n September, Israel installed an AI-powered gun at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Now, that same technology has been deployed at the entrance of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. Across occupied East Jerusalem, you can find surveillance cameras strategically placed on street corners. And throughout the West Bank, Palestinians’ encounters with Israeli soldiers often include not only violence but face-scanning apps designed to capture their personal data.
Technology has become integral to our modern lives, but for Palestinians, Big Tech has also become another way Israel enacts control.
Who Profits, an Israeli research center documenting the private sector’s links to Israeli occupation, released a report in May on multinational tech companies’ role in facilitating Israel’s human rights violations. The impact of each company ranges, with some overseeing a major project while others provide equipment to a system already in place.
Who Profits wrote in its analysis:
Regardless of scale, the work of these companies bolsters the capacity of an already highly technological and data-oriented Israeli occupation economy and its capacity to dispossess, repress, control and subject Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line to pervasive surveillance.”
While countless Israeli and international companies are involved in the Israeli occupation, Who Profits highlighted four American tech corporations in its report: Microsoft, IBM, Cisco Systems, and Dell Technologies.
BIG TECH’S ROLE
According to Who Profits, multinational tech firm Microsoft – one of the world’s largest IT companies – has a long history of collaboration with the Israeli military and tech industry.
The “Al Munaseq” (the coordinator in Arabic) application runs on Microsoft Azure, the company’s platform for cloud computing services. It was developed by Israel’s Ministry of Defense and is used to manage permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza when entering 1948-occupied Palestine or modern-day Israel. The app can access a permit holder’s phone’s IP address, camera, files, and location.
Microsoft has immersed itself in the Israeli military’s ties to the education sector. The company currently offers AI courses for officers in the “military fighting methods and innovation” unit. It also recently launched free cybersecurity training courses for veterans and is partnering with the military on a program helping female high school students enter high-tech units in the military.
The company’s main business alliance is with the Israeli military, yet it also provides services to the settlements and government. Its applications are used by students and teachers in Ma’ale Adumim settlement schools. Microsoft also works with Ariel University, the only Israeli college located in a settlement, to provide free use of its applications and email services. Ariel University is also a recognized college of Microsoft, offering a Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate course to students.
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