Ask HN: Has the Gaza war affected the HN crowd?
I'm curious whether others in the HN community have felt ripple effects from the Gaza war—either directly or indirectly.
In Israel, the war has triggered a noticeable academic brain drain, with foreign students and collaborators pulling back from Israeli institutions (Haaretz). In tech, the impact has been even more pronounced: thousands of workers have relocated abroad, especially to the U.S., and investment in Israeli startups has dropped sharply. Some VCs now require Israeli companies to incorporate outside Israel to mitigate perceived risks (Calcalist).
At the same time, there's growing tension within global tech companies. Internal protests—especially at firms like Google and Microsoft—have raised questions about how Israeli professionals are perceived, and whether political affiliations or national origin are starting to affect hiring, collaboration, or workplace culture. Google recently fired 28 employees after a sit-in protest over its cloud contract with Israel (The Verge), and Microsoft faced a lockdown after activists occupied its president’s office (NYT).
It’s also important to acknowledge that Palestinian professionals and supporters of Palestine may be facing their own challenges. In some cases, expressing solidarity or criticism has led to workplace tensions, reputational risks, or even job insecurity. For many of us who are just observing what is happening online there is also an impact. This can shape how we feel about the historical conflict. These dynamics are complex and vary widely by geography and company culture, but they’re part of the broader picture.
For those of you working in tech, academia, or investing:
- Have you seen changes in how Israeli or Palestinian colleagues are treated?
- Are relocation trends affecting your teams or hiring decisions?
- Is internal culture shifting in response to the war or related protests?
- Have your opinions changed over the course of the 'war'?
Would love to hear perspectives from founders, engineers, researchers, and investors—especially those with ties to Israel, Palestine, or working in globally distributed teams.
== sources ==
Academic brain drain from Israel Haaretz: “Foreign Students Are Fleeing Israeli Universities” https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-20/ty-article/.premium/foreign-students-are-fleeing-israeli-universities/0000019f-2e6e-dc3c-a7df-3f6e2f7b0000
Investment decline and relocation in Israeli tech Calcalist: “ההייטק הישראלי איבד 8800 עובדים מאז תחילת המלחמה” https://www.calcalist.co.il/local-news/article/hyq0j00x0c
Google employee firings over protest of Israel cloud contract The Verge: “Google fires employees who protested its cloud contract with Israel” https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/google-fires-employees-protest-israel-project-nimbus
Microsoft office protest over Israel ties
New York Times: “Microsoft Protest Over Israel Ties Ends With Lockdown”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/technology/microsoft-protest-israel.html Personally it impacted me in a way that I have lost faith in humanity. Everybody talks, but no body cares, no body takes serious actions. Kids, women, elderly, whole families are being killed for almost two years and no body gives a shit. Millions of people trapped in a land and moved from north to south from south to north like animals, have you seen videos of starving people running in masses to get food from aids thrown from the air? I can’t beilieve such things are happening in 2025! Sometimes I think, what would I do if I was put under such circumstances? How much hate would I accumulate? What if something happens to my kids? What if I see my kids starving in front of me and I can do nothing about it? Also big companies, they only care about money, ethics and morale do not exist, they only care about money money and more money. Countries fighting for women rights in Iran and Saudi (which I agree with) but at the same time, those same countries don’t say anything about the killing of innocent people, pure hypocrites. Our ability to apply empathy selectively is the root cause of most of the evil in the world. I myself struggle to understand why some things when they happen to some people move me so deeply, but when similar things happen to others I feel much less. I obviously don't choose to behaviour in this way, but that seems to be how we are wired. I guess the difference is that I'm aware of it and I try to fight it. The ability to empathise with those whom you disagree with or share little in common with is a skill that can be learnt, and one we should try to teach to our children. And I mean this in its most extreme sense. If you can't empathise with someone you find truly bad/evil, that's a problem because we can always view others as bad/evil if it allows us to justify our lack of empathy towards them. Typically its those who we believe instinctively deserve the least empathy which we must proactively try our hardest to understand and care about. You see this all the time in war – they're the bad guys and deserve the bad things we do. Unfortunately I'm not sure how practical what I'm saying is at its limit. Something you quickly realise when you practise being empathetic to everyone is that people will take advantage of that. But still, as a trend the world would be much a better place