Pro-Palestinian activists gather outside Google developer conference

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Pro-Palestinian activists gathered Tuesday morning ahead of Google’s flagship developers conference.

AROC and Palestinian Youth Movement, the groups organizing the action, want to call attention to Google’s business contracts with the Israeli government, and the role of its technology in the war in Gaza.

By 9:30 a.m., the protesters numbered between 80 and 100 people, who blocked one of the pedestrian entrances to the conference in Mountain View.  

Thousands of people from around the world are expected to attend Google’s flagship conference in person and online.

An organization that calls itself “No tech for genocide” wants to draw attention to Google’s business contracts with the Israeli government, particularly a program called Project Nimbus. 

The project provides cloud computing services and artificial intelligence technologies to the Israeli government, and by extension, the Israeli military.

“While these contracts are giving the Israeli government the opportunity to say that they’re fighting a smart war, it’s really giving them additional cover for the killing of 35,000 people in Palestine, so far,” Roni Zeiger, a former Google employee. 

Last month, nine Google workers staged a sit-in protest in the office of one of the executives overseeing the program. It lasted several hours.

Those workers were arrested, and another 40 or so Google workers and contractors were also fired, including some of the organizers of Tuesday’s protest action.

The developers conference starts at 10 a.m.