Microsoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy

en.globes.co.il

198 pointsbhouston164 comments

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:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-ackn...

> American companies should not be allowing their tech to ...

Do they have a choice?

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.

Thanks for the link, I didn't realize the EFF spent their money on such things. I honestly thought they focused on free speech/privacy/open source.

I'm not trying to argue pro Israel or what not, I just wish they'd focus on 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

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.

Freedom is literally in their name. Can it be more core than that?

Unless I'm missing something, it literally is not?

Yep. These nonprofits have a tendency of being abused for the personal causes of their staff. Clearly this isn’t part of their mission unless you go through some mental gymnastics.

Well, reporting the largest abuses of non-free software companies could be seen as a corollary to that.

> I honestly thought they focused on free speech/privacy/open source.

Pointing complicity with a regime that killed over 260 journalists[1] has a very strong focus and serves well free speech.

[1] https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-24/israel-h...

this... is their core mission

That must explain why the "least" friendly MSFT asked the FBI to spy on employees attending pro-Gaza/anti-genocide protests:

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.

I’m kind of confused, in that Israel is not that big in terms of population, about 10 million people; how much data and cloud do they need?

The state of Pennsylvania is 13 million; would MSFT losing PA do them serious financial damage?

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.

Plus most other governments buying the tech as well, I don't think the domestic market has much relevancy here.

Israel is essentially fighting wars on multiple fronts at all times. Since they are so small and vulnerable, they have to lean more on intelligence. As a result they have the most advanced intelligence apparatus in the world, far beyond US intelligence for example. Part of their intelligence strategy, clearly, is advanced use of technology & data collection/mining/analytics. So they're gonna end up with a lot of data.

They're mass surveilling the vulnerable Palestinians they're genociding, and now turning their eyes toward Lebanon and Syria.

Which is mostly on Lebanon and Syria, because they are the aggressors here. Or in case of Lebanon the largest militant group known to exist. Perhaps they aren't the largest any more since the latest war, but they are still formidable.

No they're not the aggressors. Let's stop with the victim blaming.

Hezbollah is an Iranian supported schiite fundamentalist militant group effectively controlling the south of Lebanon. Syria declared war on Israel right after its founding and it rejected multiple peace offerings since. They are anything but victims.

They are the victims. Hezbollah did not exist before the occupation. And Syria has the right to defend their neighbors against foreign invaders.

https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/

The "army of god" isn't in any way a victim, they are perpetrators of the highest order. The political goals of Hezbollah are only in-transparent to those that are blinded in their hatred of Israel for one reason or another.

Hezb does not mean army, it means party or group. Secondly, they only came to be after the invasion. It's normal to hate invaders who have committed countless crimes against humanity, not "for one reason or another": https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/

Not true. It is a militant fundamentalist group. In contrast to Israel that often tries to avoid civilian targets, for Hezbollah terror is the goal.

There is no excuse for that, they are what they themselves claim to be and no, they don't fight for anyone's freedom and are an extension of Iranian foreign policy.

Israelis aren't invaders for that matter. Most were expelled from surrounding countries, Syria and Lebanon included. They have no claim or reason, just terror. Their security interest in Syria and Lebanon are fully justified.

They are a resistance group that was formed after the occupation of Palestine. We've seen time and time again the israelis deliberately target and snipe civilians, it's very well documented and has been happening since the beginning of the invasion. Even the NYT recently published an article about how the israelies use dogs to rape Palestinians.

The invader terror regime is exposed, no justification for their crimes or interest in so called (greater israel): https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed

> Even the NYT recently published an article about how the israelies use dogs to rape Palestinians.

They published allegations from a questionable source with no evidence. I think most people would agree that "Israel trains dogs to rape on command" is rather absurd and implausible on its face.

The evidence is there, but some people refuse to accept. The claim is not implausible, unfortunately - it happened in other countries (e.g. Chile). Either way, their history of war crimes and atrocities goes all the way back to the start of the invasion, and continues to this day for everyone to see:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9drj14e0lo

https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed

The first link is about a dog attack, but absolutely nothing about dogs being "trained to rape". The second link is nothing specific, just an entire subreddit devoted to anti-Israel propaganda.

So where is this evidence that you say exists?

Documenting war crimes is propaganda?

The first article just shows a sliver of the crimes they commit, documented by a western source. I found an article that talks about how similar crimes with dogs raping prisoners was done in Chile, so it's not far fetched at all that the israelis are doing the same.

