When senior figures in the human rights and humanitarian sector publicly and privately model and amplify certain tropes and attitudes, they do more than express personal views. They set institutional tone, confer legitimacy on those below them, and signal to staff, funders, media, and the public what the sector values, who it protects—and how it is permissible to speak in general.
In this post, shortly before becoming international president of the 67,000-strong Doctors without Borders (MSF), Javid Abdelmoneim reposted a blanket description of Israel, a country of 10 million people, as "child killers".
Social media is a gray zone for human rights and humanitarian organizations, often bypassing any review of editorial standards. Reposting, in particular, is a low-risk way to shape narratives—amplifying partisan or inflammatory content while bypassing the accountability that official statements would trigger, and exploiting the organizational loophole of dismissing what employees write as “personal opinions.” That response, however, does not address a deeper and obvious concern: how people who express views that veer into racism, discrimination, or dehumanization - especially when occupying a leadership role - function in a rights-based workplace, and affect colleagues and the organization more broadly.
Social media is a gray zone for human rights and humanitarian organizations - often bypassing any review of editorial standards. Reposting, in particular, is a low-risk way to shape narratives—amplifying partisan or inflammatory content while bypassing the accountability that official statements would trigger, and exploiting the organizational loophole of dismissing what employees write as “personal opinions.” In this post, shortly before becoming international president of Doctors without Borders (MSF), Javid Abdelmoneim reposts: Mohanad @Mohana… · 1/6/25 The issue has never been that Israelis are white or that they’re Jewish. The issue is that they are a colony of settlers that continue to ethnically cleanse the native Palestinian population. Israel could be 100% black and we’d oppose these child killers just the same.
