Pro-Palestinian protesters rally at Google I/O developer conference to rail against Project Nimbus contract with Israel
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters rallied outside the annual Google I/O 2024 developer conference at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday.
The demonstrators were demanding the tech giant divest itself from Israel and the halting of Google's Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli government.
The $1.2 billion deal provides artificial intelligence technology to Israel. Protesters claim the system makes it easier for the Israeli government and its military to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land in Gaza.
Google has insisted the Nimbus system isn't being deployed for weaponry or intelligence gathering, but demonstrators accuse Google of war profiteering.
"[Google is] literally creating products that are used by Israel to imprison Palestinian children in the West Bank, and they want to have a conference uninterrupted," said demonstrator Rami Abdelkarim. "Absolutely not, the Bay Area is saying 'no.'"
In recent weeks, dozens of Google employees have been fired after participating in demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza and Google's Project Nimbus contract at company facilities. About two dozen workers were dismissed after staging a sit-in at Google offices in Sunnyvale and New York. Approximately 20 more employees were fired the following week.
On April 29, the fired workers filed a complaint against Google with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to get their jobs back. Some of the employees said they had not even entered the Google offices during the demonstrations. A Google spokesperson told CBS News Bay Area the fired workers were all personally and definitively involved in the disruption.
