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.

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According to Wiz, the company reached $350 million in annual recurring revenue in February of this year.

By Joshua Marks and Amelie Botbol, JNS

Google’s parent company Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli cloud cybersecurity startup Wiz in a deal worth some $23 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

If the agreement is inked, it would represent the California tech giant’s biggest-ever buy (scorching the previous record of $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in 2012). It would also mark a significant achievement for Israel’s high-tech sector.

“This is the largest acquisition to ever happen in the Israeli high-tech sector. It’s a sign of the strength of the Israeli tech hub,” Dror Bin, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority, told JNS on Monday.

“It’s a sign of confidence that giants like Google show by making such an acquisition in Israel,” he added.

Intel’s $15 billion pickup of Mobileye in 2017 is the current Israeli record holder.

For its part, Google has shown interest in the Israeli market, in 2013 purchasing Waze for $1.1 billion, creating the Jewish state’s first domestic unicorn (a startup reaching $1 billion in valuation without being listed on the stock market).

While Wiz is headquartered in New York City with nearly a thousand employees scattered across North America and Europe, most of its engineering team is based in Tel Aviv, where the 40-year-old Israeli co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport was born.

Since its founding in Israel in 2020, the economic worth of the firm, which offers cybersecurity software for cloud computing, has skyrocketed. The company in May announced a funding round of $1 billion at a staggering $12 billion valuation.

According to Wiz, the company hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months and in February of this year reached $350 million in annual recurring revenue, with a 40% market share of Fortune 100 customers.

Wiz already partners with Google and other leading cloud companies, including Amazon and Microsoft.

It plans to hire 400 more people in 2024.

The local Israeli ecosystem consists of 9,000 different high-tech companies including early stage and early growth companies, large enterprises and multinationals.

Since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian terror group’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, the high-tech sector has worked to maintain its services to global customers and deliver on promises made to investors.

High-tech professionals launched the #NoMatterWhat campaign shortly after the beginning of the war to send the message that they continue to maintain the highest standards, despite some companies having had up to 20% of their workforces mobilized to serve the country.

“The Israel Innovation Authority, the government agency responsible for the high-tech sector, also continues to invest in the local ecosystem since the war started,” Bin told JNS.

“We have launched several programs and funds to secure early stage companies in Israel and make sure that the next wave of growth and innovation will occur,” he said.

“The fundamentals of the Israeli tech sector did not change. We still have the best entrepreneurs in the world. I think that this type of deal shows it is indeed the case,” he added.

While there are few details about what the acquisition will mean for Wiz’s operations, Bin sees it as very promising.

“Google is buying Wiz for a reason. It’s a great company with great leaders and great employees and most of all amazing technological solutions. I assume Google is buying it to keep growing the business,” Bin said.

“One of the amazing things about Wiz is that the company only started a few years ago and they managed to create a very high growth rate in its revenues and valuation. I am sure Google will continue this pace,” he added.

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