On August 20, 2025, a striking scene unfolded at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, as about 50 current and former employees gathered to protest the company’s business ties to Israel’s military. The demonstration, organized by a group called "No Azure For Apartheid," saw participants setting up tents in what they dubbed the "Martyred Palestinian Children’s Plaza," transforming a patch of the tech giant’s campus into a "liberated zone." Protesters, many wearing face masks and keffiyehs, carried signs with messages such as "Join the worker intifada: no labor for genocide" and "stop starving Gaza," urging their colleagues to join a movement against what they called complicity in war crimes. According to The New York Post, the event was sparked by reports from The Guardian that an Israeli military intelligence agency had been using Microsoft’s Azure cloud software to collect and store phone call recordings from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft responded swiftly to the demonstration, stating, "The group was asked to leave, and they left." The company also clarified that it was not aware "of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services" and pledged to conduct a formal review of the allegations. This protest is just one example of how the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which reignited after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis, has reverberated far beyond the Middle East, stirring up passionate activism and heated debate in workplaces, universities, and city streets across the United States and beyond.
In the months since the war’s escalation, anti-war protests have grown louder within Israel itself. According to reporting by Al Jazeera, Palestinian citizens of Israel—who make up about 20% of the country’s population—have increasingly joined these demonstrations. Initially, many were hesitant to speak out, fearing repercussions such as arrest or other punishments for social media posts and public dissent. However, as harrowing images from Gaza continue to circulate globally, their fear is giving way to a sense of urgency and solidarity. Independent filmmaker Matthew Cassel has documented this shift, meeting with Palestinians inside Israel who are now more willing to voice their opposition to the ongoing military campaign in Gaza.
Across the Atlantic, the conflict’s aftershocks are acutely felt in American cities like Columbus, Ohio. In the wake of the October 7 attack, antisemitism reportedly spiked in central Ohio. Jewish Columbus, a local branch of the Jewish Federations of North America, responded by reporting threats and harassment against Jewish residents to police. But as WOSU uncovered, the organization also reported protest activities critical of Israel, blurring the lines between hate speech and protected First Amendment expression. These reports included events organized by Students for Justice in Palestine at Ohio State University and Ohio Wesleyan University, as well as a candlelight vigil at the Ohio Statehouse in November 2023—a silent tribute to Gaza’s victims, with no speeches or protests, yet still flagged to law enforcement.
Jewish Columbus defended its actions, stating it didn’t consider the protests as a whole to be antisemitic. However, the group’s security director, Mike Higgins, explained to WOSU: "I think a lot of people are just unmasking their antisemitism under this guise of supporting or being against Israel in this conflict." He acknowledged, though, that not all protestors crossed the line into hate speech, emphasizing the difficulty in distinguishing between robust criticism and ethnic intimidation. "Where do we cross that line from a protest to ethnic intimidation?" he wondered aloud.
The organization’s reporting extended not only to local police but also to the FBI, the Ohio Department of Public Safety, and law enforcement agencies in several townships. The records, obtained by WOSU through public requests, revealed a wide net: Jewish Columbus flagged not just large-scale protests but also smaller gatherings, such as a Holocaust remembrance event hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace—a group of Jewish Americans opposed to the war. Ian Ghidossi, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, found this deeply offensive, telling WOSU: "It's reminiscent of arguments I've heard online of Jews who are anti-Zionist, not being real Jews or self-hating Jews, things like that. Attacking our identity because we oppose occupation and opposed genocide."
Not everyone in the community agreed with Jewish Columbus’s approach. Khalid Turaani, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Ohio, was particularly incensed that a silent candlelight vigil was treated as a potential threat. "To be honest with you, I think Jewish Columbus is losing its mind, its mission and its soul by becoming an informant on a candle vigil," Turaani said. "It tells me, really, the mindset of Jewish Columbus, that they are not concerned really with anti-Semitism. They're concerned with the image of Israel." Turaani, himself a Palestinian-American, condemned antisemitism but drew a sharp distinction between criticizing Israel’s actions and engaging in hate speech. He also pointed out that alongside the rise in antisemitism, there had been a spike in Islamophobia, with CAIR’s national office reporting a record number of anti-Muslim bias complaints in 2023.
City officials, too, have weighed in on the delicate balance between public safety and free expression. Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein described the situation as "complicated," remarking, "There may be speech that we don't like, but when that speech crosses into the criminal realm, when there's violence, when there is true intimidation and direct personal threats, or there's property destruction, then that can be a crime. And we certainly stand ready to prosecute those." Klein emphasized the city’s commitment to ensuring that all residents can protest within the bounds of the First Amendment while also feeling safe and respected, regardless of their religion.
Ohio State Representative Beryl Brown Piccolantonio, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives Jewish Caucus, supported the right of organizations like Jewish Columbus to report events to law enforcement, saying, "It is law enforcement's responsibility to make a determination about whether or not to do anything about that information." She cautioned against judging whether it was appropriate for an entity to pass information to police, underscoring the importance of law enforcement’s role in evaluating potential threats.
Meanwhile, the debate over the boundaries of protest and hate speech continues to play out on campuses and in the streets. Dozens of people were arrested at an Ohio State University protest in April 2024, following a flood of emails to the university alleging antisemitism among the demonstrators. The Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists, one of the protest organizers, were reported for using the symbol of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Organizer Coco Smyth defended the choice, telling WOSU it was about left-wing imagery, not support for the group’s actions, and criticized what he saw as the political motivations of groups like Jewish Columbus.
As the war in Gaza grinds on and images of suffering continue to circulate, the fear that once silenced dissenters—both within Israel and abroad—appears to be ebbing. In Redmond, in Columbus, and in cities around the world, individuals and organizations are wrestling with the tension between security, solidarity, and the right to protest. Amid the noise, one thing is clear: the conversation about Israel, Palestine, and the responsibilities of those watching from afar is far from over.
