Microsoft has dismissed two additional employees who were actively involved in a series of high-profile protests targeting the company’s ongoing contractual relationships with both the Israeli government and the Israeli military. According to Hossam Nasr, a leading organizer associated with the activist coalition known as *No Azure for Apartheid*, the employees—identified as Nisreen Jaradat and Julius Shan—were terminated for their ties to recent demonstrations staged directly at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters. These protests, which have rapidly escalated in visibility, included the establishment of encampments designed to draw attention to what participants describe as ethically questionable partnerships.
The most recent dismissals follow a prior round of firings in which two separate employees were removed from the company only the night before. Those individuals were alleged to have taken part in a bold act of dissent during which protesters gained unauthorized entry into one of Microsoft’s buildings. Once inside, they proceeded to broadcast a live video from the private office of Brad Smith, the company’s president. Their actions underscored the extent to which employee dissent has transitioned from conventional channels of internal critique to highly public and provocative displays designed to capture widespread media coverage.
Jaradat in particular had already established herself as a vocal critic within the organization. Earlier in the year, she bypassed Microsoft’s strict internal restrictions on the use of language related to Palestine and Gaza by composing and disseminating a large-scale employee-wide message. In her email, she openly described her frustration and disillusionment, stating that she was intensely dissatisfied with how Microsoft had treated her as a Palestinian worker, and that she was no longer willing to remain silent about what she perceived as systemic erasure and censorship of terms and experiences central to her identity.
The activist network *No Azure for Apartheid* has been engaged in a sustained campaign of public resistance against Microsoft’s activities throughout this year. Among its tactics, the group has directly interrupted Microsoft’s executive team during multiple live-streamed keynote presentations, often seizing moments of peak corporate visibility to demand accountability. In one instance this spring, they disrupted critical company showcases, ensuring that their objections could not be easily ignored by leadership or by Microsoft’s global audience. Their efforts have increasingly blurred the lines between workplace organizing and broader political advocacy.
Most recently, the collective attempted to claim control over a prominent plaza at Microsoft’s Redmond campus headquarters. When security forces removed them from the site, they promptly returned the following day with a renewed, more theatrical demonstration. This included pitching tents, arranging tables, and using red paint to symbolically deface a Microsoft sign—an action interpreted by sympathizers as a visual representation of what they called the company’s complicity in violence. Law enforcement responded firmly, making eighteen arrests during this protest, which only served to amplify the group’s public profile.
On the Tuesday following these events, protesters once again escalated their direct action strategy, staging an intervention inside the private office space of President Brad Smith. After the demonstration concluded, Smith moved quickly to manage the narrative through a press conference. In his remarks, he emphasized that Microsoft is devoting significant resources to ensuring that its Azure cloud platform is not being misused in Israel. Yet at the same time, he firmly condemned the demonstrators’ recent occupation of his office, remarking pointedly that such behavior was “not ok” and crossed a boundary beyond acceptable forms of dissent.
When approached by journalists seeking clarity on the situation, Microsoft declined to provide any official, attributable comment to *The Verge*. This refusal has left the public with only fragments of information—primarily the statements of activists, the accounts of employees who were terminated, and Smith’s carefully calibrated press conference—to interpret the ongoing confrontation between employee activism and corporate authority within one of the world’s most powerful technology firms.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/microsoft/767841/microsoft-fires-two-more-protesters-no-azure-for-apartheid
