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.

  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    21 days ago

    Israel has been and still is targeting civilians, children, aid workers, hospitals, Refugee camps, ect. They have been explicit in their genocidal intent and actions. Hundreds of genocide scholars has recognized it as a genocide.

    Repeated evacuation orders, where somehow millions of people are supposed to evacuate in a mere 24 hours with no cell service, electricity, food, or water, is blatant ethnic cleansing

    Israel has repeatedly bombed evacuation routes, places outside the evacuation zones, and ‘safe’ zones

    Considered ‘safer zones’ by Israel, since a Safe Zone has an international definition that Israel fails to meet.

    Israel deliberately targets civilian areas as Power Targets:

    Although it is unprecedented for the Israeli army to attack more than 1,000 power targets in five days, the idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed by the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” from the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

    On top of the use of Lavender and Where’s Daddy which intentionally bomb whole families and civilians

    Israel has repeatedly refused any permanent ceasefire, and continues to prolong the talks by rejecting even the US/UN ceasefire and continually add unacceptable terms to prolong the ongoing genocide.

    Hundreds of Genocide Scholars have described this ethnic cleansing campaign as genocide because of the deliberate targeting of children/civilians and expressed intent by Israeli officials.

    So, when we look at the actions taken, the dropping of thousands and thousands of bombs in a couple of days, including phosphorus bombs, as we heard, on one of the most densely populated areas around the world, together with these proclamations of intent, this indeed constitutes genocidal killing, which is the first act, according to the convention, of genocide. And Israel, I must say, is also perpetrating act number two and three — that is, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating condition designed to bring about the destruction of the group by cutting off water, food, supply of energy, bombing hospitals, ordering the fast evictions of hospitals, which the World Health Organization has declared to be, quote, “a death sentence.” So, we’re seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide.

    “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza

    800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza

    Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

    AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC