20 arrested during anti-Israel protest at Microsoft’s Redmond WA Campus

At least 20 people were arrested Wednesday afternoon after a second consecutive day of anti-Israel protests at Microsoft’s Redmond, WA headquarters escalated into vandalism and property damage. Redmond police said officers were called to the campus at about 12:15 pm for reports of a large protest. When officers attempted to disperse the group, protesters resisted and “became aggressive,” according to a police statement.

Authorities say demonstrators poured paint over a Microsoft sign, blocked a pedestrian bridge, and attempted to erect a barricade using stolen tables and chairs around their “liberated zone,” which included tents. Potential charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction, are pending.

The protesters, operating under the radical group No Azure For Apartheid, claim to be current and former Microsoft employees opposed to the company’s work supplying cloud-based artificial intelligence services to Israel.

"Of the 20 people arrested during yesterday's incident, only one is a current Microsoft employee and only three are former employees previously terminated for similar conduct," according to a Microsoft spokesperson, who said, "Almost all of those arrested yesterday, including some carrying fake company ID cards, have never worked at Microsoft."

In a statement to KOMO News Wednesday, Microsoft said, “As we have made clear, Microsoft is committed to its human rights standards and contractual terms of service, including in the Middle East. The company announced last week that it is pursuing a thorough and independent review of new allegations about the purported use of its Azure platform in Israel.”

On Tuesday, about 35 protesters demonstrated on campus and left after being warned they were trespassing on private property. But on Wednesday, the group returned, escalating to vandalism and disruption, including harassing vendors at a lunchtime farmer’s market and seizing tables and tents.

The arrests are the latest flashpoint in a months-long clash between the tech giant and some of its employees. In recent months, Microsoft has fired several workers for staging disruptive protests, including one who interrupted CEO Satya Nadella and others who disrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Among those present was an Egyptian named Hossam Nasr (Mabed), a fired Microsoft employee and prominent figure in Seattle's pro-Hamas movement. Nasr was terminated last October after leading a protest on campus. He has repeatedly referred to Microsoft as “an evil Zionist corporation facilitating and empowering a genocide.”

Nasr has a long record of radical activism. Microsoft insiders told The Ari Hoffman Show on Talk Radio 570 KVI that he was notorious inside the company for antisemitic vitriol and was the subject of prior internal investigations.

Last year, he was also arrested for disrupting a University of Washington (UW) Board of Regents meeting on campus antisemitism where Jewish students, faculty, and board members had to be escorted out after anti-Israel activists led by Nasr seized control of the room.

In May, witnesses claim to have spotted Nasr on the UW campus tipping over a dumpster and setting it on fire the night antisemitic radicals and antifa militants caused over $1 million in damage to the university's brand new engineering building.

Nasr bragged to local media about his participation in local protests which incl,uded shutting down the light rail and the Gaza camp at the University of Washington.

Nasr’s social media has featured incendiary posts, including a photo of a US flag being burned at a pro-Hamas event, accompanied by a caption describing the flag as representing “death, murder, destruction… genocide… and beheaded babies.” He wrote: “Death to the U.S. empire and its killing machine. Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a call for the genocide of everyone living in Israel.

Before moving to Seattle, Nasr co-founded Harvard Alumni for Palestine and served as co-president of Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, part of the antisemitic Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement.