Google fires employee after pro-Palestine protest at Israeli tech conference

Google, the  tech giant, fired an employee who organized a protest the head of Google Israel at an Israeli tech conference, claiming the company was involved in Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, which is considered genocide by Palestinian Americans, legal experts, and several other nations.  

"I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide," the employee said in a viral video that was shared online during the keynote speech by Barak Regev, the president of Google Israel, earlier this week in New York City.  

The worker took particular aim at Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal between Google and Amazon to provide cloud and computing services to Israel and its armed forces.  

"Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger," yelled the employee, who identified himself as a cloud software engineer. 

A Google spokesperson told news reporters that the employee was terminated for "interfering with an official company-sponsored event". 

The organization No IT for Apartheid slammed the IT corporation in a statement following the firing, alleging that it was censoring free expression related to the Palestinian issue.  

"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 organization stated in a statement. 

The committee did observe that the former worker was happy with his or her firing.  

"Google HR inquired about their feelings as they were dismissing this courageous employee. "Proud to be fired for refusing to be complicit in genocide," was the worker's response, according to the group's statement.  

The controversial Project Nimbus was met internally at Google with anger from many employees, who say that the partnership was helping to advance Israel's discrimination of Palestinians, which many rights groups have labelled as apartheid. 

"For almost three years, thousands of Google & Amazon workers have organized against the companies’ contracts with the Israeli government and military, with no response from management or executives," No Tech for Apartheid said in its statement on Friday. 

Google's partnership with the Israeli military has come under renewed scrutiny amid Israel's war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

In December, Google staff members and No Tech for Apartheid held a vigil in London for software engineer Mai Ubeid, who was a graduate of the Google-funded coding boot camp, Gaza Sky Geeks, and was in 2020 part of the Google for Startups accelerator programme. 

Ubeid was killed on 31 October along with her entire family in an air strike during Israel's war on Gaza.