'Data is control'
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What struck me was how pervasive the surveillance is, much more than who the particular players are.
There's no way to escape, is there?
In January this year, Harry Davies and Yuval Abraham first reported that Microsoft had deepened its ties to Israel alongside other major tech firms. Since then, the Guardian has published an award-winning series of investigations – in partnership with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call – that has revealed a symbiotic relationship between Silicon Valley and the Israeli military.
One investigation exposed an Israeli mass surveillance program scooping up virtually all Palestinian phone calls and storing them on Microsoft’s cloud services – setting off an inquiry that ultimately prompted the company to cut off Israel’s access to some of its technology. Another story revealed that the Israeli military created a ChatGPT-like tool to analyze data collected through the surveillance of Palestinians. Yet another revealed that Google and Amazon had agreed to extraordinary terms to clinch a lucrative contract with Israel.
I asked Davies and Abraham to discuss what they learned this year – about the role of these technologies in Israel’s assault on Gaza, whether these business ties are sustainable, and what the revelations tell us about how the wars of the future will be fought.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/30/israeli-military-big-tech