if more people could see past differences and care for the suffering of people equally. Serious question, have other past conflicts in history not made you also lose faith in humanity? Studying what people did to each other even thousands of years ago, systematically beheading and parading them around on spikes for example, as many civilizations have done, has made me realize that humans simply do not change, for our biology and psychology remains the same. Even still, have previous recent or concurrent conflicts like Myanmar or Sudan not caused you to lose faith either? I often find people who say this have some personal vested interest in this particular conflict and find it somewhat hypocritical that other such conflicts have not moved them the same way, for it's still humans fighting each other after all. > Also big companies, they only care about money, ethics and morale do not exist, they only care about money money and more money. I mean, yes, that is the purpose of corporations, they do not have morals by themselves. They are like machines to absorb money, you wouldn't expect a lawnmower to have ethics when it runs you over. Yes all recent wars, but the comment was on a question related to Gaza. Still gaza war feels different, maybe because it’s almost streamed live on social media platforms by the directly impacted people? I don’t agree with the statement that corporations are machines to absorb money, behind corporations there are people and people must have morale. > I don’t agree with the statement that corporations are machines to absorb money, behind corporations there are people and people must have morale. This is covered by the principle of the diffusion of responsibility. One person may have morals but spread over many, the entire structure does not. Those corporations that do have morals are outcompeted by those that don't, in terms of amount of money made, so over time corporations that are not moral do better. I hope time and good people/consumers will prove your theory wrong. Actually, over time they prove it right. I'm sure smaller companies back in the 1800s needed to be nice to their customers as they are likely neighbors or well known in the town or state, but now with multinational companies, there is no hope of them ever being nice to their customers. It feels different because as horrible as other conflicts are they at least have a military objective. For example Russian invasion of Ukraine is horrible but I can see some strategic purpose to it for Russia. Gaza just feels like a Genocide. It's ridiculous that the person that replied to you got flagged for pointing out the deaths that happened on Oct 7th that started this war. Either have a discussion or don't. My opinion is caring about the Palestinians is incredibly performative. People that claim to care about Palestinians care about 'the cause' but not the individuals themselves. I used to think this, and I was so wrong. Or course some attend the rallies for foolish reasons, but I found that a lot of what I believed about the Israel-Palestine situation was effectively Israeli propaganda (and grossly untrue). The mistreatment of the Palestinians is long running, deliberate, calculated. The recent blood bath in Gaza is another entry in a long running tragedy. Between River and Sea by Dervla Murphy is a wonderful, humane examination of the country. It's over a decade old but still very informative without being academic or dry. I would recommend it highly. What "cause"? Not sure I understand that? My main concern is how quickly what I would have considered Western value structures, democracy, press freedom, international law, reasonableness have evaporated and I now see the West, and the US in particular very differently. Allowing one group, in fact enabling them in so many ways, of people who we have close affiliations with to kill, starve, displace and torture an entire population, no matter the reason, just makes me see the world in a very different way. This centuries illegal wars had opened my eyes somewhat but even those I'm going back to and re-evaluating and seeing them and the current situation as frankly great evils. I'm old enough to not really have to worry for myself, but selfishly it does make me very concerned for my children. And yes I am more than concerned for the Palestinians, if that is the "cause" you are referring to. Gaza Sky Geeks [0] is/was a startup accelerator or tech hub in Gaza, with backing from people from Mercy Corps, Google and Microsoft. Needless to say, their activities have been severely interrupted by the violence since October 7th, 2023. I'm subscribed to their email newsletter, and the updates are heart-breaking. If anyone from Gaza Sky Geeks is reading this, please consider sharing those updates on your blog as well as on your email newsletter, so that they can be shared more widely. In my personal life, it has had a rather significant effect; although still trivial compared to those in the region. I'm Jewish, and opinions in my extended family about Israel have always been in tension; but this war has brought it to an untenable level. I've stopped going what had previously been the normal Shabbat and holiday dinners, in favor of smaller ones with family that is less pro Israel (and very staunchly anti Netenyahu). Even there we more or less avoid the topic. Our less Passover sedar involved