Google Fires 28 Employees Protesting Over Company’s Collaboration on Project Nimbus With Israel

Google Fires Employees: Google employees protesting against the company’s collaboration with the Israeli government in California and New York has cost them their jobs as the company’s administration fired at least 28 employees from their jobs taking serious cognizance of their protest over the issue. As per the sources, Google fired 28 employees after they protested against the company's cloud-computing contract with Israel, called Project Nimbus. This strict action has come up after the employees staged a sit-in protest at two Google offices recently over the Israel issue.

Earlier, on Tuesday, a few of the employees were even arrested after they refused to move from Google's Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office for over 8 hours. Now, following the arrest of the protesting employees, the company fired 28 employees.

Responding to the decision of firing the employees, Google stated that the action was as per an internal memo obtained by The Verge, and said that the company has no place for such behaviour and would not tolerate it.

Earlier, the Google employees in California and New York had staged protests against the company's collaboration with the Israeli government. The sit-in protests were organised at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office in California, following which reportedly around 8-9 employees were also arrested after they refused to move for over eight hours.

Their demands centred around Project Nimbus, a billion-dollar AI contract signed in 2021. A video capturing the incident has also emerged showing employees seated inside the Google office as part of their protest.  

What is Project Nimbus?

Project Nimbus, a contract signed in 2021 between Google and Amazon, involves providing cloud computing services to the Israeli government. Since its inception, the contract has faced criticism from both employees and activists. However, objections have intensified in light of Israel's ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which was prompted by a terrorist attack attributed to Hamas on October 7th.

“I would not like to lose my job. But I think that it is impossible for me to continue coming into work every week without acknowledging and loudly condemning Project Nimbus and any support for the Israeli government", a leading portal quoted an employee as saying.

How is Israel Defense Ministry supported by Google?

Meanwhile, Google has been offering cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with signs suggesting a potential expansion of the partnership amid the conflict in Gaza, as disclosed in a TIME report. The document indicates that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own designated entry point, known as a "landing zone," within Google Cloud. This secure access enables the ministry to leverage Google's computing infrastructure for tasks such as data storage, processing, and accessing AI services.