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.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    It’s arguable whether there’s a genocide taking place

    I love it when I know from the first sentence that there’s some awful apologia coming up… 🤦

    If Israel really wanted to eliminate everyone

    That’s a CHILD’S definition of genocide.

    The ACTUAL definition from the convention itself is thus, first paragraph bolding mine:

    any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

    • (a) Killing members of the group;
    • (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    • © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
    • (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    • (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
    — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[\[8\]](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention#cite_note-Convention-text-8)

    Using Redefining the word ‘genocide’ so easily disingenuously and/or out of ignorance really takes away from the weight scope of the term atrocities, unnecessarily defending the indefensible

    Fixed It for you.

    • Monomate@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      23 days ago

      Your own link states that “in part” definitions may lead to highly subjective conclusions.

      By this measure, the death penalty in the US would be considered genocide “in part” (especially if the judge, jurors, or clerks are mostly white and the executed person is of color, so as to establish that a “group” is targeting another group). A person acting in self-defense with a resulting death to the aggressor may also fall into the genocide criteria.

      If Israel is only intent on destroying the Hamas terrorist organization (it is technically a political party, but they broadened their horizons on October 7th, I guess…), and not the whole Gazan/Palestinian population, could it really still be labeled as genocide? As I said, some people will even say a single death may be genocide “in part,” so this widening of the definition just weakens the term, unfortunately.