The NGO Industrial Complex: Gerald Steinberg on How Human Rights Became a Racket

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Quillette Cetera - "The NGO Industrial Complex: Gerald Steinberg on How Human Rights Became a Racket"

Host: Zoe Sankey
Guest: Prof. Gerald Steinberg (Founder, NGO Monitor)
Release Date: July 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this eye-opening conversation, Zoe Sankey explores the hidden world of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) with Gerald Steinberg, a leading academic and founder of NGO Monitor. The episode critically examines how the concept of the NGO—once synonymous with altruism and social good—has morphed, since the end of the Cold War, into a multi-billion-dollar industry with immense, largely unaccountable political clout. The discussion dissects the lack of transparency, ideological capture, and politicization of marquee organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, while exposing how corrupt regimes exploit NGO status at the UN for their own ends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Origin and Evolution of NGOs

[02:36 – 10:41]

• Traditional Ideal: NGOs were envisioned as apolitical, volunteer-driven forms of civil society—meant to check the excesses of democracy and provide external accountability.
  • Quote: “NGOs…were explicitly defined as non political…forms of checks and balances on the excesses of democracies." (B, 04:49)
• Historical Roots: The concept draws from American civic life (e.g., the Rotary, Lions Club) and found strong footing in the post-WWII order.
• Early NGOs: Amnesty International (founded early 1960s) began as a grassroots, postcard-sending campaign for political prisoners; Human Rights Watch soon followed in the U.S. with a more research-driven model.
• Industrialization: Through the 60s–80s, these organizations ballooned in budget and reach, shifting from voluntary organizations to major bureaucracies.
  • Amnesty International, for example, now has a $400 million annual budget.

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2. Hijacking and Politicization Post-Cold War

[09:21 – 16:17]

• After Cold War: The 1990s marked a turning point where NGOs, while maintaining their civic image, began to be “hijacked” for ideological and political aims, often by actors hostile to the West.
  • Quote: "The process of hijacking began at the end of the Cold War...these were not the organizations that were advertised or taught in universities as being this altruistic concept.” (B, 09:21)
• Government Funding: Many NGOs today are no longer “non-governmental” in any true sense; they receive funding from—and sometimes serve as mouthpieces for—governments, including authoritarian regimes.
• Manipulation at the UN: Dictatorships like Libya under Gaddafi or China have set up their own NGOs, using them to influence or dilute human rights discourse and decisions at international bodies.

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3. NGOs as Unaccountable Power Centers

[16:17 – 22:48]

• Power without Accountability: Modern NGOs wield significant political influence—testifying to parliaments, setting international agendas—without democratic oversight or genuine internal democracy.
  • Quote: "NGOs have a lot of power and they dominate political discussions...They get power without having to stand for elections.” (B, 19:01)
• Opaque Governance: Steering committees, appointments, and leadership selection processes (e.g., at Amnesty) are less transparent than even the Vatican’s selection of a pope.
• Self-Perpetuating Elite: Career professionals move laterally among NGOs, preserving ideological purity and suppressing dissent.

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4. The NGO-UN-Media Feedback Loop

[23:07 – 27:39]

• Manufacturing Legitimacy: NGOs echo each other’s narratives, their claims are reported uncritically by the press, then cited by the UN and governments as if independent.
  • Example: Nicholas Kristof (New York Times) wrote a high-profile piece based entirely on an obscure, Hamas-linked NGO, illustrating how unverified claims enter the mainstream.
• "NGO Industry": Described as an industry with its own internal career tracks, prestige, and incentives for conformity; high salaries incentivize staying on-message.
  • Quote: "It's important to see it as an industry...there’s no oversight, no independent checks and balances." (B, 27:13)

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5. Silencing and Whistleblowing from Within

[28:58 – 32:52]

• Culture of Silence: Speaking out from inside is rare and costly. Staff critical of internal antisemitism or ideological rigidity face dismissal or must resign.
  • Example: Danielle Haas, former Human Rights Watch editor, denounced organizational antisemitism after October 7, 2023.
  • Quote: “There are now whistleblowers...who have provided testimony...about the culture of antisemitism...there is a very strong top-down imposition of how to think—very Orwellian.” (B, 28:58)
• Whistleblowers: Some hope arises as a growing—if still small—group of ex-insiders go public with criticisms.

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6. Halo Effect and Media’s Role

[35:25 – 41:11]

• Unquestioned Authority: Journalists rarely scrutinize NGOs’ funding, agenda, or reporting standards, treating them as neutral, saintly voices.
  • Quote: “Journalists tend to view...all these NGOs through that same saintly prism…They never, almost never, investigate the NGO.” (B, 35:41)
• Failures of Due Diligence: Investigative journalism often fails to ask basic questions—Who are these people? Who funds them? Are their sources independent?—resulting in an uncritical amplification of potentially biased or erroneous claims.
  • Example: Human Rights Watch solicited and accepted donations from known human rights violators, a fact hidden until years later.

