Sinn Féin and Labour leaders femwash genocide at Dublin Google event

The leaders of two political parties keen to tout their pro-Palestine credentials have attended an event at Google Ireland’s headquarters, a firm heavily complicit in so-called ‘Israel’s’ genocide in Palestine. Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin and Ivana Bacik of Labour both revealed the shallowness of their Palestine support by attending.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to put economic pressure on the Zionist terror regime, outlines Google’s role in the slaughter:

Project Nimbus, the joint $1.22 billion contract between Google and Amazon signed in 2021, provides cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence and other technology services to the Israeli government and the Israeli military. Nimbus offers the platform for the Israeli military to run deadly AI programs such as Lavender and Gospel – crucial to the Gaza genocide.

In April 2024, months after the ICJ ruled Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, Google signed a new contract with the IDF, allowing military units to access Google’s automation technologies, data and AI services.

Google — ‘Celebrating women’, while those in Gaza give birth without meds

The event in Dublin focused on the Google Community Women’s Leadership programme. It:

…celebrated 11 phenomenal women from across the Dublin Docklands…

This constitutes an example of ‘femwashing’; i.e. using a veneer of feminism in an attempt to associate positive values with a company engaged in appalling crimes. The activist group Your Tech Their Deaths, which regularly protests outside Google offices, highlighted the revolting hypocrisy on show. Criticising the attendance of politicians who claim to back Palestinian rights, they said:

By appearing on stage at Google you insult Gazan women who bury their children thanks to Google’s military contract with israel. Your actions mock Palestinian women required to birth babies without pain relief or after care, often with deformities due to chemical weapons used by israel and targeted by Google’s Project Nimbus.

By proclaiming yourself “Pro-Pal” to voters, then sitting next to gen@c!ders, you all whitewash the extermination of an entire people, plus insult the Irish women you are meant to represent.
Shame on you.

They went on to flag the attendance of Dublin councillors Kourtney Kenny and Gayle Ralph, who both supported the renaming of Herzog Park. The Dublin green space is named after war criminal former ‘Israeli’ president Chaim Herzog. The renaming bid failed due to behind-the-scenes chicanery. The campaign group slammed the decision to whitewash the image of a company participating in the:

…murder of Palestinians. Like Hind Rajab. The inspiring little girl that never got the opportunity to grow into an inspiring woman.

Sinn Féin’s McDonald posted on her Facebook after the event:

Labour leader Ivana Bacik’s X timeline is full of images featuring her attending pro-Palestine protests, alongside calls to pass the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB). The latter would put limited restrictions on trade with the Zionist pseudo-state. It seems she baulks when it comes to standing up against major centres of concentrated economic power, however.

Google is classed as a “pressure target” by the Palestinian-led BDS movement. The campaign:

…calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, social media pressure, strategic litigation, etc.

Consumer boycotts can be tricky against companies that have infiltrated our day-to-day lives to such an extent, hence its classification as a pressure target rather than as a consumer focused one. Alternatives do exist for us to extricate ourselves from Google’s web, however.

Ways to shift from under the thumb of Big Tech

Firefox can be used as an alternative to Chrome; Duck Duck Go as an alternative search platform; Thaura as an AI, rather than Gemini; Proton as an option for various services rather than Google Docs etc. Relatedly, the desire to escape unethical social media platforms has accelerated recently, with users flocking to pro-Palestine platform Upscrolled. Tiktok’s decision to ramp up censorship of anti-genocide accounts has been a key driver of the exodus.

The benefits of getting out from under the thumb of big tech go beyond helping Palestine. These are companies that lord it over us, paying next to no tax, all while hoovering up enormous profits. They then use this wealth to exercise undue influence on the political system.

Just another reason for supposedly progressive politicians to take a wide berth next time when it comes to aiding a glossy facade hiding a bloody reality.

Featured image via MiddleEastEye