Amazon Suspends Palestinian Engineer Over Israel Contract Protest

Amazon has suspended Ahmed Shahrour, a Palestinian software engineer based in Seattle, after he publicly protested the company's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint cloud computing contract with Google to provide technology services to the Israeli government. Shahrour criticized Amazon internally through emails and Slack posts, accusing the company of complicity in violence against Palestinians and urging colleagues to join a worker-led campaign to end the contract. Amazon framed the suspension as a response to potential violations of workplace conduct policies, emphasizing they do not tolerate threatening or harassing behavior, while Shahrour and advocates claim the company is suppressing pro-Palestinian voices. The suspension follows similar protests and employee actions at other tech giants like Microsoft and Google concerning contracts with Israel. Shahrour expressed deep personal conflict over working for a company profiting from such contracts while his community in Gaza suffers, stating he felt compelled to resist directly. Amazon is currently investigating the matter, and Shahrour awaits further communication regarding the specific policy violations cited by the company.