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7. How ‘Investigation’ Reports Are Made and Echoed

[40:42 – 45:25]

• Report Construction: Lengthy, footnoted reports are mostly unread by journalists and often self-cite or rely on circular referencing among ideologically similar groups.
  • Quote: “They usually have massive amounts of footnotes…they are very often self-citing…or reference the United Nations, which references Amnesty International...” (B, 42:09)
• Journalistic Failures: Media outlets rush to publish spin from embargoed reports without analyzing the content or corroborating the claims.
  • Example: A Human Rights Watch statement about an Israeli court case was cited minutes after the decision—before anyone could have meaningfully read or translated it.

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8. Political Divides, Funding, and the UN

[45:58 – 54:59]

• Political Perceptions: On the right, distrust of the UN (especially over climate issues) is widespread. Progressives and leftists, in contrast, remain deeply committed to the validity of UN- and NGO-driven “human rights” narratives.
  • Quote: “That's right, because it’s a religion and you can’t argue with religion. It’s faith-based and there are high priests…” (B, 47:15)
• Corruption and Workarounds: Nations often route funding through “clean” channels even after terrorist ties are exposed; example given of Canada and Australia funneling aid through UN branches—even after direct grants to tainted NGOs are blocked.

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9. Can the System Be Reformed?

[49:43 – 54:59]

• Is Reform Possible?: Steinberg is skeptical—arguing that the industry may be too far gone and suggesting that only outside pressure and “money leverage” (i.e., cutting funding) could create true accountability.
  • Quote: “The UN has been hijacked. The NGO industry has been hijacked. And the question is, can it be fixed or does it have to be deconstructed and rebuilt from scratch?” (B, 49:43)
• The Lever of Funding: STEINBERG: "Using the money as leverage is extremely important.” (B, 49:43)

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10. The Demonization of Zionism and Jewish Identity

[56:24 – End]

• Changing Narratives: The NGO and media ecosystem has transformed “Zionism” from an obscure or neutral term into a widely used slur, conflated with racism or oppression by propaganda campaigns.
  • Quote (Host’s Rant): “We are now in a situation where...people...automatically know that...Zionists...is a bad thing. And I just hate that that's tarred innocent people...and Jewish self-determination.” (A, 58:09)
• NGO Role: Organizations, through persistent, ideologically charged messaging, have fostered this demonization and the mainstreaming of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, or even anti-Jewish sentiment.
  • Steinberg: “It has very strong religious historical roots and it was hijacked by massive, massive propaganda...Very Orwellian.” (B, 58:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Internal NGO Culture:
  "There is a very strong top-down imposition of how to think—very Orwellian—and silencing people internally who raise exactly the issues you talked about." — Gerald Steinberg [29:00]

• On Journalistic Failures:
  "They never, almost never investigate the NGO...Who backs them? Are they reliable sources?" — Gerald Steinberg [35:41]

• On Power Without Oversight:
  "NGOs have a lot of power and they dominate political discussions...They get power without having to stand for elections." — Gerald Steinberg [19:01]

• On the Unfixability of the System:
  "Can it be fixed or does it have to be deconstructed and rebuilt from scratch?...Using the money as leverage is extremely important." — Gerald Steinberg [49:43]

• On the Modern Industry:
  "It's important to see it as an industry...there’s no oversight, no independent checks and balances." — Gerald Steinberg [27:13]

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Key Timestamps & Segments

• [02:36] – Gerald Steinberg introduces his background & the historical role of NGOs
• [04:49] – The original vision for civil society and “checks and balances”
• [09:21] – ‘Hijacking’ and politicization after the Cold War
• [12:43] – NGO Monitor’s evolution
• [16:17] – NGOs acquire power and UN status
• [22:48] – The NGO-to-UN-to-media feedback loop; fake facts manufacture
• [28:58] – Whistleblowing and silencing within NGOs
• [35:41] – The "halo effect" and journalistic blindness
• [42:09] – Self-citation and circular referencing in NGO reports
• [49:43] – Is real reform possible?
• [56:24] – The demonization of Zionism and effect on Jewish identity

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Further Resources

• NGO-Monitor website
• Steinberg’s writings on Quillette

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Summary

This episode exposes how the once-noble concept of the NGO has been captured by hidden politics, compromised by lack of oversight, and weaponized by activists and regimes to dominate public discourse, manufacture “facts,” and set international policy with minimal scrutiny. Steinberg’s warnings resonate: Only transparency, critical journalism, and leveraging financial accountability can begin to counteract the unaccountable power of the modern “NGO industrial complex.”

