AWS’ Ruba Borno Palestine Necklace Ignites Ugly Backlash

Amazon Web Services partner head Ruba Borno has come under fire for wearing a controversial piece of jewelry in a corporate video, which the company has since pulled.

The subsequent outrage has inspired threats of boycotts and questions of whether one employee could sink the tech giant. Amazon stock was down slightly on Tuesday amid news of the Borno necklace brouhaha, but it was not clear whether the dustup caused share prices to go down.

Ruba Borno’s Heritage

Borno, you may recall, is Palestinian. Her family lived in Kuwait in 1990, and were considered stateless when Saddam Hussein invaded. That was a problem because one of her sisters was born in the United States and Hussein had declared that American citizens could be shot on sight or captured, as Borno relayed in 2021 to Stan McChrystal, founder and CEO of McChrystal Group.

The U.S. Embassy called Borno’s parents and gave them three days to move to America. The family, whose assets had been frozen, had little choice but to leave everything behind and start over in a new country.

“My family story and my personal story, it’s absolutely the core of what motivates me every single day,” Borno said three years ago. “And I don’t shy away from talking about it because I think it’s important for everyone to know what motivates them. You know, we’ve got a lot of challenges in life, and if you know what motivates you, it keeps you going when times get tough.”

Related:AWS’ Ruba Borno On Gen AI, Other Cloud Computing Advancements

Ruba Borno Pro-Palestine Necklace Prompts Calls for Firing, Boycotts

Those words may be Borno’s mantra this week as she moves through the fallout from wearing a “Palestine, from the river to the sea” necklace in a recent corporate video promoting re:Invent 2024. The jewelry is shaped like the map of Israel but features the Palestinian flag instead of the Star of David. AWS has removed the video and told media it will post a new one soon.

Some people are calling for boycotts not only because of Borno’s support for Palestine but also because of the timing that aligns with Amazon’s continued silence around a kidnapped Israeli employee. Sasha Troufanov (spelled in some accounts as “Trufanov” and misspelled entirely in others as “Tropanov”) was abducted last year after Hamas invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz, per a number of reports. Amazon has yet to issue any statements on that event.

Meantime, Borno’s necklace has stirred up such reaction that Borno has either deleted her social media accounts or set them to private. Some people are calling for AWS to fire Borno, who serves as vice president of AWS global specialists and partners, while others are pushing for widespread Prime subscription cancelations.

Related:Who Is Ruba Borno? Get to Know AWS’ New Global Channel Chief

An AWS spokesperson gave Channel Futures the same statement is has provided to other media on the matter: “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. 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.”