Microsoft Terminates Elite Israeli Intelligence Unit’s Access to AI and Storage Services

In a stunning development, tech giant Microsoft has announced that it is terminating parts of the Israeli military’s access to proprietary technology that it was using to conduct mass surveillance and targeting of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. As the Guardian reported last week:

Microsoft told Israeli officials late last week that Unit 8200, the military’s elite spy agency, had violated the company’s terms of service by storing the vast trove of surveillance data in its Azure cloud platform, sources familiar with the situation said.

The decision to cut off Unit 8200’s ability to use some of its technology results directly from an investigation published by the Guardian last month. It revealed how Azure was being used to store and process the trove of Palestinian communications in a mass surveillance program…

The project began after a meeting in 2021 between Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella, and the unit’s then commander, Yossi Sariel.

In response to the investigation, Microsoft ordered an urgent external inquiry to review its relationship with Unit 8200. Its initial findings have now led the company to cancel the unit’s access to some of its cloud storage and AI services.

As a journalist, I have to underline the fact that this major policy shift from Microsoft would not have happened without the investigative co-reporting by my colleagues at the Guardian, the Israeli Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew language outlet Local Call. But they were by no means the only forces pressuring Microsoft and exposing the company’s technological and financial complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid system in occupied Palestine. For more than a year, under the banner of the No Azure for Apartheid Movement, current and former tech workers, along with community members and supporters, have been organizing to expose and put an end to Microsoft’s ties to the Israeli war machine, and taking actions to disrupt business as usual at Microsoft until their demands were met.

Those actions included setting up a liberated zone encampment on Microsoft’s global headquarters last month – which I was on the ground, reporting on for The Real News – and conducting a sit-in in Microsoft President Brad Smith’s Executive Office. Microsoft responded to those actions by calling the cops and by firing the employees involved.

Just about every single Microsoft worker that I’ve interviewed about this in the past two months has been fired. Today, on The Real News, we are speaking with three of those fired Microsoft workers and members of the No Azure for Apartheid movement. 

Welcome to you all. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. First, I want to go around the table and ask if y’all could introduce yourselves to people watching and give us your initial reactions to this news from Microsoft. What does this news mean, and what does it not mean?

Nisreen Jaradat: I am a former Microsoft worker. I was fired at the end of August after I participated in the liberation zone encampments and rallies.

I think that this news is evidence that no target, no matter how big, is unmovable. Microsoft is the second largest corporation in the world. It is the second largest tech company in the world. The fact that the exposure of Microsoft’s complicity by journalists and activists has forced Microsoft to cut off some services is evidence that direct action works and that no target is unmovable.

This is by no means victory, though. I’ve seen some outlets reporting that Microsoft is ​“all good now, and we can just move on with our lives.” No, we can’t. This decision only cuts off a few services to a single military unit. We will not stop organizing, we will not stop protesting until all of our demands are met. This includes cutting off all of Azure services and contracts with the Israeli government and military.

Julius Shan: I’ve been a tech worker at Microsoft for almost five years. I was fired the same day that Nisreen was for also taking part in the liberated zone protests and also having been suspended twice for sending out mass emails across the company talking about Microsoft’s complicity in genocide.

There are still more than 635 subscriptions that Microsoft supplies to the Israeli military. What this means is that materially, Microsoft continues to support Israel. It continues to support their military. It still stands behind the Israeli genocide at this point. The services that Microsoft cut off were moved over to Amazon Web Services sometime in August. This means that the provider of these technologies that enable Israel’s mass surveillance and the creation of kill lists against Palestinians is now just in the hands of another major American tech corporation.

What this means is that we will not stop escalating. We will not stop mobilizing. We will not stop until all of our demands are met. We will remind Microsoft that there is no moral, legal, or ethical way to continue business with an entity that is committing genocide and committing ethnic cleansing. And this shows that direct action does have an impact on these enormous entities.

These companies are worth trillions of dollars. What a small group of activists and community organizers is able to do in collaboration with the news provided by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call shows us how our collective forces together are incredibly powerful in forcing the hand of something as powerful as Microsoft.

Anna Hattle: I worked at Microsoft for five years before being terminated a few weeks ago after sitting in at the Microsoft President Brad Smith’s office. I’m also an organizer with the No Azure for Apartheid campaign.

This opens up a new pathway because a lot of players in the tech industry, and in industries in general, move in lockstep. These corporations strategize together. Microsoft has now made itself the first company to make this move, which opens up the possibilities for so many other corporations and entities to consider what it would mean to cut ties with some aspect of the Israeli military.

Alvarez: I wanted to ask you guys – obviously in the Guardian report, they have a vested interest in lifting up the role of their reporting with +972 Magazine and Local Call, and all credit should go to them for the reporting that they did and the role that that has played in this larger movement. But I want to give you all a chance to talk about the role that you have played in this. How much would you attribute this decision to the pressure that tech workers like yourselves have been putting on Microsoft long before the Guardian report came out in the summer.

Jaradat: When we started the No Azure for Apartheid campaign, we started with our own investigation and our own white paper release that compiled a lot of public information, and we had a petition. From that time, our protests have gotten more and more escalatory.

So while the reporting is extremely important – and I don’t want to discredit that – I also want to give credit to the fact that collective action is the main driver in this decision making.

Hattle: It’s very clear that Microsoft is responding directly to the pressure from the campaign. And it’s also very clear to us that they’re invested in hiding the fact that it is direct pressure from the campaign that led to this change. They don’t want to give the impression that direct action works because that would encourage and foment exactly the kind of actions that are going to result in change.

Alvarez: What comes next for the No Azure for Apartheid effort? And what can workers, unions, and people of conscience around the country and around the world, learn from your movement that they could be applying in their workplaces and their communities? 

Jaradat: One thing we always see is that collective action and collective voice is what drives change. So any advice I could give is to come together and keep each other safe and get organized. That’s it.