Live data from Hacker News

Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

timesofisrael.com

131–140 of 272 posts

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#131
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if s person is willing to completely ignore reality for pie in the sky…

There are at least three different claims here that I'd like to unpack: 1) "If you really have to pick a belief system to put your faith in, you can do much worse than traditional religion." Now, I'm a lifelong atheist, and atheism is one of the few things I never changed my mind on, but I came to the conclusion that this is probably true: at the very least, traditional religion is a stable belief system that won't d…

To be clear, I’m not asserting that (3) is the case. I’m just saying that as a practical matter it’s a small number and a lot of people that abandon traditional religion fall into your (2).

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#132
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isnt true at all. I just gave numerous examples that I've seen personally. Centrists who don't care one way or the other about Zionism certainly aren't the ones beating up Jews on the streets of London when Israel does something bad.

The guy who beat up a Jew in London screamed "fuck Jews" while he did it. Not shy about his views - like most of your other examples no doubt. There is close to no overlap between these people and the people who take pains to explain for the 15th time to a likely racist skeptic that they dont hate jews it's the state of israel they have a problem with. On the other hand, ive yet to hear a single person who purposeful…

> The guy who beat up a Jew in London screamed "fuck Jews" while he did it

> There is close to no overlap between these people and the people who take pains to explain for the 15th time to a likely racist skeptic that they dont hate jews it's the state of israel they have a problem with.

Yes, those specific anti-Zionists aren't anti-semites. These are the types of anti-Zionists that you'll find in tech circles who are educated, egalitarian minded people that are cognitively capable of separating the crimes of a state and the ethnic group inside it. That doesn't detract from the observation that there's an intersection and correlation between people who are anti-Zionist and people who are anti-semitic. You see this correlation manifest in alt-right neo-Nazi communities, who both hate Israel and hate Jews, go and read Stormfront or 4chan. And you see it manifest among Arab-Muslim nationalists. There isn't a group that hates Jews and don't also hate Israel.

Regarding the guy who was screaming "fuck Jews", he was probably motivated to action by what Israel was doing a day before. It didn't happen in a vacuum where his anti-semitism can be cleanly separated from his dislike of Israel. The two are related.

It's the same underlying psychology as people who are racist against Muslims because of Al Qaeda or ISIS, or people who are racist against Russians because of Putin, and so on.

https://musliminstitute.org/freethinking/culture/sorry-truth...

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#133
post #98

The problem from the perspective of many Jews (including myself) is that these kinds of protests and protestors tend to focus on Israel to the exclusion of any other state. Where is the protest of Google's relationships with dozens of other countries accused of major human rights violations? The double standard when it comes to Israel calls into question the motivation behind the protest and makes many Jews reasonabl…

The problem is that Israel is seen as a "friend state" and Israel claims to be a democracy. So we expect higher standards of ethics than most other countries. The other reason is that we (western countries) could have a strong influence to make the crimes stop.

Of course, "evil states" like Russia or China are not expected to behave well. And anyway, we (western countries and western companies) don't have much influence on them. So it's easy to abundantly criticize them.

Some "friend states" are clearly dictatorial and commit mass crimes, but we (western government and western opinions) don't expect much of them on human rights. Saudi Arabia started the Yemen war which killed 380,000 people (according to UNO), mostly Yemeni civilians, but who cares? Slaughtering a journalist in Turkey got more attention, because it was more spectacular.

Other "friend states" are less openly dictatorial (they have polls, even if often rigged) and only slaughter their political opponents. Then it's easy to just look elsewhere. Most African countries are in this category, from Egypt to Gabon, etc.

But Israel? Is it a democracy when its blocus of Gaza puts millions of people in a sort of giant jail? When hundreds of civilians are killed every year? When people can be thrown in jail by the administration for no public reason, and kept in for years without seeing a judge? In the same way, in 1945 there were far worse violations of the human rights outside of India than inside India, so why would anyone care for the way UK was ruling over India? And was France a democracy in 1960, when it ruled over Algeria with millions of second-class citizens and with a systemic use of torture?

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#134
post #6

“In her statement, Koren also singled out “Jewglers,” a forum for Jewish Google employees, for not accommodating Jews who hold anti-Zionist views.” Zionism is the belief that Israel has the right to exist, and that Jews have the right to live in Israel. If you are against this, your views are quite extremist and it is hard to find understanding and accommodation, particularly among fellow Jews.

> If you are against this, your views are quite extremist and it is hard to find understanding and accommodation, particularly among fellow Jews. It's a bit more complicated than this. Israel militarily occupies Palestine. And they institute an apartheid system that is unfair to Palestinians, denying basic rights to Palestinians -- they can take your property, they can restrict your travel, they can strangle your eco…

Of course the arabs in this area deserve better. Pretending Israel is the oppressor is not empathizing. Nor is believing in fake history in which some Palestinian state (or even major population) has ever existed. They're victims of PA/PLO/Fatah/Hamas and other such organizations as much as Russians are victims of their govt. Repeating their leadership's propaganda doesn't help them. To empathize with them is to recognize there are sane people living there who don't buy into this hogwash and are simply victims of circumstance.

