00:02:05.700Why did your group decide, okay, we need to come forward
00:02:09.720and report on groups that many people in Canada,
00:02:15.960around the world, hold in very high esteem?
00:02:19.180Well, I think it begins with who we are as a group.
00:02:21.780Who We Are is a group comprised of and founded by professionals from within these NGOs.
00:02:28.480So we all worked for these organizations plus more.
00:02:33.000And we are obviously pro-rights and we are obviously pro-their principles.
00:02:38.120But we had experienced over many years mission drift in various forms.
00:02:43.560and particularly after October the 7th we saw a dramatic decline in principles and standards and
00:02:52.340we were mindful and we were observing that there was actually no interest on the part of these
00:02:57.080organizations to respond to concerns that were being raised and so we felt if we didn't bring
00:03:02.580these out into the open as people deeply embedded within these organizations then there was a missed
00:03:08.960opportunity for some real first-hand research and also first-hand evidence that's also included in
00:03:14.400the report. Okay, so tell me about your background. Where did you start in the NGO world and where
00:03:20.620were you when you decided, okay, this needs to change and we need to talk about it?
00:03:27.180So I had come from a background in journalism and then I had spent some time in academia
00:03:32.120and from that I went straight to Human Rights Watch where I was for 14 years and there were
00:03:39.560definitely signs and problems along the way that I observed but there are many problems in
00:03:44.540organizations and so you know one absorbs them or tries to deal with them and I certainly don't
00:03:51.500think I would have done anything external about it had I not become aware that other people in
00:03:58.240my organization were experiencing issues. The report focuses on Middle East work, but really
00:04:04.080I was hearing problems coming out of other divisions too, in terms of ideology that was
00:04:08.660beginning to affect their work. For example, the Africa division. And then what really happened
00:04:15.360was I wrote an article after leaving Human Rights Watch in 2023, partly to send a flare. I was sure
00:04:21.620that probably other organizations were problematic. And true enough, people began to respond and we
00:04:26.940began to come together unofficially and now officially within this new initiative called
00:04:32.040eight. Yeah, eight scrutiny, accountability, renewal. And the report is called Insiders
00:04:39.440Speak NGO Antisemitism Failed Accountability and Their Impact on Social Cohesion. So
00:04:45.700I think a lot of people are that haven't been paying attention are going to be shocked. There
00:04:51.900There are still people that are shocked that UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, is filled with people who are part of Hamas, not just support Hamas, but are part of Hamas.
00:05:04.340How bad was it within groups like Human Rights Watch or you have heard, I mean, I listed them off at the beginning, Amnesty and groups like that that we think are there to call out abuses?
00:05:20.780were they willing to call out abuses when it came to groups that most western governments consider
00:05:28.000terrorists well i think what we're beginning to see is they'll call out some abuses some of the
00:05:34.200time in some places um according to some politics so what we're seeing is the erosion of core
00:05:41.920principles essentially within these organizations that are founded on the ideas of universalism
00:05:46.300everyone, the same rights apply to everyone, or neutrality. And so we're beginning to see
00:05:52.680some application to the Middle East, but not to other areas. Settler colonialism to Israel,
00:05:58.320but not to America or Australia or Canada. We're seeing sort of cherry picking. And once you
00:06:07.720do that, it's really the demise of organizations that rest on values, because theoretically,
00:06:13.340you can absorb all sorts of changes in an organization, different people, different
00:06:18.540backgrounds, different politics, if your principles hold strong, right? You can contain it all
00:06:23.000if you keep tight with your principles. But what they did was really not stand up to growing
00:06:28.140ideology as it began to take hold. And now it's really taken hold of them.
00:06:34.340As I was reading your report and the coverage of this in National Post, and folks haven't read it,
00:06:40.020I encourage you to go and read the piece
00:06:41.960that was published in National Post the other day.
