lundi 20 août 2007

Sam Shafi, recruiter at VMware and antisemite

I went to this interview at VMware not so long ago, I went through 6 interviews for about 6 hours, then I met with Sam Shafi, VMware recruiter, and from that moment on I should go from suprises to shocks...
Our conversation started how it often does, small talk, then where are you from, I'm from France i said, what about you. I from Egypt he replied, I said, oh really, my parents are from North Africa.
From that point on, mistaking me for a muslim I guess, he started talking and talking:
he told me he visited France but didn't like how French people treated North African people (he probably meant muslim from North Africa), and he didn't like no one can say bad things about Jews without being criticized, what's the big deal about 6 million dead Jews when there was 50 millions of others were being killed also, then mentioned some revisionist theory about the holaucost how it probably didn't happen the way they say it did.
At this point I tried stopping the conversation because I was getting sincerely annoyed, I myself left France partly because I didn't want my children to be subject to antisemitism, and here I was with someone in the US confiding in me and trying to persuade me that Jews were bad and that the holocaust was an invention...
so i tried to stop this subject of conversation by saying that everyone knows the holocaust is real and that revisionist theories even though they exist here and there, are really a lie from ignorant and antisemites. At this point you would think he would not insist but what followed was just a continuation.
he started to talk about Israel and how they took the Land of the Palestinians, I told him the British promised the Land to both Israelis and Palestinians, and that the war issued from the Palestinians not accepting the UN decision to split the land and trying to kill all the Jews there at the time; again, that didn't stop him...
He continued by saying that Israel has no place in the middle East and has no right to exist, that Hamas is the real gouvernment of the Palestinian since elected properly (and this is unfortunatly the truth)...

I came out of this meeting a bit troubled to say the least, I didn't sleep all that well that night. I spend the day after thinking about it, and i decided to email the CEO of VMware about it... Now it has been about 2 weeks since I did and I finally received an answer from VMware saying thy will investigate my "assertion" that inappropriate conversation took place.
Even though I don't like the word assertion in this case, I'm glad I finally got an answer.. Notice, i email the CEO and the co-founder of the company...
I don't think someone like Mr. Shafi should be in a position to spread hatred and lies; and it doesn't matter if it's by ignorance or brainwashing when he was a kid. What happened that day was not acceptable by any standard, and should never be allowed.