Palestinian-led BDS movement adds Microsoft’s Xbox as priority boycott target

BDS, a pro-Palestinian human rights movement focused on pressuring Israel to comply with international law by promoting boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the country and its economic partners, added Microsoft and Xbox to its list of targets on April 7.

“Microsoft partners with the apartheid regime of Israel and its prison system,” the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s official statement explains. “It provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and AI services that are central to accelerating Israel’s genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. After 34 years of deep complicity with Israel’s military, the Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements of its genocide and apartheid regime.”

Microsoft employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration on April 4, confronting executives and denouncing what they see as Microsoft’s complicity in Israel’s brutal retaliation against the Palestinian people following the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Both have since been fired.

“You claim that you care about using AI for good but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military,” Aboussad is reported to have shouted at Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during her protest. “Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.”

The movement is calling on the public “to pressure Microsoft with divestment and exclusion from contracts, whenever feasible” as well as boycott Xbox products, providing the following options as tiers of engagement:

1. Cancel your Xbox Game Pass subscription.
2. Boycott Candy Crush, Minecraft, and Call of Duty – flagship videogame franchises owned by Microsoft.
3. Boycott all Microsoft Gaming products, including Xbox-branded consoles, headsets, accessories and all games published by Microsoft-owned publishing labels (such as Xbox Game Studios, Activision, Bethesda, and Blizzard).

BDS was inspired by South African anti-apartheid and launched in 2005 by a group comprised of 170 unions, women’s organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees, and other Palestinian civil society bodies. Since then, it has launched several successful campaigns against Woolworths, Hewlett-Packard, and Eurovision. Other current targets include Reebok, Chevron, and Cisco.

“By boycotting the Xbox brand, we’re pressuring Microsoft to end its complicity in Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid against Palestinians,” the BDS movement’s statement concludes. “Palestinians call on everyone to boycott Microsoft’s Xbox and Microsoft gaming products since viable gaming alternatives exist. Genocide is not a game.”