A Google employee made news on social media by interrupting a speech by the company’s Israel managing director by saying he could no longer be complicit in “genocide” by helping a company that has contracts with the Israeli government and military.
Google, to their surprising credit, said: Fine. Leave. In fact, we’ll help you make the decision by making it for you.
According to CNBC, the unnamed employee — apparently an engineer on Google Cloud — interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev during his speech at MindTheTech, an Israel-sponsored tech conference, in New York City on Monday.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide … or surveillance!” the man could be heard yelling in a clip that circulated on social media.
Google Cloud is part of Project Nimbus, “a $1.2 billion artificial intelligence and computing services agreement among Google, Amazon Web Services and the Israeli government and military” that began in July 2021, Axios reported.
The engineer was referencing the computing platform during his rant, saying that “Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger!”
“I refuse to build technology that’s going to be used for — stop apartheid!” the man yelled as he was escorted out. “Stop apartheid! Stop apartheid!”
A Google Cloud engineer just interrupted Google Israel managing director Barak Regev at Israeli tech industry conference MindTheTech this morning in NY.
“I refuse to build technology that powers genocide!” he yelled, referring to Google’s Project Nimbus contract pic.twitter.com/vM9mMFlJRS
— Caroline Haskins (@car0linehaskins) March 4, 2024
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Freelance journalist Caroline Haskins, who captured the moment, also captured another interruption from an audience member during Regev’s speech — this one causing him to wrap up his remarks.
When a second person interrupted Google Israel managing director Regev at MindTheTech, he ended his remarks early. pic.twitter.com/hH142SRhcZ
— Caroline Haskins (@car0linehaskins) March 4, 2024
However, this individual does not appear to be a Google employee. Neither does the first — at least, as of Friday, when the tech giant confirmed the man had been fired.
It came during the same week as another Israeli-related controversy within the company, this one to do with everyone’s favorite woke holiday this week: International Women’s Day.
“Ahead of an International Women’s Day Summit in Silicon Valley on Thursday, Google’s employee message board was hit with an influx of staffer comments about the company’s military contracts with Israel,” CNBC reported.
“The online forum, which was going to be used to help inform what questions were asked of executives at the event, was shut down for what a spokesperson described to CNBC as ‘divisive content that is disruptive to our workplace.’”
While no examples of the divisive content were reported, if it’s anything like the former Google Cloud employee shouting piffle about Israeli “apartheid” and seeming to put himself on the side of the terrorists by insisting the Israeli people didn’t have the right to defend themselves against the attacks lodged against their country by Hamas, those employees are deserving of the same fate.
Mind you, this isn’t the first time that Google employees have protested Project Nimbus since it began; even before the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, numerous individuals at the tech giant had voiced opposition to it. Back then, former Google employee Ariel Koren, who has led the opposition to the protests after leaving the company following her anti-Project Nimbus stance, said “Google is sending a message that the ruthless pursuit of military contracts” was taking precedence over the company’s values.
Never mind that the company’s values are centered around squeezing profit from data collection. Heck, Project Nimbus, which helps one of the only — if not the only — stable democracies in the Middle East defend itself from barbarians, could be seen as one of the few truly ethical things Google is engaged in. But ethics, to the mindlessly woke, also involve scarcely concealed anti-Semitism masquerading as concerns over “apartheid” and “genocide.”
As the adage goes, scratch an anti-Zionist and you’ll find an anti-Semite. That’s just as true at Google as it is in the world at large. If any other barely disguised anti-Semites want to out themselves like this gentleman did and open up a few positions in Silicon Valley or elsewhere, there’s nary a friend of Israel or enemy of terrorism who would object.
