Jewish Employees of Google Asked the Company to Support Palestinians and Prevent Anti-Zionist Speech
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism’
A bunch of Jewish employees of Google is pleading with the company to redouble its support for Palestinians during the deadly bombing campaign of Israel in Gaza. The war started with an attempt of Israel to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and escalated when militants fired rockets on Jerusalem and Israel reacted with airstrikes.
In a letter, Google employees ask CEO Sundar Pichai to give out a statement deploring the attacks, including “direct identification of the harm done to Palestinians by Israel’s military, group violence, and mob lynching.” And presently, the letter has 250 signatures.
The petition is coming from a new employee resource group that was formed in the previous year in repercussion to pro-Zionist sentiment within “Jewglers,” which is Google’s official Jewish employee resource group. While Jewglers has attempted to be apolitical, two current employees say it has favored pro-Israel matters and is not a safe place to express anti-Zionist beliefs.
This schism led to the creation of the Jewish Diaspora in the company, a bunch of Jewish anti-nationalists inside Google. A product marketing manager, also a group member of ERG, says that “We were forced to establish our new place because of the reason that we were pretty literally not permitted to manifest our point of views in the employee resource group.”
Presently, members of the new group are asking out Google to allow freedom of expression internally, specifically around anti-Zionist points of view. They mentioned in an FAQ that “Google is the world’s largest search engine and any suppression of freedom of expression taking place inside the company is a threat not only to Googler employees internally but to every person around the world.”
Appealers also willing Google to terminate all the business contracts which support “Israeli violations on Palestinian’s human rights, for example, the Israeli Defense Forces.”
People of the group mentioned that they were inspired to call on the company after Jewglers failed to release out a statement condemning the Israeli violence against Palestinians. One employee told us that members of the group were supporting pro-Israel funding opportunities.
We have attached a letter written by the Jewish employees to Sundar Pichai. Here read the whole letter below:
Dear Sundar and Google Executive Team:
We are an organization of different Jewish and allied Googlers concerned about the internal talk over the racial and political violence in Israel and Palestine. We as Jews do not support the opinions of those who have written to you seeking to purvey support for, especially pro-Israel and pro-Zionist actions.
We oppugn to the conflation of Israel with the Jewish people, firmly believe that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, and scrounge leadership to take the following actions:
- Heed the requests of Palestinian Googlers: Palestinians are overwhelmingly affected by the militarized colonial violence occurring in the region. Kindly hearken to the appeals framed by Palestinian Googlers and center their requests going forward.
- Fund relief for Palestinians affected by military violence: We ask Google to fund Palestinian rights organizations and ensure that any support for Israeli humanitarian efforts is matched by support to Palestinian-led human rights and relief efforts.
- Recognize the pain: We ask Google leadership to make a company-wide statement recognizing the violence in Palestine and Israel, which must include direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by the Israeli military and gang violence. Both Palestinians and Israelis are devastating right now, but neglecting the destructive and deadly attacks faced by Palestinians effaces our Palestinian co-workers.
- Protect freedom of speech: We ask Google leadership to reject any definition of antisemitism that holds that criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitic. Against Zionism is not antisemitism and this conflation damages the pursuit of rectitude for Palestinians and Jews uniform by restricting freedom of expression and distracting from literal facts of antisemitism.
- Affirm Google’s commitment to human rights: Many of Israel’s actions violate the UN human rights principles, which Google is committed to upholding. We request for the review of all Alphabet’s corporate donations and business contracts and for the termination of any contracts with institutions that support Israeli violations against Palestinian rights, for instance, the Israeli Defense Forces.
Kindly sign here if you would like to support this thought.
Signed by concerned Jewish Googlers and allies
A group of diverse Jewish groups inside Google calls for the company to release a condemning statement in favor of Palestinians facing deadly attacks by Israel.
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