The “IT For IDF” conference in Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, brought together tech firms from across the world to support the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza and beyond.
Many of the assembled companies are not household names in the United States, but several multinational firms — like Nokia, Dell, and Canon — were present at July 10 event.
The mission they had gathered to support was clear. Onstage, a brigadier general with the Israeli military gave a presentation that connected the Nakba, the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the current war on Gaza, and more wars in the decades to come. His call to action splashed across the big screen: “Each generation and its own turn — this is our watch!”
One company, however, was conspicuously absent: Google.
For the last two years, Google had been a marquee sponsor of IT For IDF — the company is a natural partner for the event, given Google Cloud’s foundational role in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract aimed at modernizing cloud computing operations across Israeli government that it shares with Amazon.
This year was supposed to be no different and, until just days before the conference started, a Google Cloud logo was displayed alongside other sponsors on the IT For IDF website. Then Google abruptly vanished from the site without explanation.
When asked by a news outlet about the logo’s disappearance, the conference organizers claimed they weren’t aware Google had been on their website and suggested its inclusion was an error. “It’s possible that we used their logo by mistake but they are not a sponsor,” a spokesperson told 404 Media, “as........