Hundreds of workers at Google and Amazon are demanding that both companies stop providing cloud services to the Israeli military.
In May Israel carried out deadly attacks on Gaza, killing almost 250 people and more than 60 children. That same week the Israeli government signed a contract with Amazon Web Services and Google for over $1 billion. That contract secured a four phase project called “Nimbus”, which will provide cloud services to the Israeli government and military.
In an open letter, published in The Guardian, nearly 400 Google and Amazon workers condemned the contract and called on the companies to sever ties with Israel.
“We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court,” reads the letter.
“We envision a future where technology brings people together and makes life better for everyone. To build that brighter future, the companies we work for need to stop contracting with any and all militarized organizations in the US and beyond. These contracts harm the communities of technology workers and users alike. While we publicly promise to uplift and assist our users, contracts such as these secretly facilitate the surveillance and targeting of those same users.”
The letter was published on the same day that Irish author Sally Rooney put out a statement embracing BDS and rejecting a request to have her latest novel translated by an Israeli publisher.
In response to the letter more than 40 human rights organizations have launched a #NoTechforApartheid campaign, highlighting the workers’ demands. “Following in the footsteps of those who fought to divest from apartheid South Africa and won, it’s our responsibility to rise up in support of Palestinian freedom,” reads the campaign’s website. “The Amazon and Google execs who signed this contract can still choose to be on the right side of history.”
More good news!. How about a mention of the Nike boycott, Phil? And how’s that boycott of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream going, Israel?
BDS is growing! Once again, for now at least, it’s not about the dollars, it’s about the psychological impact it’s having on the Zionist masters in Israel and their agents in the US and Europe. And that is significant.
Wake up Americans!! The entity referred to as “Israel” has been playing you for suckers since 1948.
One example:
Factsheet: US Arms Sales and Security Assistance to Israel
“Since 2001, Israel has received over $63 billion in security assistance from the U.S., with over 90 percent of it funded by the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program.
“The FMF, which is commonly known as ‘the blank check’ to Israel, is funded by U.S. tax dollars and comes in the form of weapons grants. In May 2021, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reported that, in the 2021 fiscal year, the Trump administration requested $3.3 billion in FMF for Israel, constituting 59 percent of the requested global FMF budget.
In the upcoming 2022 fiscal year, the Biden administration has requested to replicate it. The commitment to this level of funding was specifically instituted through a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding, signed under former President Barack Obama’s administration. The report explained further that, ‘Israel receives more FMF than all other countries in the world combined.'”