Anti-Israel students at Stanford University carrying Palestinian flags walked out on commencement speaker Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, because the company has contracts with Israel.
Many of the students also chanted ‘Free Palestine!’ as they marched out of the venue.
The College Fix reports:
Pro-Palestinian Stanford grads storm out of stadium amid Google CEO commencement speechMore than 100 Stanford University graduates marched out of the stadium during the commencement ceremony Sunday as Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the podium and began his speech.Videos posted online showed the students chanting “free, free Palestine” and waving Palestinian flags as they left the arena with Pichai’s voice echoing in the background.Meanwhile, “smaller groups in the audience waved banners, blew whistles and waved Palestinian flags before also leaving mid-speech. Pro-Palestinian protesters condemned the company’s ties with the Israeli government, particularly its controversial $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal with the country in 2021, known as Project Nimbus,” SF Gate reported.According to the New York Post, the protest was “organized by far left radical groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and No Tech for Apartheid.”The speech by Pichai, who graduated from Stanford in 1995, was billed as his first in-person commencement speech.
Watch below:
More from Tech Crunch via Yahoo News:
The focus of the protest was Google’s defense ties — including Project Nimbus, the controversial $1.2 billion contract, shared with Amazon, to provide cloud and AI services to the Israeli military, as well as its relationship with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.Student signs included phrases like “ICE SPIES WITH GOOGLE AI” and “GENOCIDE RUNS ON GOOGLE,” as well as “FREE FREE PALESTINE,” a press release associated with the protest notes. Students also waved Palestinian flags and shouted “free Palestine,” online video of the protest shows.”We are walking out because we refuse to glorify the corporations that fuel this violence and exercise our power to choose differently,” a statement associated with the protest reads.The walkout was organized by a number of campus activist groups, including Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, No Tech for Apartheid, and Tech for Liberation. TechCrunch reached out to Google for comment.
This crowd thinks everything is all about them, all the time.
Featured image via YouTube.
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