00:06:45.020I don't want to make this a left-right issue or partisan,
00:06:51.560but I was reminded of O'Sullivan's Law,
00:06:53.960as I often have been when thinking of groups like Amnesty
00:09:48.920decolonizing rhetoric became compulsory and priorities were shaped less by field realities
00:09:54.700than by internal status games fundraising incentives and political fashion i like that
00:10:02.240term political fashion because it does seem to drive a lot of what's going on people you know
00:10:08.660it's like madonna's old song strike a pose there's nothing to it and and you strike a pose and you
00:10:14.780say, well, this is where I stand. Not necessarily a lot of deep thinking going into it or how,
00:10:21.200you know, and this goes back to what J.K. Rowling is trying to do in the UK. I have followed her
00:10:26.840work there, and I think she's being bashed in the most unfair ways for standing up for women. But
00:10:34.300people don't think about what their stance actually leads to or what their stance means.
00:10:42.640it's just, well, I'm with this tribe, ergo, I follow this. Do you find that happened within
00:10:49.980these groups? Yes. And I think I saw this as early as 2019, which is a point at which I actually
00:10:58.280wrote something formally to the General Counsel at Human Rights Watch, because there was a
00:11:02.980annual gathering of the organization that by that point was about 600 people, I think.
00:11:08.080And it had an annual gathering in New York every year called Crosscutting. And I was fascinated that Israel came up in every single plenary session of this organization. That means, you know, it sort of was obvious that it was becoming the touchstone. It was becoming the point that people rallied around, even when they had no experience of the region.
00:11:34.000In fact, I was probably the person, one of the top five people in the room with the most experience of the region.
00:11:39.920And so I found it fascinating and deeply disturbing. And I saw new stuff coming into the organization, pretty neutral, and looking around for their points of reference to integrate into the organization and finding it quickly in sort of mouthing platitudes about Palestine or free Gaza when they really didn't seem to have any knowledge or skin in the game.
00:12:08.020um so it became a very easy entry point to prove loyalty and so and also on the flip side if you
00:12:14.020didn't publicly spout this stuff then i think a cloud of suspicion arose around you so so you
00:12:20.500you became a potential problem if you weren't uh going on and on about uh settler colonialism
00:12:28.000and apartheid state israel yeah i think there was a lot and this is repeated by people from
00:12:34.040other organizations consistently that simply wanting to remain neutral in the organization
00:12:39.480or maintain professionalism and not talk about your political views or your background when
00:12:44.840you're dealing with the Middle East is itself sort of becomes uncomfortable for people. They
00:12:49.400sort of need to know where you are and where you need to be is increasingly thinking in terms of
00:12:55.920one line of thought. And that's really troubling for organizations that were really founded upon
00:13:03.600the principle of discourse and interpretation. There's nothing written in law. There's no sort
00:13:11.100of infallibility about human rights. It's a matter of interpretation. If you even look at
00:13:15.300the way human rights were applied 60 years ago, it's very different to today. It's constantly
00:13:19.400evolving. So the idea that we've suddenly got it written in stone and there is a way to think
00:13:24.120about human rights and there is a way to think about the Middle East or rights or gender is
00:13:29.740deeply disturbing and it's also really antithetical to the origins and the early evolution of these
00:13:36.960groups now you talk about people in organizations in the report you talk about people in organizations
00:13:45.880like green peace uh spain you talk about uh organizations based in australia this permeates
00:13:53.620through a good part of western politics though this is not this is something that does touch
00:14:55.820I want to speak to you from the heart about a photo going around from last weekend. I'm so
00:15:00.400sorry for the harm it caused. As one of many public events at Stampede, I was approached by
00:15:05.500the Israeli ambassador. We had a very brief and frank exchange during which a photo was taken.
00:15:11.300After talking to many people in the community over the last few days, I better understand
00:15:15.760the immense hurt that has been caused to a lot of folks. And he goes on to apologize for allowing
00:15:21.560a photograph to be taken of him while he spoke to the Israeli ambassador. I mean,
00:15:25.920politicians are supposed to be speaking to diplomats, even if, you know, you just want
00:15:30.980to tell them how wrong they are. But this is where we're at. I can only imagine what it's
00:15:37.560like within the NGO world to have this sort of pressure that even speaking to an ambassador of
00:15:45.360Israel to tell them, hey, I think you're wrong, is an offense. Yes, but I think what this,
00:15:51.960absolutely, I think what it's been totally appalling for many people within these NGOs,
00:15:57.640and not only Jews, it has to be said, the report also includes the testimony of non-Jewish staff.
