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Paddy Cosgrave, CEO and co-founder of Web Summit, an annual tech conference Web Summit, resigned from his post after his comments on the Israel-Hamas war.
Cosgrove wrote on X, “To repeat: War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies & should be called out for what they are. I will not relent.”
To repeat: War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies & should be called out for what they are.
I will not relent.
— Paddy Cosgrave (@paddycosgrave) October 16, 2023
Initially, Cosgrove doubled down, calling his comments, “reasonable.”
.@amitkarp is a respected tech investor. But because he claims I “support the beheading of babies” he will never attend Web Summit. An utter lie & extreme over reaction to my perfectly reasonable & humane statement:
“War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies”
My… pic.twitter.com/hsAXJcrwuM
— Paddy Cosgrave (@paddycosgrave) October 17, 2023
CNBC notes that Cosgrove changed his tune when leading Big Tech leaders like Alphabet, Meta and Amazon cancelled their attendance at an upcoming conference in Lisbon, Portugal November 13 through November 16.
Cosgrave issued an apology on Web Summit’s blog:
I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused profound hurt to many. To anyone who was hurt by my words, I apologise deeply. What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that. My aim is and always has been to strive for peace. Ultimately, I hope with all my heart that this can be achieved.
*****
In my comments, I have tried to do exactly the same as Secretary Blinken and so many others globally: urge Israel in its response to the Hamas atrocities not to cross the boundaries of international law.
*****
However, I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused profound hurt to many. To anyone who was hurt by my words, I apologise deeply. What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that. Web Summit has a long history of partnership with Israel and its tech firms, and I am deeply regretful that those friends were hurt by any of what I said. My aim is and always has been to strive for peace. Ultimately, I hope with all my heart that this can be achieved.
While Cosgrove urges Israel “in its response to the Hamas atrocities not to cross the boundaries of international law,” he chose not to highlight the war crimes committed by Hamas terrorists in their attacks on civilians.
Cosgrove also took to Linkedin to try to equate the complexities in Gaza to those that Ireland has faced with Great Britain.
Commenters on Linkedin questioned both the sincerity of his “apology” as well as his analogy.
One person said, “But what truly grates is your audacity to preach about ‘monstrous evil’ and the ‘tragedy of war’ now, after you’ve previously sown discord. You speak of Israel’s right to defend itself but in the same breath, you subtly denounce its actions as breaking international law, continuing the rhetoric of false equivalences.”
Another asked, “Did you have this in Ireland too? Israeli Forensic team: cut, burned alive, raped (inc. very young and very old women), arms and feet cut off, beheaded. Children tied together & burned alive. Entire families slaughtered together.”
Another directly addressed the false comparison to the IRA, “As bad as the IRA were, to equate them with the barbarism of Hamas just shows a complete lack of understanding of the situation Israel finds itself in. The IRA’s goal was to remove British rule from NI, while Hamas’ goal is the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews.”
“As a result, the UK Government were able to enter a peace process with the IRA and other actors in the region, which resulted in the Good Friday Agreement.”
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