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#135
post #19

I applaud her for her courage. Israel has seemingly been given leeway to do as they please when it comes to Palestianian freedom of movement. And Google's none the better with their AI drone programme. I mean Palestinians have it hard to put it lightly. Israel is an Apartheid State that's enacting a harsh Apartheid system against these people: * Illegal Settlers living in Palestine can vote in Israel but not Palestin…

in Italy whatever is said against the weekly human right violation perpetrated by Israel, newspapers will give space to the rabbi of Rome saying something like: "seems we have a nazi problem here in Italy, all the people criticising Israel clearly are just nazis in disguise" Same thing happened in Germany when they tried to forbid religious circumcision on infants.

Shulamit Aloni, Member of the Knesset (Israeli MP): 'it's a trick, we always use it' https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qkD5yfk8Qp0

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#136
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure if s person is willing to completely ignore reality for pie in the sky…

There are at least three different claims here that I'd like to unpack: 1) "If you really have to pick a belief system to put your faith in, you can do much worse than traditional religion." Now, I'm a lifelong atheist, and atheism is one of the few things I never changed my mind on, but I came to the conclusion that this is probably true: at the very least, traditional religion is a stable belief system that won't d…

>at the very least, traditional religion is a stable belief system that won't destroy your life.

That might be true in liberal western democracies, but there are many parts of the world where your particular choice of religion may well destroy your life or straight up get you killed, if the people behind the next coup don't share your beliefs. Even in the west you might hinder your own success if you pick a non-majority system.

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#137
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in an Evangelical church and I attend a Protestant church now (although not American) and the only place I've ever heard people claim that my fellow congregants believe that about Israel is online from people outside the church. I'm sure you'll be able to find _someone_ who believes it, but it is so weird to see people claiming something as a fact about your church that you've never encountered in nearly 40…

> What's infinitely more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage. What's really infinitely more likely is that israel and usa share some common enemies, and usa doesn't really have all that many geopolitical allies in the region to chose from. I don't know why everyone reaches for weird religious conspiracies when the obvious geopolitical explanation w…

These are state laws. Alabama, for example, does not share enemies with Israel nor is it involved in any geopolitics. So it's extremely unusual to have such laws even in one state and in this case there are dozens of such states. Do you know of any other state laws concerning other US allies, say KSA?

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#138
post #104
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that retaliation, itself, is not illegal or even necessarily morally dubious. If a company were to retaliate against an employee for stealing by firing them no reasonable person would find fault with that. Only retaliation for a protected activity is illegal. Is interfering with or undermining the company's business prospects in service of a political opinion a protected activity? I don't know…

Should you choose between holding a political view or having a job?

Not making any judgements on right or wrong but having a political view and expressing/promoting/pushing it at work are different things.

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boycotting Israel gets your company in trouble with various state governments in the US, like no supplying services to the government, and in Arkansas, it gets even more viral in that people you supply services to are forbidden from supplying services to the government. My RH contract specifically forbade boycotting Israel, I'm sure for those reasons. And of course, I imagine that Israel has laws about doing business…

Israel deserves to exist as much as any other country

Many will argue that settler-colonialist state based on religion does not have automatic right to exist similar to how white Rhodesia or apartheid South Africa (which used to be big friend of Israel) did not have right to exist and do not exist anymore.

What is also true is that jewish, muslim, christian and atheist/other religions living in current territory of Israel and Palestine have right to peacefully live in future state that treat all people equally. With Israeli settlements we are way pass the point of two state solution.

Re: Google employee resigns after ‘retaliation’ for protesting Israeli contract

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anti-Zionism is conflated with anti-semitism One reason people say that is perceptions of double standards. They see China get an easier time on their treatment of Uyghurs. Another reason people say that is because anti-Zionism is demonstrably correlated with anti-semitism. They see photos of someone at an anti-Israel rally giving the roman salute. They see people attacking Jews at random on the street whenever Isr…

A sizable portion of the Nazi party was very sympathetic to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Likewise, the Soviet Union was the first nation to recognize Israel and the Russian Jewish community was very important in the creation of Israel. More than 25% of the Jewish colonists came from Russia and other Soviet countries. The same Russia where pogroms were a routine in the XIX century. Zionism was a pretty…

> The same Russia where pogroms were a routine in the XIX century.

It's almost like the Jews who fled Judea / Beta Israel following the Roman crackdown after Bar Kochba weren't welcome in Russia. Someone should find a way to let them return there and live in peace.

Post reply on HN