Google, Amazon workers protest billion-dollar contract with Israel

Google and Amazon workers took to the streets on Thursday afternoon to protest against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing project funded by Israel

September 12, 2022 - 06:16

Google, Amazon workers protest billion-dollar contract with Israel

Source: Author Hossam el-Hamalawy, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license,Wikiemdia Commons.

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Tens of Google and Amazon employees organised protests in New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Durham, including the tech giants' headquarters, calling for their employers to cancel their contract with the Israeli military.

Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud executives signed a lucrative $1.22 billion contract with the Israeli government to supply government ministries and the military with artificial intelligence and cloud storage facilities.

Outside Google's New York City office, protesters chanted: "No justice, no peace, tech workers are in the streets!"

Former Google worker Ariel Koren spoke about how Google retaliated against her for opposing Project Nimbus, which provides artificial intelligence services and extensive monitoring programmes to the Israeli occupation army.

Participants made it clear that Project Nimbus would strengthen the policies and mechanisms of apartheid and the suppression of Palestinians.

"Project Nimbus is neither Google's first or last attempt to try and become a military contractor," Google software engineer Gabrel Schubiner asserted during the rally in New York. "Please help us in keeping Google from becoming complicit in apartheid."

An initiative named "No Technology Apartheid", organised by technologists and programmers against Google and Amazon, is rapidly growing.

According to Al Jazeera, nearly 42,000 US citizens have signed its petition calling on Google and Amazon to: "Stop dealing with the Israeli apartheid regime and withdraw from the Nimbus project."

The two US tech giants signed the controversial deal with Tel Aviv, the petition said, while: "The Israeli army has bombed homes, clinics and schools in Gaza and has threatened to expel Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem in May 2021."

Source: Middle East Monitor under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0