On August 6, The Guardian reported that “multiple individuals have asserted that the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] is using Azure for the storage of files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.” The tale began in 2021, when Microsoft, the company responsible for the Azure cloud platform that promises endless wells of data storage, endorsed a plan that would enable Unit 8200, Israel’s famed cyberwarfare agency, customised access.
The agreement, reached between the unit’s commander Yossi Sariel and Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, was a boon for mass surveillance enthusiasts. The Guardian report, a co-investigative effort with Hebrew-language outlet Local Call and Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, drew from leaked documents and 11 interviews from the corporation and the Israeli intelligence services.
Nadella offered the fool’s defence, claiming ignorance at what Unit 8200 was hoping to store. A cursory look at the profile of Sariel’s outfit would have dispelled any doubts, suggesting that the chief executive was telling a massive fib. Three Unit 8200 sources, for instance, noted that Azure was used to facilitate “the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.” While Israel has long exercised control over the telecommunications infrastructure of the Palestinians, the cloud platform offered an indiscriminate netting of cellular calls.
The company’s thick links to Israel has drawn much attention from employees within the organisation and activists associated with the No Azure for Apartheid group. Microsoft is not shy in admitting, as it did in an updated statement on August 15, that it “provides IMOD with software, professional services, Azure cloud services, and Azure AI services, including language translation. As with many governments around the world, we also work with the Israeli government to protect its cyberspace against external threats.” Nor is the tech behemoth shy in punishing employees who have dared exercise a conscience on the matter. Last month, Anna Hattle, Riki Fameli, Nisreen Jaradat, and Julius Shan were sacked for participating in protests on company premises regarding the company’s ongoing association with Israel. These demonstrations had apparently, in the eyes of the company goons, “created significant safety concerns”.
The company had also conducted a previous undisclosed review into the findings of an investigation by The Associated Press that noted the use of Azure by the Israeli Defense Ministry and its insatiable appetite for commercial artificial intelligence (AI) products in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas. On May 15, the company declared with implausible confidence that its internal assessments and external review had “found no evidence” that the Azure platform and AI technologies, or any other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct.”
The dark publicity prompted by The Guardian and its co-investigators was enough to push Microsoft on August 15 to revisit the allegations, using the services of the law firm Covington & Burling LLP and the technical expertise of a consulting firm. On the morning of September 25, Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President, sent a message to Microsoft employees claiming that the ongoing review had “found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian’s reporting. This evidence includes information relating to IMOD (Israel Ministry of Defense) consumption of Azure storage capacity in the Netherlands and the use of AI services.”
The Ministry had duly been informed of the company’s decision to cease and disable bespoke subscriptions and their services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies.” The decision had been reviewed with the IMOD and steps taken “to ensure compliance with our terms of service, focusing on ensuring our services are not used for mass surveillance of civilians.”
In keeping with the company’s vigorous spirit of having its cake and eating it too, Smith goes on to inform recipients of the message that the move did nothing to end or impair “the important work that Microsoft continues to do to protect the cybersecurity of Israel and other countries in the Middle East, including under the Abraham Accords.” And why would it? Israel is a reliable, valuable client and had merely tripped in failing to abide by the terms of service. That such tripping played, as it continues to do, a vital role in the systematic destruction of Palestinian lives, infrastructure and cultural existence, was a minor matter. Palestinians, as the exhaustive work of Anthony Loewenstein shows, remain test subjects for new weapons, novel forms of targeting, and surveillance, an endeavour that has spawned a global cyber-military-industrial complex.
This explains why the move by Microsoft did not precipitate the usual accusations of discrimination and antisemitism Israeli officials foamingly issue when their conduct is found wanting. This was framed as a commercial matter, a crease that could be ironed out with solicitude. “There is no damage to the operational capabilities of the IDF,” stated one military official to the Times of Israel. Having been forewarned about the measure, Unit 8200 had backed up the data it had stored before the access to the cloud services was terminated. Both the IDF and Microsoft can now continue their working relationship, as long as those tepid terms of service are observed, even if it entails the continued program of extermination in Gaza and apartheid in the West Bank.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
