No Azure for Apartheid: IOF off Azure

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The current moment

Over the past seven months, Israel has been conducting a brutal and deadly genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip. As of the time of writing, Israel has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, most of whom are children and women. Israel has killed more aid workers than in any single conflict in history, and more journalists than killed by any army in a single year. Israel has bombed schools, hospitals, places of worship, refugee camps, and destroyed all aspects of civilian life in the Gaza Strip. Through a deliberate Israeli policy of starvation, 100% of the population in the Gaza Strip is facing crisis-level starvation—the steepest decline in a population’s nutrition level in recorded history.

In what is dubbed the world’s first AI-assisted, algorithmic genocide, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)—more accurately dubbed the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)—have been using AI systems such as the Gospel and Lavender to accelerate their genocide. This follows a pattern of the use of AI and Cloud technologies to advance and accelerate oppression against the Palestinian people. Israel’s regime of domination and oppression against the Palestinian people for over 76 years has been dubbed by multiple human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even Israel’s own B’Tselem as an apartheid regime. AI systems such as Wolf Pack and Mabat 2000 accelerate this system of surveillance, oppression, and apartheid.

Our role

As technology workers, we are hyper aware of the fact that our work—especially with the advancement of AI and cloud technologies—has the potential to enable any company and any organization to inflict harm and violate human rights. The products and services we build are being used and distributed around the globe to surveil, censor, and destroy. We cannot stand by while our labor is utilized to aid in the oppression of innocent people.

Microsoft continually flouts that its Corporate Social Responsibility commitments include a commitment to “protect fundamental rights.” In Microsoft’s own words, “respecting human rights is a core value of Microsoft.” It was this core value that was cited when Microsoft decided to suspend new sales in Russia, following its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Yet, faced with multiple reports of the IOF’s repeated violations of international law, including a ruling by the International Court of Justice that labelled its action as a plausible genocide, Microsoft has remained silent.

Microsoft has not only remained silent, but is actively complicit in the ongoing Nakba, supporting and enabling an apartheid state, by continuing to sell cloud and AI services to the IOF. Within the workplace, Microsoft continues to punish, repress, silence, and retaliate against its employees for speaking out against what’s happening in Palestine and continues to feed into the hostile environment it has created for its Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim employees.

Microsoft’s action follows a pattern of militarization, lack of oversight, and disregard for Microsoft’s own policies and commitments. It is a symptom of the common and systematic dehumanization of Palestinians, viewing their lives as worthless and their pain as ungrievable.

It is important to emphasize that our position against the Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide of Palestinians is not a stance against the Jewish people. Antisemitism and hate of any kind have no place in this movement. We refuse the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Ambiguating the distinction between those two harms the pursuit of justice for Palestinian and Jewish people alike, by limiting free speech and distracting from real instances of antisemitism.

Our demands

As Microsoft employees of conscience, we refuse to be complicit in these grave violations of international law and Microsoft’s own commitments through our labor. We joined Microsoft because we believed in its mission to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more.” Every person must truly mean every person, including Palestinian people. We refuse to remain complicit as Microsoft continues to stay silent and profit off of the violence and oppression that Palestinians face daily.

We demand:

  1. IOF Off Azure:

    • End Microsoft’s complicity in Israeli genocide and apartheid by terminating all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government.

  2. Disclose all ties:

  3. Call for a ceasefire:

    • Honor the demands of the over 1,000 employees who signed an earlier petition calling on Microsoft’s leadership to publicly endorse an immediate, permanent ceasefire.

  4. Protect employees and uphold free speech:

    • Ensure the safety of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied employees by protecting pro-Palestinian speech, actions, and fundraising initiatives on internal company platforms.

This is not the first time Microsoft employees are raising their voices and demanding to be heard. On several occasions, technology workers at Microsoft have exposed and protested Microsoft’s unethical use of their labor. In 2018, more than 300 Microsoft employees called on Microsoft to cancel their contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leading to a public statement from Satya Nadella. In 2019, more than 100 Microsoft employees signed an open letter calling for an end to Microsoft’s contract to build HoloLens AR tech for the U.S. military. In 2020, Palestinian activists and Microsoft employees demanded that the company cut ties with AnyVision for secretly surveilling Palestinians in the West Bank, which ultimately led to Microsoft publicly divesting from the secret project. We, the undersigned, follow in the steps of these previous initiatives, and call on Microsoft to engage in actions that will heed our four demands above. It is unconscionable for us to remain silent any longer.

Signatures

Microsoft employees: Add your signature

In good conscience,
Microsoft Employees of Conscience