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no tech for apartheid
Microsoft Fires 2 Employees Over Gaza Vigil
"Microsoft are facilitating a genocide, and punishing those who stand for humanity," one anti-war group said.
Oct 26, 2024
This piece was updated on Sunday, October 27 to include a statement from Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Washington state chapter.
Microsoft fired two of its employees hours after they held a vigil outside the tech giant's Redmond, Washington campus in honor of the Palestinians who have been killed in Israel's year-long assault on Gaza.
The vigil was "unauthorized," according to reporting from The Associated Press, but the employees said that their event—held during lunch on Thursday—was similar to other events Microsoft had approved to raise money for charity.
"We have so many community members within Microsoft who have lost family, lost friends or loved ones," one of the workers who was fired, Abdo Mohamed, told the AP. "But Microsoft really failed to have the space for us where we can come together and share our grief and honor the memories of people who can no longer speak for themselves."
"Our work is currently being used by the Israeli state to wreak unfathomable destruction on Palestinian life."
The Israeli assault on Gaza, which many experts consider to be a genocide, has claimed nearly 43,000 lives according to official figures, though the real number may be much higher.
Mohamed, who was born in Egypt, had a work visa for his job at Microsoft as a researcher and data scientist. He said he would need to find a new job within two months in order to maintain his visa and stay in the United States.
The other employee, Hossam Nasr, who grew up in Egypt, also helps to organize Harvard Alumni for Palestine.
Nasr said he had previously been investigated and punished by Microsoft for pro-Palestinian posts he had made on the company's internal social media platform.
Microsoft confirmed to the AP on Friday that it "ended the employment of some individuals in accordance with internal policy."
Both Mohamed and Nasr are members of a group called No Azure for Apartheid, which grew out of the wider No Tech for Apartheid campaign and opposes the use of Microsoft technologies such as its cloud computing program Azure to aid Israel's war on Gaza and the maintenance of its occupation in the West Bank.
Microsoft has a longstanding relationship with Israel, as No Azure for Apartheid detailed in May. While Amazon and Google won the bid to provide exclusive cloud computing to the Israeli government and military through Project Nimbus, departments continue to use Azure in the transition. In addition, Azure provides support for Israeli military company Elbit systems' new military simulation software. Microsoft also offers consulting services to the Israeli Prison Service.
"Our work is currently being used by the Israeli state to wreak unfathomable destruction on Palestinian life," No Azure for Apartheid wrote. "As producers of powerful technologies that are frequently misused to serve the interests of unethical government entities, we bear the unique responsibility of ensuring that our code is used for good."
Anti-war and Palestinian solidarity organizations and activists spoke out against the firings.
"Microsoft are facilitating a genocide, and punishing those who stand for humanity," CODEPINK wrote on social media on Saturday.
International Solidarity Movement co-founder Huwaida Arraf said: "Not only does Microsoft provide technology to enable genocide and apartheid, but it also fires employees for holding vigils to honor murdered family members."
University of Chicago professor and In These Times columnist Eman Abdelhadi linked the firings to several instances of retaliation for Palestinian solidarity activism at universities and companies.
"Harvard Library suspending faculty for a silent study-in. Microsoft firing workers for a Gaza vigil. U Chicago evicting a student for protesting. Universal canceling a TV show production because the author is anti-genocide... all within the last week," Abdelhadi pointed out on social media.
Microsoft's actions also come six months after Google fired 28 employees for staging protests against Project Nimbus.
On Sunday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Washington state chapter called on Microsoft to reinstate the employees.
"This is yet another illustration of how employees of conscience, who are standing up for the human rights issue of our time, are being silenced in the corporate world," said CAIR-WA executive director Imraan Siddiqi in a statement.
CAIR National executive director Nihad Awad agreed: "Time after time, we see the 'except for Palestine' rule applied whenever anyone dares to defend the human rights, humanity, and dignity of the Palestinian people. In any other context, a corporation would celebrate its employees standing up for human rights and against genocide–'except for Palestine.'"
"This hypocritical double standard must end," Awad urged. "Microsoft must rehire these principled employees and apologize for its biased actions that appear to support Israel's genocide and to deny Palestinian humanity."
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'McCarthyism Is Alive and Well': Google Fires 28 for Protesting Israel Contract
"These mass, illegal firings will not stop us," said organizers. "Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide."
Apr 18, 2024
The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a "flagrant act of retaliation" late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.
The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.
Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel's killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.
No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing "a dragnet of in-office surveillance" to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.
"They punished all of the workers they could associate with this action in wholesale firings," said the coalition, which includes Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change, a Muslim-led anti-war group.
