Israeli Minister Races to Salvage Flailing Coalition

Israeli Minister of Justice Gideon Saar arrives for the first weekly cabinet meeting of the new government in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 20, 2021. (AP)
Israeli Minister of Justice Gideon Saar arrives for the first weekly cabinet meeting of the new government in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 20, 2021. (AP)
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Israeli Minister Races to Salvage Flailing Coalition

Israeli Minister of Justice Gideon Saar arrives for the first weekly cabinet meeting of the new government in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 20, 2021. (AP)
Israeli Minister of Justice Gideon Saar arrives for the first weekly cabinet meeting of the new government in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 20, 2021. (AP)

Israel’s justice minister says he will give the government one final chance to approve a contentious bill extending legal protections to West Bank settlers in a last-ditch effort to keep the fractured coalition in power.

Justice Minister Gideon Saar said in a series of TV interviews that he will resubmit the bill next Sunday, after the legislation failed to pass earlier this week. Several members of the coalition joined the opposition in defeating the bill.

Saar called on his fellow coalition members to get in line or to exit the government - a scenario that would likely plunge the country into a fifth election in just three years.

"As long as they don’t make order in their own party, as far as we are concerned, they aren’t part of the coalition," he told Israel's Kan public broadcaster late Tuesday.

The bill was seen as a major test for the coalition, comprised of parties from across the political spectrum, and its defeat has raised questions about the government's long-term viability.

Israeli media said that the renegade coalition lawmakers who didn't support the bill are being pressure to change their minds or resign to make way for those who would vote in favor.

Emergency regulations in place for decades have created a separate legal system for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. It applies parts of Israeli law to them - even though they live in occupied territory and not within sovereign Israeli land - while Palestinians live under military rule, now in its sixth decade.

If the bill fails to pass again, Jewish settlers living there could see their legal status thrown into question. Critics, including the Palestinians and three prominent human rights groups, have said the situation amounts to apartheid, an allegation Israel rejects as an assault on its legitimacy.

The coalition includes nationalistic parties that are strong supporters of the settlements, as well as dovish parties that oppose them. The alliance is the first in Israel's history to include an Arab party, the Islamist Ra'am, whose members abstained or opposed the bill on Monday.

Saar, who heads a small pro-settler party, directed much of his criticism at Ra'am. "From my perspective, Ra'am has not behaved like a party in the coalition and will pay a price for that," he told Channel 13 TV.

There was no indication as to whether Ra'am's members would change how they voted. Another coalition member who voted against the bill, Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, said Wednesday she remained opposed.

The coalition was formed a year ago, bringing together eight parties that have little in common beyond their shared animosity to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now the opposition leader. After a series of coalition defections, parliament is evenly divided 60-60 between the coalition and opposition.

In some ways, Monday's vote had less to do with the status of the settlers than with the status of the government. The opposition is dominated by allies of the settlers, yet voted against the legislation and the interests of their constituents in hopes of speeding up the collapse of the government. Dovish members of the government, meanwhile, voted in favor of the bill to shore up the coalition, despite their opposition to the settlements.

If the bill fails again next week, the government would not immediately collapse. But the fissures in the coalition will be difficult to mend and its days could be numbered.

"The government now would find it very difficult to manage the ongoing affairs of state, let alone instigate and initiate major reforms and so on," said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, an Israeli think tank. "In this respect, it’s a missing government, it’s a very problematic situation for the government."



Microsoft Workers Say They’ve Been Fired after 50th Anniversary Protest over Israel Contract 

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP)
A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP)
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Microsoft Workers Say They’ve Been Fired after 50th Anniversary Protest over Israel Contract 

A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP)
A pro-Palestinian demonstrator, Ibtihal Aboussad, is escorted away by security as they interrupt Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during a presentation of the company's AI assistant, Copilot, ahead of a 50th Anniversary presentation at Microsoft headquarters, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Redmond, Wash. (AP)

Microsoft has fired two employees who interrupted the company's 50th anniversary celebration to protest its work supplying artificial intelligence technology to the Israeli military, according to a group representing the workers.

Microsoft accused one of the workers in a termination letter Monday of misconduct "designed to gain notoriety and cause maximum disruption to this highly anticipated event." Microsoft says the other worker had already announced her resignation, but on Monday it ordered her to leave five days early.

The protests began Friday when Microsoft software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad walked up toward a stage where an executive was announcing new product features and a long-term vision for Microsoft's AI ambitions.

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

The protest forced Suleyman to pause his talk while it was being livestreamed from Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington. Among the participants at the 50th anniversary of Microsoft's founding were co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft said Suleyman calmly tried to de-escalate the situation. "Thank you for your protest, I hear you," he said. Aboussad continued, shouting that Suleyman and "all of Microsoft" had blood on their hands. She also threw onto the stage a keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of support for Palestinian people, before being escorted out of the event.

A second protester, Microsoft employee Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later part of the event.

Aboussad, based at Microsoft's Canadian headquarters in Toronto, was invited on Monday to a call with a human resources representative at which she was told she was being fired immediately, according to the advocacy group No Azure for Apartheid, which has protested the sale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to Israel.

An investigation by The Associated Press revealed earlier this year that AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI had been used as part of an Israeli military program to select bombing targets during the recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The story also contained details of an errant Israeli airstrike in 2023 that struck a vehicle carrying members of a Lebanese family, killing three young girls and their grandmother.

In its termination letter, Microsoft told Aboussad she could have raised her concerns confidentially to a manager. Instead, it said she made "hostile, unprovoked, and highly inappropriate accusations" against Suleyman and the company and that her "conduct was so aggressive and disruptive that you had to be escorted out of the room by security."

Agrawal had already given her two weeks notice and was preparing to leave the company on April 11, but on Monday a manager emailed that Microsoft "has decided to make your resignation immediately effective today."

It was the most public but not the first protest over Microsoft's work with Israel. In February, five Microsoft employees were ejected from a meeting with CEO Satya Nadella for protesting the contracts.

"We provide many avenues for all voices to be heard," said a statement from the company Friday. "Importantly, we ask that this be done in a way that does not cause a business disruption. If that happens, we ask participants to relocate. We are committed to ensuring our business practices uphold the highest standards."

Microsoft had declined to say Friday whether it was taking further action, but Aboussad and Agrawal expected it was coming after both lost access to their work accounts shortly after the protest.

Dozens of Google workers were fired last year after internal protests over a contract it also has with the Israeli government. Employee sit-ins at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California targeted a $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus providing AI technology to the Israeli government.

The Google workers later filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to get their jobs back.