alt Hacker NewsMicrosoft Israel chief leaves amid ethical controversy
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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...
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.
Too little too late.
>> 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.
I love reading on hacker news, but every once in a while I get reminded what detathed people there is here. You truly know shit about everything other than you see on your screens eh
Lovely, but in character, to see a .co.il 403-block a broad swath of the world.
Okay, now I will be supporting Azure products and will try to bring them into my workplace over AWS/Google Cloud.
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.