History is filled with examples of corporations fueling war machines and global colonisation. IBM supplied technology used in Nazi death camps; shipping and trading companies played central roles in the Transatlantic trafficking of Africans; and multinational firms helped bankroll South Africa’s apartheid regime. The companies that once profited from South Africa’s pass laws, today empower Israel’s biometric checkpoints. Silicon Valley giants are repeating that history by providing the digital tools and propaganda that enable and whitewash Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

The collaboration between Israel and Silicon Valley goes far beyond hardware and algorithms, encompassing narrative control. According to Drop Site News, Google signed a six-month, $45 million contract with the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to promote government disinformation and downplay the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Signed in late June, the agreement made Google a “key entity” in Netanyahu’s PR strategy.

The PR campaign was launched in response to international outrage after Israel violated the ceasefire on 2 March and blocked food, medicine, and fuel from entering Gaza. The Google contract was part of Israel’s digital disinformation effort claiming “there is no hunger” in Gaza. In other words, while Palestinian babies were starving to death, Google was fattening its checkbook, serving as Netanyahu’s pernicious digital PR machine to obscure the crime.

In 2021, Microsoft (MS) signed a $133 million contract that made the Israeli military its second-largest defence customer after the United States, describing the Israeli army as a “top priority” client. The deal includes more than 600 separate Azure subscriptions linked to military units such as Mamram, its central tech hub, and

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