Political Audit: IBM

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

IBM’s only official corporate statement on the October 2023 war, issued by Chairman/CEO Arvind Krishna on October 11, 2023 and updated October 16, 2023, condemned “acts of terrorism,” confirmed the deaths of one employee and one retiree, and announced 1:1 employee-donation matching to two Israeli relief organizations, with no mention of Gaza, Palestinians, or Palestinian civilian casualties ¹. Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks issued a parallel October 12, 2023 statement, “Support for our Israel associates,” condemning the attacks and detailing matching-gift and employee-assistance support for Israeli staff, likewise without reference to Gaza or Palestinians ². In a June 6, 2024 livestreamed employee Q&A reported by The Intercept, Krishna, pressed on IBM’s Israeli military contracts, responded, “We operate in Israel, but we also operate in Saudi Arabia. What do those countries want us to do? And what is it they consider to be correct behavior?” and stated he was “not taking any kind of moral or ethical judgment,” a response employees described as “predictably shameful” and met with outrage ³. As a comparator of past crisis conduct, IBM announced in June 2020 that it would no longer offer general-purpose facial recognition or analysis software, with Krishna citing racial-bias risk and calling in a letter to the U.S. Congress for “a national dialogue” on police use of the technology ⁴⁵. IBM Israel General Manager Daniel Melamed is quoted in secondary reporting as stating “We’re here for innovation, not politics,” though a primary IBM source for the quote was not independently located ⁶. IBM’s public-facing Israel R&D materials frame the country’s operations in standard commercial and innovation terms - research centers, headcount, and “digital transformation” - rather than as a distinct geopolitical partnership ⁷⁸. No public evidence identified of IBM’s annual report or 10-K explicitly framing Israel operations as a “unique geopolitical partnership” or disclosing Israel-specific risk factors.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

IBM Israel, a wholly owned subsidiary, has operated the “Eitan” central database of Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) since 2019, following a 2017 contract to design and build the system and a 2018 contract valued at approximately NIS 840 million ($240 million) ⁹¹⁰¹¹. Computing-services and hardware contracts tied to the project reportedly run through 2035, with cumulative value exceeding NIS 800 million on what is described as Israel’s largest government computer project ¹². The Eitan/PIBA system stores biometric data - including fingerprints, facial images, and, per the UN Special Rapporteur, ethnic and religious identity data - on Palestinians across the OPT, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the occupied Syrian Golan, and administers Israel’s permit regime governing worker, medical, family-crossing, and travel permissions ^9101312. IBM Israel and Red Hat Israel also provide cloud, software, and computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and military, including a 2020 twenty-five-year, approximately $1 billion IT contract - shared with Malam Team - for three military regional logistics centers, a 2017 contract worth more than $20 million for military computing-center operation and maintenance, and 2011 supply of storage and servers valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars ^9101131415. Red Hat separately supplies OpenShift and related cloud/edge computing to Mamram, the IDF’s central computing unit, and is described in reporting connected to the Waterford News & Star’s coverage of the Red Hat/IDF relationship ¹⁶. IBM has cooperated with Ariel University, located in the Ariel settlement in the West Bank, including hosting a 2019 mentoring event and student event at IBM’s compound ⁹¹⁰. IBM established a cyber research and innovation center in Be’er Sheva in 2018, adjacent to military facilities and oriented toward integrating discharged military cyber personnel into the tech sector ⁹¹⁰. Who Profits also documents IBM’s participation on an Israel Innovation Authority committee running joint ventures with the Ministry of Defense Administration and the National Cyber Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office ⁹¹⁰. IBM does not appear on the OHCHR’s June/September 2025 updated database of 158 business enterprises linked to West Bank settlement activity (A/HRC/60/19), unlike its 2020 contract partner Malam Team ¹⁷¹⁴¹⁵. IBM is named and quoted at length in UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s July 2, 2025 report “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide” (A/HRC/59/23), which states that IBM “has operated in Israel since 1972, training military/intelligence personnel - especially from Unit 8200 - for the tech sector and start-up scene” and that, since 2019, IBM Israel “has operated and upgraded” the PIBA database, “enabling collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians” and supporting the permit regime ¹³. IBM is one of 48 corporate actors named in the report and one of the “big tech” companies - alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, HP, and Palantir - that the report says provide AI, cloud, and surveillance technology enabling operations in Gaza ¹⁸¹⁹²⁰. The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s tracker attributes eleven distinct allegations to IBM stemming from the UNSR report, out of more than 45 entities offered the opportunity to respond, of which only 15 replied; IBM’s specific response status could not be confirmed ²¹²². NGO Monitor, offered as a counter-source, characterizes the Albanese report as a “highly politicized narrative” whose recommendations “seek to transform complex political disputes into legal indictments of private sector actors” and do not impose direct obligations on private entities under international humanitarian law ²³. IBM is tracked on the AFSC “BDS Divestment Shortlist” database citing the PIBA/Eitan registry and IDF logistics contracts as grounds ¹¹, and Who Profits maintains an active company report titled “IBM: A Major Facilitator of Israel’s Surveillance and Security Apparatus” ⁹¹⁰. The BDS Movement has called on the UN’s “AI for Good” summit to end its partnership with IBM, alongside Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Cisco, and Oracle, citing IBM’s PIBA database role ²⁴. Al-Haq’s survey of 104 technology companies operating in or for Israel and the OPT also includes IBM within its broader business-and-human-rights advocacy tracking ²⁵. Storebrand, the Norwegian asset manager, divested approximately £110 million ($139 million) from IBM in March 2024, citing IBM’s biometric database as supporting “discrimination and segregation of Palestinians,” stating that IBM “was not willing to discuss this” when Storebrand sought dialogue, a move publicly supported by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) ²⁶²⁷²⁸. IBM’s surveillance and data-systems exposure is not confined to Israel-Palestine: a September 2025 investigation reported that Amazon, IBM, and Dell helped build elements of China’s predictive-policing and mass-surveillance infrastructure, a finding separately logged by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre ²⁹³⁰.

