Episode
Apple's ties to Israel are much deeper than you think
- Podcast
- Max Blumenthal
- Published
- Apr 15, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 180
- Processing state
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Summary
By Kei Pritsker Apple’s ties to Israel are way deeper than you think. Apple made headlines last week when it basically erased Southern Lebanon from Apple Maps. If you go to Lebanon on Apple Maps, you’ll see that the names of all of the villages in the South are gone. And this is obviously the region of Lebanon that Israel is currently invading and trying to annex. A lot of people have pointed out that Apple has donated money to Zionist groups, that it fired workers for supporting Palestine, but Apple’s relationship isn’t some amorphous ideological one. Apple quite literally wouldn’t exist without the Israeli tech sector. For starters, Apple’s second largest research and development facility in the world, second only to their headquarters in Cupertino, California, is in Israel. It’s a massive campus in Tel Aviv that employs 2,500 people. The engineers there have helped develop the Macbook, Apple Watches and played a crucial role in developing the recent Apple Vision Pro, their VR headset, which features extremely precise eye-tracking, retina scanning cameras that were largely developed by Apple Israel. Apple plans to move to a new building in Israel, so they’re only planning on doubling down on their presence there. Apple also buys Israeli technology outright and some of the most critical components in the most popular Apple products come from Israeli firms. Apple acquired a critical component for the iPhone’s flash memory drive by buying an Israeli company called Anobit. It’s believed that Apple’s FaceID technology came from its acquisition of Israeli motion-tracking company, PrimeSense. They also bought an Israeli company that made facial recognition software called Realface. Apple upgraded the iPhone’s camera by buying an Israeli camera company called LinX. They also…