A manager with Google in the US has resigned due to what she described as retaliation, a hostile environment, and illegal measures by the company after she criticized a deal with Israel.
In October 2021, the marketing manager for Google’s education products, Ariel Koren, supported a letter signed by hundreds of Google and Amazon employees, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military.
The Billion Dollar Deal that Made #Google and #Amazon Partners in the #Israeli Occupation of #Palestine https://t.co/5n3MBxFzTP via @commondreams pic.twitter.com/oMggJGOe1P
— Ramzy Baroud (@RamzyBaroud) March 29, 2022
The signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Israeli government, which provides cloud services for the Israeli military and government and “allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians”.
Koren said that she was forced to leave her job because of the company’s hostile behavior against her after she rejected the signing of a contract with Israel.
“Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many others,” tweeted Koren. She called on Amazon and Google employees to read about the Nimbus project and urged employees at both companies to stand against it.
I am leaving @Google this week due to retaliation & hostility against workers who speak out. Google moved my role overseas immediately after I opposed its $1B AI/surveillance contracts with Israel. And this is far from an isolated instance.https://t.co/V4y05kOYQv pic.twitter.com/eRMrzTPYfb
— Ariel Koren (@ariel_koko) August 30, 2022
“We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy,” a Google spokeswoman told the New York Times. “We thoroughly investigated this employee’s claim, as we do when any concerns are raised.”
The spokeswoman noted that the company is proud to have been chosen by the Israeli government to provide public cloud computing services to help transform the country digitally.
(MEMO, PC, SOCIAL)
