Israeli Silicon Valley protests against Google and Amazon in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack in Gaza: Google’s CEO, Google Israel, and Apple
Police forcibly removed nine workers from the company’s offices in New York and Silicon Valley on Tuesday, following their sit-in protest against a cloud contract with Israel’s government.
Tech workers organize protests in opposition to their employer’s ties to the Israeli government because of the ongoing violence in Gaza. Since Hamas killed about 1,100 Israelis on October 7, the IDF has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.
Project Nimbus has been the target of protests by Google and Amazon workers for years. A campaign group called No Tech for Apartheid—which combines tech workers from the two the Muslim and Jewish-led activist groups MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace—formed in 2021 after details about the cloud contract became public.
Last month, Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield disrupted Google Israel’s managing director at Mind The Tech, a company-sponsored conference focused on the Israeli tech industry. More than 600 other Googlers signed a petition opposing the company’s sponsorship of the conference and after Hatfield was fired three days later Google trust and safety policy employee Vidana Abdel Khalek resigned in protest.
Over 300 Apple workers wrote an open letter in the late March of this year, calling on the company to show its support for Palestinians.
A person is taking part in a sit-in at the New York office of the internet giant. “This has really been a culmination of our efforts,” he tells WIRED.
An ultimatum from a speaker-phone call with Google employees demanding that the Israeli Defence Forces take down Project Nimbus in Gaza
The internal opposition to Project Nimbus has been given a new fuel by the recent Israeli military assault on Gaza. The Israel Defence Forces have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since bombing and moving into Gaza last fall.
Software engineers Hasan Ibraheem and Zelda Montes were arrested in New York. They also include two workers who identified themselves by their first names as Jesús and Mohammed on a speaker-phone call with protesters outside Google’s New York office Tuesday.
“We will not be leaving,” a protesting worker replies. A man in uniform then introduces the officers as NYPD and delivers a final ultimatum, saying the workers have a last chance to walk out freely. He says that if you aren’t there, you can be arrested. Police officers take the protesters into custody when they refuse to leave.