Yes you can donate (why did you add the word "directly"?). It just passes through intermediary organizations, such as the Friends of the IDF. There are even non profits that pay for "lone soldiers" -- international mercenaries -- to take part in the genocide in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of "lone soldiers" took part, I believe something like 20,000 came from the US alone.
Important to remember Oracle is one of the most evil tech companies, and Larry Ellison is your prototypical evil villain. Oracle CEO Catz recently said "We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none" and "if they don't agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren't the right company for them".
In almost no cases has someone supported a terrorist group or advocated for violence. They're literally just taking lists provided by Israeli extremists and deporting them.
> In almost no cases has someone supported a terrorist group or advocated for violence.
"We support liberations by any means necessary including armed violence"... "Violence is the only path forward" - Mahmoud Khalil
Do you live in the united states? People commonly state "all resistance is justified", demand a third intifada, demand Jewish people be driven out of their own homeland, or feature flags/flyers for Hamas/Hezbollah/PIJ at pro Palestinian marches.
Because there are huge protests in the UK at the moment for Palestine, which led them to "proscribe" the group Palestine Action. Then everyone (correctly) freaked out about civil liberties, and you can now see videos of grannies being arrested by the UK police for having an "i support Palestine Action" sign multiple times a week.
Don't get me wrong, I have been surprised by witnessing a thrown punch even in a very nerdy upper-middle-to-just-posh Cambridge pub (seen exactly once over the course of about 9 years), but even that wasn't at the level alleged (IDK if found guilty) in the referenced case.
There are people murdered in pubs. People are raped at festivals. those are awful, similar with striking someone with a sledgehammer. Should we shut down all pubs, or all festivals? No. All protests? Also no. Even all protests about one particular group? No.
With a 1:16:29 runtime, could you at least share what parts are relevant to this submission, the very least timestamps? Even if I'd speed it up by 4x it'd take 30 minutes to listen to all of it.
No parts of it are relevant to this submission, because (as others explained to you elsewhere in the thread) the submission is about Norway objecting to Microsoft doing business with Saudi Arabia, whereas GP is about attacking Microsoft's ties to Israel.
(For some reason, doing business with Saudi Arabia is not counted as evidence against the "Zionist", "genocide" etc. etc. narrative.)
Probably you're not cynical enough. Israel is led by the same guy as last century, Saudi Arabia has been run by the same rich assholes since before my mother was born. The "ideology" involved is the same in both cases: wealthy, powerful old men are assholes. Microsoft is willing to turn a blind eye to them being assholes, to get $$$
My complaint is about people accusing Microsoft of taking sides when they are simply doing the capitalist thing, which I more or less agree with you about.
Of course they're taking sides. It's still taking sides when you get paid. Mercenaries take sides too, for money.
I guess either Hollywood or American Politics tricks people into thinking there are always exactly two sides, but life isn't like that.
It is even entirely possible, and indeed profitable, to get paid by country A to help them kill country B's peasants, and by country B to help kill A's peasants and everybody is happy with this situation, except the peasants of course and maybe anybody who recognises that this is morally abhorrent...
"Both" sides is exactly the Hollywood / US politics misunderstanding that I'm pointing at.
They aren't working for "both" sides because that implies there are somehow exactly two parties. Are Hamas also big Microsoft customers? No. How about all those mistreated workers in Saudi Arabia, are they also hiring Microsoft? No again.
Microsoft does two different awful things, that doesn't somehow cancel out, and when people insist that somehow it does they're at best showing that their understanding of morality is very limited and at worst desperately making excuses for evil.
Or you ask Gemini to do this for you (timestamps were removed when formatting into markdown)
Based on the podcast "Microsoft: Powering Israel’s Genocide? | Hossam Nasr," here are the main human rights issues alleged against Microsoft:
1. Complicity in Military Operations
- The podcast claims Microsoft is a key tech provider for the Israeli military, specifically using the Azure cloud platform to run combat and intelligence activities.
- It alleges Microsoft sells AI services (including OpenAI models) to military units like "Mamram," which are linked to automated targeting systems used to accelerate lethal strikes.
2. Surveillance and Infrastructure
- Microsoft is accused of hosting roughly 13.6 petabytes of data used for mass surveillance.
- The "Al-Munassiq" app, used by Palestinians to manage movement permits, reportedly runs on Azure and is described as a tool for collecting vast amounts of surveillance data.
