“Across their homeland, Palestinians face constant surveillance and monitoring by Israel, using advanced technology systems that collect detailed information on every aspect of their lives.”
By Lewis Backon
Last month, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) launched a new campaign, Delete Genocide Tech. Through this campaign, we are organising to end public contracts with three companies, Cisco Systems, Oracle and Palantir, which are supplying Israel with technology used to commit genocide and impose apartheid on Palestinians.
Here’s why we’ve launched the campaign, and why it’s an essential part of our efforts to end British complicity in Israel’s atrocities.
Israel’s tech-powered genocide and apartheid
Across their homeland, Palestinians face constant surveillance and monitoring by Israel, using advanced technology systems that collect detailed information on every aspect of their lives. This includes surveillance drones, biometric cameras, social media monitoring and observation by Israeli soldiers.
The sensitive information collected is fed into databases profiling Palestinians, used to restrict their movement through military checkpoints and to target them for arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, where they are subjected to systematic torture.
Drawing on data collected through mass surveillance, Israel uses artificial intelligence technology to rapidly generate targets for its bombing campaigns as part of its genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This has facilitated the scale and speed of Israel’s mass destruction of entire neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals.
Palestinian organisations have identified Cisco Systems, Oracle and Palantir as three of the companies supplying Israel with technology used in its crimes. Cisco Systems provides servers and IT hardware to the Israeli military, powering its surveillance and AI systems. Oracle’s products are used by Israel to manage data in military operations. Palantir has a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s Ministry of Defence, with its technology likely used in Israel’s rapid target generation as part of its genocide in Gaza.
We know that we can’t convince these companies to stop by just making moral arguments to their leadership. We have to organise to hit their profits to impose a cost on them for enabling Israel’s atrocities.
We can do that by targeting the highly lucrative contracts these companies hold with the government, local councils and other public bodies in Britain.
Government Contracts with Genocide Tech
In November 2023, NHS England signed a £330 million contract with Palantir to build a Federated Data Platform to store patient medical data. This contract has been widely condemned by health workers and patients, but has so far been maintained by the Labour government. Utilising the early 2027 break clause in this contract is one of the urgent steps the new Prime Minister must take to change course from his predecessor and end the British state’s shameful complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid.
The NHS England contract is just one part of the government’s ties to Palantir. In February 2025, Keir Starmer toured Palantir’s headquarters in Washington DC, accompanied by the disgraced former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson. The following September, the government signed a “strategic partnership” with Palantir, which includes plans for “London to become the base for Palantir’s European defence business”. Three months later, the Ministry of Defence signed a £240 million enterprise agreement with the company.
Oracle and Cisco Systems also hold substantial contracts with the government. Oracle is the leading software provider for the Synergy Programme, which is overhauling IT systems for major government departments including the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office. Cisco Systems has recently signed a Memoranda of Understanding with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which gives public sector organisations access to Cisco’s technology.
We’ll be escalating the pressure on the government to end these contracts, and cut all financial ties to tech giants enabling Israel’s atrocities. Apsana Begum MP has tabled an Early Day Motion calling for government contracts with Cisco Systems, Oracle and Palantir to be ended. You can use PSC’s online tool to contact your MP and ask that they sign on.
Local Council Complicity
Oracle and Cisco Systems have a large footprint in local government, receiving contracts from many dozens of local councils in exchange for their software. Currently, Palantir holds a much smaller number of contracts with councils, but it does hold some, such as a contract with Coventry City Council to use AI in social work.
PSC branches will be launching campaigns to sever these contracts and ensure that no new contracts are awarded to these companies. We’ll be calling on councils to adopt meaningful ethical procurement policies so that all companies bidding for contracts are scrutinised for involvement in grave violations of international law, with proven involvement being grounds to exclude a company from a tender.
Local councils also hold financial ties with these companies through the investments of the pension fund they administer. PSC’s research has identified that Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds collectively invest hundreds of millions of pounds in Palantir, Oracle and Cisco Systems. Campaigns are active right across Britain demanding divestment from all companies complicit in Israel’s atrocities, and they are getting results. 32 local councils in England and Wales have passed a motion or issued a statement in support of divestment since July 2024.
There is a wave of support for councils ending their financial ties to Israel’s crimes. Around 1,500 councillors have signed PSC’s Pledge for Palestine, which includes a commitment to ensure their “council is not complicit in and does not help to normalise Israel’s violations of international law”, including through the divestment of pension funds and the adoption of ethical procurement policies. We must harness this support and ensure that all councillors who have made the pledge follow through on their commitments and act to end their councils’ ties with companies complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid.
To bring an end to government and local council contracts with Cisco Systems, Oracle and Palantir, we need people across Britain to join the Delete Genocide Tech campaign. To get involved, make contact with your local PSC branch, the hub of Palestine solidarity organising in your community.
- Lewis Backon is PSC’s Campaigns Officer.
- You can follow the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and Bluesky.
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