On Monday, December 20th, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a now-viral statement echoing extreme allegations made by the NGO Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The only problem? The claims are unverified and the NGO’s officials are notoriously biased and antisemitic.
The news release accuses the IDF of committing atrocities against Palestinians similar to those documented as having been perpetrated by Hamas against Israelis on October 7th. It claims that the IDF allegedly “separated a group of men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men in front of their family members. The IDF then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child.”
The IDF investigated these claims and found no record of any such incident. Nevertheless, Euro Med-Monitor published a video by the shady Islamist news agency Middle East Eye purporting to present testimonies of these events by unidentified individuals making the claims impossible to verify.
OHCHR’s choice to publicize these egregious accusations as evidence of possible war crimes by Israel, knowing that they are nothing more than unverified allegations, is a testament to the highly partisan nature of OHCHR’s reporting on this war which prioritizes demonizing Israel over verifying facts. Considering the overt prejudice of the officials who run Euro-Med Monitor, OHCHR’s decision to amplify these allegations through the UN’s platform is even worse.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s leadership routinely posts antisemitic and pro-Hamas content online.
The chairman of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s Board is none other than Richard Falk-the former UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine who has hailed Hamas’ “spirit of resistance,” justified Palestinian violence, and claimed that Hamas aims for “long-term peaceful co-existence.” While he was Special Rapporteur, Falk was at the center of multiple controversies that led to continuous calls for his resignation by the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and others. According to the U.S. State Department, this was because of his “despicable and deeply offensive comments, particularly his anti-Semitic blog postings, his endorsement of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and his deplorable statements with regard to the terrorist attacks in Boston.” Falk had first called the Boston bombing a false flag and then justified it as a form of “resistance” that was “bound” to result from U.S. “military undertakings.” Even Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had to come out several times to publicly denounce Falk’s statements. Falk’s antisemitism has even gotten him fired from a Human Rights Watch committee.
Ramy Abdu, Euro-Med’s founder and current chairman who is in charge of the organization’s day-to-day operations, is no better than Falk. In fact, he may be much worse. Abdu is not just a terrorist sympathizer but rather an active supporter of Hamas on Twitter. Just in the past week, he has compared Israel to the Nazis, said that “Israel’s future ends here“, and retweeted a post denying that Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7th, referring to this as “a fabricated lie.”
