Google fired 28 employees who took part in anti-Israel demonstrations

Google fired 28 employees who protested the corporation's contract with the Israeli government. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal with reference to a letter circulated within the company from Google Vice President of Global Security Chris Rakow.

Protests

Google accused the workers of preventing their colleagues from entering the workplace. Several dozen people gathered in front of Google's offices in Sunnyvale, California, and also occupied the company's offices in Seattle and New York. Some in Sunnyvale hunkered down for hours in the office of Google Cloud subsidiary CEO Thomas Kurian.

The protesters were demanding the cancellation of a $1.2 billion contract called Project Nimbus to provide remote computing (cloud) services that Google and Amazon provide to the Israeli military and government. Some of the protesters held signs with the word “genocide”alluding to the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have died as a result of Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

In October 2021, the British Guardian newspaper published an article by Amazon and Google employees calling on the companies to withdraw from Project Nimbus. They claimed to have collected about 400 signatures and justified themselves by not disclosing their names for fear of retaliation.

“These protests are part of a long-term campaign led by a group of organizations and individuals who, for the most part, do not work for Google,” a company spokesman told AFP. Concerning “small number” workers who entered the premises, then “The fact that they interfered with other employees' work by preventing them from entering the premises is a clear violation of our rules”continued the company representative, confirming that 28 workers who participated in the protests have been fired.

The spokesman reiterated that the Nimbus project “is not intended for highly sensitive, classified or military weapons, or intelligence-related work.”

In November 2023, anti-Semitism in the United States reached its highest level since 1979

The Anti-Defamation League assessed the policies of 85 American universities to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism on campus, writes CNN journalist David Goldman. Harvard and 12 other universities received “unit”. Only two universities received an “A”. Reports of anti-Semitism on college campuses across the United States have increased dramatically since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the country's devastating response. The ADL said anti-Semitic incidents on campus are at an all-time high, leaving Jewish students feeling unsafe. “As I travel around the country, I constantly hear from Jewish families who are struggling with where they will send their children to college,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

“University leadership must make significant changes to support Jewish communities on its campus, and we expect no less.” ADL examined dozens of America's best liberal arts universities and universities with the highest proportions of Jewish students. The organization provided each university with a questionnaire and received responses from 84% of the campuses it assessed. ADL also reviewed other publicly available information, including pending federal investigations related to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination based on religion, race, and sex.

Criticism of Israel equated to anti-Semitism

In November 2023, the High Representative EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell received a lot of criticism and accusations of anti-Semitism after his statement in which he pointed out that “The right to criticize the Israeli government and Israel's military actions in the Gaza Strip without being 'accused of being anti-Jewish' must be preserved“.

November 9 House of Representatives USA voted for impeachment Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, for her comments on the war between Israel and Hamas. Now a similar statement coming from from a European politician could cost him, at a minimum, his political career. The EU media also sharply softened their criticism of Israel, not emphasizing in their reports information about the death of Palestinian civilians.

In Berlin, at the end of last year, a new rule was introduced for cultural institutions and figures seeking financial support. Anyone who applies for state subsidies allocated for culture would have tosign the new “disclaimer document”, which spelled out, in particular, such concepts as anti-Semitism. This new rule was introduced on December 21, 2023 by the Metropolitan Senate for Cultural Affairs, citing the Land Concept for developing preventive measures in the fight against anti-Semitism from 2019.

Describing a recent rocket and drone attacks on Israel, a rare Greek media outlet mentioned the previous Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, where Iranian generals were killed. The emphasis was on the aggressive behavior of Iran, which, because of its hatred of Israel, decided to fire at the Jewish state.

The authors of the film “Israelism,” young American Jews Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, receive thousands of indignant letters from social media. They are called “anti-Semitic Jews” and “Jews who hate themselves.” They wanted to ban screenings of the film at Hunter College and other US universities.

The film describes how the majority of American Jews are raised to fully embrace, even adore, Israel, and see Israel as part of their Jewish identity. The film also depicts the realities of life for Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.

“Palestinians living in the West Bank, despite the fact that their lives are controlled by the Israeli army from morning to evening, are not even theoretically citizens of the country in which they live,” writer Peter Bernard says in an interview for the film. “In a sense, you see with your own eyes what UNdemocracy looks like.”

“When people look at the West Bank and say this is apartheid, they are not just throwing around words. The Palestinians live in a different legal system than the Israeli settlers next to them,” Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said in another interview.

Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen strongly disagree that criticism of Israel should be equated with anisemitism. Young liberal Jewish Americans say there are more and more pro-Palestinian Jews like them in the United States.

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