\u201cThey themselves call for transparency and accountability and speak out on behalf of people\u2019s freedoms of expression,\u201d Israeli Danielle Haas, one of EiGHT\u2019s lead organizers, told The Times of Israel. \u201cWe consider this to be entirely in line with their own mandate and principles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haas was a senior editor at Human Rights Watch for 14 years, left after the start of the Gaza war, and has been a critic<\/a> of the NGO sector since.<\/p>\n Haas wrote in Jewish journal Sapir in 2024<\/a> about her experience at Human Rights Watch. After the article came out, other Jewish and non-Jewish NGO staffers contacted her to report similar experiences, forming an informal group of around 70 that coalesced into EiGHT, which is in the process of acquiring nonprofit status in Geneva, Haas said.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition \t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n EiGHT based the report on interviews with around 70 staffers or recent employees of international NGOs, as well as internal documents from the organizations. The employees and documents came from groups including Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and Amnesty International Australia. The groups did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n EiGHT compiled the report for the Australian government\u2019s investigation into antisemitism, launched in response to last year\u2019s Bondi Beach massacre.<\/p>\n Many of the names and organizations were kept anonymous due to \u201cfear of retaliation,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n The report said its key findings included a lack of consequences for antisemitism complaints; inconsistent standards; a lack of transparency; exclusion of Jewish staff; retaliation against staff who raised concerns; and a disregard for Israeli and Jewish victims.<\/p>\n Antisemitism allegations brushed aside<\/p>\n The report said that antisemitism in the sector was \u201cbarely acknowledged,\u201d with alleged anti-Jewish discrimination often reframed as political disagreement. The threshold for action on antisemitism complaints was often \u201ceffectively impossible to meet,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n The report contrasted the response to previous movements, like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, when discrimination complaints led to significant action. Jews who reported antisemitism were instead met with \u201cskepticism and dismissal,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n A non-Jewish employee of Amnesty International Australia said that after the Bondi Beach massacre last year, there was a tendency in the group \u201cto frame efforts to address antisemitism as attempts to restrict criticism of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n An Amnesty International Australia staffer reported a \u201cdisturbing rise in anti-Zionist ideology,\u201d with the term \u201cZionist\u201d used as a pejorative. Jewish NGO staffers said their views were treated with suspicion over alleged political motivations, or that antisemitism concerns were treated as interpersonal conflict, a communication issue or political disagreement, instead of discrimination.<\/p>\n \t \u201cThe conversation never becomes: \u2018What happened, and why did this employee experience it as antisemitic?\u2019 Instead, it immediately becomes: \u2018But what is antisemitism really? What about Zionism? What about Gaza?\u2019\u201d one NGO staffer said. \u201cYou end up circling the drain of definitions while nothing is actually investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n Leaders of some NGOs privately agreed with complaints from Jewish staffers, but did not take public action, apparently \u201cfor fear of appearing \u2018pro-Israel,\u2019\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n Some of the staffers said that NGO leaders automatically coupled antisemitism with Islamophobia, lessening the focus on Jews.<\/p>\n Weeks after the October 2023 Hamas attack, the UK director of Human Rights Watch wrote to colleagues, \u201cCan I just check that we are addressing Islamophobia in our product on antisemitism?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important in any product on antisemitism that we address both,\u201d she wrote, the report said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnti-Jewish bias and prejudice have become embedded in parts of the organization\u2019s culture and decision-making,\u201d a non-Jewish employee of Amnesty International Australia said. \u201cI am deeply concerned that these patterns have contributed to a culture that tolerates and even justifies violence and intimidation toward Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Other staffers quoted in the report said that NGOs had embraced far-left activist paradigms, such as post-colonial theory and romanticizing the \u201cGlobal South,\u201d and characterized the rhetoric as \u201cslogans without substance.\u201d<\/p>\n On the internal messaging platform for Doctors Without Borders, employees said, \u201cThe fight for freedom\u2026 is about liberating the world from the grip of Zionism,\u201d called Israel a \u201c76-year-old crime scene,\u201d dismissed rape allegations made against \u201cPalestinian resistance fighters\u201d as \u201cpropaganda,\u201d and said, \u201cStop playing the Jewish card.\u201d Israel was called a \u201cracist, Nazi and genocidal state.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJewish employees raised concerns openly at first. Then less often, then not at all. In time, they were all gone,\u201d said an employee of an international rights group.<\/p>\n The findings are in line with two previous surveys<\/a> that also found<\/a> widespread antisemitism in humanitarian and nonprofit groups.<\/p>\n Shaping the Gaza war narrative<\/p>\n NGO employees said that the groups\u2019 reports omitted information that would have justified Israeli military actions, such as information that Hamas was operating in areas of Gaza where Israeli hostages were rescued.<\/p>\n Amnesty International held a workshop at its General Meeting in 2024, called \u201cApartheid in Israel,\u201d that portrayed Israel\u2019s establishment as illegitimate, without mentioning Jews\u2019 historical presence in the land, failed peace efforts, and violence against Jews before 1948. An \u201cIsrael-Palestine\u201d meeting held by Human Rights Watch on October 23, 2023, did not mention Israeli casualties or hostages in the Oct. 7 attack, the report said.<\/p>\n The day of the October 2023 attack, a Human Rights Watch program director, in an email to staff, attributed the Hamas invasion to \u201cescalation\u201d by Israel and \u201csignificant violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers.\u201d<\/p>\n An Amnesty International staffer said employees had been encouraged to join anti-Zionist protests, but not rallies for Israeli hostages \u201cbecause we\u2019re against the Israeli government.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tA Palestinian man walks on his crutches to the Doctors Without Borders or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic, in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on New Year\u2019s Eve, December 31, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP21298317210556.jpg\")
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\n\t\tIllustrative: A man walks past the logo of the Amnesty International at its office in Hong Kong, October 25, 2021. (AP Photo\/Vincent Yu)<\/p>\n
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