Amazon exec wears pro-Palestine ‘River to Sea’ necklace in video

Amazon still has not acknowledged the kidnapping of an Israeli employee on October 7th, who has been held hostage by Hamas for more than a year.

By World Israel News Staff

A senior executive at Amazon sparked outrage after wearing a necklace featuring the Palestinian flag over the outline of the modern state of Israel in an official company video.

Ruba Borno, the vice president of specialists and partners at Amazon Web Services, wore the necklace while promoting an industry event taking place in Las Vegas later this year.

The starkly political nature of Borno’s necklace comes as the company has faced backlash for staying silent regarding the kidnapping of one of its employees in Israel.

“Does @rubaborno know that the map means ‘from the river to the sea’ and calls for the killing of all the Jews of Israel?” wrote pro-Israel group Hamas Atrocities on their X account.

“Does she know that Amazon employee, Sasha Trufanov, was abducted on October 7th and is still held by Hamas? Does she know that Amazon hasn’t acknowledged the kidnapping of their employee even once?”

Borno, who was born in Kuwait, is of Palestinian descent. According to a New York Post report, Borno’s family was expelled from Kuwait, along with the rest of the Palestinians in the country, after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat endorsed the Iraqi invasion of the country in 1990.

Beause one of Borno’s sisters was born in the U.S., the American government evacuated the family. Borno is believed to have spent the majority of her life in the U.S., and has worked for Amazon since 2021.

Amazon claimed in a statement to the Post that the company had not been aware of Borno’s controversial choice of necklace when the video was created.

“The video shot was not meant to be a political statement, but we’ve taken down the video and will repost a new one in the coming days,” an Amazon spokesperson told the Post.