Posted on 09/14/2025 6:49:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Ahmed Shahrour, a Palestinian engineer who works for Amazon’s Whole Foods business and is based in Seattle, was informed Monday morning that he was being suspended with pay “until further notice” after he posted messages on Slack criticizing the company’s ties to Israel.
“It has come to Amazon’s attention that a post you made in multiple internal company Slack channels may violate multiple policies,” an Amazon human resources representative wrote in a message, which was viewed by CNBC. The company said in the message that it’s investigating the incident.
Earlier Monday, Shahrour posted messages across several internal Slack channels and sent a letter to Amazon executives, including CEO Andy Jassy, detailing his concerns.
Shahrour urged the company to drop Project Nimbus, Amazon and Google’s joint $1.2 billion cloud computing contract launched in 2021 to provide the Israeli government with artificial intelligence tools, data centers and other infrastructure.
“Every day I write code at Whole Foods, I remember my brothers and sisters in Gaza being starved by Israel’s man-made blockade,” Shahrour, who joined Amazon three years ago, wrote in the letter. “I live in a state of constant dissonance: maintaining the tools that make this company profit, while my people are burned and starved with the help of that very profit. I am left with no choice but to resist directly.”
The letter was earlier reported by independent journalist Kali Hays.
Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser didn’t specifically address Shahrour’s situation.
“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,” Glasser wrote in an email to CNBC.
The company didn’t respond to questions about its work with Israel or its policies for moderating employee posts on internal channels.
Tech workers at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Palantir and other companies have become more outspoken in their criticism of business dealings with the Israeli military.
Microsoft last month fired two employees who participated in a protest inside the company’s headquarters. In April 2024, Google terminated 28 employees after a series of protests against labor conditions and its involvement in Project Nimbus. Tech firms have ramped up security at some conferences in recent months after an uptick in protests.
Amazon hasn’t acknowledged the Nimbus contract beyond stating that it provides technology to customers “wherever they are located.” Google has previously said it provides generally available cloud computing services to the Israeli government that aren’t “directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads.” Microsoft said last month that most of its work with Israel Defense Forces involves cybersecurity for the country, and that the company intends to provide technology in an ethical way.
As part of the suspension, Amazon revoked Shahrour’s access to company email and tools, and removed his Slack posts, he told CNBC in an interview. Shahrour said Amazon didn’t state what policies his posts violated.
The letter also alleges Amazon has taken steps to “silence” pro-Palestinian employees who have criticized the war in Gaza. Amazon recently issued a warning to an engineer who shared an article about American doctors volunteering in Gaza and it fired an employee in France who spoke out against Israel on social media, Shahrour said. CNBC confirmed the account with a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality.
The company has deleted posts in the “Arabs at Amazon” Slack channel that discussed the conflict in Gaza, while posts in other channels disparaging Palestinians weren’t removed, Shahrour said.
“It feels like I can’t voice anything, and if I do, I’m going to get a warning,” he said.
Microsoft employees earlier this year expressed concern that the company blocked Outlook emails containing the words “Palestine,” “Gaza,” “genocide,” “apartheid” and “IOF off Azure,” while messages with the word “Israel” could go through, CNBC reported in May.
A Microsoft spokesperson previously said the company took steps to “try and reduce” widely shared emails that were sent to employees who hadn’t “opted in.”
We've seen cases where people are fired or suspended for criticizing China's treatment of Uyghurs.
In fact, one basketball player was kicked out of the NBA for sticking up for Uyghurs rights?
Deport him back to Gaza. He’ll be replaced by AI anyway.
“...a Palestinian...”
They come here to the USA and bring along their ancient hatreds. You would think the cretin would just be grateful to no longer be living in that shithole Gaza.
Seattle is a thousand miles from the middle east. He should also leave his Jew hatred thousands of miles behind. But that’s not possible with sand maggot ragheads. /spit
Another one bites the dust.
“bring along their ancient hatreds”
And sure learn how to play the American victimization card. His story is full of BS. I’m so pissed these people want sympathy but they brought it on themselves by voting for Hamas and murdering over 1,000 Israelis.
There’s been plenty of criticism of Microsoft’s and Apple’s collaboration with China. Why deny that and pretend it away?
This is one of those stories that gets circulated to get the expected responses.
Right now.
Not too many Uyghur engineers probably.
Enes Kanter is Turkish, but he was kicked out of the NBA for criticizing China.
Javier Bardem is not Palestinian.
So quit. And go code for Hamas.
USS Liberty
I’m familiar, what about it?
Why weren’t Americans hired. There are plenty of Americans looking for coding jobs. Is this more H1b nonsense?
“SUSPENDED WITH PAY” IS A PAID VACATION.
THAT IS NOT PUNISHMENT.
HOW PHONY CAN WHOLE FOODS BE???
USS Liberty survivor Phil Tourney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_X3LQfDYrQ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.