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Transcript

[A]

What do you think about when you hear the word ngo? Think about good volunteers, people who are altruistic, apolitical, just fighting the good fight, Right? Well, think again. In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on a multi billion dollar industry that operates with almost zero oversight. An industry that has completely captured the language of human rights. Joining us today is Gerald Steinberg, a prominent academic who has spent the last 25 years studying the hidden politics of civil society. He's also the founder of NGO Monitor, an organization dedicated to doing very important tracking the power, influence and ideological biases of groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Together we expose how the concept of the NGO was hijacked after the Cold War. How corrupt dictatorships use them to manufacture fake facts and reports at the un and the staggering lack of transparency inside these elite networks. From corporate level salaries to the top down silencing of internal whistleblowers. Gerald reveals how organizations built to check the excesses of democracy have become unaccountable political powerhouses in their own right. It's an eye opening, unfiltered conversation you can't afford to miss. Share it with someone who needs a dose of reality. Someone who still believes that the UN and these NGOs are pillars of truth. And also if you're watching this on YouTube, please subscribe. We are almost at 100,000 subscribers. Last time I checked we were just over 99,000. We've been sitting there for months. It's so super strange because we all know that you get an Award at 100,000 subscribers. So I'm not sure why we're not quite there yet. We've been growing consistently and our views have stayed more or less the same over the last few months. So super sus, please hit that subscribe button and as always comment like, let me know what you think. I try to read as many comments as possible and without much further ado, let's get into this conversation with Gerald Steinberg. Now our readers may have read some of your work on Quillette.com and I would highly recommend that every everyone does. But if they don't know who you are, what you do, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for the

[B]

last 25 years or so? My main focus I'm an academic with all the limitations but also all the advantages of doing that. I get to play around with different ideas and about the last 25 years I've been focusing on the politics of non governmental organizations because largely it was ignored at least 25 years ago. And for most of that time these are very powerful groups. When you think of Amnesty International, think of Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders. I could go on for hours. There are hundreds of them. I didn't know that at the time when I started that, that these organizations have a great deal of influence over our lives, over our politics, over our societies. And that was something that nobody was really paying attention to. NGOs when I started to look at this were considered to be all was altruistic. The people who worked in them were considered to be volunteers that gave up their time for non political activities. They were non governmental. They were explicitly defined as non political. We could talk later on about the history and why that happened. But I began to look at this because I saw them as an Israeli. I began to see them being very active also as part of the Western world, the Western political world, the liberal democratic world. Many of these organizations were what we could call post colonial, anti Western, anti capitalists. Some of them, I would say throwbacks, very much influenced by Marxism and having those perspectives. And yet they had influence. Everywhere I went I saw them. I started to see them in the United nations frameworks in Geneva, the Human Rights Council, places like that, where they were essentially participants, just like government representatives, except they didn't represent anybody except their donors and the people who work there. So this power, this influence, this political ideological tilt, all that led me to found this organization. That wasn't the intention. I was going to do it for three years as an academic. That is now called NGO Monitor. That's the shortest I can do it.

[A]

Well, you do. I think you do very important work because there are other people monitoring, for example, Hillel Neuer, who I'm sure you close, close with. Well, you know, he, he does, you know, UN watch.

[B]

The Hill lawyer who does UN watch. They're groups that, that monitor media. And there was nobody monitoring NGOs. It was like you have a puzzle and you have all these pieces, but there's a big hole in the middle and that's why I started to do that. And NGO is a non governmental organization. That's what the, the initials stand for. Many of these are not non governmental. Many of them are actually funded by governments and for explicitly political purposes. And that's part of the problem. But originally these organizations were founded and were seen to be outside the political process. They were supposed, they. Sometimes the term is used civil society, even nonprofit organization. Those are somewhat interchangeable. Civil society, non governmental. All those things were exactly as they are described, supposed to be Forms of checks and balances on the excesses of democracies. In the late 40s, after the Second World War, this was essentially an American idea that when they founded the United nations, that we would also give these organizations, these structures, civil society. They were non. Explicitly, not political, explicitly not being run by governments, so that they could provide some sort of external checks and balance on the. The politics and the biases and the internal manipulation that companies often democratic processes. That was the theory that was very. The idea of having these kind of civic groups were very American. De Tocqueville wrote about this back in the. Whatever was the early 19th century. This was. They had all these bowling groups and other groups that did civil groups. Lions Club. If you go into the United States, you drive through the different towns, you see signs when they meet. Well, that was the idea.

[A]

Australia as well. Rotary. Is Rotary one of those?

[B]

Yes, Rotary is definitely one of them. Absolutely.

