Sergey Brin, Google’s co‑founder, sharply criticized the United Nations over the weekend, calling the organization “transparently antisemitic” in an internal forum for employees, according to screenshots from the group.
Brin’s remarks came in response to a report released last month by the UN, which claimed that tech companies— including Google and its parent company Alphabet—benefited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence division, where workers were debating the report, according to the screenshots.
Brin, who emigrated to the U.S. as a child with his Jewish parents fleeing antisemitism in the Soviet Union, returned to Google in 2023 specifically to help push forward its artificial intelligence efforts, particularly as a response to the success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
A 'biased and misleading report'
The report Brin referred to was authored by the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Italian legal scholar Francesca Albanese. Recently, the United States’ UN envoy called for her removal, citing antisemitism and bias against Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also rejected the allegations, asserting that Israel is defending itself against attempted genocide by Hamas.
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Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories
(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/ AFP)
In a statement following the public disclosure of Brin’s comments, he clarified: “My remarks were part of an internal discussion among company employees, in which a clearly biased and misleading UN report was being quoted.” Brin’s response provoked anger among some employees—especially pro‑Palestinian ones—who expressed outrage in internal messages.
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Google's leadership has regularly faced internal employee protests over the company’s cooperation with Israel following the Hamas attack on October 7, during which approximately 1,200 people were killed.
Project Nimbus
The UN report asserted that major U.S. tech firms should be held accountable for their involvement in IDF operations in Gaza. It referenced comments from expert Chris Albanese, who claimed that tech giants cooperated indiscriminately with the IDF’s increasing demand for cloud and computing services—particularly in the wake of the massive data influx caused by Israel’s control over Gaza.
Central to the report is a $1.2 billion government cloud contract signed in 2021 between Israel and Google and Amazon, known as Project Nimbus. The report argues that these companies provided “essential cloud and AI infrastructure” to Israel after its internal military systems were overwhelmed during the Hamas attack.
Despite Google’s public efforts to distance itself from direct ties with Israel’s defense apparatus, internal documents from its cloud division reportedly show that employees actively assisted Israel’s Defense Ministry and IDF in deploying AI technologies after October 7. In February, Google even withdrew its original commitment not to enable its technologies for military use.