Protesters at Google's offices in Sunnyvale, California, entered Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office space Tuesday morning, which Google shares with cloud provider Amazon. It promised to stay there until it met its demands to back out of the $1.2 billion contract. and provide the data center to the Israeli government. Another group of protesters were sitting in a common area at the company's offices in New York City, said Zelda Montez, one of the employees participating in the protest. Police were on their way to the office in Sunnyvale, Calif., around 10:45 a.m., a spokesperson for the protesters said.
Some workers and outside activists have opposed the deal, known as Nimbus, since it was signed in 2021. But protests have intensified over the past seven months as Israeli forces continue to shell the Gaza Strip following Hamas's October 7 cross-border attack. About Israel. Workers have circulated internal emails, staged protests outside company offices, and in December staged a “die-in” outside the Google building in San Francisco, blocking downtown traffic.
The protests came a day after pro-Palestinian activists blocked highways, bridges and airport entrances across the US in a series of organized demonstrations against Israel's invasion of Gaza and US military aid to the country. Ta.
In early March, Google fired an employee who stood up to protest while Google's Israeli chief executive was speaking at a conference in New York. Montes, who works as a software engineer at Google's YouTube, acknowledged that they too could be fired.
“We often have the privilege of turning a blind eye and not having to think about the impact of our work on the world,” Montes said. “I have been waiting for months for people to be in my position and ready to put their jobs at risk.”
The contract the workers are protesting is with the entire Israeli government. But when the deal was first signed, Israeli officials told reporters that terms of the agreement prohibited Google and Amazon from denying services to certain government departments, and that some technology workers He said there was growing concern among members that their work could be used for military purposes.
Last week, Time magazine reported that Google has been in talks with the Israeli Ministry of Defense in recent weeks.
“It's deplorable that Google is selling this technology to the Israeli government and military and lying to its employees,” Montes said, referring to the Time magazine report.
A Google spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Organizers said Amazon employees who are part of the anti-Nimbus organization also attended Tuesday's rally. Employees who oppose the contract with Israel have clashed with colleagues based in Tel Aviv since the conflict began in October, The Washington Post previously reported.
At Amazon's shareholder meeting in May, anti-Nimbus Amazon employees debated whether “customer use of the company's products and services with surveillance, computer vision, and cloud storage capabilities contributes to harm to human health.” He said he supports a resolution calling for an independent investigation report on the issue. Violates rights or violates international humanitarian law. ”
An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
