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Amazon Deletes Promo Video of Executive Wearing Necklace Featuring Palestinian Flag Over Israel

Ruba Borno speaks at AWS re:Invent 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, Nov. 30, 2022. Photo: Noah Berger/AWS/Handout via REUTERS

Amazon pulled a promotional video this week in which one of its senior vice presidents was wearing a necklace with a pendant in the shape of the map of Israel but with the Palestinian flag imposed on top.

Dr. Ruba Borno is the vice president of global specialists and partner organizations for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and was hired by the company in November 2021. She wore the controversial necklace in a promotional clip for the upcoming AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

“The violence and loss of life happening every day in the Middle East is tragic, and at Amazon, our hearts and thoughts are with any person or community that’s affected,” an Amazon spokesperson told Fox Business. “Our leadership remains in regular contact with our teams based in the region to offer our support. The video shot was not meant to be a political statement, but we’ve taken down the video and will repost a new one in the coming days.”

Borno has not responded to Amazon’s decision to delete the video.

According to the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Michigan, Borno’s alma mater, the Amazon executive is a “Palestinian refugee who fled Kuwait during the first Gulf War with her family in 1990. Forced to abandon all their possessions and savings, her family was given just three days to evacuate to the United States, leaving behind everything they knew.”

The necklace worn by Borno in the recently deleted Amazon video sparked outrage on social media. Users criticized Amazon, vowed to cancel their Amazon Prime subscriptions and called for Borno to be fired. Some also noted that Alexander Trufanov, an employee of the Amazon subsidiary in Israel, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas-led terrorists during their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and is among the 101 hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip.

Amazon has yet to comment on Trufanov’s kidnapping, but two days after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassey addressed the massacre.

“The attacks against civilians in Israel are shocking and painful to watch,” he wrote in a post on X. “I have been in touch with our teammates there to make sure we do everything we can to help support their family’s and their safety, and to assist however we can in this very difficult time. We’re also in close contact with our humanitarian relief partners on the ground and will be supporting their efforts. Hoping that peace arrives as soon as possible.”

Borno and her family fled Kuwait when former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded the country in 1990 and came to the US as refugees granted political asylum.

“I’m Palestinian, my family’s Palestinian, and we were stateless, because Palestinians weren’t granted citizenship,” Borno said on the “No Turning Back” podcast with the McChrystal Group, a global advisory services firm. “And when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, he decreed that those [harboring] American citizens could be shot on sight. One of my sisters was born in the United States, so the US embassy called my parents and said, ‘You’ve got three days to decide if you want to evacuate and move to the United States.’”

The post Amazon Deletes Promo Video of Executive Wearing Necklace Featuring Palestinian Flag Over Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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How Hamas Lies About Israeli Hostages — With the BBC’s Help

The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA.

On Dec. 17, the BBC News website published a report by Yolande Knell and Rushdi Abualouf headlined “Gaza ceasefire talks in final stage, Palestinian negotiator tells BBC.” Readers of that report were told that:

Of 96 hostages still held in Gaza, 62 are assumed by Israel to still be alive.

As was the case in another BBC report published a week earlier, that portrayal fails to clarify that Hamas also holds two Israeli civilians who entered the Gaza Strip in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Readers are also told that Israel’s concern for the security of its civilians is “problematic” and a nod to the “far right”:

According to his spokesman, [Israel’s minister of defence] Katz told members of the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Monday: “We have not been this close to an agreement on the hostages since the previous deal,” referring to an exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners in Israel in November 2023.

He has since written on X: “My position on Gaza is clear. After we defeat Hamas’s military and governmental power in Gaza, Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action,” comparing this to the situation in the occupied West Bank.

“We will not allow any terrorist activity against Israeli communities and Israeli citizens from Gaza. We will not allow a return to the reality of before 7 October.”