[A]

My granddad was big into Rotary.

[B]

Yeah, that's. Those are very important parts of Western society. And so the idea was, okay, we in the ruins of Europe, particularly Germany, Italy, the fascist countries, Nazi infested countries, that having these kinds of civil society groups would be. Would avoid the kinds of democratic failures of the 1920s, of the Weimar Republic. And that's a little bit of geeky academic background, but that's where this concept came from. And that was very true of the 50s 40s and late 40s and 50s, when they began to operate even I would say through the 60s. Amnesty International was the first organization that said we're going to do human rights. They didn't quite phrase it that way. But in the early 1960s, the. The concept was there were these political prisoners that were around. They were in these. Certainly behind the Iron Curtain and the dictatorships of the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and also in the. The military governments of South America. In Greece, there were lots of political prisoners. And so the idea was we're going to have. This guy in Benninson was the originator of this. We're going to have a series of large public groups that would be writing postcards. That's what they did. They wrote postcards to publicize and to campaign for the freedom of political prisoners. And it was really was voluntary.

[A]

Sorry, pamphlets or postcards.

[B]

Well, postcards actually. Now I know it's 2026 and nobody uses postcards anymore. But in those days, postcards were very popular and they were basically blank. They didn't have pictures of it as far as I know. But they would get volunteers to send thousands of them. This Organization Amnesty International was a big success. It grew. It now has a budget. This is important to look at the size and also the changes, the fact that these were hijacked, these organizations. But in the 60s they were volunteers. Now it's got $400 million US dollars a year in budget. They have this very strong political ideology. They campaign, they're among the leaders of the campaigning to demonize Israel. The false claims of genocide, starvation, apartheid, all of that. Amnesty is very involved. The hijacking is something we want to talk about. Cuban Rights Watch then followed them in the United States. Amnesty was created in London. Human Rights Watch. A guy named Bob Bernstein created Human Rights Watch after coming back from the Soviet Union.

[A]

Jewish guy.

[B]

Jewish guy, yep. And many of these organizations were founded by Jews for good moral, ethical purposes, political purposes. And he said, okay, the United States needs to have one of these types of organizations. We're going to be different. We're not going to send postcards. We are going to do research and publicize our research and get it into the media. Different approach, parallel types of goals. And that's what they did throughout this period. So what you have is this growing sense. And these were recognized by the UN. The UN gives special status to NGOs now. It's very politicized. In those days it was basically an open door. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Orders. Now there are close to 6,000 such organizations recognized by the UN and tens of thousands of the smaller ones included around the world. But in those days it was very unusual and it was something that was a strong initiative. And the process of hijacking began at the end of the Cold War, essentially in the 90s. And that's one of the reasons, that's when I began to pay attention in the late 90s, that these were not the organizations that were advertised or taught in universities as being this altruistic concept, the civil society concept.

[A]

So can anyone create their own NGO and get it registered by the un?

[B]

The first part, yes. The second part is much more difficult. Now there are literally millions of NGOs around the world. Anybody can create something and say, hey, I'm an ngo. Usually in Western countries they have to register to get non profit status, which has tax benefits. And that's very much part of the growth of these groups. The reason amnesty has $400 million a year. Doctors Without Borders has US$2.4 billion a year. The Committee to Protect Journalists, which has become a Hamas propaganda outlet, adds a significant amount of funding. They get a lot of money from tax exempt Philanthropies and foundations that have special status. So almost anybody can create an ngo. I say almost. You have to get a lawyer, usually you have to get an accountant, you have to get certified as genuinely nonprofit. You have to have an annual financial report and then you get the benefits of that. There are many NGOs created by governments very cynically and through manipulation. Libya under Gaddafi had these NGOs, human rights NGOs. China has many NGOs. There are many other countries that are not democracies that have taken up this model. And that's introduced a major change as well. You have to apply them to the United Nations. Just to answer your question, the United nations, the Economic and Social Council ECOSOC is elected representatives of the entire UN membership by regions and essentially each one of those representatives has a veto. If you're an Israeli group, you're an American group that's not anti Zionist, that has, that may be completely removed from Zionist issues, but you will be questioned. And very often now the UN filtering process denies accreditation to NGOs that are not part of the politically correct package.

[A]

So is NGO Monitor an ngo?

