Ashraf Creish, the owner of the West Bank restaurant Zest, knew the Israel-Hamas war was going to be hard on business. The steady flow of diners from international organizations and consulates in Jerusalem stopped after October 7 and never came back.
But he ran into an unexpected hurdle in seeking new customers for his Ramallah cafe, which enjoys a 4.7-star rating on Google: Alphabet Inc. blocked new reviews for businesses in Israel and the Palestinian territories since Hamas invaded southern Israel nearly eight months ago.
The open-ended Google policy—meant to guard against trolls and protestors who’d misuse the system during conflicts—is one example of the struggles facing many small businesses in Israel and the Palestinian territories since the war, which has devastated the economy and upended the tourist trade they depend on. New businesses formed since October told Bloomberg that they can’t register on Google Maps.
Small business owners, who weren’t notified about the change, have been struggling to find recourse. When Miriam Brainin, the chief operating officer of Tel Aviv job placement agency JobHunt initially approached Google in October over missing customer reviews, she was first told those reviews violated the company’s policy. A month later, she was informed that reviews were disabled until further notice, but was offered no explanation, according to screenshots shared with Bloomberg.
While the Google search results for Brainin’s and Creish’s businesses say that they’re open, the war shuttered many companies in Israel, particularly in the first months when hundreds of thousands of Israelis were called up for military reserve duty.
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