Reprinted with permission from the Amazon Worker Intifada.

Featured image source: Amazon Worker Intifada.

Amazon blocked a shareholder resolution that would force them to expose the truth: Amazon’s technology is powering genocide in Gaza and detentions and deportations in the “united states.” This resolution was submitted for the sixth time by the American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS), and backed by thirty investors, with Investor Advocates for Social Justice (IASJ) coordinating the push.

The 2026 resolution — which Amazon has now blocked from being voted on by their shareholders — would have required Amazon’s board to identify “instances of misalignment” between its internal standards and the sale of AI and cloud services. The resolution would mandate a third-party investigation of Amazon’s violations of its own terms of service, human rights laws, and international humanitarian law.

The most recent 2024 resolution mentions:

Amazon’s government-affiliated customers with a history of rights-violating behavior pose risks to the company, including:

• AWS will host the Department of Homeland Security’s biometric database, which will reportedly be used to “assemble target lists for ICE raids, expand the tech border wall, and to facilitate surveillance, arrests, immigrant detention and deportation”

• The Israeli government’s “Project Nimbus,” protested by Amazon employees, uses AWS to support the apartheid system under which Palestinians are surveilled, unlawfully detained, and tortured. Israel plans to use AWS as it expands illegal settlements and enforces segregation. The UN has clearly indicated war crimes may have been committed by Amazon’s major customer, the Israel Defense Forces, since October 7, 2023.

The resolution states that, by doing business with the “israeli” occupation forces (IOF) and DHS, Amazon is violating the human rights of “united states” residents and Palestinians surviving “israel”’s bombardment in Gaza. One key enabler of these abuses that the resolution focuses on is AWS Rekognition, which is Amazon’s managed cloud service for automated image recognition. It allows customers to quickly detect and identify faces on any video or image, including emotions like “fear.” Rekognition can be used for surveillance on a massive scale, like tracking people in real-time, tagging people in a photo, identifying people who are just walking down the street, or enabling the kind of mass targeting associated with “israel”’s “Lavender” AI program — technology that Rekognition is well-suited to power.

In the “united states,” the police used AWS Rekognition to surveil protesters during the BLM uprisings. The resulting public outrage forced Amazon to apply a one-year moratorium on police use, which was later extended indefinitely. But that moratorium did nothing to stop Amazon’s other customers.

In Palestine, documents obtained by The Intercept show the IOF purchased access to Amazon Rekognition. And an October 2025 investigation by The Guardian revealed that the Project Nimbus contract contains provisions that prohibit Amazon from suspending, withdrawing, or restricting use of its technologies — even if “israel” breaches AWS’s terms of service — and requires AWS to violate court-imposed gag orders.

This resolution has been submitted five times prior and it has consistently garnered significant support among shareholders, despite little to no media coverage. Amazon blocked the 2026 resolution in an effort to protect their criminal contracts with “israel” and DHS.

The following graph shows the voting percentages of each prior submission of the resolution.

In the world of shareholder activism, a proposal receiving over 30% support — as this one did consistently across the years — is widely considered a powerful mandate that companies like Amazon cannot easily dismiss. Votes of 25% or higher will often elicit a “meaningful corporate response.” Amazon, however, has done nothing to rectify its human rights violations and has instead chosen to silence dissent and maintain its criminal contracts, choosing profit over people.

Why is Amazon ignoring a 30%+ shareholder support? Amazon’s executives including CEO Andy Jassy, and Bezos (who personally owns 8.8%) — control nearly 20% of the total vote (p. 45). This executive shareholder segment historically elects to continue Amazon’s participation in these criminal contracts, requiring the resolution to find majority support only among the remaining 80% of shares. This means that exposing Amazon’s criminal contracts will require more diligence and coordination among shareholders.

Amazon’s response

Amazon has consistently failed to respond to or reconcile with its shareholders and address their concerns about its collusion with the “israeli” military through Project Nimbus. Amazon has repeatedly offered in the previous resolutions the same hollow responses regarding AWS Rekognition:

1. Amazon claim: “We think that governments and lawmakers should act to regulate the use of this technology … we have proposed guidelines for effective regulatory frameworks.”
   Reality: Amazon has taken no action to require governments to regulate the use of their technologies. Furthermore, Amazon has taken zero concrete steps to ensure their technology is not used to illegally violate international humanitarian law.
2. Amazon claim: “AWS legal terms require the decision to take action to be made by an appropriately trained person based on their independent examination of the identification evidence, and require the agency to ensure that such personnel receive appropriate training.”
   Reality: The IOF and ICE cannot be trusted to train themselves. Both organizations have a murderous history of flagrant human-rights violations and victim blaming. Amazon, in offloading its legal due diligence onto these abusive criminal organizations, is complicit in the crimes of its clientele.
3. Amazon claim: “AWS recommends that in public safety use cases human reviewers verify the system’s results” and “We recommend customers use a 99% confidence threshold for law enforcement matches” (from Amazon’s technical documentation, and older proxy statements).
   Reality: Amazon designed the system with an 80% default threshold. If 99% is truly required for safe use, why does Amazon make lower, more dangerous thresholds the default? Amazon knows that its customers like “israel” and the “united states” want to use these technologies in an unsafe way. Amazon defines an unsafe usage paradigm as the default mode for its products. Simply put, Amazon designs its products to be abused, indicating foreknowledge of unsafe and criminal application.
4. Amazon claim: “We will investigate and take appropriate action, including potentially removing or disabling access … AWS has never received a single verified report of Amazon Rekognition being used in the harmful manner posited.”
   Reality: The Project Nimbus contract prohibits Amazon from suspending service even if IOF breaches AWS’s terms. Palestinians suffering under “israel”’s Amazon-powered genocide have no avenue to report IOF criminality to Amazon. The Project Nimbus contract is designed to shield Amazon’s criminal clientele from scrutiny and legal audit. Amazon’s Project Nimbus contract is crafted to enable criminal partners like the IOF to violate international law with zero possibility of crime prevention or law enforcement. Amazon is an active, complicit partner in “israeli” criminality.

