Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency
Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency
The UNRWA calls Israel’s strategy of promoting alleged misinformation “destructive.”
Back In mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld was googling the name of the nonprofit she runs, which raises money in the US on behalf of the leading humanitarian aid provider in Gaza. Atop the search results for her organization—UNRWA USA, partner to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—she saw a surprising ad. It read like a promo from the UN agency, but the link directed to an Israeli government website. Kronenfeld says she had found the beginnings of a months-long online advertising campaign by Israel to discredit and defund UNRWA.
After seeing the ads—paid for by the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, according to details shown when clicking on the menu button beside them—Kronenfeld and her staff of seven quickly appealed to Google for help fighting what they viewed as a misinformation campaign. What has happened since shows the delicate relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, Israel, and the limits of the company’s policing of alleged misinformation in ads.
Several current and former Google employees tell WIRED the anti-UNRWA campaign is just one volley of ads that Israel has orchestrated in recent months that have drawn complaints both inside and outside of the company. The ads about UNRWA and another campaign targeting the Middle East have not been previously reported.
Google is taking money to defend genocide.
It's arguable whether there's a genocide taking place. If Israel really wanted to eliminate everyone—civilians and Hamas alike—they'd have already done so, and from an operational point of view, it would be much easier and take less effort than targeted attacks. Using the word 'genocide' so easily really takes away the weight of the term unnecessarily. When a real genocide does occur somewhere in the world, everyone will be less attentive to it.
It's arguable whether there's a genocide taking place
I love it when I know from the first sentence that there's some awful apologia coming up.. 🤦
If Israel really wanted to eliminate everyone
That's a CHILD'S definition of genocide.
The ACTUAL definition from the convention itself is thus, first paragraph bolding mine:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
- (a) Killing members of the group;
- (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[\[8\]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention#cite_note-Convention-text-8)UsingRedefining the word 'genocide' soeasilydisingenuously and/or out of ignorance really takes away from theweightscope of thetermatrocities, unnecessarily defending the indefensibleFixed It for you.
Yeah, no, sorry bud, it's genocide. Just because it's not overt genocide does not mean it's not a thing. It's not just happening in Gaza, it's happening in the West Bank, here is Stephen Colbert talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqK3_n6pdDY
Just because they have more of an excuse in Gaza to do it much more flagrantly doesn't mean it isn't happening throughout Israel. Covert genocide, it's a thing.
What has happened since shows the
delicateservile relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, the fascist apartheid state IsraelFixed it for them.
This is why political ads should not be allowed (and why they aren't in numerous countries)
One more reason to try to ditch Google, Apple, Microsoft and the others..
Perhaps if the US would embargo Israel instead of selling weapons things would be a little bit different, but nooooo... Israel's not communist, so it's ok.
I don't know what is so surprising about this to people.
US company sees money on the table.... takes money 💰.
This is the only transaction that is happening. Nothing else.
Yeah, because if they were accepting ads from the Russian government, Hamas, Hezbollah, or ISIS, nobody would bat an eye, right? 🙄