[B]

Yes. NGO Monitor is officially known as the Institute for NGO Research. Okay, so I started this 25 years ago as a three year academic project. I said, oh, this is interesting. These organizations are doing things which are problematic. We should research. Some of them are not problematic. Let's do some research because nobody else is doing it. And I got some graduate students, I began to do the writing. NGO Monitor grew out of that. It became much bigger. We now have 20 staff members based in Jerusalem, most of which are researchers. Some do social media and other aspects of our work. I write for Quillet, other people write for other frameworks. We, we want to make sure that our research is not just done for academics, but is more widely circulated and analyzed. So very important we had to register. Once we became beyond one man operation at an Internet site then raising funds, I had to register registered in Israel, registered in the United States for fundraising purposes and other purposes and another a few other countries and through a fluke registered. We do have the echo stock status in the United nations because. Yes, because we, we applied every year because we wanted to research the process. There's nobody was doing that. And we got denied every year through a questionnaire that asks us constantly what is our position on the right of return of Palestinians and the, the right, the rights of Palestinians to self determination. All sorts of questions like that, which were weird but were part of the

[A]

process relevant if you're an ngo In, I don't know, Liberia or somewhere. Why should.

[B]

Doing environmental issues. Right. NGOs doing so.

[A]

So you're saying they ask every single prospective NGO about.

[B]

I think anyone that's suspect. It's not.

[A]

They.

[B]

There's usually a representative. The largest voting bloc in the un, and that explains a lot about the UN is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has, depending on whether you count Palestinians or not, 56 members, which is the largest single bloc these days in the UN. There are 192 or 193 official members of the UN. So that's more than a quarter of the total vote. And it's very well organized. So automatically that's one of the things we learned in the process. And they always have a representative on that committee and therefore can exercise that veto. However, that representative happened to have been a Syrian. When our application came up for the third or fourth time, fourth or fifth time, and that Syrian had. Did not show up, there were reports that he had defected. It was in the middle of the anti Assad revolution, approximately 15 years ago, a little bit less. And they. There was a package of NGOs applicants that had been vetoed year after year and that was pushed through, accepted unanimously. And we were a part of that package. And we didn't even know it for a few days until we got the official note. We didn't expect that. So that was a fluke. But yes. And therefore we are able to participate and document the process. And that's very important.

[A]

So what's the end goal here? Is it just going to keep growing and growing? Are there just going to be more and more NGOs with a seat at the table? Like where. Where do they draw the line? What's the point of having all these separate NGOs?

[B]

I think it's a process. It's not an end goal that they have. They in a broad sense, look. And also we're talking about massive amounts of NGOs, so I don't want to paint a picture with one very hugely broad brush. There are NGOs that are indeed non political. There are NGOs that are indeed not biased. And I even use the term altruistic. As cynical as I tend to be about these things these days, in all sorts of different areas. It's very. To volunteer to do good for the world is very popular among college students. And they get sucked into this, the process in one way, this is a more. I think as someone who studies politics, they call it political science. It's not a science, but I did that for 40 years and taught students around the world is to get power. First of all, it's power. Human Rights Watch has tremendous. All these groups have tremendous amount of power when they issue reports, when they meet with government leaders, when they testify in Parliament, when they speak in the United nations, because an NGO recognized by ECOSOC can speak in the Human Rights Council. I spoke, I will be speaking by video, I believe today on an issue related to Australia and anti Semitism.

[A]

Wow. In the Royal Commission, this is.

[B]

Well, I will be talking about the Royal Commission, but this was part of the UN Universal Periodic Review. In the realm of human rights. Okay, so that provides as in a very small way. There'll be many other voices counter. But it's a small way of balancing. But the point I want to make is it's a form of power. NGOs have a lot of power and they dominate political discussions in realms like human rights, in humanitarian aid issue, on what is democracy and who gets to find democracy. So when you have an NGO talking about the suffering of the Iranians and the aggression of the United States, or even everything to do with international law, the NGOs. The NGO World has largely conquered. Ken Roth, who led Human Rights Watch since started for almost 30 years in 1993, as the founder of Human Rights Watch, Robert Bernstein said to me this biggest mistake he ever made appointing Ken Roth. He is hugely powerful as one individual. He now has a fellowship appointment at Harvard and at Princeton, spouting off about human rights. Very much in the world of postcolonial, anti Western, very personally, anti Zionist, anti Israel. It's a lot of power. Roth is a particularly strange case. But yes.

[A]

Oh, I heard you say yes. He got married in a church and stuff. So it's a bit.

[B]

There's all sorts of stuff out there that shows his alienation. And there's a personal story there in his background that people are speculating about. I can. I don't have the information. But let's take a very different example. Agnes Calamar runs Amnesty International. She is head of Amnesty. Now, nobody knows, nobody outside of a small group in Amnesty knows how she was chosen. It's actually more secretive. NGOs are less democratic and less open than anything any other democratic framework. And I would even say more. They're less visible in terms of their decision making process than the Vatican. When the Vatican chooses a pope, you know who the cardinals are, you know where they're sitting. It's a closed framework. Sometimes it leaks. Amnesty, you have no idea how the process works. It's a very convoluted legal framework. Legal financial framework based in London, where it's like a shell game where you never know where the action is. Where you have various different corporate entities registered with the British government. They control $400 million a year plus and they control the agenda. How is Agnes Callamard chosen? She has tremendous power. So again, I tend to wonder, in answer to your question, because the issues are complicated, but I think the first issue is power. You. You get power without having to stand for elections. This is not. Politics is problematic, but it's democratic politics. So you can stand for election. You can't do that. People have tried an Amnesty, for example, to register as you. You can. An Amnesty has a membership to become members, pay their dues and then suggest alternatives in terms of agenda setting.

