Google Urged To Condemn Israeli Attacks And Express Support For Palestine

Google office illustration (Photo by Cess Eid on Unsplash)

JAKARTA - A group of employees and workers at Google asked the company to increase support for Palestinians. Given that the Israeli military aggression is being intensively carried out in Gaza.

The extreme conflict began with Israeli attempts to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem. Tensions escalated when Hamas militants fired rockets at Jerusalem in response to air strikes.

In an internal letter the Google employee urged President Director Sundar Pichai to express condemnation of the Israeli attacks, including "a direct acknowledgment of the damage the Israeli military has caused and street crimes against Palestinians." The letter was reportedly signed by 250 people.

The request came from the Jewish Diaspora in Tech employee group in response to pro-Zionist sentiment in “Jewglers” - Google's nickname for the Jewish Employee Resource Groups. Although this group tries to be apolitical, they are trying to express the anti-Zionist movement on Google.

"We were forced to form our own space due to the fact that we were absolutely not allowed to express our point of view at the ERG," wrote the employee's letter as quoted by The Verge, Wednesday, May 19.

Now, the organization is pushing for an end to the restraints of freedom within Google's company, especially anti-Zionist views.

"Google is the largest search engine in the world and any suppression of freedom of expression that occurs within the company is harmful not only to the Googlers (Google employees) internally but to all people around the world," they wrote in the FAQ.

The organization also urged Google to terminate all business contracts that support "Israel's oppression of the rights of Palestinians." Business with the Israeli military is one of them, they said.

The letter also refuses to equate Israel with citizens of Jewish descent. The signatories to the letter stated that "anti-Zionism is not antisemitism".