Google parts with Cloud VP over his manifesto renouncing his antisemitism

- It takes real programmer brain to publicly post a 10k word solution for world peace littered with pop culture references

- If you are an executive for any company, maybe don't publicly share your opinion of the israeli/palestinian conflict, using your real name, and try to buy twitter ads pointing to it

So, I'll start off by saying - I work at google, in cloud, but not for this person, I don't know anything about him, and this is my own opinion.

I think if someone had asked him at an all hands for his position on the israel palestine conflict, and he said something like:

"I grew up in a strict Egyptian Muslim household, indoctrinated to hate Israel and Jews, and it wasn't until I was exposed to jewish people and became friends with them that I realized how toxic those ideas were, and I regret that I ever held those ideas and no longer do. And now I hope that everyone on both sides of that conflict can have the same realizations that I did, and realize that we are all human and just want to live in peace"

I don't think it would have been an issue, or at least not to this degree. It's possible to acknowledge a past flaw, talk about how you've taken steps to address, and move on in a productive way. But that's not what he did.

If you read the entire LinkedIn post, it's pretty cringey. It starts off going deep into how much he hated Jews, then talks about how long it took him to not hate Jews, then he takes a sharp right turn to point out that because he is .1% Ashkenazi according to 23andme, he's technically also Jewish, so isn't this whole thing just an idea? Aren't these political and cultural boundaries just ridiculous ideas we need to get past? Then he takes a swing at Zionism that I don't quite follow, and he wraps things up.

First off, no one asked him to share his thoughts on the subject. Second, it's easy to find someone attempting to co-opt your identity via a saliva DNA test offensive. Third, by trying to talk about how made-up these groups and identities are, it can come across as erasing them. Fourth, and finally, his political views on solving the Israel-Palestine conflict have nothing to do with his previous beliefs.

Again, if he stuck to what he used to believe, and how he sees that's wrong, that's less controversial. But he uses it as a springboard to offer up a grand unified theory of racial identity which, again, no one asked him for his ideas and solutions to this extremely complex problem.

Then, from the article, apparently he continued to espouse these views in public, defending them, referencing his .1% jewish heritage as a defense.

But setting aside all of the exact specifics - if you're a VP at any large company, you should know this is not acceptable. You have to be able to read the room, you have to listen to feedback, and you have to know how to communicate with others. You have to be able to build trust and rapport with your team, it's not about being "right". If he was unable to do that, as it seems like was the case, then he's not a good fit.

Assuming there's more to the story than what's at face value is really the part I was referring to.

I complemented Google for how they handled a similar situation in the comments of a HN article from a few weeks ago[0]. In that case, they reassigned their head of diversity in light of his former antisemitic statements which had been recently uncovered. Just like their "VP of developer relations for Google Cloud" Amr Awadallah, their "head of diversity" Kamau Bobb had publicly renounced their old ways but, given the nature of their position, it didn't make sense to keep them there.

The difference is in that case Google reassigned Bobb to a position which would not be compromised by their past. In this case, they outright fired Awadallah. That raises some red flags.

As many other commenters have pointed out, we don't know the whole story and probably never will. This line from the article might shed a little more light on the situation, though:

> Within the manifesto, Awadallah describes how he was "cautious" of VMware co-founder Mendel Rosenblum based on his last name

If Awadallah had a history of antisemitism while at the company that had been recently uncovered, it could make sense for him to be terminated. And if that were the case, I doubt Google could speak publicly about it.

I want to promote a society which doesn't hold people forever accountable for past mistakes and allows them to change and improve. But I also don't want to promote a society where misdeeds go entirely unpunished just because the perpetrator apologized in a social media post. It's hard to strike a balance and I'm hesitant to comment any more about this story without more information.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27381425