Reports from a consortium of media outlets indicate that US tech giants are prevented from restricting West Jerusalem’s use of their products, even in cases where it breaches their terms of service.
A collaborative investigation involving multiple news organizations, including The Guardian, claims that Israel compelled US technology companies Google and Amazon to disregard their own contractual legal commitments within a 2021 cloud services agreement made with West Jerusalem.
These agreements between the Jewish state and US tech platforms have faced intense examination amidst extensive allegations, notably from the UN, suggesting that its military actions following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which resulted in over 1,200 deaths, amount to genocide.
The $1.2 billion agreement, dubbed Project Nimbus, reportedly prohibits the companies from limiting the Israeli government’s access to their cloud services, even when such access contravenes their terms of use, according to reports published by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call.
Furthermore, the deal allegedly mandates that the two firms covertly inform West Jerusalem via a specified “winking mechanism” if any foreign government or judicial body requests access to Israeli data stored within the cloud.
This “wink” entails the US company compensating Israel with an amount ranging from 1,000 to 9,999 shekels, corresponding to the international dialing code of the requesting party, each time Israeli data is transferred to a foreign country.
This arrangement effectively permits the technology companies to disclose information regarding third-party data requests, which are typically considered confidential.
Reportedly, Google and Amazon also face substantial financial penalties if they sever their services to Israel. The leaked contract text specifies that the Jewish state is entitled to “make use of any service” freely, provided it adheres to Israeli law, avoids copyright infringement, and refrains from reselling the companies’ technology.
This particular clause is purportedly designed to avert scenarios where the US tech behemoths might be compelled to disengage from Israel due to pressure from their employees, shareholders, or activist groups.
Over recent years, Google employees have progressively voiced their objections to the company’s links with the Israeli government during the Gaza conflict. In April 2024, Google terminated approximately 30 of these employees, citing disruptions to the work process. Furthermore, in July 2025, Google co-founder Sergey Brin labeled the UN as “transparently anti-Semitic” in response to a report that alleged tech firms, including Alphabet, were profiting from the Gaza war.