a very thinly veiled discussion about the war, which did not go particularly well. Professionally, there has been much less of an effect. I work for a US defense contractor. For the most part, we avoid talking about it. From the little conversation, I have had, there seems to be a general morale drop; but that might be a selection effect with who I am willing to talk to about it. The only time Israel became an open topic of discussion was after the pager bombs. Even then, it was pretty much a professional "and this is why we have so much red tape around supply chain management". No major changes professionally other than that I have become a bit more careful about keeping my geopolitical opinions to myself. Also having some coworkers living in the Middle East makes the two recent Qatari strikes feel scarier. I had a lot of trouble doing anything during the week of the Iran war besides refreshing the news. I felt quite awkward around my Iranian coworkers knowing that my tax dollars were funding the bombing of their families. It has taken a small but noticeable toll on my personal life. Amongst my family we find ourselves talking about the state of the occupation and how hopeless it makes us feel about humanity probably once a week. I can see my liberal Jewish friends having a lot of trouble being criticized and rejected from both sides of discourse in USA. I recently saw two jewish people shouting obscenities at each other while waiting to get off a plane and talking about Israel. Antisemitism on the street seems to be increasing -- I met someone a few days ago who started saying baseless hateful things minutes into our first conversation. Probably like other people here I've spent a lot more of my free time in the last year learning about the history culture and politics of Israel, Palestine and Iran. Most Iranians outside of the US hate the regime, so probably were in favor of the bombing of Iran. But best not to talk any politics at work, its better. My workplace has become very tense as most of us are pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, but our CEO and investors are very aggressively Zionist. Internally we debate if we should quit, or stay and "fight" the best we can. I think in general there's the sense that we shouldn't let the Zionists chase us out of our jobs, especially when most people don't support their cause. On a personal level, I boycott all Israeli products and companies, including companies that do business with Israel (to the best of my ability, I still need an alternative to NVIDIA). You touched on the key tension here The VC community, weighted by AUM is profoundly Zionist. I worked at one of the most prominent funds and 4 of my coworkers (American) literally relocated to Israel for ideological reasons You can't bite the hand that feeds even if it's morally right. On october 8th there was already anti-israeli sentiment at work (i am Israeli, living currently in USA). The only person that asked me for my well being was Palestinian guy who lives here as well. Foreign Students are come and go anyway. Unlike in USA they can't stick around in Israel. Israeli tech companies raised record amounts in Q2 https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-tech-companies-ra... The Israeli stock market is at a high, GDP per capita is growing, etc. I am not Israeli, just giving the other side of the doom and gloom Yeah but how much is due to defense/cybersecurity being such a larger percentage of Israeli GDP & exports than any other country Defense sector even now is less than 12% of the israeli stock market Not that Im surprised, but most people who "care" about Gaza or Israel are really just doing the thing where they pick their side. The amount of false facts about the conflict being thrown about is insane just because it fits the narrative of their side. It has made it clear to me that humans do not have any real ability to act on morality in our advanced society. I actually thought that in a sufficiently advanced society, like the one we have today, that we would be beyond certain things. I've gotten the lesson that this iteration of humanity really is forked from that previous iteration of humanity, and that the "moral" part of the codebase was never actually enhanced. But I also thought we were kind of beyond outright corruption and jingoism too. That these societies that you think are sophisticated and educated are actually not different at all from the sensibilities of societies that crucified people, enslaved people, wholesale eradicated people, economically suffocated people ... There's nothing about our advanced society that has markers of advanced character, certainly not advanced moral character. To be fully clear, if you show me a cohort of high school graduates from this year, with wonder in their eyes and a lot of talk about "the future will be good and just", I will absolutely give no credence to it. They are branch of this long torrid code base, and the romance of us as a species is mostly over in my heart (IDGAF how many rockets we launch into space, and how cool AI is). This is not a new type of epiphany, as I'm sure many people were broken throughout history exactly like this. If you believed the young people of 20-40 years ago that their innocence would persist and they would truly build a better world, you got catfished. None of us were ever going to be