Google expands partnership with 'Israel' during genocidal war on Gaza

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: TIME
12 Apr 2024 18:17
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A TIME report cites a Google document revealing the first known contract between the tech giant and the Israeli Security Ministry that will allow the latter greater access to the firm's Cloud and AI services.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanding Google to end its cooperation with the Israeli occupation entity lay on the ground draped in white sheets with a mock version of the Google logo spelling out the word "genocide" in San Francisco, California, on December 14, 2023 (AFP)

Google negotiated with the Israeli occupation to deepen their partnership during the brutal war on Gaza, which has entered its seventh month recently with nearly 34,000 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children, a Google document viewed by the TIME news site revealed.

The tech giant has provided cloud computing services for the entity for years.

This report comes shortly after it was exposed that the Israeli military's airstrikes against individuals in Gaza utilized a previously undisclosed AI-powered database, dubbed Lavender, while forces operating the technology were authorized to kill 15 to 20 civilians during airstrikes allegedly targeting Resistance fighters.

The document indicates that the Israeli Ministry of Security has a designated "landing zone" within Google Cloud. This secure access point provides the Ministry with the ability to store and process data, as well as access AI services offered by the firm.

The Ministry requested consulting help from Google to broaden its access to Google Cloud, aiming to enable "multiple units" to utilize automation technologies. A draft contract dated March 27, 2024, indicates that Google billed the Israeli Ministry more than $1 million for this consulting service.

The contract seen by TIME had not been signed by either side. However, a Google employee's comment on the document dated March 27, requesting a signed copy of the contract, mentioned that the signatures would be "completed offline as it’s an Israel/Nimbus deal." The document also states that Google gave the Ministry a 15% discount on the initial consulting fee as part of the "Nimbus framework".

Project Nimbus is a contentious $1.2 billion cloud computing and AI deal involving the Israeli government and two tech giants, Google and Amazon.

According to reports, the terms of the contract prevent Google and Amazon from restricting specific government entities, including the Israeli military, from accessing their services and prohibit contract termination due to public pressure. However, TIME said that this is the first instance where a contract revealing the Israeli Security Ministry as a customer of Google Cloud has been disclosed publicly.

Google recently claimed that its work for the Israeli government is largely for "civilian purposes".

“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial platform by Israeli government ministries such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education,” a Google spokesperson told TIME earlier this week. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

Phase 2

Key figures in a growing movement within Google dubbed No Tech for Apartheid are pushing for the cancellation of Project Nimbus with "Israel" in the wake of the ongoing Israeli genocide against Palestinians.

Google employees cited three primary concerns driving their protests: first, the Israeli Finance Ministry's explicit statement in 2021 indicating that Project Nimbus would serve the Ministry of Security; second, the types of services potentially made available to the Israeli government through Google's cloud platform; and third, Google's apparent inability to oversee how "Israel" utilizes its technology.

The New York Times reported earlier that Israeli soldiers have utilized the facial recognition feature on Google Photos, along with other external technologies, to identify individuals at checkpoints.

In the document recently reviewed, the Security Ministry's intention to expand its presence on Google Cloud is referred to as "phase 2," which is part of a broader initiative to establish the Ministry's cloud architecture. While the document doesn't detail phase one explicitly, it does mention previous work done by Google for the Ministry.

The Ministry, according to the contract, “has [already] established a Google Cloud Landing Zone infrastructure as part of their overall cloud strategy and to enable [the Ministry of Defense] to move applications to Google Cloud Platform.”

In “phase 2” of the project, the Ministry “is looking to enable its Landing Zone to serve multiple units and sub-units. Therefore, [the Ministry of Defense] would like to create several different automation modules within their Landing Zone based on Google’s leading practices for the benefit of different units, with proper processes to support, and to implement leading practices for security and governance architecture using Google tools.”

The Google-provided consulting services aim to "assist with architecture design, implementation guidance, and automation" for the Ministry's cloud landing zone, according to the contract.

The estimated start date is April 14 and will take Google one year to fulfill.

'Betrayal of all Google engineers'

Recent Israeli media reports suggest that airstrikes are being conducted with the assistance of an AI targeting system.

While it remains unclear which cloud provider, if any, is supplying the computing infrastructure necessary for such a system to operate, Google employees point out that due to security protocols, tech firms typically have minimal to no visibility into activities on the sovereign cloud servers of government clients.

Typically, the company provides cloud technology featuring tools like AutoML, which enables users to quickly train machine learning models with custom datasets. According to three workers, as quoted by TIME, the Israeli government could potentially utilize AutoML to develop a surveillance or targeting tool, along with other non-Google technologies, to identify suspects at checkpoints.

“Providing powerful technology to an institution that has demonstrated the desire to abuse and weaponize AI for all parts of war is an unethical decision,” says Gabriel Schubiner, a former researcher at Google, as quoted by TIME. “It’s a betrayal of all the engineers that are putting work into Google Cloud.”

According to members of No Tech for Apartheid, assuming that "Israel" isn't leveraging Google's hardware and software for aggressive purposes would be overly optimistic, the report added.