Workers from the company protested the cloud contract with Israel
Twitter Sit-In: Google, Amazon, and Apple Support for Palestinians in a Security-Adventure Agreement for a Cloud with Israel
The police removed nine people from the company offices in New York and California after they staged an hours-long sit-in to protest a cloud contract with Israel.
The workers at Amazon and Google protested outside of their companies’ offices in order to put pressure on their managers after the documents showing the contract was for video analysis were published. The tech workers protest that Israel might use this capability to harm the Palestinians.
Last week, however, TIME reported that Google is providing cloud computing services to the Israeli Military of Defense. A company document viewed by Time shows that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own landing zone in the cloud. The defense ministry reportedly sought consulting assistance from Google to expand its Cloud access, according to a contract viewed by TIME. Google offered the defense ministry a 15 percent discount on the consulting fees because of the “Nimbus framework,” according to the contract, and the defense ministry paid more than $1 million for Google’s consulting services. A comment on the contract said it was part of an Israel/Nimbus deal.
Eddie Hatfield disrupted the managing director at the conference for the Israeli tech industry. More than 600 other people signed a petition opposing the sponsorship of the conference and after Hatfield was fired, an employee of trust and safety resigned.
More than 300 Apple workers signed an open letter in March, urging company leadership to show public support for Palestinians after it was alleged that some workers were retaliated against for expressing their support.
Hasan Ibraheem, a Google software engineer, is participating in the sit-in at his local Google office in New York. “This has really been a culmination of our efforts,” he tells WIRED.
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A protesting worker says they won’t be leaving. 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. “If not, you can be arrested for trespass,” he says. When the protesters again decline to go, police officers put them in handcuffs.
The arrests took place at the same time. Workers at the Sunnyvale office were livestreaming their protest on Twitch and captured the moment they were arrested. In the video, a man who appears to be a security guard asks the workers to leave voluntarily and threatens to call the police. Six police officers entered the office to arrest five workers.
We didn’t want to work on technology that kills. Billy Van der Laar, a software engineer, stated that the contract leadership betrayed their trust, their ethos, and their humanity.
The internal opposition to Project is growing due to Israel’s assault on Gaza, which began after 1,100 Israelis were killed by Hamas. The Israel Defence Forces have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians since bombing and moving into Gaza last fall.
A phone call between a protester in New York and two protesters outside Google: Two protesters, two workers identified by their first names as Jess and Mohammed
Software engineers Hasan Ibraheem and Eyal Montes are in New York where they are being held. 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.
