WASHINGTON/PNN/
On September 8, hundreds of employees of the American tech giants Google and Amazon organized three vigils outside the headquarters of the two companies calling for the cancellation of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal with Israel that will provide it with cloud storage services and artificial intelligence tools.
The #NoTechForApartheid movement said vigils are also expected to be held in the cities of San Francisco, New York, and Seattle in an effort to prevent Israel from using technology in its crimes against the Palestinian people.
The movement, which was founded last year, has also started a campaign to sign a petition calling on the management of the two companies to cancel the deal. The deal, so far signed by nearly 40,000 American citizens, calls on the two tech giants to “stop dealing with the Israeli apartheid regime and withdraw from the Nimbus project.”
The petition affirmed its solidarity with hundreds of Amazon and Google employees who are courageously calling for withdrawal from the Nimbus contract.
The petition reads, ‘‘As the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem in May 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud executives signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By doing business with Israeli apartheid, Amazon and Google will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land.’’
‘‘We’re heeding the call from over 1000 Google and Amazon workers to rise up against the contract, known as Project Nimbus. Technology should be used to bring people together, not enable apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism.’’
The movement says in its petition, ‘‘Amazon and Google’s collaboration with Israeli apartheid is part of a larger pattern of Big Tech fuelling state violence across the globe. Tech companies like Amazon and Google are the new war profiteers and have dismal human rights records. Amazon helps power ICE’s deportation-detention machine, and partners with over 2,000 U.S. police departments to surveil and criminalize Black and brown communities through its doorbell camera Ring.’’
‘‘Technology can bring people together—but when these tools are used to harm communities, they make the world less safe for us all. That’s why workers at Google and Amazon are urging their employers to walk their talk on human rights.’’
