Credit: Jose Sena Goulao, EPA
On Shabbat, Paddy Cosgrave, the CEO and co-founder of annual tech conference Web Summit, has resigned from his post after coming under fire for his antisemitic comments last week. This follows the Israeli embassy in Portugal and several companies, such as Google, Meta, Intel and Amazon pulling out of the conference which will be held in Lisbon in November.
At the beginning of the week, Cosgrave took to social media to defame Israel and to express his personal opposition to the attempt to eliminate a terrorist group. On Oct 7, some 2,500 Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip stormed into Israel by land, air and sea on October 7, killing some 1,400 people and seizing more than 200 hostages of all ages under the cover of massive rocket fire at Israeli towns and communities. The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — men, women, children and the elderly, with entire families executed in their homes and over 260 slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific acts of brutality by the terrorists.
Após as intoleráveis declarações de Cosgrave, Israeli ambassador to Portugal Dor Shapira accused Web Summit chief executive of making ‘outrageous statements’, and stated that Israel would not participate in Web Summit’s Lisbon event (in November).
“Even during these difficult times, he is unable to set aside his extreme political views and denounce the Hamas terrorist activities against innocent people. We should have zero tolerance to terrorist and terror acts,” the ambassador wrote.
Today, entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave apologized ‘to anyone who was hurt by my words’, condemning ‘evil, disgusting and monstrous’ attack by Hamas.
