Google has been matching donations made by its employees across the world to pro-Israeli charities in the US, including one supporting Israeli soldiers who are fighting in Gaza, and a Christian Zionist group that aims to help Israel “reclaim” the West Bank.
Leaked internal webpages seen by Middle East Eye show that Google has helped facilitate donations to a non-profit organisation called Friends of the Israeli Defence Forces (FIDF) and HaYovel, an organisation that sends volunteers to work on farms in illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
The tech giant allows its employees to donate a percentage of their salary to causes of their choice through a corporate giving platform called Benevity, a Canadian-based company which counts some of the biggest corporations in the US among its customers.
Google then matches those donations.
The FIDF, based in New York City, is a registered not-for-profit charity supporting Israeli soldiers and veterans.
Its work includes funding “programs for combat soldiers aimed at alleviating financial stress, economic insecurity, or distraction, allowing their minds to focus entirely on the complex military missions at hand”.
Since the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel and the launch of Israel’s war in Gaza, the FIDF has reportedly claimed to have fundraised at least $34.5 million in support for Israeli soldiers and has said it “is funding the majority of support that IDF soldiers are receiving, distributed across the entire military, to reach more soldiers than any other organisation”.
The FIDF also offers an “adopt a brigade” scheme, which allows supporters to donate to specific military units through food vouchers, grants, and a commander-discretionary fund that provides “care for the emotional well-being of its soldiers”.
The FIDF supports units such as the Golani Brigade, the Iron Trails Brigade, the Combat Intelligence Corps, the Paratroopers Brigade, and the navy’s Shayatet 3 and Daburim squadrons.
HaYovel, a Christian Zionist organisation based in Missouri, says its goal is to help further the “prophetic tradition” of a region that “many incorrectly refer to as the West Bank”.
It takes volunteers to tend to farms on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, which it refers to as “Judea and Samaria”, and provides training to help participants to “take home the tools you need to become an ambassador for Israel”.
Since 7 October last year, HaYovel has said it has bought $3.5 million worth of security equipment for Israeli settler communities across the West Bank. The non-profit also noted in its promotional material that it is stepping in to help Jewish farmers who may have lost staff because they have enlisted in the Israeli army.
Google employees also have the option to donate to a fundraising platform called IsraelGives through Benevity. Last year, the Guardian reported that IsraelGives allowed US-based donors to donate millions of dollars to causes, including illegal West Bank settlements, paramilitary groups and Israeli military units.
A spokesperson for Google told Middle East Eye the tech-giant had been using Benevity for more than a decade and that Benevity vets organisations listed on its platform.
“For more than 15 years, we’ve given employees a credit to donate to a charity of their choosing at the end of each year. They can select from more than 200,000 eligible organizations around the world,” said the spokesperson.
“Our corporate giving program is administered by Benevity, a third party vendor which is used by many large organisations. Benevity hosts our giving platforms and regularly vets each eligible organization to ensure compliance with their eligibility policies.”
Benevity had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Criticism over Nimbus
Google is already facing growing pressure from many of its own employees over its ties to Israel through Project Nimbus – a $1.2 billion partnership with Amazon to provide cloud computing and AI services to Israel’s government and army.
On Tuesday, the New York Times and Intercept reported on documents that revealed Google officials voiced concern that the company’s involvement in Project Nimbus would harm its reputation and potentially link the company to human rights violations.
The documents showed that Google officials directly briefed Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian on their concerns over the company initiating Nimbus.
Google’s lawyers, policy team employees and outside consultants who were asked by the tech giant to assess the risks of the agreement explicitly wrote that “Google Cloud services could be used [by the Israeli Ministry of Defence and Israeli Security Agency] for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights violations, including Israeli activity in the West Bank.”
Consultants who were approached to assess the risks on taking on Nimbus also called on Google to embed its AI principles into the contract with Israel, which would commit the Israeli government not to use Nimbus for surveillance or weapons to harm people.
But when Google negotiated Nimbus with Israel, the tech giant did not include the AI principles in the contract. The contract did, however, allow Google to suspend customers if they violated the company’s terms and acceptable use policy, which forbids clients from using Google technology to undermine individual legal rights, break the law or spread computer viruses.
Over the last year, Google has also faced intense internal dissent after it fired 50 employees for staging sit-ins to oppose Project Nimbus at the company’s offices in New York and California.
Under the banner of “Googlers against Genocide”, workers have told MEE how they have endured intimidation from the company and other workers for their pro-Palestine activism.
No Tech for Apartheid, a group of tech workers who campaign against Silicon Valley’s involvement with Israel, condemned Google and Kurian for its repeated refusal to acknowledge concerns surrounding Nimbus.
“Google ignored its own human rights consultants and lawyers who raised concerns about cloud permitted uses, AI principles, reputational risk, conflict with international authorities, and non-compliance with international human rights law,” No Tech For Apartheid said in a statement on Tuesday.
“For years, Google has trotted out the same copy-and-pasted statement in response to mounting employee dissent against Project Nimbus.”
Earlier this year, Apple workers criticised the company for matching employee donations to organisations with ties to the Israeli military assault on Gaza and ongoing illegal settlement development in the West Bank.
Like Google, Apple uses Benevity to allow its employees to donate to charitable causes in its database. Causes supported by Apple also included the FIDF, HaYovel and IsraelGives.
Apple workers in an open-letter called on the company to “promptly investigate and cease matching donations to all organizations that further illegal settlements in occupied territories and support the IDF”.
