TLDR
Israel has been recognised by major international bodies and human-rights organisations as committing genocide. Yet global corporations – especially in tech and cybersecurity – continue to fund, partner with, or procure from Israeli companies that have direct or indirect ties to the IDF and the machinery of occupation.
This is not neutrality; it is complicity. It must stop.
Before signing any deal or renewing any contract, every organisation should ask:
“Does this company have material links to the Israeli military, or does it profit from the occupation of Palestine?”
If the answer is yes – and you proceed anyway – you are an enabler.
Introduction
Israel’s actions in occupied Palestine meet the definition of genocide – a conclusion recognised by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the International Court of Justice. Amnesty describes Israel’s campaign in Gaza as involving “prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention… with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians.” Human Rights Watch likewise found that Israel had “intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”
In 2024, the ICJ issued emergency orders requiring Israel to “protect Palestinians in Gaza from genocide,” including by allowing essential aid.
Yet despite these findings – and the killing of tens of thousands (if not in the hundreds of thousands) of civilians, most of them women and children – corporations worldwide, particularly in technology and cybersecurity, continue to finance or collaborate with Israeli companies tied to the occupation.
This is not neutrality. It is complicity.
Openly Declared Intentions of Genocide
For decades, Israeli leaders have used dehumanising and annihilatory language about Palestinians. These statements are not isolated; they are part of a consistent record of intent.
- 1983 – IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan: “All the Arabs will be able to do is scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”
- 2002 – Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon described Palestinians as a “cancer-like” threat to be destroyed.
- 2014 – Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked shared a post calling Palestinian children “little snakes” whose mothers should be killed.
- 2014 – Knesset Deputy Speaker Moshe Feiglin proposed conquering Gaza and expelling its people.
- 2023-24 – Senior ministers called Palestinians “human animals,” demanded a “complete siege” of Gaza, and even discussed the use of nuclear weapons.
These words reveal a long-standing, open endorsement of ethnic cleansing. The world has heard them and chosen to ignore them. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.
Complicity of the Tech and Cybersecurity Sectors
Corporate partnerships with Israeli firms continue largely unchecked. Israel remains a leading exporter of defence and cybersecurity technology, much of it developed by or with veterans of Unit 8200, the IDF’s elite signals-intelligence corps.
Whistle-blowers from Unit 8200 have confirmed that the unit conducts mass surveillance of Palestinians, harvesting personal data – health records, finances, family details – to blackmail civilians into collaboration. These same surveillance capabilities now underpin Israel’s booming cyber industry.
Israeli companies proudly market their founders’ Unit 8200 backgrounds and describe products as “battle-tested” – a euphemism for technology honed through operations in Gaza and the West Bank. One defence-tech company even celebrated the ongoing war as “the finest hour” to showcase its product. Battle-tested means tested on occupied people.
When your organisation licenses such software, invests in these companies, or lists an Israeli firm as a “trusted vendor,” you are not simply buying technology – you are funding the machinery of oppression.
Ethical Responsibility in Business and Technology
This is not a political debate; it is a moral reckoning.
If you are a CEO, investor, or procurement lead, you cannot claim to run an ethical business while knowingly directing money toward a state committing genocide.
You already check for sanctions and ESG compliance. Extend that diligence to human rights. Ask again:
“Does this company have material links to the Israeli military, or does it profit from the occupation of Palestine?”
If the answer is yes and you continue, you are an enabler.
No corporate-social-responsibility report or diversity initiative can offset complicity in mass killing.
Tech firms that promise to “do no evil” still partner with those providing digital weapons used to surveil, imprison, and bomb civilians. You cannot market trust and safety while your supply chain enables atrocities.
Accountability Must Replace Silence
The world once boycotted apartheid South Africa because money without ethics sustains tyranny.
Behind the slogans of “innovation,” “start-up nation,” and “battle-hardened tech,” Israel’s cyber sector hides a darker reality: it thrives on military service and surveillance perfected on occupied populations. The Pegasus spyware used to crush dissent abroad was developed by Unit 8200 alumni; the same predictive-policing and facial-recognition tools now sold globally were first tested on Palestinians at checkpoints.
The industry loves to speak of “disruption” and “responsibility”. Here is the test of both. You cannot claim to secure users while enabling mass insecurity for civilians, nor boast of “connecting the world” while working with those who erect digital walls and checkpoints.
The Line Is Clear
If you are still unsure where your company stands:
- If your vendors, investors, or R&D partners are Israeli defence contractors or ex-IDF intelligence officers – you are funding genocide.
- If your venture arm invests in Israeli tech while Gaza starves – you are funding genocide.
- If you continue doing business with companies complicit in war crimes while issuing hollow statements about “human rights” – you are funding genocide.
Silence is endorsement. History will record those who profited while others perished.
The Call to Action
I write not as an activist but as a technology professional who believes our work should protect, not destroy.
Audit your relationships. End contracts that feed Israel’s military-occupation complex. Divest from companies entangled in war crimes. Use your position to make clear that your organisation will not participate in atrocity.
It will not be easy. Leadership rarely is. But values – not valuations – define legacy.
Do something. Stop funding genocide.
Because when history asks what you did, neutrality will not be an acceptable answer.
History has seen this before.
IBM built the systems that catalogued Jews for deportation. Siemens, Volkswagen, BMW, Bosch, Bayer, and Allianz all profited from Nazi oppression and later claimed they were “just doing business.”
Decades on, their names are remembered not for what they built, but for what they enabled. When the history of this genocide is written, it will judge today’s boardrooms the same way.
You cannot plead neutrality while funding oppression.
The only question that remains is which side of that history you will stand on.