Does IBM support Israel?

Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna published "War in Israel: A Message From Arvind Krishna" on IBM's newsroom, saying "IBM unequivocally condemns these attacks and all acts of terrorism," mourning an IBM Israel employee killed on October 7, and pledging that IBM "stands by our people" in Israel with full company support.

IBM opened an employee fundraiser after the 7 October 2023 attacks, with every employee donation matched 1:1 by the corporation. IBM's newsroom page carries a 12 October 2023 note that the fundraiser "has been updated" and that donations made to the previous fundraiser would still be matched. Israel's N12 (mako) reported on 13 October 2023 what the change was: the platform, which serves more than 280,000 IBM employees worldwide, at first listed Magen David Adom and Hadassah Medical Center alongside organisations working in Gaza, among them the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and the Red Cross; within about a day the Israeli organisations were removed and only the Palestinian-focused ones were left. Maya Sofer, IBM vice-president for AI technologies and head of IBM's Haifa research lab, told Israeli staff she was pressing management to reverse the decision, after which Hadassah Medical Center returned to the list while Magen David Adom did not. IBM told N12 that it had "sharply condemned the violent attacks on Israel" and supports all those affected by the war, including direct support for its own employees and their families as well as donations to recognised international aid organisations, among them Hadassah Medical Center. JLens, which tracked corporate responses, also reported IBM runs Israel talent-pipeline programs preparing high schoolers for university and certification tracks.

IBM (through IBM Israel) won the government's "Eitan" tender to operate PIBA's core computing systems and build and manage Israel's national population registry — a contract of hundreds of millions of shekels over roughly 20 years (reported at over NIS 800 million with maintenance running to 2035). Eitan gradually replaced the HP-built "Aviv" system; IBM assumed full responsibility for the registry in 2019.

Acquired Israeli cybersecurity firm Trusteer for a reported $650 million to $1 billion — IBM's tenth and largest Israeli acquisition at the time — and formed a cybersecurity software lab in Israel bringing together more than 200 Trusteer and IBM researchers.

IBM announced on 6 July 2022 that it had acquired Databand.ai, a data-observability software company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel; IBM's release states that financial terms were not disclosed and that Databand.ai's employees would join IBM Data and AI. Calcalist's CTech reported the same day that the price was estimated at tens of millions of dollars, that Databand had raised about $15 million and employed about 40 people, and that this was IBM's first acquisition in Israel in many years, the previous significant one being Trusteer in 2013.

Acquired Israeli startup Polar Security (reported ~$60 million; terms undisclosed), folding its roughly 20 employees into IBM's Guardium data-security family — itself developed in Israel. One of more than a dozen Israeli companies IBM has acquired.

Who Profits reports that in 2020 IBM, together with Israeli IT firm Malam Team, was contracted by the Israeli Ministry of Defense and military as the main IT provider for three new military regional logistics centres on a 25-year term. The joint contract, shared between the two companies, was reported at NIS 1 billion — roughly US$275 million at the time. Who Profits also documents that IBM's Red Hat Israel subsidiary supplies the OpenShift platform used by Israeli military intelligence, air force, ground forces and navy units, and supports the government's "Nimbus" cloud project serving the Ministry of Defense and state bodies. The logistics-centre contract is corroborated independently by AFSC Investigate and by trade reporting; the remaining Red Hat and Nimbus detail rests on Who Profits' own profile, which cites no underlying document for it.

Who Profits documents that IBM has supplied the Israel Police with core computer hardware, operating-system software and central-computer services since 1975, and remains sole supplier of IBM DataPower and MQ software used as critical infrastructure across police systems; recent no-tender contracts extend this through 2030-2031 (e.g. MQ maintenance awarded May 2025 running to December 2030, DataPower maintenance awarded November 2025 running to January 2031). This claim rests on Who Profits' research; no independent corroborating report was found.

IBM's R&D presence in Israel dates to 1972, when the IBM Israel Scientific Center was founded in Haifa; the Haifa lab is one of IBM's largest research centers outside the US, with sites in Haifa, Givatayim and Be'er Sheva. As of 2023 over 3,000 people worked at IBM R&D locations across Israel, and operations continued through the 2023-24 war.