On 5 June Google took down our running petition “STOP European Funding for Israeli Institutions – Stop Complicity in Genocide, Occupation and Apartheid” from their platform Google Drive and blocked the associated account without prior notice. There was no element in our petition that violated their terms of service or stated policy.
Amidst the ongoing genocidal war Israel is waging against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, EU funding is still flowing into Israel including institutions and companies directly involved in the Israeli military/security industrial complex. This is in direct contradiction to Horizon Europe’s own regulation stating, “Participation of third countries is conditioned on the respect of human rights” and “Beneficiaries must commit to upholding EU values”. Despite repeated appeals in the past by academics and human rights organizations, EU framework projects have been funding entities involved in grave human rights violations for 18 years. The cumulative funding given to Israel amounts to 2,6 billion €. Our current petition is addressed to the EU institutions demanding
· End all academic and research cooperation with Israeli institutions
· Revoke Israel’s Horizon Europe status
· Rebuild Palestinian academic institutions
· Investigate the human rights impact of past and future EU research funding to Israel
The petition also urges the EU to impose sanctions, including an arms embargo to end the current genocidal war and decades long occupation, colonization and apartheid in line with the provisional measures and advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The EU, as the top trade partner accounting nearly 30% of the total trade volume of Israel, has a great leverage to force Israel to comply with international law. The EU’s failure to act in accordance with obligations arising from the ruling of the world’s highest court contributes to the erosion of international law and betrays the core values of the EU itself, and further undermines its credibility and standing in the global world.
It is open to researchers, university staff and students based in Horizon eligible countries and European researchers based in any country. Already more than 3000 people endorsed this petition in just a week’s time. We denounce the attempt of Google to silence our voice. This is a violating the freedom of expression and right to access information.
We do not yield to this downright censorship to stifle legitimate debate in the public space. The peittion is now available on another platform here.
Thanks to the intervention from 7amleh, a Palestinian NGO that advocates digital rights and tracks censorship, Google has restored our account. But the damage had already been done, as it interrupted the process of collecting signatures. We demand that Google ends its online censorship.