00:16:03.940But I think the overall significance of the report is not just what's happened to the employees.
00:16:08.380It's that these very trends and messages that have gone around within these organizations have really become the blueprint for how people are behaving and thinking on the outside.
00:16:21.520I think it's one of the great overlooked industries of our time, the NGO sector. We simply have underestimated it in terms of its absolute power and reach into our classrooms and courtrooms and newsrooms.
00:16:38.840It is that their ideas permeate everywhere. It is from these organizations, most significantly, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty in 2021 and 22, that comes the structure and the framework of apartheid.
00:16:53.800From these organizations came the framing of genocide that then has gone into the public narrative. And from these organizations has come the dehumanization of Jews and Israelis that your Calgary minister is picking up and only reflecting.
00:17:15.240He's just a product, actually, of something that has been going on in these organizations
00:19:43.740and why it feeds into the wider antisemitism
00:19:50.600with people who may not be actually thinking,
00:19:55.660okay, well, I'm going down the road of antisemitism,
00:19:57.560but they're just absorbing this, and it becomes part of the water that we swim in.
00:20:03.740Yeah. Well, I think the first gatekeepers are also the media. I don't know why it has come to be
00:20:09.220that a report from a human rights organization is not treated like a regular source that has to be
00:20:14.400checked out. And so, you know, it passes through them before it gets to the public often. What
00:20:21.980we're seeing is, for those who say and quote these organizations, and I absolutely understand
00:20:29.740why they do, I would simply begin to challenge how they know them to be credible. And if you
00:20:37.120follow the line of logic, how they know them to be credible, they would say, well, I don't know
00:20:42.880what they would say, but I think we get to the end point that they think they're credible because
00:20:45.800largely they've been told they're credible by these organizations themselves. It all comes back
00:20:51.800to the self-narrative of organizations that are not largely regulated. And I think this is a very
00:20:57.820important thing for people to understand that while there is some sort of financial regulation
00:21:03.260in terms of the books, there is no oversight of their output. No one is checking what they're
00:21:10.820putting out. There's no peer review like in academia. There's no thorough editing process,
00:21:16.000even though they say it is in terms of their output. And so, I mean, I was the senior editor
00:21:22.240at Human Rights Watch for 14 years. So I saw this firsthand. I saw work that went through a pipeline
00:21:29.000getting review of varying degrees, depending on how much time people had and who was editing it.
00:21:35.820And certainly in the final stage of review where I sat with a group of other people,
00:21:40.800And theoretically, this was the final, most credible stage of review. It was quickly passed through because they didn't have time to do it. And we were told to spot check effectively. I never saw a researcher's notes in 14 years. And I know that the links were not all fully checked.
00:21:58.020And so all I'm saying is someone who supports human rights and supports values that they supposedly uphold is we need to do better.
00:24:30.920I would say, you know, most people weren't even, to be Jewish in these organizations was not an issue for them, you know, at all.
00:24:41.060And yet suddenly it seemed to be of real importance to the organizations and colleagues.
00:24:49.020And so repeatedly across the board, we heard that attempts to raise concerns about the quality or methodology of Israel-Palestine related work,
00:25:00.760all related to the behavior and conduct of fellow staff that violated the organization's
00:25:08.360own policies was dismissed or downplayed, even excused. There was one Amnesty USA incoming board
00:25:17.560member who had just before reposted a cartoon image of Israel flicking away the Star of David
00:25:26.160and saying, it's either us or us, something like this in Arabic, and also celebrating an attack
00:25:35.260on Israeli civilians. And the manager said that nothing was going to be done in this case.
