Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency
Back In mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld was googling the name of the nonprofit she runs, which raises money in the US on behalf of the leading humanitarian aid provider in Gaza. Atop the search results for her organization—UNRWA USA, partner to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—she saw a surprising ad. It read like a promo from the UN agency, but the link directed to an Israeli government website. Kronenfeld says she had found the beginnings of a months-long online advertising campaign by Israel to discredit and defund UNRWA.
About the time Kronenfeld encountered the ads, Israel had accused 12 UNRWA staffers of participating in the deadly attack by Hamas extremists on Israel last October. Israeli officials described UNRWA as a front for Hamas and urged governments such as the US to stop funding the agency. Kronenfeld’s impression was that Israel also wanted to tarnish, and cut off donations to, UNRWA USA.
In part due to UNRWA USA’s own Google search ads, donations to the organization had skyrocketed after Israel launched a full-scale war in Gaza to defeat Hamas, in the process triggering a food and shelter crisis. Kronenfeld says her organization raised over $32 million from about 73,000 donors in 2023, up from about $5 million from nearly 5,700 donors the year before.
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By buying ads for searches for “UNRWA” and “UNRWA USA,” the Israeli government now appeared to be aiming to draw potential donors to a webpage full of allegations 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 independence from military interests, and an outside review found 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—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.
From May through July when users queried over 300 terms related to UNRWA, the Israeli ads came up 44 percent of the time that both they and UNRWA USA ads were eligible to appear, according to analytics from UNRWA USA’s Google Ads account. Meanwhile, UNRWA USA ads showed up in just 34 percent of eligible circumstances.
UNRWA Takes Action
Using nearly $1.5 billion annually in donor support, UNRWA employs about 30,000 people to educate, feed, and provide care for millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and neighboring areas. UNRWA supporters say Israel doesn’t like that the agency preserves Palestinians’ refugee status, which arguably gives them a better shot at reclaiming occupied land someday.
Israel for decades has accused UNRWA of standing in the way of lasting peace by protecting Hamas and enabling the US-designated terrorist organization to indoctrinate generation after generation with hateful ideology.
The agency has acted in response to Israel’s accusations. UNRWA this year has fired 13 employees, including nine whom an oversight body determined may have been involved in last year’s Hamas attack based on evidence provided by Israel. The US has paused funding to UNRWA since January, while other countries that cut off dollars to the agency this year, including Germany and Switzerland, pledged to reopen the spigot.
UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, has said that his organization plays a neutral and vital role in the region and that it engages in screening and training to keep Hamas sympathizers out of its ranks.
Kronenfeld, who is Jewish, says Lazzarini’s transparency and good-faith efforts have left her feeling comfortable about her role. She joined UNRWA USA in 2020 because her grandfather had escaped Nazi Germany and instilled in her that no one should be brutalized ever again based on where they were born. Among her initiatives was ramping up online advertising, with the aim of bringing in at least $3.90 for every $1 spent.
Driven by the war, the return on investment has been $25 on every $1 spent this year, but the competition from Israel on Google has meant UNRWA USA is winning fewer advertising auctions and likely getting its message shown to fewer users.