable. I don't think there's much doubt about the impact of Israel's post-October-7 policy on Gazans. But so long as you remained fixed on the term "genocide", you'll forever be arguing with opponents who, at least in the current trajectory of the conflict, have the better side of the legal argument.
I'll also say this: I greatly sympathize with Israel and Jews more generally here. The problem at the core remains global antisemitism; it's the reason Israel needed (and still needs!) to exist, and the reason Jews globally feel threatened. Antisemitism in the middle east is particularly pernicious, but it's not much better in Europe or the Americas. It doesn't just feel like a dangerous wolrd for Jews, it _is_ a dangerous world.
That doesn't change my opinion about the situation in Gaza---there's ample evidence that it's a genocide. But I hope this helps people see that we can, and should, hold these two truths at once. Jews are persecuted, and are in a precarious situation globally. In fear and in anguish, the state of Israel is performing unconscionable deeds in Gaza. A central cause is antisemitism; if we could somehow find a solution to that, you'd go a long way towards solving the whole conflict in the middle east. But good luck.
Is it antisemitic to point out that Israeli settlers kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land?
Is it antisemitic to point out that Israeli citizens hurl rocks at and spit on Christian missionaries?
Is it antisemitic to point out that Israel bombed every single Christian church in Gaza?
Is it antisemitic to point out that Israel has been leaking US secrets to Russia and China for decades?
Is it antisemitic to point out that Israel's intelligence services have been interfering in the affairs of other sovereign countries / carrying out terrorist attacks for decades?
Is it antisemitic to point out that Hamas has received funding from Israel over decades, or that it was formed to destabilize the ruling authority in Palestine at the time?
A quick internet search for any of these claims will return numerous results confirming them. I guess the entire internet is antisemitic?
I guess we are just supposed to ignore all of the above and blame antisemitism for all the problems in the world?
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.
> These are all things that happen during war.
You do realize that Israeli government officials openly talk about permanent relocation (expel, "voluntary migration", emigration, etc) of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza all the time:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/smotrich-says-n...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/occupy-expel-settle-minister-m...
This woman was actually tasked with that job by Netanyahu:
https://www.haaretz.com/gaza/2026-04-29/ty-article/.premium/...
What do you think are the definitions of genocide and war? (why are they different words)
Do they overlap?
All these Iran-backed forces are formally allied into an Axis of Resistance, and their main success so far has been to confuse people like you about who holds the moral and ethical high ground. The reason they sought to sow doubt and confusion is to isolate Israel so they can destroy the nation, the whole thing, as they continuously have campaigned to do for perhaps 70 years.
"Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals"
In this case, the target includes Hamas members, but the target group is Palestinians. Israel recently passed a law to allow hanging of Palestinians when [conditions]
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...
To suggest that genocide is only possible when there is no civil life, no humanity, nothing to live for, no I do not accept your definition. If you kill 10% of a population... does it only count as a crime against humanity if the rest of the population cannot even be human?
>90% of Gaza's infrastructure is destroyed, >90% of the population is displaced, no universities left, only one hospital with no equipment. These numbers are from several months ago, so you'll excuse me if I'm not keeping up with Israel's killing frenzy.
That Gazans still can make art, enjoy a coffee, and do a 5k to raise awareness in a world that doesn't care is seen as victory over darkness by those who are caring about this catastrophe.
Those who don't know anything about anything and use the smile of a child to screech "not a genocide!" should be ashamed of themselves.
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?
Microsoft and other cloud companies are not forced to do anything the US government or US military tells them to do. You are just making this up.
Relevant acts include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Priv... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act and the more recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
Israel is speedrunning the change of "antisemite" into a compliment.
Israel probably does not leak secrets to Russia or China, but Israel is a bad ally of the US and has gotten us in a lot of hot water. It would be better for the US if we just let them figure their own shit out. We do not need to be aiding a genocide for no benefit of our own.
Israel did, for decades. Just google it.
Weaponizing antisemitism as usual, what a shocker.
Lol. Just a three seconds search:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/israel-accused-of-s...
https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=375278
https://www.military.com/defensetech/2013/12/24/report-israe...
> Antisemitism
That's the most trite libel against those who criticise Israel. Doesn't work anymore.
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.