Such comments are likely to be seen as problematic by negotiators trying to bridge gaps with Hamas. However, in Israel, they are seen as vital to guarantee the support of far-right Israeli cabinet ministers who have previously warned they would not agree to what they have described as a “reckless” deal in Gaza.

In a televised report about the talks which was aired on the BBC News channel on the same day, Rushdi Abualouf (located in Istanbul) told viewers that: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

“…also the first stage will allow the dead hostages — the civilian dead hostages — also will be released. So not only alive [sic] hostages but also the people who were killed in the airstrikes and they are civilians…”

With that highlighted statement Abualouf promoted and mainstreamed the long-standing Hamas propaganda whereby any deceased hostages were killed as a result of Israeli actions.

In August we saw that when such claims were shown to be false, the BBC failed to adequately inform its audiences when Hamas murdered six Israeli hostages, including American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

Among the civilian hostages known to be deceased, are those who were murdered during the October 7 onslaught and their bodies then abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip. They include Idan ShtiviJudith Weinstein HaggaiGadi Haggai,  Dror OrYair YaakovManny GodardIlan WeissEitan LevyOfra Keidar and two Thai nationals. Additional hostages were kidnapped alive and subsequently died or were murdered while in captivity.

Rushdi Abualouf not only promoted disinformation by claiming that the deceased civilian hostages were “killed in the airstrikes” — he deliberately misled BBC audiences by means of brazen promotion of the Hamas narrative, which is intended to erase its responsibility for the deaths of hostages and place the blame on Israel.

Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.

The post How Hamas Lies About Israeli Hostages — With the BBC’s Help first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Radio Host in Australia Fired for Covering ‘Free Palestine’ Sticker, Refusing to Defend Oct. 7 Hamas Attack

A view of Sydney, Australia. Photo: Reuters/David Gray.

A Jewish volunteer radio host was fired from a community radio station in Sydney, Australia, after covering up a “Free Palestine” sticker on station equipment and refusing to describe the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel as “resistance.”

Nicole, whose last name was not publicly shared for her safety, hosted a Latino music program in Spanish on Radio Skid Row, according to Sky News Australia, which was the first to reported on her firing. On Friday, the former radio host, who has Mexican and Israeli roots, talked about being fired in a video posted on social media.

“I just came out of a meeting with Radio Skid Row,” she said. “They basically just told me that if I cannot support the Oct. 7 attacks as ‘resistance’ and as something positive — basically saying also that it’s not true that anybody just killed or burned or anything — that if I cannot support the hostages being kept, then I don’t align with their values and I cannot be there. If I cannot support the fact that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist and that Jews don’t have a right to be in Israel, I can no longer be at their station.”

Radio Skid Row receives federal government funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation and support from the City of Sydney Council. It broadcasts a weekly show called “Pulse of Palestine,” which examines “life under occupation and the global Palestinian resistance,” according to a description posted on the radio station’s website. The show is hosted by Palestinian activist Ahmed Alabadla and was previously titled “Red Inverted Triangle: Resistance, Intifada, Tahreer,” which is now the name of a podcast also hosted by Alabadla. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the red inverted triangle is a symbol used by Hamas and supporters of the terrorist organization to glorify its use of violence.

Radio Skid Row has deleted its Instagram account as of Tuesday but Sky News Australia noted that it has shared numerous anti-Israel posts on the social media application, including one that glorified notorious Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is an internationally designated terrorist organization, Khaled hijacked a Tel Aviv-bound plane in 1969 and attempted another hijacking in 1970 of an El Al flight.

Nicole told the Australian news outlet that Radio Skid Row manager Manu Montero called her in for a meeting after she covered up on station equipment a sticker that featured a Palestinian flag and the words “Free Palestine.”

