Former Microsoft staffers, Abdo Mohamed (L) and Hossam Nasr, a data scientist and engineer, respectively, say the tech giant is helping the Israelis in their genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, calling for global boycott of the company.

New York, April 21 (RHC)-- Two former Microsoft employees slammed the company for complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and systematic apartheid in the West Bank, urging global boycotts against the tech giant.

Hossam Nasr, a software engineer, and Abdo Mohamed, a data scientist, who were both fired in 2024 for organizing a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, called for severing Microsoft’s partnerships that support military operations.

According to Nasr, Microsoft provides cloud services, AI capabilities, translation, and data storage to the Israeli military, and “they use Microsoft translation services to translate the data they collect on Palestinians from Arabic to Hebrew.”

“Then they feed that into a pipeline of AI targeting systems that help determine where to bomb in Gaza and help Israel classify innocent Palestinians as terrorists,” he said, citing reports showing a 200-fold increase in Israel’s use of Microsoft’s AI tools between October 2023 and March 2024.   “Their usage of cloud storage increased to 13.6 petabytes,” he added.

“Microsoft Azure also hosts the target bank for the Israeli military,” he said, noting: “It hosts the civil registry of the Palestinian population.  These systems allow Israel to accelerate and exacerbate its genocide in Gaza to unforeseen levels,” he said.

Nasr pointed out that Microsoft staff became deeply embedded in Israeli military units, including Unit 8200, the notorious Israeli military intelligence branch.  “Microsoft employees become so embedded… that they become described as soldiers, acting as soldiers within those units,” he said.

“This kind of deep partnership allows Israel to automate and remove any sort of human element to the Palestinians,” he added. “It turns the mass murder of Palestinians into essentially a video game.”

Nasr said Microsoft’s technology is also used in the West Bank through applications such as Al-Munasik, which helps control Palestinian movement.  “Microsoft is enabling the apartheid system and the racial segregation system in the West Bank and the rest of Palestine,” he said.  He also criticized Microsoft’s employee donation program, saying, “They allow donations to illegal Israeli settlements and match them.”  

“No Azure for Apartheid” campaign, which they co-founded, was inspired by earlier efforts at other tech companies.  “That campaign started as bombs were dropping on the heads of Palestinian children in Gaza in the wake of the Sheikh Jarrah events in 2021,” Nasr said, adding: “We took inspiration from our colleagues at Google and Amazon… to launch our own campaign at Microsoft in 2024.”

Nasr explained that the goal of their campaign was to sever Microsoft’s partnerships that support the Israeli regime’s forces brutal attacks against Gaza and the West Bank.  He insisted that holding meetings and writing letters did not have the necessary impact, and boycotting the company was the only way to stop its cooperation.

Nasr said that their campaign coordinated the April 4 protests during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary events.  “As soon as we became aware that Microsoft was planning a celebration… we made it clear that we will not allow Microsoft to celebrate while their hands are stained with Palestinian blood.”

“It is no longer sufficient to be in meetings with executives or writing emails,” Nasr highlighted.  “It is imperative for us… to stop materially contributing and materially partnering to the genocide of our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” he emphasized.

“We have made a huge dent in this Microsoft castle,” Nasr concluded.  “I do believe that Microsoft’s reputation has never been more tarnished because of its complicity in genocide,” he said.

Nasr said losing his job or being deported from the U.S. was a “cheap price to pay” compared to what Palestinians endure.  “A lot of the time I’m asked… Are you not scared of being fired?  Of being deported?” he said.  “And my response is always… Are you not scared of being complicit in the Holocaust of our time?  Of what you’ll tell your children and grandchildren when they ask… Where were you when the genocide in Palestine and Gaza was happening?”

The Israel regime launched the campaign of genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023.  Since then, it has killed at least 51,065 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 116,505 others.

[ SOURCE: PRESS TV and NEWS AGENCIES ]