V-POL Audit: Google

V-POL Audit — Google

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

Following the October 2023 Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, CEO Sundar Pichai issued an internal email announcing $8 million in grants to nonprofits providing humanitarian relief “in Israel and Gaza” ¹. The email condemned the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia and acknowledged that “Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers are deeply affected” ¹.

Google has not issued any corporate statement explicitly condemning Israeli military operations, settlement expansion, or violations of international humanitarian law ². No public statement from Google/Alphabet has been identified in response to the ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 19, 2024, which determined Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory to be unlawful ³. No public statement from Google/Alphabet has been identified following the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant issued in November 2024 ⁴. No corporate response to the UN A/HRC/59/23 report (Albanese, July 2025) naming Alphabet among approximately 48 corporate actors enabling Israel’s occupation has been identified ⁵.

Google has historically made public corporate statements on geopolitical and social issues including Black Lives Matter (2020), the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022), and LGBTQ+ rights globally ¹. No comparable corporate statement has been issued regarding Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza, destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, or Israeli settlement expansion ¹.

Google frames its Israeli operations as standard commercial and technology market activity ¹. Project Nimbus announcement language describes Israel as a strategic cloud market without contextual reference to the occupation ¹. Google careers pages describe Tel Aviv and Haifa offices as innovation centres without geopolitical framing ¹.

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

Project Nimbus: A $1.2 billion cloud computing contract (ceiling value) awarded in 2021, shared between Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, provides cloud infrastructure to Israeli government ministries ¹⁶. The contract covers all Israeli government entities including the Ministry of Defense ⁷. The Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization is confirmed as an eligible Nimbus customer under the contract ⁶. The Settlement Division administers settlement development in the West Bank under Israeli government funding ⁶.

Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Google expedited the Israeli Ministry of Defence’s request for expanded Vertex AI access within weeks ⁶⁷. By mid-November 2023, Google granted the requested access ⁶⁷. The Israeli military’s internal cloud hosts “target bank” with tens of thousands of targets updated in real time, hosted on infrastructure provided through Project Nimbus ⁶.

The Nimbus contract includes a secret code system requiring Google/Amazon to send hidden payments to Israel revealing which foreign court ordered data disclosure; amounts correspond to country phone codes ⁸⁹. Israel required this mechanism to track foreign legal demands ⁸⁹. Project Nimbus operates under bespoke “Adjusted Terms of Service” rather than Google’s standard cloud terms, giving the Israeli government total discretion over what Google products it could use ⁶¹⁰.

Google Maps displays Israeli settlements in the West Bank while systematically omitting or under-representing approximately 220 Palestinian villages in Area C ¹¹. Many Palestinian communities are absent from the map ¹¹. Route planning from Ramallah to Nablus via the West Bank adds 4.5 hours compared to the actual 45-minute drive, as Google Maps routes through Israel ¹¹.

Google.org provided $1M funding for 2023 and renewed 2025-2028 for AI research at Tel Aviv University Center for AI and Data Science (TAD) ¹².

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

In March 2024, Google fired a software engineer after they interrupted a company-sponsored Israeli tech conference event in New York City, shouting “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid or surveillance” ¹³. Following sit-in protests by No Tech for Apartheid members at Google offices in Sunnyvale and New York City in April 2024, Google fired 28 employees ¹⁴. Subsequent firings brought the total to over 50 ¹⁴. Google stated the additional terminations followed an investigation identifying employees who “physically disrupted” colleagues and concealed their identities ¹⁴.

Fired workers filed a complaint with the US National Labor Relations Board in May 2024, alleging Google retaliated against them for protected concerted activity ¹⁵. A federal judge subsequently ruled that former Google employees may proceed with retaliation claims against the company ¹⁶. Following the April firings, Sundar Pichai issued a company-wide memo urging employees to keep “politics” out of the workplace, describing Google as “a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers” ¹⁴.

In October 2024, YouTube removed the channels of three Palestinian human rights organizations — Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) — deleting more than 700 videos documenting Israeli military operations ¹⁷. Removals cited US sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on these organizations for their ICC cooperation ¹⁷.

YouTube issued multiple “strikes” against Al Jazeera Arabic content relating to Gaza, with some videos removed entirely and others restricted through age-gating ¹⁸. Al Jazeera English’s main channel was not subject to comparable restrictions, demonstrating language-based discriminatory moderation ¹⁸. Reporting indicated that officials at YouTube and other platforms cooperated through undisclosed back channels with a group of volunteers from Israel’s tech sector to facilitate the removal of content critical of Israel ¹⁸.

In February 2025, Google removed its longstanding public commitment that it would not deploy AI for weapons or for “surveillance violating internationally accepted norms” ¹⁹²⁰. The original 2018 AI principles explicitly excluded weapons development and mass surveillance ²¹²⁰. The revised principles replaced this with language permitting Google to “proceed where we believe that the overall likely benefits substantially exceed the foreseeable risks” and explicitly permit work on “advanced defense security and government cybersecurity missions” ¹⁹.

No public evidence identified of Google selling physical consumer products subject to settlement-origin labeling requirements.

