{"id":1200925,"date":"2023-11-08T13:15:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1200925"},"modified":"2023-11-08T13:15:16","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:15:16","slug":"google-workers-publish-letter-criticizing-companys-israel-palestine-double-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1200925","title":{"rendered":"Google workers publish letter criticizing company\u2019s Israel-Palestine \u2018double standard\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of Google employees has published an open letter<\/a> on Medium <\/em>calling out an alleged double standard in the company related to freedom of expression surrounding the Israel-Palestine war. The essay condemns \u201chate, abuse and retaliation\u201d within the company against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian workers. The employees who penned the letter, which doesn\u2019t include specific names out of fear of retaliation<\/a>, demand that CEO Sundar Pichai, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and other senior leaders publicly condemn \u201cthe ongoing genocide in the strongest possible terms.\u201d In addition, they urge the company to cancel Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion deal to supply AI and other advanced tech to the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab Google employees joined by anti-Zionist Jewish colleagues,\u201d the letter opens. \u201cWe cannot remain silent in the face of the hate, abuse, and retaliation that we are being subjected to in the workplace in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The letter cites specific examples of emotionally charged and inappropriate workplace behavior. These include unnamed Googlers accusing Palestinians of supporting terrorism, committing \u201cslander against the Prophet Muhammad,\u201d and publicly calling Palestinians \u201canimals\u201d on official Google work platforms. The group describes leadership as \u201cstanding idly by\u201d in the latter two cases, and it says Google managers have called employees \u201csick\u201d and \u201ca lost cause\u201d for expressing empathy toward Gaza residents.<\/p>\n

The employees say Google managers have publicly asked Arab and Muslim people in the company if they support Hamas as a response to their concern for Palestinian families. \u201cThere are even coordinated efforts to stalk the public lives of workers sympathetic to Palestine and to report them both to Google and law enforcement for \u2018supporting terrorism,\u2019\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n

\"Google
Google CEO Sundar Pichai<\/figcaption>
ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Other examples cited include \u201cheartfelt appeals\u201d to donate to a charity for Gaza citizens being \u201cmet with multiple comments dehumanizing Gazans as being \u2018animals,\u2019 disregarding their plight and calling upon Googlers to boycott relief work for civilians due to the fact that Palestinian schools and hospitals were being used for \u2018terrorism.\u2019\u201d The letter also accuses Google managers of using their rank to \u201cquestion, report, and attempt to get fired Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Googlers who express sympathy with the plight of the besieged Palestinian people.\u201d It describes one manager endorsing \u201csurveillance of Google employees on social media,\u201d and then openly harassing them on Google work platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be very, very, very careful, because any sort of criticism toward the Israeli state can be easily taken as antisemitism,\u201d Sarmad Gilani, a Google software engineer who took part in the letter, said in an interview<\/a> with The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cIt feels like I have to condemn Hamas 10 times before saying one tiny, tiny thing criticizing Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engadget contacted Google for a comment but didn\u2019t immediately receive a response. We will update this article if we hear back.<\/p>\n

The tensions inflamed in the last month by the Israel-Palestine war have resurfaced resentments about Google\u2019s involvement in Project Nimbus. In 2021, Google and Amazon workers penned a similar open letter<\/a> calling on their companies to pull out of the deal, which they said would enable surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians. Today\u2019s letter echoes that sentiment. \u201cWe demand that Google stop providing material support to this genocide by canceling its Project Nimbus contract and immediately cease doing business with the Israeli apartheid government and military,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/google-workers-publish-letter-criticizing-companys-israel-palestine-double-standard-181516404.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – Google workers publish letter criticizing company\u2019s Israel-Palestine \u2018double standard\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of Google employees has published an open letter on Medium calling out an alleged double standard in the company related to freedom of expression surrounding the Israel-Palestine war. The essay condemns \u201chate, abuse and retaliation\u201d within the company … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1200925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1200925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1200925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}