In a move that has sparked outrage, Google has terminated 28 employees who took part in a protest against the company’s contract with the Israeli government. The decision came after an internal investigation, with further investigations underway that could result in additional measures, according to a Google spokesperson on Thursday.
The protest was led by a group called “No Tech for Apartheid,” who occupied the office of Google Cloud storage service manager Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California, for ten hours. Several Google employees were arrested during the incident, as shown in video recordings shared online. Similar protests occurred in New York and Seattle.
Google referred to the protesters as a “small number” of employees disrupting operations at multiple Google locations. The protests are part of a long-term campaign by organizations and individuals mostly not affiliated with Google. The activists were against the collaboration between technology giants Google and Amazon with the Israeli government, totaling $1.2 billion. They cited a Time magazine report from April that mentioned Google billing over $1 million to the Israeli Defense Ministry for consulting services in a draft contract.
A Google spokesperson emphasized that the company works with numerous governments, including Israel, but the services provided are not related to military or intelligence activities.”
