Cisco Complicity Profile: Israel
Cisco is deeply involved in Israel's occupation of Palestine, the operation and surveillance of an apartheid system for Palestinians, and the enablement of genocide by the Israeli military. Despite attempts by the company to cover its tracks in order to protect its image, its complicity has been extensively documented making it an official boycott target of the BDS movement.
Services and Technology for the Israeli Military (IDF)
Data Center, Servers and Networking Hardware & Software
Cisco provides networking hardware and software, serving as the backbone of Israel's military infrastructure. This includes powering Israel's largest underground military data centre - David's Citadel.
After Cisco became the sole provider of servers for the Israeli military and other security forces, David's Citadel was established. This integrated Israel's military "most operational" systems, including hundreds of combat, intelligence, and command and control systems. The project was implemented using Cisco hardware.
Following this contract, Israel's military continues to buy Cisco servers, as revealed by an IMOD procurement database. Within three months, between November 2023 and January 2024, IMOD purchased Cisco servers worth a total of almost $2 million in eight different contracts - likely an underestimate according to AFSC, as this database only discloses unclassified contracts that were awarded without a tender process.
Israel's genocidal attacks on the Gaza Strip required unprecedented computing power, implicating Cisco in the mass killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
AFSC's Investigate Project reports Cisco technologies likely form the hardware infrastructure that hosts at least some of the databases and AI systems (The Gospel, Lavender, and Where's Daddy?) that the Israeli military developed to generate targets at unprecedented scale with minimal human intervention.
An AP Investigation in 2025 revealed the IDF has used Cisco server farms or data centers.
Communications Software
Cisco Systems technology "improves situational awareness and accelerates operational decision-making in the [Israeli] military."
Following a 2013 partnership with the IDF to supply $150 million in communications equipment over 5 years with an option to extend 2 years, Cisco continued supplying this technology in years that followed.
In March 2020, Cisco Systems began laying tens of Unified Communication systems for the Israeli military, expected to reach hundreds of systems. The unified network centralizes the transfer of video, voice, and data between different Israeli military units.
Cisco's Unified Communication system serves to accelerate the Israeli military's response time-frame.
Cisco Webex
Webex is Cisco's video conferencing offering and it has been used by the Israeli military since November 2023. Webex is the IDF's virtual war room, enabling Israel with a secure digital command center for real-time communication, coordination, and strategic military decision-making.
Services and Technology for the Israeli Police & Occupation
Cisco provides technologies to the Israel police, and prisons, and to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, expanding Israel's visual surveillance apparatus in Jerusalem targeting the Palestinian population under its control.
In 2022, the Israeli police purchased Cisco communications equipment and software from Israeli IT service management company Matrix IT. Between 2020 and 2021, the Israeli police purchased over $1 million in Cisco equipment and software.
Cisco provided communications equipment and closed-circuit TV cameras to the City of Jerusalem in 2017 - whose jurisdiction includes occupied East Jerusalem - for its 'Smart City' project, a large-scale surveillance project that consists of hundreds of cameras equipped with facial recognition and is used to track the movements of Palestinians.
Digital Hubs in illegal Israeli settlements
Since 2018, Cisco has established "digital hubs" in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights through a partnership with the Israeli government, as documented by Who Profits. These "hubs" are government-subsidized co-working spaces designed to help integrate small towns and remote regions into Israel's high-tech sectors. Five out of a total of 36 operating hubs are located in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and two are located in the occupied Golan Heights, as of September 2023.
Investment into Israel
Cisco boasts its long record of investing in and acquiring Israeli companies that feed Israel's genocidal war chest by financially backing the apartheid regime.
Since the late 1990's Cisco has spent billions USD in the acquisition of Israeli start-up companies revealing Cisco leaders' personal and financial commitment to militarized apartheid despite knowledge of many of these companies' human rights violations. Here is a non-exhaustive list of Cisco's acquisitions of Israeli companies between 2013 and 2024:
- September 2024: Robust Intelligence ($400 million) - AI security platform founded by Israeli Yaron Singer, a senior executive at Cisco (former Israeli military special operations unit combat officer), who recently said, "Personally, I'm eager to invest in Israeli companies and recruit talent from Israel."
- August 2023: Oort - Cybersecurity company co-founded by Israeli Didi Dotan, a Senior Director at Cisco who espouses extremist racist views against Palestinians.
- October 2021: Epsagon ($500 million) - Application monitoring and observability company co-founded by Israelis Nitzan Shapira and Ran Ribenzaft, now Directors at Cisco.
- May 2021: Sedona Systems ($100 million) - Communications company co-founded by Israeli Ori Gerstel, a Senior Director at Cisco.
- October 2020: Portshift ($100 million) - A cybersecurity company co-founded by Israeli Zohar Kaufman, Cisco's Tel Aviv office director.
- March 2016: Leaba Semiconductor ($350-400 million) - Co-founder Eyal Dagan is currently on Cisco's Executive Leadership Team, reporting directly to the CEO.
- February 2013: Intucell ($475 million) - Co-founder Rani Wellingstein was a VP and General Manager, and co-founder Ido Susan was the Head of Mobility Solutions at Cisco.
This development of Israel's multi-billion-dollar high-tech industry has been linked to the privatization of knowledge amassed by the Israeli military and Unit 8200 - Israel's largest intelligence unit which develops in-house technology for coercive spying tactics and is accused of carrying out mass surveillance of Palestinians.
Cisco has also been investing in Israeli companies through its Cisco Investment team.
As of 2018, Cisco had invested over $2 billion and since continued this pattern as seen in 2024 when, alongside Microsoft, Cisco backed Israeli venture group Team8's closing of three new funds totaling $500 million. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins stated at the time: "we are proud to partner with Israel. The incredible amount of innovation that comes out of Israel is something that we look forward to continue driving in the future."
Donation Matching Program to Israeli Organizations
Cisco match 100% of employee donations to Israeli organizations, funding the displacement & genocide of Palestinians.
Cisco's Community Impact Portal offers the chance to match up to $10,000 per employee for organizations known to be openly funding & normalizing Israeli apartheid and occupation such as Friends of The Israeli Defense Forces - a complicit organization that boasted a claim of transferring $34.5M to the Israeli army in the first few weeks alone of the current genocide.
Cisco meanwhile suspended UNRWA, a lifeline for Palestinian refugees, from its Community Impact Portal following widely debunked claims by their customer, the Israeli military, before quietly restoring it after employee complaints.
Employee Suppression & Censorship
Cisco shut down an open letter signed by its employees calling for transparency regarding their contracts with Israel and a cessation of support for systems potentially used to facilitate human rights abuses.
Cisco fired pro-Palestinian employees after banning internal discussion around "the Middle East".
As Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza, Cisco "supported the development of the digital platform 'Israel Rises' of the Home Front Command, a branch of the Israeli military," and "gave grants to its employees who were on reserve duty in the Israeli Military."
Cisco's Executive Vice President and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer Francine Katsoudas called the Palestinian state in Arabic a "statement of hate or bias." In comparison, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on Israel in 2022: "We love this country and it's an amazing place" and then in October 2023, days after Israel started bombing Gaza: "we have been working day and night to apply cybersecurity capabilities that we uniquely can apply. At the request of [Israel]."
When Cisco employees raised concerns about matching Israeli organizations, Cisco leadership ignored the presented evidence and refused to delist the organizations.