Amazon wants to hide the truth: the company is knowingly complicit in the crimes of its customers, including the crime of genocide conducted by “israel.” Its hollow claims attempt to deflect scrutiny and accountability. In its most desperate move yet, Amazon exploited an SEC loophole to outright block the resolution.

Images: Amazon Worker Intifada. October 7, 2025, rally.

The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, an independent federal agency meant to protect investors) allows companies to exclude shareholder proposals that are substantially similar to previously voted‑down proposals — but only if those earlier proposals failed to meet escalating support thresholds. The latest version of this resolution, submitted in 2024, garnered only 16.8% support, falling short of the 25% threshold required for re‑submission eligibility under SEC Rule 14a‑8(i)(12). In a Jan 19, 2025 letter, a lawyer for Amazon argued that the 2026 proposal shared the same substantive concerns as previous ones.

Under the SEC rules:

a proposal would need to achieve support by at least 5% of the voting shareholders in its first submission in order to be eligible for resubmission in the following three years. Proposals submitted two and three times in the prior five years would need to achieve 15% and 25% support, respectively, in order to be eligible for resubmission in the following three years.

The SEC issued a no-action letter on Jan 30, 2025, allowing Amazon to exclude the resolution — effectively protecting Amazon’s criminal contracts.

Why does Amazon work so hard to enable and protect violent, criminal use of its products?

A globally recognized and utilized company like Amazon has an ethical responsibility to the entire world to prevent violent, criminal use of its computational platforms and AI infrastructure. Yet Amazon is afraid to conduct an independent third-party audit of its AWS customers engaging in human-rights violations. Why? Amazon, through its business and behavior, clearly signals a total and criminal neglect of any ethical responsibility to humanity. Why does Amazon insist on enabling illegal use of its technologies? Why does Amazon deflect and suppress dissent when challenged on its conduct? Why is Amazon so protective of its violent criminal partners?

Here lies the ultimate truth: Amazon is not a tech company. Amazon is a digital arms manufacturer.

Images: Amazon Worker Intifada. October 7, 2025, rally.

Regardless of Amazon’s size or power, the reality is this: we — the workers, the activists, the shareholders of conscience, the people targeted by this technology — will expose Amazon until they cut all ties with “israel” and dismantle their surveillance empire.

The SEC cannot protect Amazon’s criminal contracts. The executive shareholders cannot protect Amazon’s criminal contracts. Not even ICE nor the IOF can protect Amazon’s criminal contracts. The power to dismantle Amazon’s violent and criminal business relationships lies entirely within our hands, the people’s hands.

We will not stop. We will not be silenced. And we will not let Amazon hide behind legal technicalities while our siblings are bombed and murdered in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran. Amazon has a choice, it can honor its ethical duty to humanity and open the door for investigation and justice, or it can remain a partner in genocide and occupation. We’re taking the company back — one resolution, one protest, one worker at a time.

We will continue to resist Amazon’s criminality until all our demands are met:

1. IOF off AWS — End all contracts with “israeli” military and government.
2. Disclose All Ties — Publish all ties to “israel” and conduct an independent human rights audit.
3. Protect Pro-Palestinian Speech — End retaliation against workers who speak out about the “israeli” genocide.

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Appendix:

Vote calculation for 2020 Proxy Statement — ITEM 7

For: 117,311,297
Against: 248,500,568
Total Votes Cast (For + Against): 365,811,865
Percentage For: 117,311,297 ÷ 365,811,865 = 32.1%

Vote calculation for 2021 Proxy Statement — ITEM 4

For: 122,673,640
Against: 234,690,392
Total Votes Cast (For + Against): 357,364,032
Percentage For: 122,673,640 ÷ 357,364,032 = 34.3%

Vote calculation for 2022 Proxy Statement — ITEM 6

For: 149,120,683
Against: 221,341,797
Total Votes Cast (For + Against): 370,462,480
Percentage For: 149,120,683 ÷ 370,462,480 = 40.3%

Vote calculation for 2023 Proxy Statement — ITEM 7

For: 2,498,413,873
Against: 4,811,115,673
Total Votes Cast (For + Against): 7,309,529,546
Percentage For: 2,498,413,873 ÷ 7,309,529,546 = 34.2%

Vote calculation for 2024 Proxy Statement — ITEM 6

For: 1,248,281,806
Against: 6,184,374,303
Total Votes Cast (For + Against): 7,432,656,109
Percentage For: 1,248,281,806 ÷ 7,432,656,109 = 16.8%