'Israel's using Google ads to lead UNRWA smear campaign
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According to WIRED, the Israeli occupation government used ads targeting searches for “UNRWA” and “UNRWA USA” to direct potential donors to a webpage with allegations against the UN agency, questioning its neutrality and oversight.
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A Palestinian man stands in front of the emblem of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City on 31 July 2018. (AFP)
In mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld discovered that an ad for her nonprofit, UNRWA USA, was misleadingly directing people to an Israeli government site aimed at discrediting and defunding UNRWA. This ad campaign coincided with false Israeli allegations of UNRWA's involvement in military actions.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees.
Education, healthcare, social services, relief and infrastructure for camps, microfinance, and emergency support—including during armed conflict—are all included in the Agency's offerings.
Despite these efforts, UNRWA USA saw a significant increase in donations, raising over $32 million in 2023, a substantial rise from the previous year.
According to WIRED, the Israeli occupation's government used ads targeting searches for “UNRWA” and “UNRWA USA” to direct potential donors to a webpage with allegations against the UN agency, questioning its neutrality and oversight.
In response, UNRWA USA reached out to Google for help, and between May and July, Israeli ads appeared 44% of the time alongside search results for terms related to UNRWA, compared to 34% for UNRWA USA ads.
Kronenfeld is concerned that exposure to Israeli propaganda could confuse the American people about UNRWA's function and undermine US support for the organization, claiming that the campaign was "incredibly powerful."
Google spokesperson Jacel Booth claimed that the business permits governments to run advertising as long as they follow its rules and welcomes reporting of any infractions, which are swiftly remedied.
After Kronenfeld and her colleagues complained to Google in January about Israeli advertising with deceptive titles, the company deleted them without explanation. By May, the advertisements had restarted with more false information. Despite additional complaints, these advertisements continue to show on Google, which Kronenfeld feels violates Google's standards on misleading claims and trademark infringement.
Google rejected UNRWA’s trademark complaint in May because the agency had not registered a trademark in Jordan, where the ad account is based.
Following an investigation by Politico, Google deleted around 30 Israeli advertisements containing violent images in October, and it also faced criticism for graphic Israeli commercials displayed in children's gaming applications. YouTube deleted an Israeli commercial in May 2021 that stated the country's willingness to "defend itself" against Hamas.
This past April, users like Nora Ahmed Shaheen, an Egyptian artist, began complaining on social media about what multiple individuals told WIRED were disturbing Israeli adverts interrupting their YouTube viewing, claiming Hamas could end the war by releasing captives.
Shaheen told WIRED it was "a disgrace that YouTube is providing its platform for a government to force their sick ideologies into my account."
The adverts were also shown on the websites of Middle Eastern and North African news sources and periodicals via Google's advertising network. According to two business sources, some publications complained to Google about advertising that promoted Israeli political objectives.
According to UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma, Israel's advertisements and larger campaigns on social media and other platforms have badly damaged the agency's credibility. "These ads are destructive to people," she stated.
“They should stop, and those responsible for this sabotage should be held accountable. There should be a lot of follow-up with companies like Google once the war is over. There’s a lot to answer to.”
Israeli military using cloud services from tech giants in war on Gaza
The Israeli army has been using Microsoft and Google's artificial intelligence (AI) tools and cloud services from Amazon for military operations for its genocide in Gaza, Israeli news outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call reported, which was confirmed by the Israeli Army's Center of Computers and Information Systems last month.
This information was publicly confirmed for the first time through Israeli media's attainment of an audio recording of Col. Racheli Dembinsky, commander of the Center of Computing and Information Systems Unit, revealing the use of these technological services from these civilian tech firms during a presentation attended by 100 military and industrial personnel on July 10.
During Dembinsky's presentation, logos of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure appeared twice in her lecture slides, ultimately disclosing the occupation army's "operational cloud" which is usually stored on internal military servers. The Israeli commander described the cloud as a "weapon platform."
The internal cloud used by the occupation consists of applications that enable marking bombing targets, viewing live drone footage of Gaza's sky through a portal, and fire, command, and control systems.
“The internal military systems quickly became overloaded due to the enormous number of soldiers and military personnel who were added to the platform as users, causing technical problems that threatened to slow down Israel’s military functions,” +972 Magazine reported, citing Dembinsky referring to the start of the occupation's daily assault on Gaza in October 2023.
Google negotiated with the Israeli occupation to deepen their partnership during the brutal war on Gaza, which has entered its seventh month recently with over 40,000 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children, a Google document viewed by the TIME news site revealed in April.
The tech giant has provided cloud computing services for the entity for years.
This report comes shortly after it was exposed that the Israeli military's airstrikes against individuals in Gaza utilized a previously undisclosed AI-powered database, dubbed Lavender, while forces operating the technology were authorized to kill 15 to 20 civilians during airstrikes allegedly targeting Resistance fighters.
