Red Hat, the American Military Industrial Complex, and the Genocide in Palestine

Did you know that NC State has a program called Red Hat Shelton Leadership that works with high school students to build leadership and ethical decision making skills? Red Hat is financially helping support this program, whose key purpose is to promote ethical decision making among tomorrow’s leaders.

Why is a company that is praised by someone involved in one of today’s most violent occupations also funding a student program on ethical decision making? The leadership program seeks to teach students to navigate modern technology advances ethically, yet the company sponsoring this is partnered with the Israel military in its occupation of Palestine that has killed, starved, and displaced millions.

The U.S military is only powerful because it takes power away from other countries through violent and exploiting economic or political means. In order to maintain and obtain more power, it relies on occupying other countries, coups, wars, and funding documented war crimes often under the guise of defending “democracy”. While funding occupational entities like Israel directly violently impacts the people of Palestine, the U.S’s presence in the globe as a hegemon means its influence goes beyond this.

In working with and for companies such as Red Hat, we are not merely complicit in the face of human suffering and violence, but are also active agents. Therefore, it is morally unacceptable to work alongside any company or entity that aligns with U.S or foreign militaries.

What is the American military industrial complex?

A network of agents ranging from influential people, companies, and technologies that are used to bolster the U.S’s military and its technologies.

Why does this matter?

• The U.S maintains military control with around 750 bases located around the world. The presence of these bases has led to increased violent U.S interventions around the world.
• However, the countries that are the victims of U.S military violence, particularly within the Middle East, are the ones often framed as foreign threats.
• U.S militarism enables U.S to be global threat to other nations ⟶ other nations are framed as political or military threats
• “Since 1980, US bases in the greater Middle East have been used at least 25 times to launch wars or other combat actions in at least 15 countries in that region alone. Since 2001, the US military has been involved in combat in at least 25 countries worldwide.” 750 Bases in 80 Countries Is Too Many for Any Nation
• The U.S has spent over $1.92 trillion dollars on the Department of Defense in the past 5 years (U.S Federal Spending for 2021-2025)
• There is even more money being sent to Israel —> Between the years of 1946 and 2024, the U.S has sent $228 billion to Israel which is around 75% of the total money sent to Israel. U.S funding of Israel is significantly greater than how much other countries have received. In addition, the aid sent to other countries is typically split almost 50-50 on the Economy and Military, but Israel’s military funding far exceeds that. (U.S Funding of Israel)
• Congress passes legislation to benefit defense contractors ⟶; contractors in turn provide political support
• “The arms industry as a whole has donated more than $83 million to political candidates in the past two election cycles, with Lockheed Martin leading the pack with $9.1 million in contributions” (Industry support for political candidates)
• Influential figures in companies have lots of power and money to influence policymaking- Our own Marye Anne Fox, chancellor of NCSU from ‘98 to ‘04 served as a Board Member for Red Hat and donated $21,000 to the Republican Campaign (Mary Anne Fox, Red Hat Affiliation and Giving)

Red Hat’s relationship with Israel and the ongoing genocide of Palestine

• IBM, which purchased Red Hat in 2018, is consolidating power and resources around AI, and working with Lockheed Martin to create “smart drone swarms to adapt and evolve in live battle zones” (Interesting Engineering)
• Red Hat, an independent IBM subsidiary, also has provided cloud computing technologies to the Israeli military, and Palantir Technologies, a Microsoft partner in U.S. defense contracts, has a “strategic partnership” providing AI systems to help Israel’s war efforts. (AP News Feb 2025)
• Both Red Hat and IBM have offices in Israel, while actively working with and absorbing Israeli stealth tech start-ups (2018, 2023).
• Red Hat sells cloud computing software to the IDF. Cloud computing expands access to resources and information across a digital network, which enables the IDF to manage increasing data and applications, including artificial intelligence (EdgeIR.com 2022)
• Notably, Red Hat awarded the Israeli military’s Mamram unit its 2022 Technological Innovation Award. In the awards announcement, Red Hat explained: “Mamram, the Center of Computing and Information Systems unit of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), worked with Red Hat to modernize services at the edge to support military operations across the country” (Red Hat 2022).
• Following public backlash in Ireland against Red Hat’s collaborations with the Israeli military, Red Hat removed information about their collaborations with Israel from their website (The Journal 2024) and canceled a public summit, meeting virtually instead (Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign 2024)