During a vigil for Mai Ubeid, a Palestinian colleague killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, Google staff in London voiced their discontent with the company’s involvement in providing technology to Israel. Ubeid, a software engineer and graduate of the Google-funded coding boot camp Gaza Sky Geeks, was part of the Google for Startups accelerator programme in 2020.
Organised by Google employees and the No Tech for Apartheid campaign outside the firm’s London offices near King’s Cross station, the vigil echoed similar protests in Seattle and New York. Concerns were raised about the company’s commercial relationships with Israel, particularly Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion agreement for Google and Amazon to supply cloud and computing services to Israel and its military.
At the vigil, prayers were offered by a rabbi and an imam mourning the 18,608 deaths in Gaza, as well as the 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Google staff present expressed their frustration that technology developed by the company could potentially support Israeli military actions. Some called for greater oversight of new technologies and voiced concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in war.
Employees have previously criticised the company’s stance on pro-Palestinian voices, claiming that such voices were not tolerated within the company and faced abuse. An open letter organised by No Tech for Apartheid highlighted concerns about “hate, abuse, and retaliation” against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim employees at Google.
Despite the pressure and cautiousness expressed by some employees, the company had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
