Around 300 Amazon and 100 Google employees have asked their respective companies to scrap a military project worth $1.2 billion with Israel.
They have written an open letter to their respective companies in a bid to seek the end of Project Nimbus.
Project Nimbus, a contract to provide cloud services to the government and military of Israel, allows the surveillance and collection of data about Palestinians. It was signed amid the conflict on the Gaza strip.
Both the companies are already facing backlash over their deals with Customs and Border Protection as well as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Amazon employees had previously written a letter to founder Jeff Bezos asking him to support Palestinians and cut ties with Israeli Defense Forces.
The letter signed anonymously by the employees of these two companies has been published in The Guardian.
The workers maintain that the data collected from Project Nimbus will be used to “further policies that Human Rights Watch says constitutes crimes of apartheid.”
Project Nimbus, The Letter
Here are few excrepts from the letter
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. As workers who keep these companies running, we are morally obligated to speak out against violations of these core values.
We have watched Google and Amazon aggressively pursue contracts with institutions like the US Department of Defense, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), and state and local police departments. These contracts are part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency and avoidance of oversight.
Our employers signed a contract called Project Nimbus to sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government. This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children. The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systematic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians.
The letter published in the Guardian can be read in its entirety here.
(Featured image AA)