There Is No Neutral Tech with Ibtihal Aboussad
July 7th, 2026
Speaking to Imam Omar Suleiman saying “I just did not want to stand before Allah on the Day of Judgement and have to admit to any complicity in this genocide.”
In this episode of Habibti Please, Nashwa speaks with Moroccan software engineer and community organizer Ibtihal Aboussad about Big Tech, Palestine, worker resistance, artificial intelligence, surveillance, militarization, faith, and collective refusal. At the centre of the conversation is a simple but urgent principle, workers should not be required to write code that kills.
Ibtihal formerly worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and now organizes with No Azure for Apartheid, a campaign of current and former Microsoft workers challenging the company’s technological and contractual relationships with Israeli military and government institutions.
In April 2025 Ibtihal interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the company’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, publicly challenging Microsoft’s provision of AI and cloud-computing services to the Israeli military. Microsoft fired Ibtihal and fellow organizer Vaniya Agrawal shortly after their protests. Their actions became part of a wider worker-led movement involving internal organizing, resignations, petitions, workplace disruptions, vigils, walkouts, sit-ins, and public campaigns against corporate military contracts. (The Guardian)
Together, Nashwa and Ibtihal discuss what brought her into the technology industry, when she began questioning its claims of neutrality, and what it means to refuse complicity when your income, immigration status, professional reputation, and future employment may be at risk. The relationship between cloud infrastructure and state violence, the role of worker organizing, the political and spiritual responsibilities of Muslim technology workers, the history of North African anticolonial struggle, international dockworker solidarity including in Morocco, and what Palestinian resistance teaches us about organizing against systems that present themselves as permanent.
Follow Ibtihal Aboussad
Follow Ibtihal on instagram for commentary on Palestine, worker organizing, Big Tech, Muslim ethics, and the No Azure for Apartheid campaign.A conversation Ibtihal had with Imam Omar Sulieman at Yaqeen Institute.
Follow Palestinian Journalists Directly
As mentioned in the episode people should follow Palestinian journalists, they have documented bombardment, forced displacement, starvation, military occupation, the destruction of hospitals and homes, and the killing of their own relatives, neighbours, and colleagues while living through those conditions themselves.
This resource provides a starting point for finding Palestinian journalists, photographers, healthcare workers, and citizen reporters who have documented Israel’s assault on Gaza. Important note about this resource:the article was published in January 2024 and does not appear to have been fully updated.
Some people included in older lists of Palestinian journalists may since have been killed, injured, forcibly displaced, evacuated, detained, stopped reporting, or had their social-media accounts suspended, hacked, removed, or changed.
Others to follow:
Bisan Owda is a Palestinian journalist, filmmaker, storyteller, and activist from Gaza. Her videos have documented displacement, hunger, bombardment, community survival, and daily life throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza. Her reporting has often begun with the words: “It’s Bisan from Gaza, and I’m still alive.”
Hind Khoudary is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza who has reported extensively on the political, humanitarian, and social conditions facing Palestinians. Her work combines direct reporting with her own experiences of displacement, destruction, and loss.
More Palestinian Journalists to follow:
Wael Al-Dahdouh
Motaz Azaiza
Plestia Alaqad
Yara Eid
Mariam Barghouti
Maha Hussaini
Ruwaida Amer
Youmna ElSayed
Abubaker Abed
Mohammed El-Kurd
Because accounts and circumstances change quickly, search for each journalist’s current official page instead of relying entirely on older compiled lists.
No Azure for Apartheid is a campaign of current and former Microsoft workers organizing against the company’s contracts and technological relationships with Israeli military and government institutions.
The campaign calls on Microsoft to:
end Azure contracts and partnerships with Israeli military and government institutions;
publicly disclose its relationships with Israeli state, military, surveillance, technology, and weapons entities;
protect Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied workers who organize or speak publicly for Palestine;
support an immediate and permanent ceasefire;
stop retaliation against workers challenging the company’s military relationships.
“Our Fight Against Microsoft-Powered Genocide: Campaign Statement on the Firings of Our Organizers”
“Inside the Campaign to End Microsoft’s Collaboration with the Israeli Army”
“Microsoft Faces Growing Unrest Over Role in Israel’s War on Gaza”
“As Big Tech Grows More Involved in Gaza, Muslim Workers Are Wrestling with a Spiritual Crisis”
“Microsoft Confirms It Supplied AI Tech to the Israeli Military for Use in Gaza”
“A Call for a Worker Intifada” — No Azure for Apartheid
“Activist Group Vows More Pressure on Amazon Over Israel Ties” — The New Arab
“Amazon Suspends Engineer Who Protested Company’s Work With Israel”
Cisco and Palestine — Drop Site News
“Trade Unions Block Arms Exports to Israel”
“Dockworkers and Labor Activists Can Block the Transport of Arms to Israel”
“Morocco Port Workers to Block Maersk’s Arms Shipment to Israel”
“Protesters Target Morocco Ports Over Ties to Israel”
“How Canada’s Purchases of Israeli Weapons Fuel Genocide”
“Canada to Host Tests of Israeli Arms Tech Used on Palestinians”
