Category: Stand with Palestine

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Boycott Amazon Campaign Labor actions Stand with Palestine

Amazon and Google Workers Oppose Apartheid Tech

Amazon and Google tech workers have called mass actions against the corporations’ participation in high-tech projects that enforce Israeli apartheid and militarism against the Palestinian people for Thursday, Sept. 8 in NY, Seattle and San Francisco.

From their press release:

Hundreds of employees of the American tech giants Google and Amazon are scheduled to organize three vigils next Thursday 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 been 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.

You can sign the petition on their website: https://www.notechforapartheid.com/

There is also a national planning call for solidarity with Amazon workers against union busting for the same day.

https://supportamazonworkers.org/urgent-appeal-for-unity-mass-action-to-stop-union-busting/

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Amazon/Whole Foods Monopoly Power Boycott Amazon Campaign Stand with Palestine

Amazon, Israeli Generals Profit from Operation Nimbus

http://www.ramzybaroud.net/the-billion-dollar-deal-that-made-google-and-amazon-partners-in-the-israeli-occupation-of-palestine/

Excerpt:

Koren was not the first Google – or Amazon – employee to be fired for standing up for a good cause, nor would, sadly, be the last. In this age of militarism, surveillance, unwarranted facial recognition and censorship, speaking one’s mind and daring to fight for human rights and other basic freedoms is no longer an option.

Amazon’s warehouses can be as bad, or even worse than a typical sweatshop. Last March, and after a brief denial, Amazon apologized for forcing its workers to pee in water bottles – and worse – so that their managers may fulfill their required quotas. The apology followed direct evidence provided by the investigative journalism website, The Intercept. However, the company which stands accused of numerous violations of worker rights – including its engagement in ‘union busting’ – is not expected to reverse course any time soon, especially when so much profits are at stake.

But profits generated from market monopoly, mistreatment of workers or other misconducts are different from profits generated from contributing directly to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Though human rights violations should be shunned everywhere, regardless of their contexts, Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, now with the direct help of such companies, remains one of the gravest injustices that continue to scar the consciousness of humankind. No amount of Google justification or Amazon rationalization can change the fact that they are facilitating Israeli war crimes in Palestine.

To be more precise, according to the Nation, the Google-Amazon cloud service will help Israel expand its illegal Jewish settlements by “supporting data for the Israel Land Authority (ILA), the government agency that manages and allocates state land.” These settlements, which are repeatedly condemned by the international community, are built on Palestinian land and are directly linked to the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Project Nimbus is the “most lucrative tender issued by Israel in recent years.” The Project, which has ignited a “secretive war” involving top Israeli army generals – all vying for a share in the profit – has also whetted the appetite of many other international tech companies, all wanting to be part of Israel’s technology drive, with the ultimate aim of keeping Palestinians entrapped, occupied and oppressed.

This is precisely why the Palestinian boycott movement is absolutely critical as it targets these international companies, which are migrating to Israel in search of profits. Israel, on the contrary, should be boycotted, not enabled, sanctioned and not rewarded.

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Amazon/Whole Foods Monopoly Power Boycott Amazon Campaign Labor actions Stand with Palestine

No Tech for Apartheid

NO TECH FOR APARTHEID

As the Israeli military bombed homes,  clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem this past May, 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 occupation.

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. The Amazon and Google execs who signed this contract can still choose to be on the right side of history.

https://www.notechforapartheid.com/  

Click above to sign on to a letter to Amazon and Google to shut down Project Nimbus.

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Amazon/Whole Foods Monopoly Power Boycott Amazon Campaign Stand with Palestine Surveillance Capitalism

Amazon Employees Condemn Israeli Military Cloud Contract

https://www.businessinsider.com/hundreds-google-amazon-employees-condemn-israeli-military-cloud-contract-2021-10

Excerpt:

  • Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees called for their companies to cut ties with the Israeli military.
  • Employees criticized Project Nimbus, a contract the two companies signed to sell cloud services to Israel.
  • Employees said the technology would allow for further Israeli surveillance of Palestinians.

Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees signed an open letter published in The Guardian on Tuesday condemning Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract signed by the two companies to sell cloud services to the Israeli military and government.

“This technology allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land,” the letter stated. “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.”

Yesterday, almost 800 workers at Amazon and Google joined forces to demand their employers pull out of Project Nimbus – a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government – and cut all ties with the Israeli military. 

The courageous workers at every level of Amazon and Google are making it very clear that technology should be used to bring people together, not enable apartheid and violence.

Project Nimbus is designed to make the Israeli military that carries out atrocities in Gaza — and the government that carries out the daily business of apartheid — more oppressive and deadly for Palestinians.

They deserve our support. Click here to send an email to Amazon and Google execs & let them know that there’s still time to do the right thing: Cut Project Nimbus, and stop doing business with Israel’s apartheid government.

Batool Syed, a lead organizer of the campaign and employee at Amazon, told American Muslims for Palestine today, “We know that this contract further enables Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. We’re concerned, we’re outraged, and we will no longer be complicit as our companies continue this pattern of militarization that follows working with ICE, the US military, and policing agencies. We are urging Amazon and Google to respect human rights and dignity by dropping Project Nimbus and committing to ethical business practices.”

Let’s declare together: #NoTechForApartheid.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/12/google-amazon-workers-condemn-project-nimbus-israeli-military-contract

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Amazon/Whole Foods Monopoly Power Boycott Amazon Campaign Stand with Palestine Surveillance Capitalism

Amazon Deepens “Security” Involvement in Israel

Amazon’s Investments in Israel Reveal Complicity in Settlements and Military Operations | The Nation

Excerpt:

On Prime Day, Amazon’s largest online shopping event, the company will be looking to beat its previous sales record of $10.4 billion. Increasingly, customers have grown critical of Amazon’s treatment of workers, union-busting activities, and partnerships with police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leading some to call for a boycott of Prime Day. What Amazon Prime members may not realize, however, is that Amazon is also aiding in the spread of military occupation abroad.

Amid Israel’s most recent deadly attacks on the Gaza Strip and ongoing displacement of Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah, Amazon Web Services (AWS), together with Google, recently signed a $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government. The deal, “Project Nimbus,” is a flagship project to provide a cloud services “ecosystem” for the Israeli public sector, for which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will be the primary beneficiary. Construction has already begun on three data server centers.

<snip>

Amazon’s cloud service will also assist in Israel’s expanding settlement enterprise by supporting data for the Israel Land Authority (ILA), the government agency that manages and allocates state land. As Human Rights Watch has argued, the ILA administers discriminatory land policies that “nurture the growth and expansion” of predominantly Jewish settlements, while hemming Palestinians into dense population centers in “starkly unequal terms.”

According to Israel National News, this has generated dissent and protest from Amazon workers:

Google, Amazon, and Israel in the new America – Israel National News

Shortly after the Google employees published their letter, some five hundred Amazon employees entered the anti-Israel fray. They signed a letter that was almost identical to the Google employees’ letter. They called for Amazon to reject the definition of anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. They insisted that Israel is a racist colonial project and that the land of Israel belongs to the Palestinian Arabs. They called for Amazon to financially support Palestinian organizations. And they asked that the firm “commit to review and sever business contracts and corporate donations with companies, organizations, and/or governments that are active or complicit in human rights violations, such as the Israeli Defense Forces.”

Another employee group, called “Amazon Employees for Climate Justice,” tweeted a long chain of posts denouncing the company’s participation in the Nimbus Project. Among other things, they wrote, “We stand in solidarity with Palestinians who went on a historic general strike to protest Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza. Amazon and Google recently signed a $1B deal supporting Israel’s military. Amazon is complicit in state killings and human rights abuses.

“Amazon’s workers didn’t sign up to work on projects that support militaries and policing forces. We didn’t sign up to be complicit in state killings and human rights abuses in the US, Israel, and around the world,” they conc

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Stand with Palestine

Stand Up for Palestine! Stop US-backed Israeli Attacks!

Demonstrations are being held nationally, including here in L.A. about the latest Israeli attacks on Palestine and Palestinians. Stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israeli aggression and settlerism.

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