- The company reportedly sells technology directly to illegal settlements in the West Bank.
3. Internal Labor Rights & Suppression
- The speaker alleges a double standard and discrimination against Palestinian and Arab employees.
- Microsoft is accused of "weaponizing" HR policies to fire workers (including the podcast guest) for organizing vigils or protesting the company's military contracts.
4. Historical Context
- The discussion references Microsoft's history of providing tech to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the US as part of a broader pattern of supporting "systems of oppression."
Since it doesn't say it in the article, the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Palantir are all providing cloud and AI services to Israel which it uses it the genocide in Gaza and the continued military occupation of Palestine.
> the human rights they're referring to is that Microsoft was caught providing Azure services to the Israeli army's unit 8200, which used them to surveil millions of hours of Palestinian calls.
Yes, let’s go after US Steel because some guy with a gun shot up a school.
Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service and claim that millions of users use azure cloud to serve websites and content, the dance will go on.
I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job. This is the same for tech. Sub contractors for Israel government got Azure hosting and subbed it out to Palantir to plant their platform inside (gun maker) and then sold it to Israel (nut job).
> Unless Microsoft is directly supplying the software which surveils instead of just “general purpose compute” this isn’t as big as Norway would want you to believe. They can just terminate the accounts as violations of terms of service
Doesn't the article you linked contradict that? It sounds like they're claiming they only provided general purpose blob storage.
> First, we do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades. This is why we explained publicly on August 15 that Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit the use of our technology for mass surveillance of civilians.
The Norway wealth fund is a co owner of Microsoft, like everyone with shares. Google says they own 1.35%, worth 50 billion.
If they want Microsoft not to provide "general compute" to the Israeli army then they can try to get a majority of Microsft owners to go along with it.
I think that's not the same as pressure on Microsoft from the outside.
It’s so black and white, it’s a question of signals and eventually consequences. Even if the vote doesn’t pass, that’s not the primary objective here I think.
And the US would be right to prosecute Microsoft because there are US sanctions against Iran. There are no US sanctions against Israel. Israel is also considered and important ally. So, industry cooperation with defense on both sides is legal.
This is the current conundrum. It’s perfectly legal (and politically recommended) to support this genocidal regime in the name of some guy who lived and died 2000 years ago. Can’t have the dark skinned terrorists perform their cult like rituals on the floor of their beloved sacred holy sites (shared by all three might I add).
It’s faith-based warfare disguised as a terrorist fight and the AI is in full force flooding feeds of aid when the reality is it’s a god damn wasteland.
That’s a nice story spun by the lobbyists in the US and Europe (if there is such a thing in Europe). But said person 2000 years ago was crucified by the Romans at the request of the Jews.
There are Jews of every color - so feeding this as a white vs brown fight is incorrect.
I don’t belong to (nor believe) in any of the 3 religions in this fight. But historically the other two (Christians and Muslims) have been very genocidal.
He himself was a Jew. Doesn’t mean they aren’t shielding behind this being some holy crusade to rid the world of evil hamas.
The whole situation is so fucked no one wants to touch it. Netanwacko is even asking for a pardon for his crimes. Like everyone took DMT and no one cares.
Yes, its general purpose compute. But if you or me use Azure for illegal purpose (pirated content, tax evasion, violence etc etc..), for sure Microsoft won't be sitting idle.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund are not "online radicals", and many genocide scholars, UN bodies, etc. have also found that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
If you want to dispute that claim, fine; reasonable people can disagree about the definition of "genocide" and about what standard of proof is necessary. However, reducing the opposing opinion to "online radicals" is inaccurate.
Any export increases of gun metal grade, high carbon steel should be a red flag these days to stateside corporations operating in war zones. Structural steel is a low carbon steel that has more 'give' and is easier to weld. It's obvious which is which.
In Sweden's case, however, even pre-war they were already exporting 40% of Germany's demand for raw ore which increased to 50% during wartime iirc. So Germany already had the infrastructure necessary to process the raw materials into steel, and at scale scale beforehand.
In modern warfare, those same foundaries would make easy aerial targets due to the massive heat output from the bessimer process required to make steel from raw ore.
Palantir is a data and ml platform. They don’t create point solutions for people. The solutions created are owned by the people contracting Palantir. If you hate on Palantir - you can hate on pretty much all industry in the west - oil and gas for supplying fuel, farmers for supplying food, consulting companies for consulting for the government, general population for paying taxes, etc.