During the meeting, Nicole apologized for covering the “Free Palestine” sticker before talking to management first. She discussed her opposition to the “Free Palestine” movement and its connection to vandalism and other forms of violence in Australia, and how it has made “Jewish people feel uneasy and safe in Sydney.” She also talked about being a Jewish person who had family murdered in the Holocaust. She told Sky News Australia that another person who Montero invited to the meeting, a woman, laughed at Nicole when she talked about the Jewish experience and her heritage.

Montero responded by talking about the radio station’s opposition to Israel, accusing the country of colonization and saying Israel does not have a right to exist, Nicole recalled. Her husband, who attended the meeting to support her, asked Montero if Nicole could continue hosting her Skid News show if she stayed away from discussing politics. Montero replied no, that she had to actively support the Free Palestine movement, speak about it and attend pro-Palestinian rallies. Montero also denied that Oct. 7 happened entirely, Nicole told Sky News Australia.

Radio Skid Row and Montero have not publicly commented on Nicole’s firing.

The post Jewish Radio Host in Australia Fired for Covering ‘Free Palestine’ Sticker, Refusing to Defend Oct. 7 Hamas Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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ADL Applauds NY Governor Hochul for Signing New Social Media Transparency Law Against Online Hate Speech

A man types on a computer keyboard in Warsaw in this February 28, 2013 illustration file picture. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photo.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed gratitude to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for signing into law on Tuesday legislation that will help combat hate speech on major social media platforms and ensure a safer social media experience for all users.

Legislation S895B/A6789B, also known as the “Stop Hiding Hate Act,” requires social media companies to inform all users of its terms of service. It also requires social media companies to submit reports about their terms of service and content moderation policies to the New York State Attorney General for inspection, and provides solutions for violations. The new law forces major social media companies to be more transparent about their current policies on topics such as hate speech, disinformation, extremism, and racism, and will hold the companies accountable for hate content on their platforms.

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D, WFP-Manhattan) penned the “Stop Hiding Act” in partnership with Assembly Member Grace Lee (D-Manhattan) and the ADL. Together they have been advocating for its passage for years, according to the anti-hate organization.

“Today represents the culmination of the hard work of Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Lee and tireless advocacy from community organizations and constituents across New York who support this measure for greater internet transparency and safety,” Scott Richman, the regional director of ADL New York/New Jersey, said in a released statement. “We know there is still work to be done to protect vulnerable communities from hate and extremism online, but we commend Governor Hochul for taking this important step in creating a safer internet for all New Yorkers.”

Hoylman-Sigal said in a released statement that the new law “will help boost accountability and transparency for social media companies who currently face far too little regulation, and create a safer social media environment for all.”

“With white supremacy, antisemitism, islamophobia, anti-LGBTQ hatred and anti-AAPI violence all on the rise, social media companies must ensure that their platforms don’t advance disinformation and hate-fueled violence,” he added. “The current social media landscape makes it too easy for bad actors to promote false claims, hate and dangerous conspiracies, too often leading to violence like January 6 and the rise in antisemitism and islamophobia we have seen in the aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel.”

Lee noted that New York is only the second state in the US, after California, to sign into law a social media transparency bill that holds such companies accountable for their moderation policies and hate speech on their platform.

“Social media companies have created an environment where hate and disinformation spread like wildfire,” Lee explained. “Algorithms that prioritize the most attention-grabbing posts often amplify hateful language, giving it a massive platform. These companies have a responsibility to protect users from this hate, but have failed to do so. The ‘Stop Hiding Hate Act’ ensures greater accountability and transparency on social media, requiring companies to clearly outline the steps they are taking to eliminate hate on their platforms. It will provide critical protections for all users online and hold these platforms accountable to the public.”

The “Stop Hiding Act” was part of a legislative bill package that Governor Kathy Hochul signed on Tuesday. “With this legislative package, we are taking bold action to hold companies accountable, strengthen protections, and give consumers the transparency and security they need and deserve,” the governor said in a released statement.

The post ADL Applauds NY Governor Hochul for Signing New Social Media Transparency Law Against Online Hate Speech first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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