Google fires 20 more employees for protesting Could deal with Israel

Google fired at least 20 more workers on Monday who protested the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of staff sacked to more than 50, a group representing the workers said.

A Google spokesperson confirmed that the company had fired more workers after continuing its investigations into the 16 April protests, which included sit-ins at the firm’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, denouncing the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, according to the Washington Post.

Google had conducted an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16,” the spokesperson said. “Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the spokesperson added.

“To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings. We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this,” the Google spokesperson said.

However, Google workers dispute the allegations, saying some of those fired did not even enter the company’s office on the day of the coordinated sit- ins.

The dismissal comes several days after CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a company-wide memo that they should not use the company as a “personal platform” or “fight about disruptive issues or discuss politics”.

Meanwhile, Jane Chung, the spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid, the group that has been leading protests against Google and Amazon’s contracts with the Israeli government since 2021, said Google “is trying to suppress dissent, silence their employees, and reassert its power over them.”

Anti-war protesters have in recent days been arrested at Yale and Columbia universities, sparking accusations of oppression and silencing of voices similar to that during the Vietnam War.

On 15 April, activists blocked highways, bridges and airport entrances across the United States to protest the war in Gaza.

Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Strip has killed 34,151 Palestinians and wounded 77,84 others and caused the displacement of about 1.7 million of the Strip’s population, according to United Nations data.

READ: Google removes Israel boycott app