When we talk about the damage done by the tech industry, the same names keep popping up: Elon Musk, Facebook, Amazon, OpenAI, etc. But there’s one ancient evil that we tend to give a pass to. Microsoft is often seen as old-fashioned, even harmless – your grandpa’s megacorp so to speak.
Yet Microsoft remains one of the most powerful and destructive companies in the world—and it is directly complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Microsoft helps the IDF to target Palestinians
In early August, a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, revealed that Microsoft has developed a customized version of its Azure cloud platform specifically for Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200.
Unit 8200 hosts vast amounts of data using Azure for its surveillance apparatus. This cloud-based system stores intercepted Palestinian phone calls. Leaked documents reviewed by The Guardian show that, from July 2025, the equivalent of 200 million hours of audio were stored on Microsoft servers in the Netherlands. More data is on servers in Ireland and Israel.
According to Israeli intelligence sources, this Azure-hosted data was used to help plan lethal airstrikes in Gaza and guide arrests and other operations in the West Bank.
In response to these accusations, Microsoft has played innocent, despite launching two external inquiries into the allegations. After the first inquiry, Microsoft announced in May that it had found no evidence the Israeli military had violated its terms of service. A second inquiry was launched in August after senior Microsoft executives raised concerns about their Israel-based employees. In other words: what if some Israeli employees have been more loyal to their government than to their employer?
Despite this internal finger pointing, it seems clear that Microsoft must have known what its system would be used for. According to an intelligence source interviewed by The Guardian:
“Technically, they’re not supposed to be told exactly what it is, but you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out,” the source noted. “You tell [Microsoft] we don’t have any more space on the servers, that it’s audio files. It’s pretty clear what it is.”
In a June report, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine stated that Microsoft’s servers “ensure data sovereignty and provide a shield from accountability, under favourable contracts with minimal restrictions or oversight.”
Speaking at a conference titled “IT for IDF”, an Israeli colonel described cloud technology as “a weapon.” Netanyahu himself has said that the relationship between Israel and Microsoft is “a marriage made in heaven, but recognized here on earth.”
No Azure for Apartheid
No Azure for Apartheid is a Microsoft-worker campaign group opposing the company’s complicity in the genocide. The group has criticised the latest inquiry as “as yet another tactic to delay the immediate cessation of ties with the Israeli military”.
Members of the group have organized several protests in recent weeks. They briefly occupied Microsoft east campus in Redmond on the 19th of August. A few days later, the group used kayaks to protest outside the waterfront homes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith.
On the 26th, five Microsoft workers were arrested at another sit-in at the company’s headquarters. Two workers – Riki Fameli and Anna Hattle – were then fired. Previously, Microsoft has fired two members of No Azure for Apartheid – Abdo Mohamed and Hossam Nasr – for organizing another vigil.
Reports confirm the company has asked the FBI for help tracking workers and activists. Internal emails reviewed by Bloomberg show that Microsoft went as far as flagging employees and former employees involved with No Azure for Apartheid by name.
In an article on Medium, No Azure for Apartheid has listed the many ways in which Microsoft technology is either directly or indirectly used to power the genocide in Gaza. This includes, amongst other things, Microsoft’s ties to members of the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF). UN experts have said that the GHF “is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law”.
Microsoft is gutting the game industry
Microsoft is not only complicit in genocide, it is harmful on many more levels. The company has laid off thousands of workers in several rounds: 6,000 in May, 9,000 announced in July, 10,000 back in 2023… the list goes on. This is in no way comparable with the murder of Palestinians, it is hard to understate how many people lost their jobs and how damaging these layoffs have been.
The layoffs have arguably not received much coverage in the mainstream press. Perhaps because a large portion of those affected work in the gaming industry. There is still a widespread assumption that making games is not a “real” job. Yet gaming is the largest cultural industry in the world. Such mass layoffs—combined with the closure of many studios—are already wreaking havoc.
Why is this happening ? The short version is: 1. Microsoft purchases a host of game studios to create a sort of Netflix for games, 2. Netflix for games is an unprofitable idea, 3. Microsoft decides to pivot to AI (because which tech company doesn’t?), 4. people get sacked.
The mass layoffs and complicity in genocide are linked, and some Microsoft-owned game studios fight back making that evident. In August, Arkane Lyon published a letter calling out Microsoft’s complicity in the genocide, after initially delaying due to the layoffs.
“Our concern was that the open letter would be muted by the layoffs news,” Arkane told Game File. “Since then, it has been very difficult to find the correct timing, knowing that the situation in Gaza was deteriorating rapidly.”
The letter demands, amongst other things “Termination of all ongoing or future contract with Israeli Occupation Forces” and Microsoft “Disclosing all ties to the Israeli military”.
Other game developers have canceled ports of their game for the Xbox.
What can you do?
So, Microsoft is bad. According to BDS, it is “perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide”.
But what can we do to fight it?
Calling for a full Microsoft boycott would be hypocritical on my part. After all, I’m writing this article on a Windows machine. For many people, switching to another operating system is either too costly or too difficult to be a realistic option. But Microsoft is more than just its operating system—the company offers a wide range of products, including games.
Among other things here’s what you can do:
- Stop buying Xbox products and cancel your Game Pass Subscription.
- Stop buying Microsoft hardware such as Surface laptops, keyboards, or controllers.
- Avoid using Microsoft software (Bing, Edge, Windows, Office) as much as possible. If the Windows operating system is difficult to avoid for many people, products like Bing, Edge, or Office can easily be replaced by other, free alternatives.
- Sign this petition.
