“No Tech for Apartheid”: Employee firings highlight growing rift inside Microsoft

After the company announced on Wednesday that it had fired two employees for participating in demonstrations supporting Gaza and condemning Israel inside Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus—including entering Smith’s office—Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that two additional employees were also terminated for similar reasons, bringing the total number of those dismissed to four.

On Tuesday, current and former employees affiliated with the group No Tech for Apartheid – Azure staged a protest inside a building on Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Some of the demonstrators later entered Brad Smith’s office.

Upon entering Microsoft’s Building 34, they demanded an end to both direct and indirect support for Israel and called for a halt to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The protesters, who were arrested by police on Tuesday, acted after revelations that the Israeli military had been using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to spy on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. They demanded that Microsoft sever ties with Israel.

The No Tech for Apartheid – Azure group said in an Instagram post that on Wednesday, company officials fired software engineers Rikki Fameli and Anna Hattel for their role in the protest.

On Thursday, Microsoft announced in a statement that two more employees, Julius Chan and Nasreen Jaradat, had also been fired for participating in demonstrations on the company’s campus against Microsoft’s ties with Israel.

Microsoft claimed the dismissals were due to serious violations of company policies, stating that protests and encampments on company grounds had “created significant security concerns.”

The group No Tech for Apartheid – Azure—named after Microsoft’s Azure platform, which the Israeli cabinet reportedly uses for surveillance of Palestinians—has demanded that Microsoft cut ties with Israel and compensate Palestinians.

In a statement, Anna Hattel said: “We are here because Microsoft continues to provide Israel with the tools it needs to commit genocide, while deceiving and misleading its own employees about the reality.”

Hattel and Fameli were among seven protesters arrested on Tuesday after occupying Brad Smith’s office. The other five detainees included former Microsoft employees and outside activists.

These developments come weeks after The Guardian revealed, citing sources within Israel’s military Unit 8200, that data from Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform had been used as a vast intelligence database on residents of the West Bank.

According to the sources, this data was exploited for purposes such as blackmailing individuals, detaining them, or justifying their killing. It was also said that the information played a major role in planning Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

A Microsoft spokesperson, responding to the report, claimed the company had no knowledge of the type of data stored by Israel’s Unit 8200.

The revelations have once again heightened concerns over Israel’s use of Western technology as a tool for repression and control of the Palestinian people.