Google fires engineer who shouted ‘I refuse to build technology that powers genocide’ during Israeli tech conference in New York City
A Google engineer who interrupted a technology conference in New York City to protest the company’s cooperation with the Israeli government has been fired.
Video showed an unidentified man wearing an orange Google shirt disrupting a keynote speech by Google Israel general manager Barak Regev at the Mind the Tech conference on Monday.
The conference, sponsored by the Israeli newspaper Calcalist, focuses on the global and Israeli high-tech industry.
βI am a Google Cloud software engineer and I refuse to build technology that enables genocide, apartheid or surveillance,β the man said.
‘Project Nimbus endangers members of the Palestinian community. I refuse to build technology.β
An unidentified man wearing an orange Google shirt disrupted a speech by Google Israel General Manager Barak Regev at the Mind the Tech conference on Monday
A Google spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that the engineer had been fired due to the disruption
The Israeli government in April 2021 launched Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract with Google and Amazon to provide cloud services to the country’s military and government.
As the engineer was escorted out, he shouted: ‘Don’t be a part of apartheid. Don’t create technology for apartheid. Liberate Palestine.’
Speaking anonymously, the demonstrator said Hell Gate“I don’t see any way to continue my engineering work without doing this.”
βI consider this part of my engineering work and I hope other engineers within Cloud see me doing this, and I hope it encourages them.β
Israel launched a response after the October 7 Hamas terror attack that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and took more than 240 people hostage.
More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since then and the UN has warned that the Gaza Strip is facing famine.
The UN said Israel has not helped as much as possible in getting food and medicine into the area, citing concerns that the supplies will be taken by the Hamas terrorists they are fighting.
A Google spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that the engineer had been fired due to the disruption.
“Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a colleague who was giving a presentation, interfering with an official company-sponsored event,” the spokesperson said.
“This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee has been terminated for violating our policies.”
As Regev continued his speech after the interruption, he said: “Part of the privilege of working in a company that represents democratic values ββis providing space for different opinions.”
Google has faced criticism for its relationship with Israel, both from employees and the public
As Regev continued his speech after the interruption, he said: “Part of the privilege of working in a company that represents democratic values ββis providing space for different opinions.”
However, Google Israel’s chief executive ended his speech when a second protester disrupted his speech and shouted “Free Palestine,” a video on social media showed.
Google has faced criticism for its relationship with Israel, both from employees and the public.
More than 600 employees signed a letter demanding that the company stop sponsoring the Mind the Tech conference WIRED.
When Project Nimbus was announced, hundreds of Google and Amazon employees came to work published a letter saying, βWe cannot support our employer’s decision to provide the Israeli military and government with technology used to harm Palestinians.β