Moroccan national fired for confronting Microsoft’s ties to Israel
Moroccan software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad has been fired for protesting Microsoft’s ties to Israel through their artificial intelligence contracts with the Israeli military.
According to CNBC, Aboussad on Friday the 4th of April at the Microsoft 50th anniversary event publicly condemned the company for taking a contract from the Israeli military.
The event, intended as a celebration of Microsoft’s 50-year legacy, was instead overshadowed by controversy surrounding the company’s ties to Israel, with employee protests like Aboussad’s drawing attention away from the company’s technological achievements.
Aboussad, a Moroccan national who is currently based in Canada, took her chance to confront the Israeli ties when she interrupted AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman’s speech in Washington on the 4th of April.
“Shame on you” is what she shouted as she approached the stage where Suleyman was speaking. She carried on to say, “You claim that you care for using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military. Fifty thousand people have died, and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”
To further this point, she called Suleyman a “war profiteer” and said that “All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.”
Aboussad, after being escorted out, sent an email to the Microsoft executives where she expressed how “Microsoft has tried to quell and suppress any dissent from my coworkers who tried to raise this issue.”
Her problem with Microsoft can be summed up in this quote: “I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights.”
This sentiment and unrest from a Moroccan national is not the first and represents a wider belief by many Moroccans against the Israeli war in Gaza and the ties which Morocco has to the Israeli government.
This protest and email fell on deaf ears for Aboussad as Microsoft responded by calling her email to executives an admission to engaging in her inappropriate behaviour at the 50th anniversary, condemning her protest rather than seeking to explain her issues “confidentially with your manager, or with Global Employee Relations.”
Microsoft has now immediately ended her employment, which the company believes is the “only appropriate response.”
CNBC, Maghrebi.org
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