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

Google does not market its products using Israeli military heritage, intelligence sector origins, or “battle-tested” branding. The company markets its Israel R&D center as an innovation hub.

Google (Alphabet) announced the acquisition of Wiz, a cloud security company, for approximately $32 billion in March 2025 ²². All four Wiz founders (Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik) served in Israeli military Unit 8200, Israel’s primary signals intelligence unit ²². Following acquisition, Assaf Rappaport joined Google Cloud leadership ²².

No evidence identified of Google sponsoring Israeli government cultural diplomacy campaigns, Israeli tourism promotion events, or the formal “Brand Israel” government public relations programme. Academic research collaborations with Technion, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and Ben-Gurion University are ongoing but framed as commercial R&D partnerships ⁶¹².

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

Google/Alphabet’s reported federal lobbying expenditure is $9.6–13 million annually per OpenSecrets, covering a wide range of technology policy issues including antitrust, privacy, and AI regulation ²³. No Israel-specific lobbying activity has been disclosed ²³. No evidence identified of Google formally adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. No evidence identified of Google holding leadership roles in AIPAC, Christians United for Israel, or comparable Israel-focused political advocacy organisations.

Google matches employee donations — via its Benevity third-party corporate giving platform — to Friends of the Israeli Defence Forces (FIDF) and HaYovel ²⁴. FIDF provides financial and welfare support to active Israeli military personnel and their families ²⁴. HaYovel is a Christian Zionist organization that facilitates volunteer labor on Israeli settlement farms in the occupied West Bank and has reportedly provided $3.5 million in security equipment to West Bank settlers since October 2023 ²⁴. The Jewish National Fund is confirmed listed on Benevity corporate giving platform as eligible for employee donation matching ²⁵.

At the 2022 AGM, a shareholder resolution requesting issuance of a report on Project Nimbus received 544,653,039 votes against (90.8%) and 55,301,799 votes for (9.2%) ²⁶. Zevin Asset Management filed a proposal (Proposal 9) requesting Alphabet commission an independent human rights due diligence review of Project Nimbus at the 2025 AGM ²⁷²⁸. The resolution received approximately 4.5% support and was opposed by Alphabet’s board ²⁷²⁸. JLens Network coordinated opposition to Proposal 9, urging shareholders to vote against it ²⁷.

Following the October 7, 2023 attack, Google expedited the Israeli Ministry of Defence’s request for expanded Vertex AI access within weeks, constituting prioritized resource allocation to Israeli military digital operations during active conflict ⁷. The October 2023 relief announcement directed funds to nonprofits operating in both Israel and Gaza ¹.

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

Alphabet Inc.’s corporate charter and governance documents do not tie Google’s mission to advancing Israeli or Zionist political goals ¹. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” — commercially defined ¹. No golden shares, state-held equity, or charter restrictions link Google to Israeli state policy objectives. Google is a publicly traded US corporation.

Alphabet’s Class B shares — held by Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Sundar Pichai — carry 10 votes per share versus 1 vote per Class A share ²⁹. Brin holds approximately 37–38 million Class B shares conferring approximately 25–26% of total voting power ²⁹. Page holds approximately 26% ²⁹. Brin and Page together control a majority of total voting power ²⁹. This concentration means any governance challenge on Nimbus or human rights due diligence is structurally insuperable without founder acquiescence ²⁹.

Executive & Leadership Footprint

Sergey Brin made a $1 million donation to HIAS in 2009 ³⁰. The Brin Wojcicki Foundation has made grants to medical research, COVID-related science, and Jewish communal organisations including Hebrew University of Jerusalem ³¹.

In July 2025, Brin posted in an internal Google employee forum characterizing the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s report on corporate complicity as produced by a “transparently antisemitic” organisation, adding: “throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides” ³². A spokesperson stated his “comments came in response to an internal discussion that was citing a plainly biased and misleading report” ³².

Sundar Pichai has made no personal public statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict beyond the October 2023 internal email and the April 2024 post-firings memo ¹¹⁴. No public statement from Pichai identified in response to the ICJ Advisory Opinion, ICC arrest warrants, or UN A/HRC/59/23 report ³⁴⁵.

Eric Schmidt (former CEO 2001–2011; former Executive Chairman 2015–2017; stepped down from Alphabet board 2019) served as Chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) from its establishment through the publication of its Final Report in March 2021 ³³. The NSCAI Final Report explicitly references collaboration with Israel as a key allied partner for military AI development and recommends deep US-Israel AI collaboration in defence and intelligence contexts ³³. The alignment between the NSCAI framework’s language and Google’s February 2025 revised AI principles — both permitting “advanced defense security and government cybersecurity missions” subject to a balancing test — represents a structural nexus between Schmidt’s governmental work and subsequent Google policy direction ¹⁹³³.

John Hennessy (Chair, Alphabet Board) is a former President of Stanford University ²⁹. No evidence identified of Hennessy holding leadership roles in AIPAC, ADL, FIDF, JNF, or comparable Israel-focused organisations. No evidence identified of current Google or Alphabet board members holding leadership roles in AIPAC, ADL, FIDF, JNF, or comparable Israel-focused political advocacy organisations.

End Notes