Global internet giant Google has fired an employee who protested work for the Israel Defense Forces, shouting hate during a presentation by a co-worker.
BREAKING—PRO-PALESTINE @googlecloud ENGINEER DISRUPTS @Google ISRAEL DIRECTOR AT GOOGLE-SPONSORED ISRAELI TECH CONFERENCE IN NYC.
The worker demanded that Google STOP using worker labor to power genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. #NoTechForApartheid pic.twitter.com/t2mqCqFFay
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) March 4, 2024
“Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation — interfering with an official company-sponsored event,” Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson wrote in an emailed statement to The Verge.
“This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies.”
The pro-Hamas protester was yelling about Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government computing project to enable access to cloud services from Google and Amazon.
The pro-Hamas (now former) Google Cloud engineer disrupted the presentation by Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at the annual “Mind the Tech” Israeli tech conference in New York City.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance,” the protester shouted.
“Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger. No cloud apartheid.”
The Nimbus project is a national Israeli large-scale initiative aimed primarily at expanding services to the business community. The project is run jointly by the Government Procurement Administration at the Accountant General’s Division and the National Digital Agency, together with the Israel National Cyber Directorate, the Budgets’ Department at the Ministry of Finance, and the Governance and Social Affairs Department at the Prime Minister’s Office. It aims to provide comprehensive cloud services to the Government of Israel.
“The government’s transition to cloud is not only a technological revolution but also an organizational and business one; it transforms the role of technology in the organization, gives priority to the user’s needs and places the focus on value creation, and opens new opportunities that lead to marked economic and market consequences,” the Israeli government said in a statement at the start of the project.
“In this vision, the Nimbus Project is regarded as a catalyst, transforming in-depth processes that affect the government’s work at all levels. It does so by facilitating technological solutions that respond to constantly changing needs, changes in the manner of service consumption and in the order of priorities. Full realization of this vision will result in the “Ripple Effect”, with its waves affecting all the government’s operations, the large public sector, and the entire economy.”
