We will not be cogs in the Israeli genocidal machine: a call for a Worker Intifada
From the Liberated Zone
We, as Microsoft workers, former workers, and community members of conscience, are establishing a Liberated Zone on the grounds of the Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza, formerly known as the Microsoft East Campus Plaza. We choose to take this step to escalate against Microsoft’s active role in powering 22 months of genocide in Palestine. The Liberated Zone is born out of desperation and extreme urgency. The Liberated Zone is born out of our grief for wailing Palestinian mothers and watching shreds of Palestinian babies. The Liberated Zone is born out of radical love for the rich humanity of Palestinian people.
Today, we answer Gaza’s call to action to mobilize, confront, and escalate to force an end to this genocide powered by Microsoft technology.
Today, we refuse to be part of the system that is insistent on dehumanizing Palestinians and enabling their mass murder; we refuse to be complicit in this genocide; we refuse to accept normalcy in the face of genocide.
Today, we choose to revolt; we choose to rise up; we choose to disobey; and we choose to carry forward the torch of the intifada until every single inch of Palestine is liberated.
Today, we put our employment, our immigration status, our livelihoods, and our bodies on the line because it is precisely the urgency that is needed to stop the waterfall of Palestinian blood. We cannot afford a second longer of silence as our labor powers the world’s most well-documented and first AI-assisted genocide.
Too often, we are told that our labor is apolitical, that our technology is neutral. Yet, Microsoft has made the active choice to be part of the economy of apartheid since 1991 with its technologies embedded across the Israeli military, prison system, police, universities, and schools – including in illegally occupied settlements. That is a political choice. As it stands today, Microsoft technology powers Israel’s mass-surveillance weapon that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls and texts made each day by Palestinians. That is a political choice. Every hour, the Microsoft-powered mass surveillance weapon is used to blackmail Palestinians, place them in detention, or even justify their killing after the fact. That is a political choice. Every day for the past 22 months, the Microsoft-powered mass surveillance weapon has been used to facilitate the bombardment and massacring of Palestinians in Gaza. That is a political choice.
To put it simply, Microsoft and its executives exploited our labor to cement themselves as the technological backbone to the Israeli genocidal machine that is blackmailing, kidnapping, massacring, and maiming millions of Palestinians. In return, the same executives raked in hundreds of millions of dollars by powering and sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of genocide, apartheid, displacement, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes that have put and continue to put Palestinians’ self-determination and very existence at stake.
In establishing the Liberated Zone, we liberate our workplace and reclaim our labor by refusing to do any work that could contribute to genocide and other crimes against humanity in Palestine and demanding Microsoft to do the following:
- Cut Ties with Israel
- Call for an End to the Genocide and Forced Starvation
- Pay Reparations to the Palestinians
- End the Discrimination Against Workers
In establishing the Liberated Zone, we are taking inspiration from the Student Intifada and calling upon all workers of conscience to join the Worker Intifada – a revolutionary uprising of workers who refuse to have their labor exploited to power the genocide of Palestinians. After 77 years of occupation and over 22 months of witnessing the Holocaust of our time, we stop pleading for platitudes and instead force the institutions and entities we are a part of to end their role in powering Israel’s genocidal campaigns of starvation and bombardment.
Gaza, we are answering your call
To our people in Gaza and all over Palestine, we see you, we hear you, we grieve with you, we rage for you, we revolt for you, and we stand in complete unconditional solidarity with you against the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign of starvation, bombardment, and displacement. You have given us a moral compass and shown us courage at a time when it is hard to find in this world. We mourn your families, friends, and loved ones. We take an oath upon ourselves for the days, weeks, months, years, and decades to come to remember their lives, honor their memories, and fight for a world where our martyrs would have still been with us living in dignity and freedom.
“They killed me a thousand times,
Yet each time I lived to create dignity for myself to live.
I will not die, I will not die, I am a Palestinian child.”
