fought with several media organisations

All you can do as a writer is to keep writing, regardless of the reaction – whether kind or unkind, thoughtful or thoughtless – or the consequences, intended or not.Still, one of the casualties of writing about Palestinians can be the loss of the reassuring constancy and tender pleasure of valued friendships.

I suppose I am not alone on this sad score.Students, teachers, academics, artists, and so many others have been exiled, charged, or even jailed for refusing to ignore or sanitise the horror we see day after dreadful day.In this context, my travails, while stinging and disconcerting, are modest in comparison. Departed friends, however dear, are, it seems, the price for candour that unsettles.

Those friendships, built over decades through sometimes happy, sometimes sad experiences and shared confidences, have evaporated in an instant.I understood that this rupture could happen. I did not fear it. I accepted it.

Yet, when it did happen, it pricked.

It was abrupt. Phone calls went to voice mail. Emails went unanswered. Inevitably, the absence and quiet grew until they became an unmistakable verdict.The debate over Google’s fate also has pulled in opinions from Apple, mobile app developers, legal scholars and startups.

Apple, which collects more than $20bn annually to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone and its other devices, filed briefs arguing against the Justice Department’s proposed 10-year ban on such lucrative lock-in agreements.Apple told the judge that prohibiting the contracts would deprive the company of money that it funnels into its own research, and that the ban might make Google even more powerful because the company would be able to hold onto its money while consumers would end up choosing its search engine anyway. The Cupertino, California, company also told the judge a ban would not compel it to build its own search engine to compete against Google.

In other filings, a group of legal scholars said the Justice Department’s proposed divestiture of Chrome would be an improper penalty that would inject unwarranted government interference in a company’s business.Meanwhile, former Federal Trade Commission officials James Cooper and Andrew Stivers warned that another proposal, which would require Google to share its data with rival search engines, “does not account for the expectations users have developed over time regarding the privacy, security, and stewardship” of their personal information.