Google parent company calls to reject BDS proposal at shareholders’ meeting

The idea to commission a report on whether its products and services contribute to human rights abuses in conflict areas is a BDS move against Israel, critics charge.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Alphabet board has joined Jewish groups in calling for participants at its upcoming annual shareholders’ meeting to nix an anti-Israel proposal that will be presented there by stockholders who oppose the Jewish state’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Proposal 9 demands the commissioning of an independent report to asses if the tech giant is doing enough due diligence to ensure that its customers weren’t using its products and services for “surveillance, censorship, and/or military purposes” that “contributes to human rights harms in conflict-affected and high-risk areas.”

The Israeli government and military are one of the customers it listed as offenders in this category, along with Russian, Chinese and Saudi Arabian security agencies.

It specified Alphabet’s Project Nimbus, run by its Google holding, as “reportedly support[ing] IDF operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including AI-powered facial recognition” processes and “enabling … AI-assisted targeting systems.”

Google had closed the seven-year Nimbus deal with Jerusalem in 2021 to transition many Israeli government ministries’ databases, including those of defense, education and finance, to the cloud.

A company spokesperson said in a statement at the time that the company’s services to Israel were not used for military purposes, and that all involved ministries had agreed “to comply with our terms of service and acceptable use policy.”

Google is heavily invested in Israel, just recently acquiring Wiz, an Israeli cloud software company, for $32 billion, in a move slammed by anti-Israel activists.

In the official notice it sent regarding the June 6 meeting, Alphabet noted that its board recommended voting against the proposal.

“Our human rights governance and management structure provides effective oversight of key human rights risks and mitigation strategies,” the board wrote.

“Our policies and principles are reviewed regularly to ensure we provide transparency and pursue AI responsibly to align with user goals, social responsibility, and widely accepted principles of international law and human rights,” it added.

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt panned the proposition as being “closely aligned with the objectives of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose goal is to delegitimize the State of Israel.”

He also called the proposal “a thinly disguised ploy to weaken Israel’s national security — and to undermine its right to defend itself — by pressuring Alphabet to withhold vital technology that supports the country’s self-defense capabilities.”

The proposal was brought by Zevin Asset Management, an investment firm that follows a set of standards approved by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to exclude companies from its portfolio that it sees as having a problematic social impact in the sphere of human rights.

The UNHRC is notorious for its anti-Israel bias.