After seeing the ads—paid for by the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, according to details shown when clicking on the menu button beside them—Mara Kronenfeld and her staff of seven quickly appealed to Google for help fighting what they viewed as a misinformation campaign.
What has happened since shows the delicate relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, Israel, and the limits of the company’s policing of alleged misinformation in ads. Several current and former Google employees tell WIRED the anti-UNRWA campaign is just one volley of ads that Israel has orchestrated in recent months that have drawn complaints both inside and outside of the company. The ads about UNRWA and another campaign targeting the Middle East have not been previously reported.
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By buying ads for Google searches for “UNRWA” and “UNRWA USA,” the Israeli government now appeared to be aiming to draw potential donors to [a webpage full of allegations](https://govextra.gov.il/unrwa/unrwa/) about why the UNRWA couldn’t be trusted. The page claims the UN agency has not declared whether employing members of Hamas would violate its neutrality and that the agency doesn’t investigate its facilities for abuse by extremists. In fact, UNRWA [does require](https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/content/resources/unrwa-code-of-ethics-v4-2023-english_1.pdf) independence from military interests, and an outside review [found](https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2024/04/unrwa_independent_review_on_neutrality.pdf) evidence of facility inspections, though it suggested the checkups happen more frequently.
After seeing the ads—paid for by the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, according to details shown when clicking on the menu button beside them—Mara Kronenfeld and her staff of seven quickly appealed to Google for help fighting what they viewed as a misinformation campaign.
What has happened since shows the delicate relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, Israel, and the limits of the company’s policing of alleged misinformation in ads. Several current and former Google employees tell WIRED the anti-UNRWA campaign is just one volley of ads that Israel has orchestrated in recent months that have drawn complaints both inside and outside of the company. The ads about UNRWA and another campaign targeting the Middle East have not been previously reported.
Full story here: [https://www.wired.com/story/israel-unrwa-usa-hamas-google-search-ads/](https://www.wired.com/story/israel-unrwa-usa-hamas-google-search-ads/)
This is barely news. Everyone uses ads. This very post is a wiredmagazine ad.