Google employees protest the company’s work with the Israeli government

Google employees at two different offices on Tuesday protested the company’s work with the Israeli government, objecting to a billion-dollar contract signed with the US ally in 2021.

Protesters organized demonstrations at two locations, one in Sunnyvale, California, and the other at one of the New York City offices.

The protest at the Sunnyvale office was organized by the activist group No Tech for Apartheid. They entered the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, demanding that they not leave until the tech giant backed out of its $1.2 billion contract.

The contract, known as Nimbus, that Google shares with Amazon provides cloud computing services to the Israeli government. It was signed in 2021. The contract has faced backlash from workers and activists since its inception, but objections have increased with Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, caused by the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7.

Google software engineer Emaan Haseem and her colleagues oppose the company’s involvement with the Israeli government, despite the possible repercussions.

“I wouldn’t want to lose my job,” Haseem counted ABC 7 News. “But I think it is impossible for me to continue working every week without recognizing and strongly condemning the Nimbus Project and any support for the Israeli government.”

The contract, known as Project Nimbus, was structured to allow the sharing of Google and Amazon services with various branches of the Israeli government. When signed in 2021, the contract raised concerns among some employees as Israeli officials he said companies could not terminate their services and could not prohibit services to certain branches of government.

Time Magazine reported Last week, Google provided cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

“Google Cloud supports multiple governments around the world in the countries where we operate, including the Israeli government, with our generally available cloud computing services,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.

“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” the spokesperson said. “This work is not directed toward highly sensitive, confidential, or military-relevant workloads for weapons or intelligence services.”

The Google spokesperson said the protests involved organizations and people who “largely” do not work at the technology company.

The company said it would investigate and “take action” regarding employees who were placed on administrative leave.

“A small number of protesting employees entered and invaded some of our locations,” the spokesperson said. “Physically impeding other employees from working and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and we will investigate and take action.

These employees have been placed on administrative leave and access to our systems has been cut off. After refusing several requests to leave the premises, authorities were hired to remove them to ensure the safety of the office.”