Ask HN: Has the Gaza war affected the HN crowd?
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
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.
Those “innocent people” cheered in the streets as captured Israeli girls were paraded in front of them, bloodied from rape.
Those “innocent people” videoed it on their smartphones and shared it with the world so we could see exactly the kind of people they are.
And what we see today is the unfortunate reality of losing a war, just like in Nazi Germany, where over 2M civilians lost their lives because their nation invaded its peaceful neighbours.
I guess the lesson here is that it’s best not to invade other nations and rape, massacre and abduct thousands of their innocent civilians.
Blocking aid is not "the unfortunate reality of losing a war".
Bombing hospitals is not "the unfortunate reality of losing a war".
I never thought that people should be killed because of an election, today almost 50% of Gaza people are <18 which means they were not even born when the elections of 2006! are we saying that 1M are responsible for what is happening to them? Also, in the future the same argument could be used against the other party blaming them that they elected a far-right party, both parties should settle down and end this hate cycle once and for all.
And please we are in 2025 we are not in WWII anymore, if it happened to germany doesn’t justify making it happen again, we should learn from the mistakes of the past and repeat them.
Unfortunately there is no way for the innocent youth of Gaza to rid themselves of Hamas. In fact Hamas actively endoctrinates the youth.
The only way for Gazan youth to be saved from a cycle of terrorist-led hatred is for Israel (or another developed power) to remove the terrorists.
If I were in charge, I would create the circumstances that prevent poverty, create work, and encourage cooperation between both nations hoping that time will heal the hate and anger that both sides accumulated over the years, this requires wisdom and patience from the political party that is smart enough to understand that neither party can redeem the whole land for themselves.
But as long as each party refuses to accept the other, regardless if they say it publicly or not the hate will never end.
Israel was biggest employer of palestinians from gaza and west bank. In fact, week before oct 7 number of work permits for gazans went up by 10k or 15k. This was because there were thought that economically stable gaza will be less likely violent and that hamas is somewhat interested in state building and prosperity. In aftermath of oct 7th turned out that workers from gaza (with permits) were scouting areas where they worked in order to make a detailed maps for attack and a bunch of attackers actually carried work permits.
when israel left gaza in 2005, inside israel was popular expression that "now that palestinians have complete self rule there, it's up to them what to build there, singapore or somali".
there is an israeli investor [1] who created design center in gaza, donated there money to hospital and employed palestinians from gaza and west bank. he daugher was murdered at nova. a bunch of people who lived in kibutzim around gaza were hardcore left and used to drive palestinians from gaza to treatments in israeli hospitals. they were murdered as well.
[0] https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1961/10/208-4/132...
[9] https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/Gazas-Education...
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67679634
Withdrawal from Gaza is very opinionated, some say it was to give Palestinians self rule as you say, many others see it as a tactical move making it an open air prison.
My only hope is that on both sides there are enough people that want to live in peace and prosperity with equal rights and care for each others regardless of their roots and don’t care if you call it Israel or Palestine or whatever.
The only way out of this, while retaining some shred of humanity is through diplomacy, upholding international law, and centring the role of civil society and the huge numbers on both sides who want a peaceful, just coexistence.
The whole thing is sickening. Also hard to see how this can possibly improve Israel's security in the long term.
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".
For how long must Israel tolerate the rockets, the invasions, the rape and abduction of its civilians before it decisively and absolutely seeks to prevent this happening again?
How can Israel prevent future atrocities without completely rooting out Hamas from Gaza, where it is heavily embedded in the population?
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.
[0] https://gazaskygeeks.com/
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).
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
https://www.thefp.com/p/friedman-when-we-started-to-lie
What is it about misogynist, homophobic, violent religious supremacists that appeals to the Western leftists so much?
Could it be they share a common enemy - the West?