00:25:40.940It reflected her pain, and she still is on the board today. So it began to be a process of
00:25:48.400realizing that nothing was going to be done, that risk was involved in coming forward. People
00:25:52.920describe their jobs suddenly evaporating and although being reconstituted a few months later
00:26:00.620and you couldn't necessarily say it was because of that but it's sort of a fingerprintless crime
00:26:06.080in a way being excluded from meetings which they were logically should have been participating
00:26:10.740ignoring and there's a case of a Greenpeace employee who you know literally had PTSD diagnosis
00:26:19.000And they sort of swatted that away. In fact, even attempted to silence her with an NDA that said no wrongdoing had taken place. And now she's taking some form of legal action. So all manner of retaliation.
00:26:34.940You cite a report by Olam, which is a Jewish human rights humanitarian network, and in 2025, they surveyed Jewish professionals in secular humanitarian and human rights organizations and found, well, 55% said they had experienced or witnessed anti-Jewish bias or hate.
00:26:54.88057% reported anti-Israel incidents, such as colleagues questioning Israel's legitimacy or dismissing Jewish experiences biased, and 73% believed organizational responses were ineffective or reported that no action was taken and most felt pressured to suppress aspects of their Jewish identity due to assumptions regarding Israel.
00:27:19.740That sounds like a pretty hostile work environment, and these are people who probably knew, like, look, they probably don't agree with the Israeli government.
00:27:30.720They know that the Israeli government is going to be denounced in these organizations.
00:27:35.400They still wanted to work for them because of their belief in support for human rights, and yet they're basically told, you're not wanted on the voyage.
00:27:45.140Yeah. And I think what's deeply troubling is the double standard or the difference in response in relation to other minority groups that have come forward from these organizations over the years and come forward with problems.
00:28:00.860So we had an MSF, African-American or Black employees, sort of talking about racism. We had in the poem, Black Lives Matter happened during my tenure at Human Rights Watch. Me Too happened. And you saw this enormous knee jerk response. Suddenly, you know, there are meetings and everyone's examining their subconsciousness and apologizing and listening to the experiences of colleagues as they should.
00:28:29.240But when it comes to this, there's literally not even, I'm sorry, that sounds bad, let's look into it. What you get is an absolute denial of anything happening, or you simply get silence. And that alone is already an indication something's really awry in these groups. Surely the response is, let's look into it, let's ask some questions.
00:28:50.240they simply cannot deny that they are riddled with problems when they've done no internal
00:28:55.180investigations. They haven't asked any of their Jewish staff what's going on, and nor has there
00:28:59.340been any external investigation conducted into them. So it's all just hot air. And when we look
00:29:05.000at the response to J.K. Rowling, we have amnesty expressing regret, backpedaling, turning itself
00:29:10.940into the charity commission. And what the bottom line is, is that the reputational impact and the
00:29:19.620impact on donor dollars is what really drives these organizations. And if they think they can
00:29:24.020ignore problems because it's not going to cause them any issues, then they're going to ignore it.
00:29:29.660Tell me about Kenneth Roth, the former executive director at Human Rights Watch, who I'm assuming
00:29:35.900you worked with. But tell me about him and his reaction to the Bondi Beach massacre, which
00:29:42.040just still a shocking display of anti-Semitism, people trying to celebrate Hanukkah on a beach
00:29:51.580in Australia, gunned down by people who, Indian nationals, but, you know, aligned with Islamic
00:30:01.440extremism, shooting them down on a beach because of what's happening on the other side of the
00:30:07.760world. And Kenneth Roth did not have the best reaction, did he? The guy who spent years saying
00:30:14.360he was defending human rights. No, he didn't. He sent out a tweet that said Australia's special
00:30:21.760envoy to combat anti-Semitism ends up promoting anti-Semitism by cheapening the concept
00:30:26.560because she links protests against Israel's genocide and apartheid to the anti-Semitism
00:30:31.880of the Bondi Beach Massacre. I mean, in short, what you see is a sort of word salad of victim
00:30:38.200blaming and the usual framework of apartheid and genocide, these kind of two dog whistles
00:30:45.780that have been sounded for people to rally around. And he is not alone in being a leadership figure,
00:30:54.720although he's not the head of Human Rights Watch anymore. He was for 30 years
00:30:57.940in setting really troubling tones for their own organizations.