really different than the shitheads from yesteryear, and the dark truth is this will probably be the case long after our current iteration has mostly passed on. In short, human innovation and energy is something I no longer believe is sufficient enough for building a sound world anymore. I falsely believed scientific and infrastructural advancement would be enough to keep lifting society. It's clear we morally platued quite some time ago, while technology has trended way way up. I asked a question I'm curious to hear the answer from here to another similar response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45207706 same, the genocide does not impact me directly in any material sense, but it changes how I see the world and human beings fundamentally. It really opened my eyes to the lack of actual interest in reality. The number of people willing to believe what they're told by social media or by the popular kids far exceed those who would try to understand the situation. It fascinates me that it's become so popular to defend people from reprisals for their own elected government's actions. I also found it really interesting that over a thousand Israelis were killed, yet the people I work with immediately started saying that any kind of response was totally unfair to the Palestinians. Not a single word of compassion for the Israelis who were killed. But I guess that's not a trending thought. first sentence in article: "I watched as the goal of mainstream journalism shifted from describing reality to ushering readers to the correct political conclusion." and on your last sentence: this https://www.amazon.com/dp/000853019X/ maybe this https://www.amazon.com/dp/000853019X/ and probably this https://sapirjournal.org/social-justice/2021/critical-race-t... Russia's invasion of Ukraine, mass kidnappings of children, etc have had much more impact on me. So many people defending Russia, trying to justify Russia's position, or wave it away. If we can't take care of people in the heart of Europe we definitely can't begin to touch things in the middle east. I don't understand why so many in the west get upset by the Gaza war but are so indifferent/don't care about Ukraine or actively hand waive away concerns and/or loudly say 'I don't care about Ukraine'. The political unrest comes from the West is actively supporting and funding the ones causing the civilian deaths in Gaza Whereas they've already contributed billions to supporting Ukraine You'd see 10x the outrage if for some reason the US was providing Russia the munitions they use on Ukrainian civilians Europe buys how much oil/gas from Russia? What income does Russia's economy run on to fund the war? Your argument doesn't make sense. You should see just as many protests over governments funding Russia as we see against Israel if what you say is true. You're right, both are fueling the murder of civilians In the case of Israel, western governments (particularly US) are directly transferring arms and military support used against the civilians This is paid for by taxpayers who receive no economic benefits whatsoever, with minimal negative economic impact from decoupling you don't understand, it's different /s Yes it's obviously different than directly supplying munitions as uncompensated "aid" It's also different when then ratio of civilian to military deaths is multiple orders of magnitude higher, and ~5x higher in absolute terms despite Gaza having ~5-10% the population of Ukraine the only one that europe supplies to uncompensated military aid to, it's ukraine. to russia it simply gives billions of euros that russia later uses to bomb ukraine about ratio: - i'll suggest you to take a look at wiki page of siege mariupol. iirc it's up to 75,000 civilian casualties in 3 months - ukraine actively evacuates civilians. - hamas said that that well being of civilians is problem of israel and unrwa and actively using civilians as human shields. here is 10 years old analysis that says that it does so in order to shape western opinion https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.... - ukrainians from day one of war were allowed to seek refuge in europe - egypt build second wall on border with gaza over past year in order to prevent any refugees crossing and europe talking about any possibility of evacuation of civilians as of ethnic cleansing. west (europe) doesn't fund Israel. Didn't really see much support either. With regards to ukraine, billions contributed are mostly due to personal interest of europe: it cheaper to make ukrainians fight russia than deal with it by itself in case it will decide to reunite with baltics for example I admire your courage in asking these questions. I don't consider myself part of the HN crowd, rather just someone with a waning tech background and persistent interest in many things. I'm unaffiliated with any identity regarding the conflict. A mere American, dizzy and uneasy. Personally, the effects for me, coupled with Ukraine, instill a sense of illness. I deliberately avoid the numbers as I would the flu. My delusions of a wonderful world are presently reserved for intoxicants and occasional suspensions of disbelief which come sparsely. The tension surrounding the topic, however, is palpable. I wish you the extensive discussion the subject deserves. I have seen lot of propaganda and misleading statements floating around