Google matches employee donations to Zionist charities
Google has been matching donations made by its workforce to Zionist charities in the US, including one involved in resettling “Judea and Samaria”, the biblical name for West Bank region, according to MiddleEastEye (MEE) on December 4th.
Webpages leaked to MEE shows how Google allows employees to donate to Friends of the Israeli Defence Forces (FIDF) and HaYovel, both non-profit organisations registered in the US.
FIDF’s resources go to “programs for combat soldiers aimed at alleviating financial stress, economic insecurity, or distraction, allowing their minds to focus entirely on the complex military missions at hand”, while HaYovel proclaims its raison d’etre as furthering the “prophetic tradition” of a region that “many incorrectly refer to as the West Bank”.
Google allows workers to pledge a percentage of their salary through a Canadian-based platform Benevity, which has many other major US corporations as its customers, with the tech giant matching any donations.
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Among FIDF’s offerings, is the “adopt a brigade” scheme, which allows patrons to fund specific military units through food vouchers, grants, and a commander-discretionary fund that provides “care for the emotional well-being of its soldiers”.
HaYovel runs programmes that bus Israeli settlers into the West Bank, which it refers to as “Judea and Samaria”, providing training to help interns to “take home the tools you need to become an ambassador for Israel”.
FIDF has reportedly fundraised at least $34.5m in support for Israeli soldiers, while HaYovel said it has bought $3.5m of security equipment for Israeli West Bank settlers.
The leak follows growing pressure on Google to end its hush deal with Israel, titled Project Nimbus, which in partnership with Amazon, provides $1.2bn worth of computing resources to the Israeli government and its army.
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On December 3rd, the New York Times and Intercept reported on leaked documents that revealed concerns at the highest level in Google that Project Nimbus could harm the corporation’s reputation.
The documents showed that Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian had been directly briefed about worries over Nimbus’s link to human rights violations in the Middle East.
On the risks of the deal to Google, company lawyers said: “Google Cloud services could be used [by the Israeli Ministry of Defence and Israeli Security Agency] for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights violations, including Israeli activity in the West Bank.”
MiddleEastEye