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

IBM and Red Hat employees have “repeatedly pressed company leadership to divulge and limit its role in the Israeli offensive” since October 2023, with internal reaction to Krishna’s June 2024 remarks described as “overwhelmingly dissatisfied or outraged” ³. Over 180 staff at South East Technological University in Ireland publicly called in May 2024 - a second letter following an unanswered March 2024 letter - for the university to sever its Red Hat partnership, alleging Red Hat is “directly involved in supporting, enhancing and profiting from the Israeli military apparatus” via its IDF cloud relationship, with Red Hat not responding to media requests for comment ¹⁶. No public evidence identified of IBM-specific shareholder resolutions on Israel/Palestine human-rights due diligence; the ADL’s 2023 shareholder-proposal roundup names Caterpillar, Amazon, PayPal, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon but does not name IBM ³¹. IBM has instead faced general, non-Israel-specific shareholder proposals (SEC Form PX14A6G, 2024 and 2025 proxy seasons) demanding disclosure of direct, indirect, and grassroots lobbying payments, including through trade associations and tax-exempt groups ³²³³³⁴. No public evidence identified of IBM operating consumer content-moderation or editorial platforms subject to Israel-Palestine-related moderation scrutiny, consistent with IBM’s B2B/enterprise business model rather than a social-media or app-store operation. No public evidence identified regarding labeling, sourcing, or categorization of settlement-origin products in connection with IBM, as IBM has no relevant consumer retail supply chain in this domain.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

