Video still: “What truly worries me is Microsoft’s complicity in this genocide” – Ibtihal Aboussad.
A “Microsoft AI Tour” that features Matt Milton, the president of Microsoft Canada, is coming to The International Centre in Toronto on Wednesday October 1 and the Rogers Centre in Ottawa on Friday October 3.
The Microsoft promotion highlights: “Join us for the free, one-day Microsoft AI Tour! You’ll have the chance to learn directly from top experts, get hands-on with the latest AI technology, and connect with other leaders who are driving real change.”
This past June, The Guardian reported: “Details of how big tech works with the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces also referred to as the Israeli Occupation Forces or IOF] have long been murky [but] recently, evidence that the tech industry’s products have been used in Israel’s violent campaign in Gaza, which the UN [United Nations] has concluded is consistent with ‘the characteristics of genocide’, has been mounting.”
That article continues: “Leaked documents indicated Microsoft has a ‘footprint in all major military infrastructures’ in Israel. The Associated Press has also reported that Microsoft technology has aided in Israel’s surveillance of Palestinians.”
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has also explained: “Between October 2023 and June 2024, Microsoft agreed to provide the Israeli military with 19,000 hours of engineering support and consultancy services. AI tools that the Israeli military receives through Microsoft Azure include the GPT-4 generative language model, automated translation, and automated document analysis.”
The AFSC further notes: “By March 2024, the military’s consumption of Microsoft Azure AI services was 64 times higher than it was before the genocide.”
“No Azure for Apartheid”
No Azure for Apartheid is a group of “Microsoft workers demanding that Microsoft end all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and govt.”
Their demands of Microsoft include:
1- End Microsoft’s complicity in Israeli genocide and apartheid by terminating all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government.
2- Make all ties to the Israeli military publicly known, including weapons manufacturers and contractors.
3- Conduct a transparent and independent audit of Microsoft’s technology contracts, services, and investments, and ensure Microsoft products and services are not being used to violate the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and their Additional Protocols, and Microsoft’s own Human Rights Statement, in Palestine or elsewhere.
4- 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.
5- Ensure the safety of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied employees by protecting pro-Palestinian speech, actions, and fundraising initiatives on internal company platforms.
Microsoft workers fired
Ibtihal Aboussad worked at Microsoft’s Canadian headquarters in Toronto.
The Guardian has reported: “Before Ibtihal Aboussad was fired by Microsoft for protesting the company’s work with the Israeli military during a celebration of the firm’s 50th anniversary, she sent two emails.”
That article adds: “The first went to all of her colleagues. She appealed to their universal humanity and urged them to stand against Microsoft’s contracts to provide cloud computing software and artificial intelligence products to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). She sent the second to the ‘Muslims at Microsoft’ email list. Its subject line read: ‘Muslims of Microsoft, Our Code Kills Palestinians’.”
Microsoft AI used to select bombing targets
An investigation by the Associated Press revealed earlier this year that: “AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon.”
In January 2025, The Guardian reported: “The Israeli military’s reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology and artificial intelligence systems surged during the most intensive phase of its bombardment of Gaza, leaked documents reveal.”
That article further noted: “The leaked documents, which include commercial records from Israel’s defence ministry and files from Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary, suggest Microsoft’s products and services, chiefly its Azure cloud computing platform, were used by units across Israel’s air, ground and naval forces, as well as its intelligence directorate.”
Then in August 2025, The Guardian further reported: “[Former Microsoft worker] Hossam Nasr said [No Azure for Apartheid] had decided to escalate their actions because there had been no adequate response from Microsoft. He felt personally motivated to speak out more vigorously after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out the targeted killing of the high-profile Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, one of five members of the media who was killed earlier this month in the operation.”
Human rights defenders targeted
Front Line Defenders has stated: “Those defending the right to health and the right to life as doctors, nurses, or ambulance workers, those exposing and documenting war crimes as journalists, and those providing humanitarian support as volunteers or employees of aid agencies were all specifically targeted by Israeli bombs or guns.”
Front Line Defenders has noted: “People considered to be human rights defenders in the [Occupied Palestinian Territory] include journalists, lawyers, medical workers, fieldworkers, international volunteers who act as independent observers and carry out human rights work and defenders working for economic, social and cultural rights.”
Nearly 200 journalists, a number of lawyers and judges, at least 1,581 health workers, 181 humanitarian workers, and 126 aid workers are among the estimated 200,000 Palestinians killed over the past 23 months.
It is an unaddressed question if Microsoft technology was used in the targeting of these human rights defenders.
Shareholders meeting, December 5
The “Microsoft AI tour” comes before their 2025 Annual Shareholders Meeting that will be held virtually on December 5, 2025.
The AFSC has noted: “On July 1, 2025, at least 60 Microsoft shareholders, collectively representing more than $80 million in MSFT shares, filed a shareholder proposal at Microsoft Corporation.”
“The proposal was brought by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary and calls on Microsoft to publish a report assessing the effectiveness of its human rights due diligence processes. Specifically, it requests that Microsoft evaluate whether its AI and cloud technologies are being misused by customers, such as military entities, to commit human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law.”
That statement further notes: “According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies are expected to take all reasonable steps to ensure their products and services – including the deployment of such technologies by customers – are not used to violate human rights.”
It also quotes Rewan Haddad, the Campaign Director at Ekō, who says: “Microsoft is no longer just a tech company … it’s now acting as a weapons company, empowering a military state currently under investigation for genocide.”
We continue to follow this.