Tala Al Danaf, 12 years old, Palestinian poet, Al-Shati Refugee Camp, Gaza, Palestine
From the Liberated Zone on the Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza, we mourn and honor all the child martyrs of Palestine, who were killed hungry, scared, and in pain. We honor Yaqeen Hammad, an aid worker and journalist martyred at 11 years old. We honor Jamal Kafarna, killed of starvation and martyred at only 5 months old. We honor Musk Al-Ifranji, the eldest of her siblings at 7 years old and a talented artist. We honor Qassam Al-Hajj, passionate about football and a brilliant student intending to become a doctor. We honor Rita Al-Janina, who taught her family to perform Tayamum (dry ablution prior to Islamic prayer) when deprived of water and was martyred at 10 years old. We honor Hind Rajab, who was killed by 335 bullets at 5 years old after pleading with the Red Crescent for hours on the phone. We honor Sidra Hassouna, who was blown apart at 7 years along with her family after being displaced 10 times. We honor Ayssel and Asser Abu al-Qumsan, the three-days-old twins who were killed with their mother in an airstrike before their birth certificates were even issued. We honor the thousands and thousands of Palestinian child martyrs, killed with weapons and tools powered by Microsoft and other genocide-profiteering companies: may Allah accept your martyrdom and may you fly across the heavens as beautiful birds at the highest levels of Janat Al Firdous (Paradise).
We are here answering your call for action to force an end to this ongoing genocide and to call for your rights to food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, self-determination, and justice you have been illegally and indefensibly denied the past 22 months and 77 years to be fully restored. We acknowledge that our efforts today do not immediately end Israel’s forced starvation campaign or lift the siege on Gaza. However, we hope our actions contribute, in whatever capacity they can, to easing your suffering and to liberating Palestine by forcing an end to the flow of US-made physical and technological weapons, such as the ones built by Microsoft, used to massacre you.
The case for the Liberated Zone
Our action is the product of 22 months of struggle against a Microsoft-powered genocide. For 22 months, Microsoft enabled, accelerated, and profited off the genocide while repeatedly silencing and retaliating against its workers who spoke up against its immoral and illegal genocide-profiteering business practices. The amount of evidence has become insurmountable; the disruptions have become non-stop; and the worker pressure has reached a tipping point. Still, Microsoft and its executives refuse to listen to its workers’ demands and continue to hide behind desperate PR statements and sham investigations.
It has become clear to us: Microsoft’s claims of being a moral company are a facade. They will not change their ways because it is the right thing to do; they will continue to exploit our labor to directly enable apartheid, power genocide through tech weapons in the form of Cloud and AI, and abet the starvation campaign in Gaza; in other words, they will only divest from the economy of occupation and genocide when not doing so hurts their bottom line.
That’s why, today, we join the long tradition of workers who have taken material direct action in their workplaces to force an end to the ongoing cycle of genocide-profiteering in solidarity with Palestine. We are inspired by dockworkers all over the globe refusing to handle arm shipments to Israel, academic workers going on strike for weeks in solidarity with the Student Intifada, and workers who have taken action to blockade weapons factories that supply the Israeli genocidal military with its arsenal. From the Liberated Zone, we follow in their footsteps by escalating against the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In doing so, we liberate our workplace and reclaim our labor from Microsoft’s genocide-profiteering claws to spark a revolutionary worker-led force that will bring the collapse of private corporations’ entanglement in the goal of eliminating the Palestinian people and their nation.
The technological backbone of the Israeli genocidal machine
For 34 years, Microsoft embedded itself in the economy of apartheid and genocide through its Israeli development centers, its acquisitions of Israeli cybersecurity and surveillance start-ups, and its never-ending contracts and deep partnerships with the Israeli military, the Israeli prison service, the Israeli government, and Israeli weapons manufacturers. This deep relationship established Microsoft as the technological backbone to the Israeli genocidal machine through the sale of Cloud and AI digital weapons to the Israeli military.
As it stands today, Microsoft technology powers Israel’s mass-surveillance weapon that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls and texts made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. To put it simply, Microsoft built a weapon that is used to enable and accelerate the blackmailing, kidnapping, massacring, and maiming of millions of Palestinians through bombardment, torture, and starvation. Given the choice to be part of the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project, Microsoft and its executives chose to line their pockets at the expense of the Palestinian people and their rights.
Microsoft workers, let us reclaim our labor
To fellow Microsoft workers, we are the ones who are building the technology and the ones who keep this company running. A small handful of executives are exploiting our labor to profit from war crimes. Right now, our labor is directly enabling apartheid, powering genocide through tech weapons in the form of Cloud and AI, and abetting the starvation campaign in Gaza. It is ultimately our responsibility to put people over profits. However, in order for that to happen, we must reclaim the power of our labor by speaking up and rejecting this immoral and illegal complicity right now.