00:31:03.280So you have the head of MSF, which is Doctors Without Borders,
00:31:07.48067,000 people strong reposting a tweet that Israel is a country of child killers.
00:31:12.840You have the head of the MSF UK office doing a thumbs up and a fist bump emoji
00:31:20.520to a group called kneecap that was being investigated one of their one of their band
00:31:27.460members for waving a hezbollah flag or something and shouting some expletive about israel
00:31:32.620and there's no there's no they're really setting the tone for the organizations to follow them
00:31:39.000the band's name is kneecap they are outright terrorist supporters you look at the stage
00:31:46.340names that they adopt you look at their posturing and if you know anything about the troubles in
00:31:51.920northern ireland you look at it and say okay they are backers of a terrorist group and you can be
00:31:58.340sympathetic to the republican cause in ireland but um i mean these guys embrace the violent side of
00:32:05.280it and they're good but yet francesca albanese the un special rapporteur uh for uh the palestinian
00:32:14.320territories, tried to say that Israel being included in the Eurovision Song Contest was,
00:32:21.580an attempt to normalize its ongoing genocide. And she is still held up as one of these moral
00:32:31.260authorities. I mean, not part of an NGO, but I would guess that the NGOs that we've been talking
00:32:38.380about would support the work of Francesca Albanese and cite her work quite often to
00:32:43.500support theirs. And she's saying Israel being in Eurovision just supports genocide. But hey,
00:32:49.900kneecap's good. Yeah, I think I think the look, this report of eight was framed in terms of
00:32:57.540anti-Semitism and social cohesion because that was the mandate of the Royal Commission.
00:33:04.140And but it could equally have been termed something entirely different. It could have
00:33:07.540been called a report on compromise methodology and failed standards and principles and human
00:33:12.980rights organizations. And I think that's the important message for people, that no matter
00:33:17.140where you stand on Israel, Palestine, and I can assure you that the people whose voices are
00:33:24.120reflected in the reports stand themselves all over, you know, and certainly I didn't even ask
00:33:29.040whether the politics is irrelevant or should be irrelevant, that the importance is that these
00:33:36.160organizations are putting out work that is compromised in terms of methodology,
00:33:43.580reeking of ideology at this point, and without anyone really reining them in. Now, that should
00:33:50.400concern anybody, given their influence. You have a mega sector at the heart of democratic
00:33:57.940institutions practically doing and behaving exactly as they want. And we have let this
00:34:05.140happen partly because we do like human rights and we do like NGOs in general. But just because
00:34:11.460you like the moral mission does not mean you should accept that these are necessarily moral
00:34:18.160organizations. We have simply stopped seeing this as an industry. And an industry is subject to all
00:34:25.720sorts of influences. Of course it is. Operational, financial, ideological. And that is why it needs
00:34:34.080regulation. You point to social media as something of a window into the thinking of people. And you
00:34:45.140can see the same when it comes to media. An awful lot of reporters give away exactly what they think
00:34:51.060and where they stand. People that are not like me, they're not opinion people, who are supposed
00:34:56.100to be the neutral arbiters of truth and justice in the Canadian way. And then they get on social
00:35:01.860media, and they tell you so much about themselves. You point to that in the report, and even before
00:35:08.980the attacks of October 7th, 2023, in particular, you point to Amnesty board member Rasha Abdel
00:35:18.240Latif. Tweeting and retweeting supports for terror attacks on civilians in Tel Aviv,
00:35:26.020and Amnesty's response is, these tweets and retweets were done in a personal capacity
00:35:30.320and do not represent the positions of Amnesty International.
00:37:46.060And I think it's very important to see our report in context, what's happening with J.K. Rowling in context, that these are not isolated events.
00:37:55.600This is part of a drumbeat of scandals that have happened over the decades, and some of which are featured on that eight website, eightrights.org.
00:38:05.340And you'll see in the News at Eight section, just scandal after scandal over the years, and they don't seem related at first blush.
