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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Microsoft, IBM, Cisco And Dell Enable Surveillance And Control In Palestine <br></h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Jessica Buxbaum, MintPress News - June 24, 2023<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_ljbjcmsn0" alt="image.png" width="416" height="234"><br><p>In September, Israel installed an <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-smart-shooter-palestinians-lab-rats-ai-powered-gun/282129/">AI-powered gun</a> at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Now, that same technology has been <a href="https://twitter.com/JalalAK_jojo/status/1661353393762205697" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deployed</a>
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 <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/nowhere-hide-impact-israels-digital-surveillance-regime-palestinians" target="_blank" rel="noopener">face-scanning apps</a> designed to capture their personal data.</p>
<p>Technology has become integral to our modern lives, but for
Palestinians, Big Tech has also become another way Israel enacts
control.</p>
<p>Who Profits, an Israeli research center documenting the private sector’s links to Israeli occupation, released a <a href="https://whoprofits.org/dynamic-report/the-role-of-big-tech-in-the-israeli-occupation-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>
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.</p>
<p>Who Profits wrote in its analysis:</p>
<blockquote><p>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.”</p></blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>Big Tech’s Role</h3>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.whoprofits.org/company/microsoft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Who Profits</a>,
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Microsoft Israel, the corporation’s local subsidiary, is currently
contracted with the Israel Police to provide cloud services for six
months from January and to provide licensing for Microsoft products
until December 2025.</p>
<p>This year, after much delay, Microsoft plans to open its first cloud data center in the <a href="https://dgtlinfra.com/microsoft-azure-data-center-locations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Modi’in Technology Park</a>, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The corporation is estimated to spend $1-1.5 billion on the data center.</p>
<p>IT and computer firm <a href="https://www.whoprofits.org/company/7236-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IBM</a>
works with Israel’s Population, Immigration, and Borders Authority to
operate the Eitan System for the government’s Population Registry
database. This computer system stores the personal information of
Palestinian and Syrian people living under Israeli occupation. The data
stored is often used to implement Israel’s discriminatory policies.</p>
<p>IBM’s Israeli subsidiaries — Red Hat Israel and IBM Israel —
collaborate extensively with the IDF. Red Hat provides edge computing
and software-based storage data centers to several Israeli military
units and is involved in joint projects in the Computer Service and
Cyber Defense divisions. In 2020, IBM Israel became the main IT provider
for three new military regional logistics centers.</p>
<p>The American multinational works with the military and Education
Ministry to boost high schoolers’ interests in technology, with the goal
of improving Israel’s defense and hi-tech capabilities. Often this
means its staff lecture at schools alongside military officers. The
company has also participated in events at Ariel University.</p>
<p>IBM has also partnered with the Israel Police, providing computer and
software equipment since 1975. More recently, in 2018, the company set
up a cyber research center in Be’er Sheva, a city in the Naqab desert,
next to a military telecommunication base and Computer Service
Directorate campus. The center and its location are part of the Defense
Ministry’s plan to transition Cyber Unit officers into the high-tech
industry after they finish their service.</p>
<p>Tech giant <a href="https://www.whoprofits.org/company/cisco-systems/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cisco Systems</a>
has also launched tech hubs in the Naqab, with two located in the
Palestinian Bedouin towns of Hura and Ar’arat al-Naqab. These hubs,
along with IBM’s cyber center, are part of Israel’s efforts to settle
the Naqab with Jewish Israelis while pushing out the native Bedouin
community. As part of plans to Judaize the area, the Israeli military
built its biggest information and communication technology underground
data center in the desert, complete with Cisco Systems’ computing,
communication, cybersecurity, and load-balancing systems in place.</p>
<p>Additionally, Cisco Systems has opened three other tech hubs on
occupied land in the Syrian Golan Heights and West Bank and plans to
open another five in these occupied territories.</p>
<p>This year, electronics giant <a href="https://www.whoprofits.org/company/dell-technologies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dell Technologies</a>
won a more than $150 million tender from the Defense Ministry to
provide the military with servers, maintenance services, and other
equipment. In 2021, Dell’s Israeli subsidiary, VMware Israel, secured a
contract to supply the Israeli Police with its products from August 2021
to January 2027.</p>
<p>VMware’s virtual services help run the Israel Police’s system of
surveillance in East Jerusalem, known as the Mabat System. Around 400
security cameras have been installed across Jerusalem’s Old City, with
the video surveillance monitored 24/7 by a police command and control
center.</p>
<p>Labeled the “startup nation,” Israel’s technological advancements
have attracted tech companies across the world. But as Big Tech becomes
more and more involved with Israel’s military and tech industries, the
more they actively collaborate with apartheid and the more Palestinians
and Syrians under occupation are digitally exploited.</p>
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