World
Google staff petition tech giant to stop backing Israeli conference
The Israeli tech summit is taking place in New York this week
March 6, 2024 11:39
By, JC Reporter
1 min read
The Israeli tech summit is taking place in New York this week
March 6, 2024 11:39ByJC Reporter, JC Reporter
(JNS) More than 600 Google employees have signed a letter demanding that the tech giant cancel its sponsorship of an Israeli summit taking place in New York City this week, Wired magazine reported on Monday.
The two-day Mind the Tech conference, which is hosted by Israel’s Calcalist newspaper and Bank Leumi, seeks to foster a “united global tech community standing alongside Israel in ethical leadership.”
The event began on Monday with a series of lectures and will conclude on Tuesday evening with a gala where leading voices in the Israeli high-tech community will join their American counterparts.
In a letter distributed via internal Google mailing lists ahead of the gathering, 600 staffers called on the company to “withdraw from Mind the Tech, issue an apology, and stand with Googlers and customers who are despairing over the overwhelming loss of life in Gaza.
“We need Google to do better,” added the letter, which was co-authored by several activists linked to “No Tech for Apartheid” and seen by Wired.
On Monday, remarks by Google Israel managing director Barak Regev were disrupted by a US-based employee of the company yelling that his work should not be used in service of “genocide.” Other anti-Israel activists joined in the shouting match, according to video footage.
Speakers at the Monday event also included New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion and former National Security Agency head Michael Rogers.
The Hamas terrorist group launched its war against the Jewish state on Oct. 7 with a large-scale invasion of southern Israel, murdering 1,200, wounding thousands and kidnapping 253 people, with 134 hostages remaining in Gaza (32 have been confirmed dead).
Israeli forces began their ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27, in an effort to topple the terror group that has ruled the Strip since 2007.
In 2021, the anti-Israel “No Tech for Apartheid” campaign initiated a letter demanding that Google cancel Project Nimbus, a billion-dollar contract to provide public cloud computing services to Israel.
According to the letter, 90 Google employees had signed the missive, but wished to remain anonymous “because we fear retaliation.” Google’s parent company, Alphabet, employs over 180,000 people as of 2023.