Tech giant Microsoft has listed a number of organizations based in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including at least one that raises money to support the Israeli military, on its employee charitable giving platform. However, the company has delisted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides relief in Gaza, according to Microsoft employees who filed an internal request for the company to change its policy. Listing the charities on the expanded platform means Microsoft will automatically match donations to the settlements, according to an investigation by DropSiteNews.

According to the site, a group of Microsoft employees last week began circulating a petition calling on the company to stop matching donations to three organizations, the Ma'ale Adumim Foundation, the Ein Prat Leadership Academy, and the Megilot Dead Sea Rescue Team, which they say "directly violate international law," citing the Geneva Conventions.

“Microsoft is directly funding these illegal and immoral settlements by allowing these organizations to exist,” the petition says, calling on the company to stop funding the three organizations. “This is not only unethical, it also goes against our overall values as a company.”

"They are still in the process of collecting signatures before contacting Microsoft management, and Microsoft has not provided a statement on the Drop Site report. Settlement charities in the occupied West Bank are still available on the Benevity platform, as of Tuesday (6/8/2024)," according to the site.

Since October 7, Microsoft employees have been embroiled in a bitter dispute over the company’s response to Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza. A Business Insider report in November described a tense culture within the company, with divisions between employees and management emerging as a result of the war, the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza since that day. One point of contention has been the continued provision of Microsoft Azure cloud computing and artificial intelligence software to the Israeli military, support that has been targeted by a campaign led by employees calling themselves “No Azure for Apartheid.”

The internal conflict escalated earlier this year when the company decided to remove the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main UN program serving Palestinian refugees, from the company’s matching donations list. Israel has accused UNRWA employees of participating in Hamas attacks on October 7 — claiming in January that up to 10 percent of the agency had ties to Hamas — but the allegations have not been substantiated.

Microsoft's decision to delist UNRWA is now the subject of a separate petition by Microsoft employees to restore the organization to charitable giving.

The three organizations listed in the petition by Microsoft employees (the Ma'ale Adumim Foundation, the Ein Prat Leadership Academy, and the Megilot Dead Sea Rescue Team) are described online as playing an active role in the occupation itself.

In particular, the Ma’ale Adumim Foundation’s goal is to “promote and improve the cultural and social welfare of the residents of the city of Ma’ale Adumim, Israel and its environs,” according to its 2020 tax documents. Ma’ale Adumim, a large settlement established since the beginning of the occupation, is located just outside occupied Jerusalem and is a particularly controversial settlement, with some analysts blaming it for making a two-state solution impossible by blocking the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state emerging in the West Bank.

Another organization that Microsoft is encouraging to donate to, the Ein Prat Academy, describes itself as a “pre-military leadership” program for young Israelis. The academy’s fundraising campaigns describe its mission as “training the next generation of top-level IDF officers and leaders,” while adding that it is “the only pre-military institution that has a formal agreement with the IDF.” Based in the West Bank settlement of Kfar Adumim, the academy is described on Benefit’s website as “a volunteer organization that helps and supports anyone who is lost, injured or otherwise in trouble in the Judean Desert.”

Workers across the tech world are putting pressure on their employers about the industry’s role in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories. Dozens of Google employees were fired in April after protesting a program called Project Nimbus that they alleged helped enhance the Israeli government’s ability to monitor Palestinians. Earlier this year, a group of Apple employees circulated a petition calling on the company to stop matching donations to organizations like Friends of the IDF and others involved in supporting ongoing settlements in the West Bank or Israeli military activities.

Both Microsoft and Apple offer employer matching contributions to settlement organizations through an internal charitable matching platform known as Benevity. According to company employees, as well as publicly available documentation about the matching program, Microsoft states that it will match up to $15,000 per calendar year for each U.S. employee who donates to an organization registered on the platform. However, donations to nonprofits abroad are typically not tax deductible.

On its website, Microsoft says its approach to international affairs has been guided in part by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a document that says companies should “comply with all applicable laws and respect internationally recognized human rights, wherever they operate,” as well as “treat the risk of causing or contributing to serious human rights abuses as a legal compliance issue.”

The apparent disconnect between Microsoft’s stated commitment to adhering to international law and human rights standards and its real-world actions and partnerships has alarmed some employees, who are now demanding that the company live up to its stated values.

“Microsoft has aided, abetted and even accelerated this genocide by continuing to sell Azure services to the Israeli military, while ignoring and suppressing internal employee dissent and silencing Palestinian, Arab and pro-Palestinian employees,” said Hossam Nasr, a Microsoft software engineer and organizer of the “No to Azure Apartheid” campaign. “It is as disappointing as it is unsurprising that Microsoft is defunding UNRWA, the most important organization providing humanitarian support to Palestinians, while simultaneously helping to fund settlement projects that are universally recognized as violating international law.”