Our executives have forced us to become accessories to their complicity in genocide. Our leaders lied to our faces, claimed they did no harm, and exploited our labor to massacre children. Our executives shook hands with war criminals, knowingly provided technology to power the world’s most well-documented, first AI-assisted genocide, then continued to gaslight us about it. In their shameless justification, they did not even have the guts to name Palestinians, the very people they are aiding in their massacre and erasure.
You do not have to accept being party to the crime of genocide. You do not have to be part of this system. You do not have to comply. Join us in answering Gaza’s call to action. Join us in honoring the countless lives of Palestinians who are victims of a Microsoft-powered genocide. Join us in refusing to have our labor enable and accelerate the massacring of millions of Palestinians through bombardment, torture, and starvation. Join us in confronting the same executives who continue to destabilize our livelihoods with mass layoffs while generating huge profits, accelerate environmental destruction through building data centers for AI, and ultimately exploit our labor by selling it to entities like the Israeli military, U.S. military, ICE, and Palantir.
- For workers who are in Redmond and in the Greater Seattle area, join us on the ground at the Liberated Zone as we reject business as usual and liberate our workplace from its entrenchment in Israel’s genocidal machine.
- For workers all over the world, join us in answering the call for the Worker Intifada by escalating against Microsoft from wherever you are! Speak up, walk out, protest, strike, and make it clear that we, as Microsoft workers everywhere, refuse to have our labor exploited to power the genocide of Palestinians.
Before you ask yourself about the cost of speaking up, ask about the cost of not speaking up. Ask yourself about the cost of our silence. Every moment that passes, the Israeli genocidal machine is using Microsoft technology to starve and bomb Palestinians in Gaza. Every second we do not act, Israel is using our labor to displace Palestinians in the West Bank in an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. We must meet the urgency of the moment; let us force an end to this Microsoft-powered genocide right now!
All people of conscience, join us in forcing an end to Microsoft’s complicity
To all people who stand in solidarity with Palestine, the genocide and occupation in Palestine will be forced to end when complicit corporations like Microsoft cease all their involvement with Israel. Microsoft is the second most valuable company in the world and the most complicit tech company in Israel’s crimes. Separating Microsoft from the Zionist entity represents far more than a single company divesting from Israel, it represents a domino in the collapse of private corporations’ entanglement with the Israeli economy of genocide, occupation, and apartheid.
We call on you to unite your voices with our voices to exert direct pressure towards Microsoft to force an end to corporate complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid.
- If you are in Redmond or the Greater Seattle area, join us on the ground at the Liberated Zone as workers and community members unite to force an end to Microsoft’s genocide-profiteering business practices taking place in our backyard.
- If you are not based locally near Microsoft headquarters, fear not. Microsoft’s presence is all over the globe and so is our growing revolutionary movement. Mobilize your community to confront, escalate, and take action on the ground to protest Microsoft’s active role in the Israeli genocidal machine wherever the nearest Microsoft presence is to you.
- In addition, directly pressure Microsoft by targeting the company bottom line through boycotting its products and institutional divestment from its stock.
From on-the-ground mobilization to financial divestment and legal persecution, we must use all avenues available to us to escalate the pressure against Microsoft and its executives.
All workers of conscience, join the Worker Intifada
To all workers of conscience all over the globe, the Israeli settler-colonial project is powered by a long list of genocide-profiteering corporations that are exploiting our labor to profit from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide. As reported by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories: “Corporate relations with Israel must cease until the occupation and apartheid end and reparations are made.” There is no way to interact with the Israeli economy without feeding into the system of occupation and genocide.
We must reject business as usual or normalizing working when these companies continue to enable and profit from genocide. We must meet this moment of urgency by divesting all of our labor from genocide and confronting all corporate entities that have enabled and profited from the economy of apartheid and genocide. Corrupt executives have been exploiting our labor for profits, but we must remember that these executives are dependent on us and on our labor.
Gaza has called for us all to take action to force an end to this genocide, and it’s time for all workers to answer the call. Join the Worker Intifada by rising up against the companies and entities we are a part of to stop enabling the genocide.
- Join us in demanding your workplaces cut ties and divest from all genocidal partnerships, including any relationship your company has with Israel or Microsoft.
- Mobilize your fellow workers and community members to escalate by disrupting business as usual and organizing strikes and protests wherever you are.
- Reject doing any work that could contribute to genocide and other crimes against humanity in Palestine.
