Nearly 1,000 Apple employees sign letter calling on tech giant to support Palestinians

Nearly 1,000 Apple employee have sign at letter to CEO Tim Cook that calls on the big tech giant to publicly support Palestinians, who in recent weeks have clashed with the Israel government for what they consider unfair treatment. 

The letter was sent Monday to Cook, who has yet to respond, according to The Verge.

The letter was sent before the cease-fire agreement Thursday between Israel and the militant group Hamas, in a battle largely sparked earlier this month by an incident between Israeli police and Palestinians and the long-standing dispute over property rights.

The letter asks Apple to make "clear that, as determined by the United Nations, millions of Palestinian people currently suffer under an illegal occupation."

However, the signees want the company to make sure the statements "do NOT in any way advocate or support terrorism of any kind upon any people, worldwide" or "take away from the human rights of our Jewish brothers and sisters worldwide."

They also do not want Apple's statement referring to the Palestinian situation as a "conflict, clash or similar, as those words imply a power symmetry that simply does not exist" or "referring to 'both sides' or similar, as doing so would feel to us as the equivalent of 'all lives matter' – a minimization of the disproportionately larger pain and suffering of the Palestinian people."

The letter came two days after Jewish employees at Google called for their company to support Palestinians, including funding "Palestinian rights organizations and ensure that any support for Israeli humanitarian efforts be matched by support to Palestinian-led human rights and relief efforts," The Verge reported.