Over 1,100 students studying technology, engineering, and mathematics from more than 120 universities across the United States signed a pledge on Tuesday not to accept jobs or internships at Google or Amazon until the companies cease their involvement in Project Nimbus, which provides cloud computing services and infrastructure to the Israeli government.
The signatories include undergraduates and graduate students from Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco.
Amazon and Google are leading employers of graduates from these universities in the fields of science and technology. The petition was organized by NOTA (No Tech for Apartheid), a coalition of tech workers, Muslim activists, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
"Amazon and Google are helping to make Israeli apartheid more efficient, violent and even deadly for Palestinians," the petition stated.
Eddie Hatfield, a NOTA activist, was fired from Google in March after interrupting a speech by Google's Israel CEO, Barak Regev, at a technology conference in New York. More than 50 other employees were later terminated after storming Google offices in New York, Seattle and Sunnyvale.