Rights Group Urges Google to Cancel $45m Ads Deal with Israel
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States, issued the call in a statement on Friday.
The appeal followed a report by Drop Site News claiming that Google had signed a six-month contract with Israel’s advertising bureau, which operates under the prime minister’s office.
According to the report, the deal includes campaigns designed to obscure accounts of starvation and other war crimes in Gaza. The report noted that “publicly available contracts show that Israel’s advertising bureau … has since embarked on a mass advertising and public messaging effort to conceal the hunger crisis.”
The report added that the campaign relied on US-based social media influencers and heavy spending on paid ads, with tens of millions flowing to major tech platforms, including Google, YouTube, X, and Meta.
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In response, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad described it as “morally reprehensible” for the company to profit from the spread of such content while Israel faces accusations of genocide.
He stressed that US corporations should not participate in efforts to obscure the realities of war, especially as Palestinian civilians, including children, continue to be killed.
CAIR’s statement said technology firms have an ethical obligation to ensure their services are not used to distribute pro-genocide propaganda. It added: “If Google truly believes in human rights and ethical practices, it must cancel this contract and review its global advertising policies.”
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The organization further warned that Silicon Valley should not serve as a propaganda outlet for those accused of atrocities.
CAIR also sent a letter to major US media outlets urging them to consistently broadcast footage of the destruction in Gaza, including attacks it said have killed dozens of children daily.
Since October 2023, the Israeli brutal onslaught has killed more than 64,300 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to health authorities in the territory.
Source: Agencies