[A]

I personally did this. I was recruited by a friend who, you know, I. I'm a. I see myself as a social justice warrior. Right.

[B]

I still am, absolutely.

[A]

I used to be very different. Like I joined the Greens Party the day I could when I was 18 and I was, you know, Marxist, feminist, vegan. All of the. All of the issues.

[B]

The package.

[A]

Yes. Thankfully, I didn't get too much into the BDS anti Israel stuff because that wasn't really as much in the Zeitgeist at the time when I was at uni, thankfully, or at least not at my university. But, you know, I. I was a member of these organizations and then I sort of let my membership lapse until recently when a friend who is a big supporter of. Well, traditionally of the Uyghurs, he's been a little bit disappointed by them recently actually. But, you know, Amnesty was taken over by essentially pro. Pro China, you know, pro. Pro Russia, pro.

[B]

Just anti democratic.

[A]

Anti democratic. Which.

[B]

Anti Western. Yes.

[A]

How. How you imagine it to be. Anyway, so he got me to sign up and I signed up and the idea was that we would vote in a more respectable what's the. What's what leader or whatever. But that's. That's not really what happened, unfortunately. I tried. We tried our best teams.

[B]

It's very hard to change from the. From the ground up because the power is so much stronger from the top down. And that I found with every NGO that I've looked at in that run, there are NGOs that are much smaller and have much lower budgets and have much less political visibility. But those are. Those are not the ones that cause the problems that disrupt the democratic crisis or do the activities that you describe.

[A]

So when you say that some countries, for example, Libya under Gaddafi had these different NGOs. What did they do with those? Well, I guess they, they used it to. For power, as you're saying. But like, can you give us some examples of NGOs that.

[B]

Well, Libya, the funny thing, Amara, this is funny. It's. Libya had some sort of human rights NGO and they had a Muammar Gaddafi human rights prize. I kid you not, I did not make that up. And they, they awarded it every year and there were ceremonies and it was recognized in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The absurdities are vast. China now operates, you know, Gaddafi no longer does that. I don't think Libya has any NGOs, doesn't really have a functioning government. China operates a number of NGOs that do quite similar things. They speak in the United nations so that if an NGO gets up at the United nations or a government gets up in the United nations, it talks about Chinese government violations or Communist Party violations of human rights or political prisoners in China, then very often you will have somebody getting up with NGO status. Chinese saying, that's not correct. This is, this is the correct line. But they are essentially government and Communist Party mouthpieces. And that is quite common because they have a lot of power. They get, and they get enough support. They're trade offs. The Chinese get supported and the Russian get supported by the many of the Muslim countries. They are the Islamic cooperation framework, the 56 countries, they do trade offs. You vote for our people, who are your people? You bring in, you speak on behalf of your issues. You'll let us speak on behalf of our issues. There are trade offs like that. And that is very characteristic, not only in the un but what happens then also it gets picked up and amplified by the media. The media still for different reasons. The media is a very broad term, I would say many journalists, many liberal journalists, liberal journalist platforms, media platforms, the ones that we all know and love or not always love, will take these reports, these statements and give them headline status and perhaps now introduce a sentence or two of criticism when you have, let's say, 2,000 words citing the organizations and the work that they do. One of the examples of, in a certain sense, a strange one, but Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote a, what was really, they called it an investigation, even though he's an opinion writer. And there are lots of ongoing issues related to this. The claim was that Israel used dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. The only source of information was a very obscure NGO called Euromed Human Rights Monitor, which claimed, which had an address In Geneva, which was registered with the Swiss government. Perhaps no more than a sign in a post office box, but led Christoph. By the nose, piece by piece. That's what they do. They are an operating arm of Hamas and the people who run it have very clear Hamas links. You can find this, by the way. That's what we do. NGO monitor. Not just NGO monitor. There are other people out there who do good work in this area through social media. See the connection between the head of this group and Hamas leaders. And Nicholas Kristof refers to them as an NGO based in Geneva that is critical of Israeli policy. But they fed him the article. They orchestrated the whole process. NGOs have that kind of power to journalists, amplify that power and therefore you basically create fake facts and influence the political process at a very low cost. So that, that's really what this objective is all about in many, many ways.

[A]

Yes, I'm trying. We. We wrote, we published something about that, Christoph.

[B]

Yes. A number of items, including one that I wrote.

[A]

Rami Abdou.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Who previously served as assistant Director and Palestine Office Manager for the Council for European Palestinian Relations, which is another ngo.

[B]

You have all these n. In different frameworks. So he has a history of going from NGO to ngo, but doing the same thing in each case. And that, by the way, is very characteristic of the NGO industry. And I think it's important to see it as an industry, an industry that is not. There's no oversight, there are no independent checks and balances. It's. You don't have that in the business or the political world. No.

[A]

And there's a lot to gain, you know, as a young person starting out your career. I know. I, I studied law at university. My dream, like so many young law students, was to be a human rights lawyer. And wow. To have gotten a position at one of these NGOs, one of these big NGOs. It would have been, well, very competitive and such a privilege to have gotten one of these roles. And then you can just see how you'd really have to toe the line to get, firstly, get your foot through the door. And I'm sure the most, only the most sort of radical, you know, dyed in the wool, anti Zionists or whoever they are, true believers, get the roles and then everyone wants to keep their cushy salaries. I'm sure these people get quite, quite nice salaries. You know, they want to keep those positions. So I'm sure there's so much. Yeah. Ideological purity that's needed. So. And no one can question, hey, like, you know, Are we really doing the right thing here? We were set up to. For human rights where he, you know, denying rape of Israeli women, you know, but we're a feminist organization. What's happening here?

[B]

Well, there's an interesting phenomenon, somewhat hopeful and again I'm cynical, but I will use the word somewhat. There are now whistleblowers, a few, but a growing number in the human rights and NGO industry. I think the first one that I became aware of was a woman by the name of Danielle Haas from Human Rights Watch who shortly after October 7, 2023, when the atrocities, the Hamas atrocities took place, wrote a very strong email. She worked at Human rights watch for 13 years. She was a senior editor. And she wrote a strong email which she made public. I assume she made. It was became public that condemning the organizational culture of antisemitism, condemning the way in which the main voices of human rights was. All of whom had been hired and appointed and nurtured by Ken Roth and others in the. Sarah Leah Whitston, those people who have a very strong history of anti Israel activity. She exposed that and she resigned or she. The Human Rights Watch said she was fired. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference. She went public and there are individuals now, she has a network. There are individuals in the network, outside the network, from Amnesty, very small number, but a growing number from Doctors Without Borders who've provided testimony or evidence or spoken publicly about the culture of antisemitism. It's exactly the way you described it, that the hierarchical system. You would think an organization that promotes human rights and calls itself progressives and liberal would have an open culture of debate. Absolutely not. They talk about the fact that there is a very strong top down imposition of. Of how to think very Orwellian and silencing people internally who raise exactly the issues you talked about. And in many cases the only option is really to resign and go public. I see this as a very positive process and hopefully one that will expand because there are little. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people in these organizations who know what's going on. Not all of them are part of that same ideological straitjack. So there is some hope, but it does. It costs your career. You have to leave and you lose the cushy salary. And you're absolutely right. The benefits, the salaries as you get higher up in the organization are very, very good. If you're a good corporate lawyer, maybe you can make more money outside, but you don't have the same framework as calling yourself a human rights lawyer.

[A]

Well, And I suppose it is a career path that people are just professional. Ngo. Yes, People, Right. Directors. Yeah.

[B]

They go from Tirana Hassan. Just to take one example. There are many. Tirana Hassan was hired by Ken Roth, was part of Human Rights Watch for many years. She became the executive director when Roth retired. A couple of years ago, the Human Rights Watch board mysteriously fired her, citing differences over financial. That's right. I'd forgotten that. She ended up. She is now the head of Doctors Without Borders usa, which is the largest chapter and funds close to half of the entire Doctors Without Borders budget, which is extremely political. Anti Israel. It's the same ideology. She's one example of thousands of people who go from place to place. We talked about Rami Abdu from Europe, Euromed, Human Rights monitor and the NGOs that had similar names and similar activities that he had been part of. Many of them followed a similar career path.

[A]

And it all sounds like these NGOs or even the names they give these NGOs give them such prestige. So when you question, you know, the UN or these NGOs, it sounds like you're denying, you know, that you're anti human Rights or that you're anti, you know, it's. They've really captured the language. Yeah, it's. And to people who don't know about it, who haven't maybe read your work or aren't aware that the UN is corrupt in so many ways, it just sounds like you're a conspiracy theorist. I know because I try to tell my friends, you know,

[B]

Because it's a massive industry and very powerful, and because there's no real debate or criticism, then it's very hard to challenge that. And it goes from the NGOs, either straight to the UN or through journal friendly journalists, allied journalists, to the UN. And then it gets cited. I'm sure it gets cited in the Australian Parliament.