You said "the evidence is there" about Israeli rape dogs, not some other allegation. An incident that has nothing to with rape isn't evidence, nor is an incident that happened in an entirely different country.

I was replying to the claim that using dogs to rape is implausible and absurd, clearly it is not.

> We've seen time and time again the israelis deliberately target and snipe civilians

There is no evidence that this is in any way a deliberate Israeli policy, obviously collateral damage is going to be an issue when the enemy(Hamas) hides amongst civilians and doesn't wear military uniforms.

The evidence is overwhelming, let alone them torturing prisoners, including children. Just a few weeks ago a child was found with cigarette burns after being kidnapped by the israelis.

Are we forgetting that the israelis literally dressed up as women (covered themselves entirely) to commit war crimes in a hospital?

https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/

> Hezbollah did not exist before the occupation.

Israel occupied parts of Lebanon due to attacks by PLO terrorists prior to Hezbollah being founded. Israel did not invade Lebanon prior to being attacked.

Why would you need surveilance in a genocide? Seems contradictory.

So there was no surveillance during the Holocaust then?

I think the main difference is that the nazis built entire factories and supply chains to more effectively use their limited resources, while Israel, being funded largely by the US, has no such constraints and can use military equipment to, to use an American figure of language, shoot fish in a barrel.

What the Israeli government is doing is, at best, unconscionable.

Wow, this used to be the website with the smart comment section.

Now its all David Duke fans.

It impresses me because, in our trade, there is a stiff penalty for ignoring reality.

> They're mass surveilling the vulnerable Palestinians

This is mostly so that they can more accurately target Palestinian terrorist/militant groups that hide behind civilians(which is of course a war crime).

> now turning their eyes toward Lebanon and Syria

The Oct 7th attacks likely happened because they weren't keeping a close enough watch over Palestinians in Gaza and were overly focused on threats from Lebanon and Syria. Ultimately Israel's failure to monitor threats coming from Gaza greatly increased Palestinian civilian casualties due to a successful attack resulting in a much stronger Israeli response than a failed attack would have. Israel always considered Hezbollah to be a much bigger threat than Hamas so that's where they put most of their resources.

> This is mostly so that they can more accurately target Palestinian terrorist/militant groups that hide behind civilians(which is of course a war crime).

The mass casualties of children are a strong indicator that the targeting is not accurate. Government officials and elected representatives have repeatedly advocated for the assassination of all Palestinians.

> As a result they have the most advanced intelligence apparatus in the world, far beyond US intelligence for example

I think if you're going to concoct some kind of per-capita metric of intelligence capabilities, you're likely correct. But their intelligence industry pales in size relative to that of the U.S. and couldn't exist as it does without support from the U.S. and American companies (as we've seen with Lavender and Nimbus). American companies providing services they would otherwise have to develop in-house certainly contributes to their capacity for conducting what most would consider black-hat activities, including gathering intelligence on Americans and goings-on in the U.S., sometimes even of American politicians, in order to manipulate the American political environment to their favour.

I'm not aware of U.S. big tech providing such extensive services to any other country whose behaviour is so similar to that of the officially designated American foreign adversaries

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:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/09/microsoft-blo...

If these are resources located in the EU, there are a lot of additional criminal liabilities that will need investigation.

Apple also seems to be stirring some controversy around it's operations in Israel.

https://openletter.earth/apple-cease-funding-for-illegal-set...

>> 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.

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.

So Israel is switching to Google and Amazon. Hm.

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:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-and-amazon-ackn...

I wonder if they would provide Hamas resources too to balance it out.

Ah yes, the perfect amoral capitalist position. I want money, social consequences be damned.

Too little too late.

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.

> 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?

> isn't Microsoft forced, by law, to cooperate with the US government and US military?

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.

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.

Actually there is a long and storied history of mechanisms created to compel American companies to comply with requests for digital intervention. A good starting point is the concept of the NSL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

Relevant acts include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Priv... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act and the more recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

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.

What exactly did he do?

Allowed 'unethical' usage of Azure services by the Ministry of Defense

(...to occur on servers in the European Union, where Microsoft could get in trouble for it)

~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.

Lovely, but in character, to see a .co.il 403-block a broad swath of the world.

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...

I confirmed that it was a pure geo-based block before writing the comment. It stayed in place even on mobile internet vs. residential, across devices and browsers.

Okay, now I will be supporting Azure products and will try to bring them into my workplace over AWS/Google Cloud.

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.

I wouldn't be so sure. The departure of these guys only opens new room for less 'pro-ethics' corpos to replace them.

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.

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