Ruba Borno Amazon Web Services (AWS) executive sparks outrage and condemnation after appearing in a company video wearing a necklace with Palestinian flag. When expressing personal political beliefs and alliances at the workplace leads to questions of company neutrality.
An Amazon executive has sparked widespread condemnation after appearing in a company video wearing a pendant shaped like a map of Israel emblazoned with the Palestinian flag.
Ruba Borno, vice president of Global Specialists and Partner Organizations for Amazon Web Services, was spotted donning the necklace in a video promoting a company conference in Las Vegas.
Wow. Amazon sure was quick to remove an official company video of its senior VP Ruba Borno — wearing a “From the river to the sea” necklace.👇
But more than a year later and Amazon still hasn’t acknowledged its employee — Sasha Trufanov — was taken hostage and remains captive. pic.twitter.com/kFhisqLqsN
— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) October 14, 2024
Amazon executive furore over political statement
The video led to demands that users boycott the tech behemoth, raising questions to what degree an employee can seemingly appear to support a ‘political’ cause that is divisive.
Borno, a Palestinian by birth, fled Kuwait with her parents during the first Gulf War in 1990. The family came to the United States, where Borno received advanced degrees in electrical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the University of Michigan.
Seeking to avoid criticism and unwanted attention (but what if the pendant instead of a Palestinian flag showed an Israeli flag or the Star of David?), Amazon decided to remove the ‘offensive’ video.
Explained a company spokesperson via the dailymail: ‘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.’
Amazon added that its leadership ‘remains in regular contact with our teams based in the region to offer our support.’
Social media responds
Borno appears to have since deleted her X account.
The executive has worked at Amazon Web Services since November 2021, with previous stints at Experian, Cisco and the Boston Consulting Group.
It remained unclear if Borno would now face censure from her employer.
The video sparked a wide range of views on social media.
‘Vile. This is unacceptable and warrants immediate termination @JeffBezos,’ a user replied to the X account Hamas Atrocities, which reposted the video before it was taken down.
‘Canceling my subscription to prime video,’ another wrote.
‘Such a disgusting woman,’ a third added.
While another posted, ‘Disgusting and disappointing. I surely wouldn’t want to have terrorist brainrot like this running my servers @awscloud.’
One commenter said they would start buying products from Temu, another e-commerce marketplace, instead of Amazon.
Many tagged Amazon’s company account or Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as CEO in 2021 but remains the executive chairman and largest shareholder.
Jewish Insider, an outlet covering politics and policy in the US and the Middle East, was the first to flag Borno wearing the necklace. The outlet pointed out that an employee working at Amazon subsidiary Annapurna Labs was kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attacks.
That employee of the Tel Aviv-based company, 28-year-old Sasha Troufanov, has not been freed after more than a year in captivity. Users on the web stated Amazon to date has declined to publicly discuss Troufanov’s capture.
Are companies ever politically neutral in the real world?
Nevertheless some users didn’t necessarily believe Borno’s necklace was an affront.
‘Tbh this doesn’t seem worth getting mad about,’ one person wrote.
‘This is such a reach,’ another said.
While another posited, ‘Is there not a policy within Amazon that personal politics shouldn’t enter the workplace?’
Which is to wonder in the real world don’t many companies go out of their way to express their political, religious etc beliefs?
Release of the video comes a week after the one year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that led to 1200 Israeli civilians being killed and a further 250 hostages taken.
As of August 27, 2024, 117 hostages have been returned, with the conflict since displacing over 2 million Palestinians and claims of over 40K deaths, many also civilians.