Google accused the workers of "bullying," "harassment," defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers "have yet to hear from a single executive about" their concerns over Google's collaboration with Israel.
"This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie," said the workers. "Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support."
The organizers staged the sit-ins on the heels of reporting in Time magazine about new negotiations between Google and the Israeli government regarding further potential tech contracts.
Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show "how terrified [executives] are of worker power."
Google employees have a history of harnessing worker power to change policies at the company. In 2018, Google terminated a deal with the U.S. Defense Department to develop drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technology through a contract called Project Maven. The decision followed the resignations of several employees and the condemnation of thousands of workers.
Calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian "genocide profiteers," No Tech for Apartheid said Wednesday that they will not stop demonstrating against Project Nimbus until they get a similar result.
"The truth is clear: Google is terrified of us," said the group. "They are terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses... The corporation is trying to downplay and discredit our power.
"These mass, illegal firings will not stop us," No Tech for Apartheid added. "On the contrary, they only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement. Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide."
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Amazon, Alphabet Workers Protest Companies' Complicity in Israeli Apartheid
"As an Amazon employee, I do not want my work to support apartheid and war crimes," said one protesting worker.
Jul 26, 2023
Under the rallying cry of #NoTechForApartheid, a group of Amazon and Alphabet workers rallied Wednesday with allied activists outside the tech titan's annual Amazon Web Services Summit today to demand that the company and Google cancel a billion-dollar cloud computing services contract with Israel's government and military.
The employees of Amazon and Alphabet—Google's parent company—protested Project Nimbus, through which the two tech giants sell cloud services to the Israel Defense Forces, enabling the Israeli government's surveillance and oppression of Palestinians. The project also provides data support to the Israel Land Authority, which, according to Human Rights Watch, uses discriminatory policies to expand illegal Jewish-only settler colonies on stolen Palestinian land.
Among the demonstrators standing with Amazon and Google workers were activists from MPower Change, Jewish Voice for Peace, Adalah Justice Project, Fight for the Future, and the Athena Coalition.
Project Nimbus has been the target of previous protests by Amazon and Alphabet workers, shareholders, and other activists.
"As an Amazon employee, I do not want my work to support apartheid and war crimes," software engineer Alestin Sphere said in a statement. "This contract will directly accelerate the expansion of surveillance tech, the weaponization of AI, and the proliferation of cyber weapons."
"As an employee, it's my responsibility to speak out against it, and as a Palestinian, it is my duty," Sphere contended. "Allowing this contract to be implemented without protest would be a major disservice to the world."
Laith Abad, another Amazon engineer, said that "today I'm joining my co-workers as both a first-generation Palestinian American and Amazon engineer to ensure that the tech we build and sell doesn't harm our own communities and those of our users through contracts like Project Nimbus."
"Through this contract, Amazon and Google enable the same kind of violence that the Israeli government and military inflict on many Palestinians, similar to the violence my own father and family experienced as they were ethnically cleansed from their homes," he continued.
"Amazon cannot continue justifying this contract," Abad added. "As an Amazon worker, I want a real say in my labor. I don't want my labor to be used to inflict the same violence and suffering that my family has faced on anyone else."
The employees noted that the protest "also takes place during the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, or the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war" when more than 700,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed from their homeland—sometimes by massacres—to make way for the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
Dani Noble, campaigns organizer at Jewish Voice for Peace, said that "leading human rights organizations have confirmed what Palestinians have been saying for decades: that Israel is an apartheid state based on Jewish supremacy, where Israeli Jews have more rights and freedoms than Palestinians."
"Amazon technology can all too easily be used by the Israeli government to entrench its apartheid system: expand Jewish-only settlements, force Palestinian families off of their land, and destroy their homes," Noble noted. "Amazon tech workers are bravely saying no more—they want their labor to help people, not enable violence against Palestinians. As Jews organizing for Palestinian freedom, we are proud to show up in solidarity with tech workers standing up for Palestinian rights."
Lau Barrios, senior campaign manager at MPower Change, a grassroots movement led by U.S. Muslims, said that Amazon "profits from surveillance, land grabs, and deadly violence against the Palestinian people."
"For almost two years, Amazon's own tech workers have been clear: They don't want their labor to enable this suffering," she asserted. "Tech companies are the new war profiteers: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was head of AWS in May 2021 when he approved the contract and while the Israeli military systematically bombed Palestinian homes, hospitals, and schools in Gaza."
"Jassy can still choose to put people over profit, listen to his own workers, and cut ties with Israel's brutal military occupation," Barrios added. "It's our duty to show up with workers today to say No Tech For Apartheid together."
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