Demonstrators carry a banner and block an entrance to the Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California, May 2024. (Photo by AP)
Tehran, November 18 (RHC)-- Iranian software engineer Alireza Zakeri has announced his resignation from Google over the American tech giant’s collaboration with Israel amid the regime’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed over 43,000 people in the territory since early October last year.
“I’m happy to announce that I have left Google!” he wrote in a post published on his Linkedin account on Monday, adding that “this decision reflects my values." "After learning about Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, I voiced my concerns for several months. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of many employees, leadership chose to maintain its stance and dismiss our collective concerns," he added.
Project Nimbus is reportedly a $1.2 billion deal between the Tel Aviv regime and Amazon and Google to provide artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services that are also used by the Israeli military.
“Living in a way that conflicts with your core values is incredibly challenging. Choosing to step away was not easy, but it was necessary. For anyone facing similar situations, I hope you find the courage to prioritize your principles. What good is it for man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” Zakeri pointed out.
Amid the Israeli genocide in Gaza, workers at Google and Amazon have stepped up pressure on their companies to cut ties with the regime, including the controversial Project Nimbus. Back on May 14, hundreds of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protesters demonstrated against Google’s relationship with Israel and the regime’s army at the tech company’s annual developer conference in Mountain View.
The protesters chained themselves together near the entrance to the conference, and carried a large banner reading “Google stop fueling genocide.” A particular point of contention for the demonstrators was Project Nimbus. The project enables Israeli cabinet ministries and other entities to transfer servers and services into cloud data centers provided within the occupied territories.
The protesters, among whom were former and current Google employees, argued that the system is being lethally deployed in the Gaza war.
“We are here to say that we cannot stand by while this company fuels this genocide and profits off of it,” former Google employee Ariel Koren told The Guardian at the protest.
“[Google] not only creates the infrastructure for the Israeli military to scale out their crimes against humanity, but these tools are being tested and trained in Palestine to be exported out to militaries around the world, who can then commit the same types of violence,” she said. Koren added she was fired from Google for opposing Project Nimbus.
