Amazon Fires Palestinian Engineer for Protesting Company's Israeli Government Ties

Amazon.com Inc. has dismissed an employee who voiced opposition to the company's Israeli government connections.

Ahmed Shahrour, a 29-year-old Palestinian engineer employed at Amazon's Whole Foods Market division, received termination notice on Monday. According to an email reviewed by Bloomberg, the dismissal cited violations of company policy, specifically for making statements deemed to "threaten, intimidate, coerce or interfere with" both senior leadership and colleagues.

Prior to his termination, Shahrour had been suspended following his posts in corporate Slack chat rooms where he criticized Amazon's relations with Israel. Subsequently, he organized protests and distributed informational fliers at Amazon's headquarters campus in Seattle.

Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser provided an emailed statement saying, "We don't tolerate discrimination, harassment, or threatening behavior or language of any kind in our workplace, and when any conduct of that nature is reported, we investigate it and take appropriate action based on our findings."

The e-commerce giant, alongside Google (owned by Alphabet Inc.), provides cloud-computing services to Israeli government and military entities through a contract known as Project Nimbus. Both technology companies have faced protests from critics of Israel's military actions in Gaza, which resulted in thousands of casualties before a ceasefire was implemented on Monday.

In a message to his colleagues last month, Shahrour stated, "Amazon is not a neutral observer. We are active participants."

Shahrour was also part of a group of seven current and former tech industry employees who staged an occupation of Microsoft President Brad Smith's office in August. This action was part of weeks-long protests targeting Microsoft for its business dealings with Israel. Following the occupation, Shahrour and fellow protesters were arrested and subsequently released.

After news reports in the Guardian and other media outlets prompted an investigation, Microsoft later disabled certain software capabilities for an Israeli military unit.