TIL that Microsoft is the least Israel-friendly of the big three clouds:
> 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.
> TIL that Microsoft is the least Israel-friendly of the big three clouds
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:
The EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. That is verbatim off their website. It appears that this perfectly in line with their core mission.
Somewhat hard to be neutral when outgrowths of the Israeli state like the NSO Group and Canary Mission start taking a stand against privacy and free speech
This comment makes it sound like you are trying to belittle people who work at nonprofits to make yourself feel better about putting profits over people.
> American companies should not be allowing their tech to be used to in the gross ongoing human rights violations in Israel/Gaza/West Bank.
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.
> Fully agreed, but also a hard sell given that America itself does not recognize what is happening there as a genocide.
This has nothing to do with a declaration of genocide. Both Amazon and Google respectively have made commitments to not enable human rights violations:
Well clearly they didn't mean much, which is about what I expect from any corporate policy declaration such as. If you believed them anyway, congratulations on having far more faith in corporations than I do.
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 UN, like most western organizations, is biased in favor of Israel. Meaning, this reporting is what favorable coverage looks like. You should read unfavorable coverage, it's much much worse. It took the UN a long time to acknowledge Israel even did anything wrong.
The idea that the UN is biased in favor of Israel — or frankly is a reliable narrator on any topic — is laughable.
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.
> Yeah but when you read the article it comes across less like 'Microsoft doesn't want its services used for ethics violations' and more 'The unethical genocide Israel is doing uses some servers in the EU exposing Microsoft to legal and regulatory issues'.
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."
Ok, so The Guardian was incomplete in its assumptions. But Microsoft's explanation also does not make sense - see how they have to support any war waged by the US government. They would have had to support the Vietnam war, if were were in that era back. Something does not add up here still.
> see how they have to support any war waged by the US government. They would have had to support the Vietnam war, if were were in that era back. Something does not add up here still.
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.
Agreed, but then Germany is also to be held liable as it supports Israel and allows the USA to use its bases there to bomb people in far-away countries. So there is a huge inconsistency here, IMHO.
> then Germany is also to be held liable as it supports Israel
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:
In what dimension do you mean? Legally? Yes, unless based out of a place with an anti-BDS law. Politically? Sure, it's a bet against those currently in power and for the sentiment in the population. Practically? Yes, they can refuse business and contracts. I suppose they could also put killswitches in their hardware/software, but I wouldn't be a fan of that for digital-rights reasons. Economically? Who knows, the market makes no sense at all currently. They could probably get away with whatever.
When you're doing mass surveilance, including storing every single phone call, of a population of 6 million people, storage needs tend to pile up quite fast.
You can't post nationalistic slurs to HN, regardless of which group you're talking about and regardless of how strongly you feel. We ban accounts that post like this, regardless of the group being slurred, so please don't post like this again.
This is factually incorrect, as "Palestinians" (in fact Hamas warriors) didn't "take over" or had any intention of doing so, they just raided some border areas to take hostages. Btw, many of the Israeli victims were probably killed by their own army, and not by mistake.
> The world supports Oct 7 as they now recognize it as a good thing [...] something to celebrate.
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.
Ofcourse I'm ok with indigenous people fighting against a foreign invasion force that has been documented killing children and raping women for decades to steal their land. This is why I'm on the Israeli side which the whole land is filled with their archeological sites and against the saudi-desert invaders who are relatively new to the area and refusing any resolution to peacefully split the land since 1948.
I am in favor of returning America to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. And while we are at it, let us also return Australia to the Aboriginal Australians. We probably also have to return Europe, Asia, and Africa - or at least some parts - to someone.
I know that a highly charged topic leads to all sorts of rushed conclusions, but you can't assume that a post not being flagged means the moderators saw it and decided to let it remain here. On the contrary, we don't see most of what gets posted to HN. There's far too much of it.
It's a naive view of how the world works.
Money talks. Norway, Qatar pressured Microsoft, and since they provide greater financial incentives, M$ complied. And if Microsoft receives a contract for operating gas ovens for jews in europe, I bet it will happily jump on that.
