The Profiteers Behind the Crisis: Unmasking Corporate Complicity
Towering plumes of smoke, devastated neighborhoods, and children huddled in basements—these images from Gaza have splashed across screens for months, yet behind the scenes, shadowy forces profit from the relentless violence. According to a groundbreaking UN report by Francesca Albanese, the financial machinery sustaining Israel’s campaign against Palestinians is powered largely by an alliance of global technology giants, arms manufacturers, and construction conglomerates.
Drawing on more than 200 submissions from nations, activists, corporate insiders, and academics, Albanese’s 24-page report names over 60 firms that allegedly profit from—or actively enable—what she describes as Israel’s “economy of genocide.” The list is a roll call of some of the world’s most influential companies: Lockheed Martin and Leonardo, whose deadly systems have pummeled Gaza; Caterpillar and HD Hyundai, whose bulldozers level homes and infrastructure; and tech titans like Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir, and IBM, who underpin Israel’s sweeping surveillance and battlefield AI.
How did we arrive at this moment, where corporations once synonymous with progress and innovation now find themselves accused of abetting grave human rights abuses? Consider Microsoft’s critical role in rebuilding Israel’s cloud-based military computing when it faltered during the 2023 assault. Google and Amazon, through the Project Nimbus consortium, helped develop the infrastructure that enables Israel to process mountains of surveillance data. In Albanese’s words, the occupation has become “progressively automated,” with repression now digitized, continuous, and nearly invisible.
According to Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem, the consequences are devastating: AI-powered targeting algorithms have increased civilian casualties, while facial recognition and predictive policing entrench an already suffocating occupation. It’s a dystopian reality in which the lines between profit, power, and accountability blur—calling to mind dark chapters from the past when corporations enabled war machines, from IBM’s punch-card systems in Nazi Germany to arms industry fortunes during the Vietnam conflict. Have we truly learned anything since then?
Automated Repression: Technology’s Role in Modern Warfare
Peering behind the curtain, a closer look reveals the scale and sophistication of high-tech complicity. Through platforms like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services, the Israeli military can analyze real-time intelligence and deploy AI-driven warfare strategies with staggering efficiency. Palantir, in particular, has publicly boasted of providing AI targeting support—effectively becoming a partner in modern-day sieges.
The UN report highlights how this deep corporate entanglement transforms occupied territories into laboratories for surveillance and military innovation. Products tested on Palestinian civilians are then sold as “battle proven” to clients around the world. The result, Albanese warns, is a perverse feedback loop: the more violence and repression, the greater the business incentives.
Consider the stock market response—since Israel’s October 2023 assault on Gaza, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has soared by 179%. For communities enduring bombs and bulldozers, this disparity isn’t just an abstraction: it’s evidence of a global economy that rewards displacement and devastation. Harvard economist Dr. Leila Farsakh observes, “Wars are rarely waged for ideals alone. There are always those who stand to profit—and it is often the marginalized who pay the price.”
Companies implicated in this report have responded variably. About 15 corporations offered statements to Albanese’s office, though none of their replies were published, an omission that raises questions about transparency and accountability. Israel’s mission in Geneva dismissed the entire report as “legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of her office.” Yet similar denials have long been part of the playbook for corporations accused of enabling systemic oppression, from Shell’s role in Nigeria’s Ogoni crisis to the logistical support of drone warfare by US-based firms in Yemen.
“To profit from the machinery of occupation or genocide is not only morally bankrupt—it is a direct violation of international law and the principles of common humanity.” — Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur
History is unambiguous about where complicity leads. Yet even as evidence mounts, truly holding corporations accountable has proven elusive. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, echoing past struggles against apartheid, now lists over 70 corporate actors complicit in what they argue amounts to apartheid and genocide. Their demands—divestment, ending contracts, corporate disengagement—are gaining traction, mirroring earlier grassroots campaigns that forced multinationals out of apartheid-era South Africa.
The Struggle for Accountability: Ethics, Law, and Public Pressure
Can the world’s largest corporations truly justify their involvement in such conflicts by hiding behind legalese or claims of technological neutrality? The report underscores the need for robust international mechanisms to hold CEOs and boards accountable for the crimes their technologies abet. As corporate power grows to rival that of states, so too must systems of global oversight.
International law is clear. The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids aiding and abetting war crimes—let alone genocide—yet enforcement still lags far behind moral outcry. Recent lawsuits brought under the Alien Tort Statute in U.S. courts hint at a shift, but as attorney Michael Ratner once said, “Justice delayed for the oppressed is justice denied.” Without external checks or public scrutiny, ethical codes collapse beneath the weight of quarterly profits and business-as-usual inertia.
Grassroots mobilization, consumer activism, and union pressure have, at times, posed serious challenges to corporate impunity. Employee walkouts at Google and Microsoft signal a growing discomfort among tech workers unwilling to be silent partners to war and repression. Palestinian civil society, bolstered by solidarity from global South movements, continues to demand an end to what many see as an “economy of apartheid.” Yet without sustained government regulation and international legal consequences, these efforts remain Sisyphean uphill battles.
Echoes from history implore us to act differently this time. Corporate support for occupations or state violence corrodes not only distant societies but gnaws at the moral fabric of democracies everywhere. Financial interests must never supersede fundamental human rights. As ordinary citizens, consumers, and stakeholders, the power to demand ethical conduct from even the world’s mightiest corporations is not a luxury—it’s a responsibility.
