A Google engineer who disrupted a technology conference in New York City to protest the company’s association with the Israeli government has been fired.
Video showed an unidentified man wearing an orange Google t-shirt interrupting a keynote speech by Google Israel CEO Barak Regev during the Mind the Tech conference on Monday.
The conference, sponsored by the Israeli newspaper Calcalist, focuses on the global and Israeli high-tech industry.
“I am a software engineer at Google Cloud and I refuse to create technology that drives genocide, apartheid or surveillance,” the man said.
‘Project Nimbus endangers members of the Palestinian community. “I refuse to build technology.”
An unidentified man wearing an orange Google t-shirt interrupted a speech by Google Israel CEO Barak Regev during the Mind the Tech conference on Monday.
A Google spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that the engineer was fired over the outage.
The Israeli government launched Project Nimbus in April 2021, which is a $1.2 billion contract with Google and Amazon to provide cloud services for the nation’s military and government.
As the engineer was escorted out, he shouted: “Don’t be clouded by apartheid.” Don’t make technology for apartheid. Free Palestine.’
Speaking anonymously, the protester said Door to hell“I don’t see any way to continue my engineering work without doing this.”
“I consider this part of my engineering job, and I hope that other engineers within Cloud see me doing this, and I hope that drives them.”
Israel launched a response after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist 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 faces famine conditions.
The UN said Israel has not helped as much as it could bring food and medicine to the area, citing concerns that the Hamas terrorists they are fighting will take the supplies.
A Google spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com that the engineer was fired over the outage.
“Earlier this week, an employee interrupted a co-worker 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 was terminated for violating our policies.”
When Regev continued his speech after the interruption, he said: “Part of the privilege of working at a company that represents democratic values ​​is making room for different opinions.”
Google has faced criticism for its relationship with Israel from both employees and the public
When Regev continued his speech after the interruption, he said: “Part of the privilege of working at a company that represents democratic values ​​is making room for different opinions.”
However, the CEO of Google Israel ended his speech when a second protester interrupted his speech by shouting “Free Palestine,” a video on social media showed.
Google has faced criticism for its relationship with Israel from both employees and the public.
More than 600 employees signed a letter demanding the company drop its sponsorship of the Mind the Tech conference, it reported. CABLING.
When Project Nimbus was announced, hundreds of Google and Amazon employees published a letter saying: ‘We cannot support our employer’s decision to supply the Israeli military and government with technology that is used to harm Palestinians.’