And regarding internal opposition, large chunk of employees in general are just an emotionally stupid grey mass fed on TikTok propaganda. Just look at HN comments. Humans did not advance that much, whatever it was a priest in a church claiming a jew drank a christian baby blood or Goebbels, you can see it right in front of you real time on internet.
No, it's just a random coin toss. Most of what's happening with rich people becoming psychotic or anti-social is simply greed based. You add money to 70% of the population and they'll turn out to be an asshole.
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.
For those that do not know, this is part of the fallout of this Microsoft investigation from 2025 into the misuse of Azure services in Israel for military purposes:
MSFT won't sign non-disclosures, but they have policies regarding not using your data to train their models. Just trust them if you want to use azure -except for that rogue employee part I guess.
Yup. Google and Amazon knew their tech could be used for human rights abuses in Israel (their lawyers warned them so) but Google and Amazon apparently value $$$ more than human rights per this EFF article:
Israel consistently flaunts international law, has been accused of war crimes by the Hague, and the UN has found it most likely has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza. So I am not surprised that dealing with the country's Defense apparatus would lead to ethical concerns. Every international company should think twice about doing business with the Israeli government or companies rooted in defense and cybersecurity.
What a bizarre thing to say, concentration camps during the Holocaust also had swimming pools and soccer fields (for the inmates as well), does that prove the Holocaust is a hoax? Swimming pools, soccer fields, and 5k events do not disprove ongoing genocides.
Honestly it's difficult for me to respond to this comment because the premise is so clearly flawed.
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?
Wholesale population displacement is explicitly not (by itself) genocide under the convention. Genocide is an intent crime, and the intent has to be the eradication of the targeted ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. Kidnapping all the children in an occupied territory and dispersing them so they can't be returned to their families is genocidal. Mass displacement isn't.
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.
So... "statements from leaders that suggest genocidal intent" ... meets the genocide bar, yes? I'll just quote wikipedia:
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]
There are certainly people involved in the Israeli government that have expressed genocidal intent. The problem is that you can say that about basically every state in the world. It can't be the case that the moment a state commits an ethnically-targeted war crime it is per se committing genocide because you can find someone in the majority, the opposition, or the administrative state that has embraced genocidal logic. The logic has to animate the whole conflict.
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'm no genocide expert, but it does seem like legal scholars who _are_ genocide experts agree that the facts here seem to clearly meet the bar. The people who you credit with "hav[ing] the better side of the legal argument" do not seem, from my vantage, to be arguing in good faith. They are trying to bog us down in semantics when a truly horrifying crime is happening, and saying that we can't call a horse a horse is not helping.
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.
Really the only thing that moved me to comment here, besides message board vulnerability amplified by waiting for a Rust compile run to finish, was the implication upthread that mass displacement of populations was genocidal. The rest of it I don't think there's enough daylight between us to debate usefully.
"Wholesale population displacement, destruction of a significant percentage of civilian structures, bombings, raids, land and sea blockades,"
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.
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:
Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran— all of them have both an armed force and weapons to fight with. Hamas in particular, instigated the hot conflict that started Oct. 7 2023, and prolonged it through hostage-taking and active participation in armed conflict.
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.
No.
Here’s the difference between real genocide and appropriation of the term.
Genocide is actual when a third of a people is annihilated just because they are not liked.
“Genocide” is an appropriated term when the population of the people supposedly “genocides” against actually INCREASES after “genocide”. After said people is warred upon after they attempted a real genocidal annihilation attack on its neighbors. The type of attack they are used doing. The type of attacks that allowed them to grow from a little tribe near Mecca to control most of the Middle East.
"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]
Nope [1], they actually hosted a 5k in Gaza. Can you imagine Holocaust survivors or Armenians during the genocide taking part in a 5k? I can't.
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]
Yes, I can. This is what being human is. You eat, sleep, laugh when you can, make plans with friends, fall in love, get married, and grieve when the people around you die. And there is a lot of grief in Gaza right now, but there are still living people and living people do nothing if not love one another.
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?
Holocaust survivors did have art/dance/theatre events, and soccer/boxing competitions. In ghettos and in concentration camps. This was viewed as a triumph of the human spirit over the horrors of Nazism. These events are celebrated in countless books by survivors, exhibitions, and art installations. I dare you to find one survivor's account that does not mention these events.
