Google fires employee over pro-Palestine protest at Israeli tech event
Google has fired a software engineer who disrupted a company-sponsored Israeli tech event in New York City, according to media reports and a campaign group.
A spokesperson for Google told the Middle East Eye website that the employee – who disrupted a keynote address by the head of Google Israel, Barak Regev, on Monday – was terminated for “interfering with an official company-sponsored event”.
Videos of the incident showed the employee speaking out against Google’s Project Nimbus, the company’s $1.2bn cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. He was heard shouting “I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide” and “Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger.”
No Tech for Apartheid, a campaign group, accused Google of engaging in a “clear cut act of retaliation”. It said the dismissed worker was “proud to be fired for refusing to be complicit in genocide”.
BREAKING—PRO-PALESTINE @googlecloud ENGINEER DISRUPTS @Google ISRAEL DIRECTOR AT GOOGLE-SPONSORED ISRAELI TECH CONFERENCE IN NYC.
The worker demanded that Google STOP using worker labor to power genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. #NoTechForApartheid pic.twitter.com/t2mqCqFFay
— No Tech For Apartheid (@NoTechApartheid) March 4, 2024
Bernie Sanders slams US Congress over ‘absurd’ hypocrisy on Gaza
United States Senator Bernie Sanders has slammed US lawmakers over the “absurd” hypocrisy of expressing concern over the suffering of Palestinians while continuing to support Israel’s war in Gaza.
In withering remarks directed at his colleagues in Congress, Sanders said lawmakers were engaging in the “fiction” that they are powerless to stop the death and suffering.
“It is absurd to criticise Netanyahu’s war in one breath and provide another $10bn to continue that war in the next. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this disaster is the fiction we tell ourselves here in Congress, and that is that there is nothing, just nothing that we can do,” Sanders said.
“Everybody knows what is happening,” Sanders added.
“We see it every day in the news and see the pictures of the emaciated children, of people bombed while they sleep. And yet Congress pretends as if we are powerless to stop it.”
The American people understand a simple truth that Congress ignores: It is absurd and hypocritical to criticize Netanyahu’s inhumane war in one breath, and provide him another $10 billion to continue that war in the next. pic.twitter.com/knLqrENPsN
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) March 8, 2024
Instead lets focus on the alleged rapes during Oct 7 again
US ambassador praises Japan for scheduling meeting on alleged sexual violence during Hamas attack
The US ambassador to Japan has praised Tokyo for exercising “true leadership” at the UN Security Council by scheduling a meeting to discuss allegations of sexual violence during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7. “Japan is setting the eyes of the world to see the full horror and depravity of Hamas’ use of sexual violence as a weapon,” Rahm Emanuel said in a post on X.
“We will not turn our back, turn our eyes away, or place our hands over our ears when it comes to the victims’ stories from October 7 and afterward. Japan is exercising true leadership.”
Japan, which currently holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, will chair a meeting on Monday to discuss a report by UN experts that found there are “reasonable grounds to believe” rape and gang rape occurred during the October 7 attack on Israel.
The report, however, did not draw conclusions “on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups”.
Hamas has denied that its fighters carried out sexual violence during their incursion into southern Israel.
And are they going to discuss the systematic abuse, including sexual abuse, by the IDF and in Israeli prisons as well?
Since 2002 at least https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/israel-inhuman-and-degrading-treatment-including-sexual-harassment-of-palestinian-women-and-girls-detained-in-neve-tertze-womens-prison-ramle
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against
The underlined sentence says enough. It's not about the victims, it's to further dehumanize Hamas (and Palestinians)
More double standards
China urges UNSC not to forget Gaza during vote on Sudan
China has appealed to the UN Security Council not to forget about Israel’s war on Gaza as the group adopted a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during the month of Ramadan.
“While adopting a resolution on a ceasefire during the month of Ramadan in Sudan, the Security Council must not forget that the people of Gaza are still suffering under bombardment,” China’s deputy UN ambassador, Dai Bing, told the council. “The international community must push for immediate ceasefire.”
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Anna Evstigneeva, meanwhile accused the US of “double standards” by “dragging out the adoption of a document on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip”. “The USA time and again uses it to veto, plays for time and demands that we wait for some results from its direct diplomacy on the ground. Nothing of the sort is proposed for Sudan,” she told the council before the vote.
Russia abstained from the vote, while the remaining 14 council members voted in favor of the British-drafted resolution.
War erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The UN says nearly 25 million people – half Sudan’s population – need aid, some eight million have fled their homes and hunger is rising.
Sudan is facing an even larger hunger crisis
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147287
The northeast African country is already in the grip of the world's largest displacement crisis, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, noted.
Fighting between the Sudanese Army and a rival group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left thousands dead and eight million displaced.
A staggering 14 million children are in desperate need of lifesaving assistance, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also said in a recent alert amid repeated concerns that the conflict may spillover Sudan’s borders, threatening lives and peace in the region, unless the fighting stops.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest hunger crisis, and the world rallied to respond. But today, the people of Sudan have been forgotten. Millions of lives and the peace and stability of an entire region are at stake,” Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the WFP said.
Another mess creating by the UK: Since 1956, when Sudan first gained independence from the United Kingdom, there have been only 11 years of peace.
