• Google has fired of an employee who publicly protested Project Nimbus, Google’s $1.2 billion agreement with the Israeli government.
• The employee stood up and vocally objected during a presentation by the managing director of Google Israel.
Google fired an employee who protested against the chief of Google Israel at a company-sponsored Israeli tech event, accusing the company of complicity in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, which several sources describe as genocide.
During the event in New York City, the employee, in a viral video, stood up during the keynote address by Barak Regev, head of Google Israel, stating, “I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide.”
The employee targeted Project Nimbus, a $1.2bn agreement for Google and Amazon to provide cloud and computing services to Israel and its military, claiming it endangers Palestinian community members.
Identifying as a cloud software engineer, the employee was terminated by Google for “interfering with an official company-sponsored event.
“This behaviour is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies,” the spokesperson asserted.
Following the termination, the organisation No Tech for Apartheid issued a statement condemning the tech company, alleging that it stifled free speech concerning the Palestine matter.
“Google has engaged in a clear cut act of retaliation against its own worker for speaking up about the terms and conditions of their labor,” the group asserted in a statement.
The Ex-employee responded: ‘proud to be fired for refusing to be complicit in genocide’, the group’s statement read.
“No to project Nimbus”
Google employee activists, 14th December 2023
Project Nimbus sparked internal discontent among numerous employees who argue that the collaboration is aiding Israel’s discrimination against Palestinians, a practice denounced as apartheid by numerous human rights organisations.
“For almost three years, thousands of Google & Amazon workers have organised against the companies’ contracts with the Israeli government and military, with no response from management or executives,” said No Tech for Apartheid in its statement on Friday.
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In December, Google employees, along with members of No Tech for Apartheid, organised a vigil in London for software engineer Mai Ubeid. Ubeid, a graduate of the Google-sponsored coding boot camp Gaza Sky Geeks, had participated in the Google for Startups accelerator program in 2020.
Ubeid, along with her entire family, was killed on October 31st in an airstrike during Israel’s ruthless carpet bombing of Gaza.