IBM has operated an R&D presence in Israel since 1972, when the IBM Israel Scientific Center was founded by Prof. Josef Raviv at the Technion in Haifa; this grew into the IBM Haifa Research Lab, IBM’s largest research center outside the United States, with more than 3,000 employees across Haifa, Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Rehovot, and the Jerusalem Technology Park as of 2023 ⁷⁸. Per the UN Special Rapporteur’s report, this decades-long Israel footprint has included training military and intelligence personnel - particularly from Unit 8200 - for the tech sector and start-up scene, directly linking IBM’s brand and R&D heritage in Israel to defense-intelligence personnel pipelines ¹³. IBM has been a recurring participant, sponsor, and speaker at Cybertech Global Tel Aviv, a state-organized cybersecurity conference held under the auspices of the Israel National Cyber Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Israeli Ministry of Economy, and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs ³⁵³⁶. Former IBM Israel CEO Meir Nissensohn, who led IBM Israel from 1996 to 2012, subsequently became Chairman of the Board of ODI, a personnel-network data point rather than a current corporate tie ³⁷. No public evidence identified of IBM formally accepting Israeli state honors such as the Israel Prize or Presidential Medal of Honour, or of IBM sponsoring an explicit “Brand Israel” cultural or PR campaign by name; IBM’s institutional participation appears concentrated in state-organized technology and cyber conferences rather than cultural branding initiatives.

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

IBM Corp spent $5.53 million on U.S. federal lobbying in 2024 and $980,000 in the 2026 year-to-date period at the time of search, per OpenSecrets, with no Israel-specific lobbying line items separately broken out in available summaries ³⁸³⁹. IBM has faced shareholder proposals in the 2024 and 2025 proxy seasons demanding disclosure of direct, indirect, and grassroots lobbying payments, including lobbying conducted through trade associations and tax-exempt groups, though these are general corporate-transparency proposals rather than Israel-specific measures ³²³³³⁴. No public evidence identified connecting an IBM corporate PAC to AIPAC or other pro-Israel PAC contribution flows. No public evidence identified of direct IBM corporate donations to FIDF, JNF/KKL, Lev Echad, Regavim, Im Tirtzu, or other named settlement- or military-welfare-linked organizations. IBM’s October 2023 crisis giving was directed specifically at two unnamed Israeli humanitarian and relief organizations through 1:1 employee-donation matching, rather than toward military-welfare or settlement organizations by name ¹⁴⁰. No public evidence identified of IBM directing free cloud credits, flights, or comparable in-kind logistics specifically to the Israeli military or state-aligned NGOs during the post-October-2023 conflict, distinct from separately reported expanded cloud/AI access from other major technology vendors; IBM’s documented crisis response was limited to the employee-donation-matching program ¹⁴⁰. Red Hat additionally hosted a hackathon for students from an IDF-linked pre-military technical program in the period following October 2023, corroborated through Who Profits- and AFSC-style organizational sourcing on IBM/Red Hat’s Israel military ties ⁹¹⁰¹¹.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

IBM is a Delaware-incorporated, NYSE-listed public company. No public evidence identified of a golden-share arrangement, state ownership, or charter provision tying IBM’s primary corporate mission to advancing any state’s geopolitical goals, based on review of SEC charter/bylaws filings and IBM investor-relations governance documents.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna’s only public remarks specific to Israel are the October 2023 employee-facing crisis statement and the June 2024 employee Q&A reported by The Intercept, in which he explicitly declined to render “any kind of moral or ethical judgment” on IBM’s Israel operations, framing the company’s posture as customer- and government-driven ¹³. No public evidence identified of personal donations, family-foundation grants, or fundraising by Krishna or other named IBM C-suite executives or board members directed to FIDF, JNF, or other Israel-focused advocacy or military-welfare organizations. No public evidence identified of current IBM board members holding personal board seats or advisory roles in CFI, AIPAC, ADL, USISTF, or comparable pro-Israel or anti-BDS advocacy organizations. Former IBM Israel CEO Meir Nissensohn (1996–2012) later chaired the board of ODI, a personnel/alumni-network data point rather than a current sitting-executive finding ³⁷. Current IBM Israel General Manager Shai Banaim, in the role since June 2022, and predecessor Daniel Melamed have made general business-continuity statements, with Melamed’s secondary-sourced “innovation, not politics” remark the only located leadership comment directly addressing the political dimension of IBM’s Israel operations ⁶⁴¹.

End Notes