To do so, it must tell top officials to stop embracing the UN’s top antisemite [Former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth] Roth filled the NGO with anti-Israel activists. As a result, the principles of universal human rights were widely discredited and reduced to empty slogans. All Israeli responses to mass terror were automatically distorted and demonized as alleged war crimes – no defensive action was considered legitimate.
[O]ne core staffer from the Roth era remains very active – associate EU director Claudio Francavilla, who has carried on the rabid anti-Israel rhetoric.
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, Francavilla published dozens of posts and replies invoking the false claim of Israel supposedly committing “genocide,” when Hamas openly declares its goal of eradicating Israel — actual genocidal intent.
If HRW’s board members and funders are serious about reclaiming the once-respected NGO’s lost credibility and restoring the universal principles on which it was founded, the very visible antisemitic vitriol and hypocrisy from its associate director in the EU must end.
For three decades, Human Rights Watch (HRW) – under executive director Ken Roth – was transformed from a respected rights group into a leading anti-Israel advocacy organization. Reflecting a deeply personal obsession with portraying Israel as the world’s worst violator of human rights, Roth filled the NGO with anti-Israel activists. As a result, the principles of universal human rights were widely discredited and reduced to empty slogans. All Israeli responses to mass terror were automatically distorted and demonized as alleged war crimes – no defensive action was considered legitimate.
Of late, HRW’s board of directors appears to have moved toward reclaiming some credibility. Roth and many of his hard-core anti-Israel allies are no longer with HRW, and its gratuitous Israel-bashing has decreased, including repetition of the “Gaza genocide” lie.
However, one core staffer from the Roth era remains very active – associate EU director Claudio Francavilla, who has carried on the rabid anti-Israel rhetoric. Francavilla has repeatedly amplified the vicious agenda of Francesca Albanese, the UN special “human rights” rapporteur whose antisemitic conspiracy theories were condemned by governments, Jewish organizations and officials of Holocaust memorials. The United States has sanctioned her. Yet Francavilla has doubled down in his attempt to defend her expressions of hate.
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities, Francavilla published dozens of posts and replies invoking the false claim of Israel supposedly committing “genocide,” when Hamas openly declares its goal of eradicating Israel — actual genocidal intent. Just two days after October 7, he coldly pontificated “there are clear legal obligations that apply to all sides,” a formulation that reduced the moral catastrophe of Hamas’s mass murder, torture and sexual violence to a bureaucratic checking of boxes. He repeated sweeping allegations against Israel without sourcing or context. In one post, he repeated propaganda accusing Israel of killing 13,000 children in Gaza in just over five months, without providing a source.
Francavilla was an early adopter of the Gaza “genocide” blood libel and compared rejection of this accusation to being an anti-vaccine or climate-change “denier.” He praised European politicians demanding sanctions against Israel while erasing the Israeli hostages and the atrocities that precipitated the war. And he repeatedly embraced Albanese’s characterization of Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “genocide” and “apartheid.”
Francavilla’s intense defense of Albanese reflects deep attachment to her wider pathology on Jews and Israel. Albanese, for example, recently made the absurd claim that Jews in Nazi death camps were referred to as “Muslims”– demonstrating both a vast ignorance of the Holocaust and the crass exploitation of this immense tragedy to feed her hatred. She also repeated the long discredited propaganda claim that the term “antisemitism” did not specifically refer to Jews, again revealing the fundamental ignorance that should clearly disqualify her from holding any UN position.
After massive ridicule, and a very rare acknowledgement, Albanese retracted these remarks. In contrast, Francavilla continues to elevate her supposed decency and virtuousness, claiming that the brief apology “for saying the wrong thing” erased the crude immorality of these statements.
Every word that Francavilla utters, writes and posts carries the imprimatur of Human Rights Watch. As a result, the NGO founded by Robert Bernstein continues to be associated with the hypocrisy inherent in erasing Hamas’ crimes against humanity and the elevation of Albanese’s antisemitism. If HRW’s board members and funders are serious about reclaiming the once-respected NGO’s lost credibility, and restoring the universal principles on which it was founded, the very visible antisemitic vitriol and hypocrisy from its associate director in the EU must end.
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