>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.
See, the thing that makes a genocide is all the dead people. The dead people who were killed by Israeli missiles and bombs. Or when they, the Israeli military, denied aid workers entry into the steaming heap of rubble that they, the Israeli military, created with their missiles and bombs. The steaming heap of rubble that used to be populated buildings that they, the Israeli military, bombed into powder whilst people were inside of them.
>> Alon Haimovich is leaving after an investigation into alleged unethical use of Azure by the Ministry of Defense, “Globes” has learned. Microsoft Israel has been placed under the management of Microsoft France.
> In September 2025, Microsoft decided to unilaterally terminate the usage agreement with IDF intelligence Unit 8200 after an article published in the UK newspaper "The Guardian," which claimed that the unit was collecting information about Palestinians for the purpose of fighting terrorism
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?
Technically the government can force some industries to do some things. (and that's just officially. The singer sewing machine company didn't need to be forced into weapons manufacturing) But, that's a wartime measure, if the government forced every steel mill in the country to produce for them, I'm not sure it'd even have to go to the supreme court.
I don't know what you're experiencing, of course, but I do know from the (entirely different) context of running HN that such blocks can happen for a lot of different reasons and you can't really assess them correctly without, at least, multiple data points. Not sure if it's helpful to say this or not...
~28,000 Gaza children murdered in 2 years by Israeli gov. About 68,000 people are officially confirmed killed. 70% of all casualties are women and children. "Western liberal democracies", especially the US gov, are up to their necks in blood, as usual. Microsoft is no different, its only concern is to avoid legal trouble and uphold the facade of legal obligation, otherwise business as usual with Israeli gov. In any category of violence, the US gov, is the undisputed record holder since WW2 - wars of aggression started, proxy wars started, democracies overthrown, dictatorships established, terrorist groups created, funded and armed, resources plundered, economies impoverished, tens of millions of civilians displaced, maimed and murdered. US citizens have a duty to learn about the actual history of their country, and the elite uni-party mafia criminals in charge of it, not just what is shown to them on CNN, FOX, NYT, WSJ, etc. Read books by Michael Parenti, like, Face of Imperialism, as a starting point.
Well, lets check Mr.Parenti's wikipedia page. "Education and early life", "Career", "Personal life and death", "Works". I wonder what's under works? "Accusations of Bosnian genocide denial"! How fun!
Which ones? I may have fudged the church one - I meant Gaza and not the entirety of Palestine. What other claims above aren't true? I'm happy to provide sources to prove them.
Israel has been leaking US state secrets to China and Russia for decades. Intel and Microsoft both moved core R&D hubs to Israel even after the country had been caught leaking US secrets. Israel is not an ally of the United States, end of story.
I assume you don't have any credible source for these claims. You are just posting a modern version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Antisemitism ia not ok.
Being anti-israel is not the same as being anti-semetic. That's a low-effort low-intelligence "argument" people throw out to quickly stamp out dissent against Israel, and it doesn't work anymore. It's been overused, get new material.
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.
Why? Microsoft probably just hasn’t prioritized nimbus participation over their other construction work. They probably haven’t yet constructed the correct subsidiary structure or key sharing agreements that allow them to participate either.
Sooner or later they’ll participate. And then you would have moved your workload for no reason.
The reason cited for this whole fiasco is that some of the Ministry of Defense's genocide work could be performed by servers in the EU, which could expose Microsoft to legal or regulatory issues.
It's not that Microsoft was against this, it's that Microsoft was against themselves getting in trouble for this with the EU.
Well they did put in their contracts with the Israeli government that their services can't be used for mass surveilance which makes them slightly less evil than Google/Amazon.
> 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...
https://about.google/company-info/human-rights/
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.
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:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._Germany
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?
Good idea.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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...
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.
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.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/microsoft-blo...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-ackn...
There are also other Gaza 5K events in U.S. cities, including Dallas and Milwaukee, depending on the year and location.
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]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
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.
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...
[2] https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/409187
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(...to occur on servers in the European Union, where Microsoft could get in trouble for it)
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.
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.