For too long the world has allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue. It is time that workers everywhere stand up and force an end to any participation at all in Israel’s economy of occupation and genocide.
Microsoft executives, we are here until our demands are met
Satya Nadella, Brad Smith, Teresa Hutson, Mustafa Suleyman, Jay Parikh, Scott Guthrie, and all Microsoft Executives,the blood of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians is on your hands. It is far overdue to answer the calls of over two thousand of your own workers, tens of thousands of people of conscience, and ultimately millions of Palestinians to terminate your amoral and unlawful partnership with Israel and end your role in the economy of genocide.
Make no mistake, our actions will continue as long as Microsoft is invested in the economy of occupation and genocide, in any capacity! We will make it costly to continue to do business with the murderous Zionist regime. We will show up to escalate, confront, and disrupt in every place, at every moment, announced and unannounced. When our voices are silenced, we will find ways to speak that cannot be ignored. Our movement will not stop, we will not rest, we will continue to apply pressure, and we will continue to escalate. We are here at the Liberated Zone until our demands are fully met!
- Cut Ties with Israel: We demand that Microsoft fully and perpetually divests from Israel’s economy of occupation, apartheid, and genocide:
- End all sales, contracts, deals, and services to all Israeli entities and remove existing access to Microsoft products from all Israeli entities.
- Close all Microsoft Israel offices, data centers, and end the employment of any person who has served in the Israeli military.
- Call for an End to the Genocide & Forced Starvation: We demand that Microsoft uses its global influence to call for:
- Lifting the Israeli blockade of aid from Gaza, and for this aid to be stewarded by UNRWA and Palestinian-community-backed, Palestinian-led distribution groups.
- An end to the genocide in Gaza and a withdrawal of the Israeli military and civilians from Gaza and all of occupied Palestine.
- Other companies and governments to call for the same.
- Pay Reparations to the Palestinians: We demand that Microsoft pays reparations to the Palestinian people for active participation in their occupation and genocide. Palestinians must decide what form of reparations these should take and must be involved in every stage of planning and implementation of reparations. Microsoft must provide Palestinians guarantees of non-recurrence in acknowledging the harm they have caused to the Palestinian people.
- End the Discrimination Against Workers: We demand that Microsoft ends its discrimination against Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and pro-Palestine workers:
- Provide amnesty for workers involved in Palestinian advocacy, including in the Liberated Zone.
- Retract all disciplinary measures and re-instate fired workers who were retaliated against for Palestinian advocacy
- Protect all workers involved in Palestinian advocacy from harm and harassment in the workplace.
- Re-instate UNRWA USA to the Employee Giving Portal.
If you are ready to divest, we are ready to talk. The negotiation table has been set up at the Liberated Zone, and we are reachable at negotiations@noazureforapartheid.com when you are ready to put an end to your role in the economy of genocide and apartheid.
The time to divest and put an end to your role in the economy of genocide and apartheid is now. No PR statement will absolve you when the time comes to be held accountable. No sham investigation will save you in front of the International Criminal Court and national judiciaries for your role in the commission of international crimes and the laundering of the proceeds from those crimes.
There is only one solution: Intifada, Revolution
In establishing the Liberated Zone, we are reminded of the beloved martyred journalist Anas Al Sharif’s last words in his will.
“I ask you not to be silenced by restrictions, nor be paralyzed by borders. Be bridges toward the liberation of the country and its people, so that the light of dignity and freedom may shine upon our usurped homeland.”
Today, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the struggle; we will not be silenced by restrictions; we will not be paralyzed by borders; we will be bridges toward the liberation of Palestine and its people!
Today, we refuse to be cogs in Israel’s genocidal machine; we refuse to let our labor enable the genocide and forced starvation of our people in Gaza; we refuse to be part of Microsoft’s genocide-profiteering.
Today, we call for a Worker Intifada that aims to bring the collapse of private corporations’ entanglement in the goal of eliminating the Palestinian people and their nation.
Today, we call upon all people of conscience all over the globe to unite behind the workers’ voice in mobilizing, confronting, and escalating against Microsoft to force an end to its complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid.
Today, we call upon our fellow Microsoft workers and all workers of conscience to join us in reclaiming our labor and liberating our workplaces.
From the Liberated Zone, may the seeds of revolution we planted today bring us a liberated Palestine within our lifetime.
Join the Worker Intifada
Long live the Liberated Zone
Glory to the Martyrs
Free Palestine
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