The US tech giants cannot bar West Jerusalem from using its products even if it violates their terms of service, a consortium of outlets has reported
Israel has forced US tech giants Google and Amazon to violate their own legal obligations under a 2021 cloud services contract with West Jerusalem, according to a joint investigation by several news media outlets, including the Guardian.
The Jewish state’s contracts with US tech platforms have been under close scrutiny following widespread accusations, including from the UN, that its military response to the October 7 2023 Hamas attack that killed over 1,200 people constitutes a genocide.
Known as Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion deal reportedly bars the firms from restricting the Israeli government’s access to cloud services they provide, even if it violates their terms of use, the reports, carried by the British Guardian along with +972 Magazine and Local Call suggest.
The deal also reportedly requires the two companies to secretly notify West Jerusalem using a so-called “winking mechanism” should any foreign state or court seek access to Israeli data stored in the cloud.
The “wink” involves the US firm paying Israel an amount – between 1,000 and 9,999 shekels – that equates to the international dialling code of the request source each time they transfer its data to a foreign nation.
The scheme effectively allows the tech firms leak information on third party data requests, normally regraded as confidential.
Google and Amazon are also reportedly to face heavy financial penalties if they cut Israel off their services. West Jerusalem can “make use of any service” at will as long as it does not breach Israeli law, infringe on copyright or involve reselling the companies’ technology, according to the leaked text of the contact.
The clause is allegedly aimed at preventing a situation in which the US tech giants would be forced to break ties with Israel over pressure from employees, shareholders or activists.
Google employees increasingly protested against the company’s ties with the Israeli government amid the war in Gaza over the past years. In April 2024, the company fired nearly 30 such workers, accusing them of disrupting the work process. In July 2025, Google co-founder Sergey Brin accused the UN of being “transparently anti-Semitic” over a report accusing tech firms, including Alphabet, of profiting from the Gaza war.
