October, 12 2021, 04:06pm EDT
Google and Amazon Workers Publish Historic Joint Letter Demanding End to Contract With Israeli Military
We cannot support our employer's decision to supply the Israeli military and government technology that is used to harm Palestinians."
WASHINGTON
We cannot support our employer's decision to supply the Israeli military and government technology that is used to harm Palestinians."
This morning, over 500 workers at Amazon and Google, published a first of its kind joint letter in The Guardian calling on Amazon and Google to cancel their "Project Nimbus" contract with the Israeli military, and refuse all contracts that embolden Israeli apartheid.
The full letter in The Guardian can be read here.
The Project Nimbus contract was announced just days after Israel's deadly assault on Gaza ended in June. Israeli bombing killed over 250 Palestinians, including 60 children. Only a few weeks later, 1,000 Amazon employees and over 600 Google employees called on their respective employers to cut ties with the Israeli military.
Google and Amazon's cloud services will be used by the Israeli military to further suppress Palestinians through surveillance, and will enable Israel's expansion of illegal settlements by supporting data for the Israel Land Authority (ILA), which uses discriminatory policies to expand segregated Jewish settlements while trapping Palestinians in densely populated areas and limiting the growth of Palestinian communities.
Workers argue that the Project Nimbus contract with Israel is part of "a pattern of militarization" that has included contracts with the U.S. military, ICE, and policing agencies. Israel rules over the lives of both Palestinians and Israelis, but denies Palestinians their basic rights as detailed in Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, reports on Israel's practices of apartheid.
"As workers, it's our right and duty to speak up when the company we give our talent and labor to chooses to use its technology to fuel the expansion of infrastructure responsible for systemic human rights violations such as those perpetrated daily by the Israeli army against Palestinians. As a Jewish American working at Google, I have a moral responsibility to stand in solidarity with Palestinians at this critical moment by demanding an end to any contracts and business that profit off of the Israeli military occupation and the abuse of Palestinians' basic human right to mobility, freedom, justice on their land." - Ariel Koren, Google Product Marketing Manager
"This worker campaign is about standing with those who have been oppressed and denied the right to a life with dignity. When it comes to Palestine, the world has been silent - so, as workers we must take a stand against Israeli war crimes in solidarity with Palestinians fighting for freedom." - Anonymous Amazon Employee
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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