The Latest Firm to Deny Palestinians Their Humanity – BCG

Over 130 humanitarian orgs refuse to work with the BCG-backed GHF, and over 700 people have died trying to recieve aid from them since the organization was created.

Two top Boston Consulting Group employees were stripped of their leadership roles after two others were fired last month due to their unauthorized work in Gaza, including modeling how best to remove Palestinians from the area.

BCG took on a project in Gaza last year to rework how Palestinians can access aid through an organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — a project lauded by Netanyahu and backed by the United States but criticized by the United Nations for making aid conditional. GHF would replace the UN in providing food and supplies to millions of forcibly displaced Palestinians, but would do so in a way that the UN argued would ‘making starvation a bargaining chip’ and endanger Palestinians — just yesterday, over 20 people were killed in a stampede while trying to receive aid, and last month, over 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops on one day while trying to receive aid from a GHF point. Hundreds of others have been shot by IDF members stationed near aid distribution sites, drawing outrage from international aid groups — more than 130 groups refuse to work with the GHF, and over 700 people have died trying to recieve aid from them since the organization was created.

Matt Schlueter and Ryan Ordway, the two partners that were fired from BCG, reportedly ‘went rogue’ and started work that went beyond what BCG was approved to do in the region with around a dozen others — internally called ‘Aurora.’ One of these projects was to create a model for removing Palestinians from Gaza and measure costs for displacement. This project included per-person cost estimates for forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza and compared displacement costs to reconstruction costs — essentially treating removing people from their homes as simply as calculating numbers. BCG has since disavowed the work and said it was unauthorized, but the reputational damage was done.

Save the Children, a nonprofit with a longstanding relationship with BCG, suspended their partnership with the consulting firm in light of these discoveries; Save the Children’s CEO said the project is, “devoid of humanity, disregards fundamental rights and dignity, and raises serious ethical and legal questions.”

In calculating how much it would cost to forcibly remove each Palestinian from the region, BCG joins a long list of organizations, countries, and people that have denied Palestinians their humanity and dignity. BCG’s work and the since fired/ removed employees’ actions amid an ongoing genocide that has stolen the lives of over 55,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, since October 2023, is unacceptable. Instead of providing real aid to the victims, they built GHF with the perpetrators of the genocide despite warnings from various humanitarian agencies, and engaged in off-the-books work to support Israel in its endeavor to rid the region of Palestinians permanently.

Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Israel is in the middle of a genocide case at the International Court of Justice — and yet, American companies keep working with their government.

Beyond the internal investigations this has caused at BCG, I hope it also results in renewed support for the victims of this genocide that have been surviving in dangerous, traumatizing conditions for years — conditions that have violated international law. Even before project ‘Aurora,’ BCG was still purposefully working with a government that has broken a variety of international statutes with no consequences, including targeting journalists, bombing hospitals, and torturing captives. Israel also violated international law with their recent attacks on Iran — also likely with no repercussions. If BCG and other American companies really want to conduct work that aligns with their values like BCG said they do, they need to stop working with a government actively engaging in human rights violations and ethnic cleansing.