FILE – In this June 6, 2019 file photo, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the the Amazon re:MARS convention, in Las Vegas. Bezos will be aboard for Blue Origin’s first human space flight next month. In an Instagram post early Monday, June 7, 2021, Bezos said he, his brother, and the winner of an ongoing auction, will be aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft during its scheduled launch on July 20. (AP Photo/John Locher, File) John Locher/AP

Hundreds of Amazon and Google employees sign anonymous letter opposing deal with Israel

Misty Severi October 14, 09:28 PMOctober 14, 09:28 PM

Hundreds of Amazon and Google employees signed an anonymous letter Tuesday condemning a deal made between the corporations and Israel that they argue will harm Palestinians.

The letter, signed “internally” by 300 employees from Amazon and 90 others from Google, was published in the Guardian on Tuesday but with no names attached. The employees said they chose to be anonymous out of fear of retaliation but wanted to voice their opposition to the Project Nimbus contract that provides cloud services to the Israeli military and government agencies.

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“We are writing as Google and Amazon employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds. We believe that the technology we build should work to serve and uplift people everywhere, including all of our users,” the letter said. “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.”

Amazon and Google won the Project Nimbus contract for $1.2 billion, beating out Microsoft and others in April. Amazon also signed a $50 million contract with the Department of Defense to identify unrecognizable objects from its drones and aerial footage.

The letter called those agreements examples of “disturbing patterns of militarization, lack of transparency and the avoidance of oversight.”

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The letter asked the tech giants to break the contract with Israel and avoid future ones with the country’s government and military “that will harm our users.”

An Amazon spokesperson told the Washington Examiner in an email that the company remains “focused on making the benefits of our world-leading cloud technology available to all our customers, wherever they are located.” 

The Washington Examiner also reached out to Google but did not hear back at the time of publishing.

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Originally appeared at Washington Examiner

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