This entire thing is just political showboating. I mean feel free to not buy food and fuel.
If these companies were breaking laws against big people (facilitating investment fraud, payment processing for terrorists) nobody would consider these methods of deflection for a second - it's only because the laws are being broken to hurt small people that the concept of aiding and abetting or acting as a willing accomplice is considered not relevant.
The parent poster's example was more apt with US Steel.
Palantir on the otherhand is a well known defense contractor and its stock price is arguably propped up by the US Department of Defen -- I mean WAR -- having an infinite budget.
I’m not. But I don’t have qualms about working at Palantir or any US defense contractor. If the work is legally allowed then I’m not going to second guess my source of income.
It's relevant because Microsoft, like all big companies, have Human Rights Pricinples and such that are part of the company. It's basically impossible to get big institutional investment without it.
The issue is that they were caught not following their practices, and then lying about it. So the shareholders are asking that they produce a report about whether they are following their own human rights principles.
And Satya is resisting it, because it is very clear that they are not following them, as workers [1] have been calling out for years now. Many leaked documents have shown that Microsoft actually embeds employees directly with the IDF and makes millions in service contracts with them. [2]
For anyone that is still green on company politics, all company principles are check boxes that form part of an HR circus of yearly compliance trainings, and marketing for young employees that are naive enough to think they mean anything.
Perhaps this reflects your experience, in your part of the world. In some parts of the world, principles and ethics do count, and don’t change on a dime (as they do in the US).
In my experience working at several US health IT companies, company principles for following HIPAA rules (especially patient privacy) were taken seriously at all levels and considered more than just compliance check boxes. Regardless of the ethical issues, if you get a reputation for being sloppy and the trade press writes negative articles then that can kill your sales pipeline.
A way of speaking, it has nothing to do with stuff like "Do no evil", "Respect, Achievement, Renewal, and Challenge", "Excellence, Innovation, and Responsibility" and similar word games with a yearly HR training, just to check a box.
> I don’t think punishing the steel maker for a gun maker who sold it to a distributor who then sold it to a nut job should be liable for the nut job
Nobody thinks that, because it's ridiculous. This is a false equivalence. Isolated crimes are inevitable, and impossible to solve with any single thing.
But when it comes to genocide, you can stop or at least limit it by going after the suppliers who equip the group with the tools to carry it out. Microsoft is one such supplier, and they know exactly what they're doing. If our government isn't going to do something, an activist shareholder is a decent alternative.
Isn’t it though? When AI is used against the people and fake media is used to cover up war crimes, what’s not to stop there? When your feeds have been polluted with outside foreign influencers that you explode from within, what’s not to stop there? It’s war alright. Just not the kind of war Spielberg thinks would make a great film.
I’m aware there’s a genocide in sudan but i’m not aware of entire cities being leveled in this fashion. there have been other conflicts where more people have died, but rarely is there a conflict where the entire world government apparatus appears to stand against 2 million people mostly women and children in contradiction to the democratic will of almost the entire world
it takes a lot of money and firepower to do what they’ve done to gaza. it is an affectation of enormous wealth and callousness against a nearly defenseless population
i will say though that sri lankans said that some of these tactics were pioneered against the tamil tigers in more recent history
By the same token, if Microsoft provides "general purpose compute" to a state that does something harmful, Microsoft should not be expected to share moral culpability for that harm. That's why I objected in the first place. It is not as if they provided something exclusively or primarily used for causing harm.
MS said they wouldn't, that's where the conflict arises. The fund doesn't want to be involved with any shady stuff and is trying their "humanity clause".
Actually we should as well, given the shady deals some of them make with politicians, which create a set of cascading events that end up in school shootings as if they were good old saloon fights.
If the number of people killed by guns made at home with 3D printers or CNC mills gets to the same ballpark as those killed by commercial guns, sure, it's a conversation to have.
This is real. Gil Duran is extremely well respected among those of us who are against the fascist takeover of Silicon Valley, which has been well-documented for quite some time.
Not trying to say that you or Gil Duran is wrong, but any anti vaxxer or flat earther can say the same about their "theory" and their well respected writers.
Fair point so let me qualify that. Among the fairly mainstream US left, who have put significant work into documenting and pushing back against the rise of tech oligarchs, Gil Duran is well respected.
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