The facts are clear. The world’s leading genocide scholars have formally ruled that Israel’s campaign in Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide. The International Court of Justice has already imposed provisional measures recognizing the plausible risk of genocide. Despite this, Google and YouTube are taking money directly from the Israeli government to pump out propaganda, even when the content breaches their own rules. These contracts show the platforms are not neutral hosts but paid accomplices profiting from atrocity.
World’s Leading Scholars Say Gaza Meets the Legal Definition of Genocide
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), a body of nearly 500 specialists from around the world, has adopted a resolution stating that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide under Article II of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
On 17 June 2025, Israel’s Government Advertising Bureau approved emergency, no-bid contracts for international propaganda campaigns worth ninety million shekels for Google DV360 and sixty million shekels for YouTube. Outbrain and Teads were allocated seven million and Twitter ten million.
The ongoing contracts run from June through December 2025, explicitly covering the period of Operation Am Kal-Lavi, the period covering the 12 day war when Israel launched an unprovoked attacked Iran. The state protocol describes the purchases as “air time” for government messaging, naming Google and YouTube as chosen suppliers because they hold “the infrastructure and knowledge required.” These are emergency propaganda buys executed during an operation that scholars and courts define as genocide.
Reuters documented Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs ads with masked gunmen, explosions and blurred graphic footage appearing in children’s mobile games across Europe. The message was unambiguous: “We will make sure that those who harm us pay a heavy price.”
Game makers said these ads slipped through in error. At the same time European users reported Israeli government YouTube ads describing Gaza operations as “one of the largest humanitarian missions in the world” with the slogan “Smiles don’t lie. Hamas does.” Greek outlet Solomon traced the campaign to the Israeli MFA and documented its spread across the EU. Other ads warned Europeans that Iran’s ballistic missile program placed them within striking distance. These were not organic views. They were purchased impressions delivered by Google’s ad pipes.
Israel also purchased Google search ads to discredit UNRWA, Gaza’s main relief agency. UNRWA’s commissioner general confirmed that when potential donors searched for the agency the top result was an Israeli government ad undermining its work. Google accepted that spend even as starvation in Gaza deepened. The pattern is clear. Paid propaganda was deployed to influence children, European voters, and potential aid donors in the middle of a genocide.
Ads That Break Google’s Own Rules
Google and YouTube’s advertising policies explicitly prohibit what these campaigns delivered. The Sensitive Events policy bans ads exploiting terrorism, conflict, or mass violence. The Shocking Content policy bans ads with gruesome imagery, graphic trauma, or designed to shock. Google claims to restrict political and violent ads from reaching children, yet Reuters proved otherwise. Misrepresentation policies prohibit misleading claims, yet ads framing a siege as a humanitarian mission were approved and distributed.
Google’s Display & Video 360 platform is bound by these same policies. The very contract Israel bought, ninety million shekels worth, was supposed to comply with rules that would have blocked its own creatives. That is the definition of complicity. The rules are written, the violations documented, and the contracts signed.
This story does not stop at advertising. Google and Amazon jointly signed a billion-dollar deal to provide cloud infrastructure for the Israeli government. Despite public assurances, reporting shows Google Cloud teams have worked directly with military-linked entities under Project Nimbus.
In April 2024, Google fired twenty-eight workers for protesting this deal. Cloud and ads are Alphabet’s core businesses. Both are deeply entangled with a state accused of genocide. At the same time Google enabled Israel’s campaign against humanitarian agencies via paid search redirection, undermining relief efforts at the height of starvation. And YouTube’s moderation failures reveal a double standard. The company enforces political ad rules aggressively in some conflicts but looks the other way when the advertiser is Israel.
Google Also Hides Destruction in Gaza
Satellite providers and UN agencies have published clear before-and-after images of Gaza neighborhoods erased by bombardment, and at one point, Google’s own mapping software showed images just like them. But Google Maps and Earth now often show outdated tiles by default. This story was first covered by us at the Crustian Daily a month ago, in early August.
Google’s Quiet Censorship of Gaza’s Satellite Imagery
Open Google Maps. Zoom in on Gaza. The streets look mostly intact, buildings stand in place, and the dense neighborhoods of Rafah, Khan Younis, and Gaza City are frozen in time. There is no sign of the pulverized city blocks, very little scarred earth, not much hint of the mass displacement that has reshaped the territory.
While Google has added some late-2024 imagery, many areas of Gaza still display pre-Genocide views unless users dig into historical layers. The decision to hide the most recent images is a clear intention to facilitate the Genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by the Israeli military.
In practice, this move dulls the immediacy of destruction for most casual users. In a genocide context, that default choice helps mute international outrage. Combined with Google’s paid role distributing propaganda, the picture is one of systematic information management favoring the aggressor.
Alphabet is is taking one hundred and fifty million shekels directly from the Israeli government for six months of propaganda. It is serving ads that clearly violate its own rules on sensitive events, shocking content, and child safety. It is undermining humanitarian relief by selling search ads that block aid fundraising. It is providing cloud infrastructure under Nimbus that protesters say directly enables military operations. It is offering map products that lag reality, muting the visibility of Gaza’s destruction. This is profit extracted directly from genocide.
The most damning part about the advertisement deal itself, may be when the deal was signed. June of 2025, a little under a year after the ICJ had made it’s preliminary ruling that Genocide was plausible in the Gaza Strip. Despite the calls from the world’s courts, Google allowed this new deal to be signed.
A government accused of genocide bought reach and credibility from Google and YouTube. The companies took the money, broke their own rules, and fired workers who protested. They sold cloud and ads alike, while their maps softened the evidence of destruction. None of this is neutral. All of it is profitable. This is what cashing in on genocide looks like in the digital age. If Google and YouTube want to be something other than the pipelines of atrocity, they must cut off the spend, enforce their own rules, and show the world what they did with the money.