00:38:13.600So you recently had MSF, Doctors Without Borders, and some sexual abuse issues in Chad.
00:38:22.600You had amnesty and misuse of AI in its Ukraine work.
00:38:27.800All sorts of things over the years that don't seem to connect, but they do connect.
00:38:32.160They connect under the umbrella of lack of accountability.
00:38:36.700The reason these organizations can have these anti-Semitic, toxic, whatever you call them environments, environments that are entirely unacceptable according to their own standards, the reason that they can put out anti-rights work that is so obviously riddled with ideology is because no one's holding them to account.
00:38:55.600and so that's where our attention lies it doesn't really lie with we're not a monitoring group we're
00:39:02.740not interested in tracking their output but we are saying it is now time to bring a level of
00:39:08.500scrutiny to these organizations and transparency that has been entirely lacking and the ultimate
00:39:14.340victims of this are not just the employees of their organizations it is the public at large
00:39:19.820It is public trust, and it is democracy, and it is those policymakers who sadly stand up in their own houses of parliament and quote these pieces of research as if they were gospel without really doing due diligence.
00:39:37.940We've talked about the fact that they are granted great moral authority.
00:39:42.800And Amnesty International, in response to Latif's tweets being criticized,
00:39:49.660well, first resorted to saying, oh, it's unfortunate.
00:40:11.900So they've got this great moral authority
00:40:13.540that we have granted them unquestioningly.
00:40:17.760They influence policy in ways that, as you described,
00:40:21.960they're quoted in our houses of parliament.
00:40:24.080But these are also groups that are given status
00:40:28.120and benefits that other groups don't get.
00:40:30.980I mean, whether we're talking about Canada, the United States, Australia, Great Britain, the tax status that these organizations receive to have charitable status, to grant tax receipts so that they can solicit donations, that alone should be part of the reason why they should be questioned.
00:40:50.920Absolutely. I mean, where are they getting their money and how is it being spent?
00:40:55.860And this is a whole level of inquiry that has yet to be really investigated, but there are troubling signs that are already out there.
00:41:04.600We have the head of Mercy Corps happily sending a tweet to the organization, well, not a tweet, an email to the organization saying she's off to Qatar and the UAE for fundraising opportunities.
00:41:17.160Now, these are documented rights abusing states, and she doesn't seem to have any concern. We have a denied scandal involving Human Rights Watch taking money from Qatar about five years ago. We know that Human Rights Watch was a fundraising in Saudi Arabia in 2009.
00:41:36.960We know that the Israel-Palestine director, Omar Shakir, who was really a prime driver of the apartheid work within Human Rights Watch and came in as a former BDS activist, had a visiting fellowship at the Qatari branch of Georgetown University.
00:41:58.780We know that because it was on a website.
00:42:00.600so there are definitely questions to be asked and that is as you rightly say a prime reason
00:42:08.760why there needs to be greater scrutiny beyond asking questions beyond publications like your
00:42:17.020report which i encourage people to to look up and read um what should our next steps be what
00:42:24.200what should we be looking to do, either societal level, governmental level? What do you recommend?
00:42:31.760I think it really begins with asking questions. It really does. And that is just something anyone
00:42:37.060can do. Where do you get your information and who are you? Should be a constant drumbeat.
00:42:44.120And how do you prove what you say is true? So, for example, even in the responses, like I said,
00:42:48.400to our report, the eye glosses over the responses of these organizations. But when Human Rights Watch
00:42:55.460responds to a 63-page report with documented evidence by simply quoting its Israel-Palestine
00:43:01.920work, you've got to say, is that an adequate, rigorous, thoughtful response to the issues?
00:43:08.640When Amnesty just doesn't bother to respond, you say, well, is that an adequate response to an
00:43:14.680entire population saying there is a racism problem and there are methodological problems.
00:43:19.240So I would say questioning. And then beyond that, obviously, there needs to be some form of
00:43:25.760oversight that now comes into being an interesting idea that comes out of academia, actually,
00:43:33.520and work there on these organizations, which hasn't really crossed over to the mainstream world,