[A]

Definitely.

[B]

When. When political leaders talk about arrest warrants that were issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli leaders, they're basically recycling NGO propaganda. It went from the NGOs. The NGOs are very instrumental, by the way, in creating this ridiculous framework called the International Criminal Court, which is not really a court which doesn't have any of the attributes of a real criminal justice process in a democratic society. Again, who are the people who chooses the prosecutor? The main figure in the Criminal Court, who has recently been. I believe the word is that he has been taken leave of absence because of sexual misconduct.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Who chooses him? Kareem Khan. Kareem Khan, a British lawyer, British legal. I don't know if the word expert, but someone from, from who has a law degree and has practiced law in different ways and was well known who appointed him. Well, it's essentially the same UN framework. It's the same countries that are members of the court then in their framework choose the individuals who then choose the prosecutors. But it's largely a closed process and the NGOs have a very strong influence there.

[A]

To be fair to these journalists, I mean, they should know better, especially the experienced ones. But what would you prefer to see journalists do when they're reporting on these issues? The war or what's happening in the un?

[B]

I use the term halo effect, that to a large degree there are some important exceptions. But journalists tend to view the statements, the activities of all these NGOs through that same saintly prism of altruistic, non political, exactly the way they were described and expected to behave back in the 1950s and 60s. They never, almost never investigate the NGO. So what you see is the highly respected. That's a term that's often used by journalists. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders. It's a wide range. Or when you have somebody like Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, we come back to him because it was such so famous. And there are a number of pieces in quillette, including one that I wrote, that I recommend people look at for more background that when they, we quote these NGOs, they do it without any investigation. Where did the. Who are really these people who are running these NGOs? Who funds them? Why are they funded if they have this huge amount of money? Are they getting paid off by Qatar? That's an open question. Human Rights watch back in 2009 started to hide its full list of donors for a while. You could only get that list if you were asked for the text. And they would, for people like us, they would deny. They said, no, we're not going to send it to you. So apparently board members had it. But then you find out 10 years later, something like that. Ken Roth and Sarah Leah Whitston accepted or solicited and accepted a large donation from a corrupt Saudi businessman who had been criticized the year before for human rights violations by Human Rights Watch. But it was hidden for 10 years. Well, what else is hidden? Sarah Leah Whitson, who was hired by Ken Roth to do the Middle east, to be his Middle east director, went to these countries in 2009 to raise funds. Long story, which I won't get into now. But she went to Libya. She declared the Gaddafi family in 2009, to be human rights reformers. The absurdity of that just shouts, by the way, on the basis of that, the London School of Economics accepted a large donation from the Gaddafi family and coincidentally, completely coincidentally, granted a PhD to one of Gaddafi's sons who recently died in the fighting that goes on, ongoing fighting in Libya. But this whole process, the absurdity of it. Human Rights Watch declares Gaddafi to be a Human Rights Watch reformer. LSC accepts large grants. It's the whole process. So who investigated that? Only much later did LSC do an internal investigation and acknowledge the history journalists didn't learn from that. I know I'm giving these long, roundabout answers to your questions. It's a lot of history here, but I think it's important to provide the details. Journalists still use that halo effect when they write about NGOs instead of saying, well, just like I look at a political actor, a party, a government, a politician, and if I'm a good journalist, I ask the questions about who's supporting him or her, where do they get their funding from? That's always an important part of 21st century political power. Who backs them? Are they reliable sources?

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Should. Should act that question.

[A]

Yeah. Just like, you know, if you're investigating or reporting on a cat up a tree story, you know, and you want, you want to hear, you know, who saw the cat. Well, do they have anything to gain from saying they, you know, who is this person? Who are they related to? Most journalists would do that in any other situation. But these NGOs are just held on a pedestal.

[B]

Absolutely. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Or sit on a pedestal, I should say.

[B]

And it's very hard. Not that goes from the journalists to the politicians. So when they're quoted, it's very hard. Yes. So. So in all of Western Europe, that, that again, the halo, the pedestal. But I think it's also true of the. More in Australia the terms are somewhat reversed, but I would say the more progressive liberal political actors that they are, just as journalists, accept what an NGO declares rights in its massive reports, maybe we should talk about that a bit, how they write those reports, how they publish them. But if Israel commits genocide, Israel is an apartheid state, Australia violates human rights in its treatment of migrants. All sorts of other things like that are accepted as absolute truth without investigating the biases of the people who write those reports and the evidence that is presented. And I think that's an important factor.

[A]

So how are these reports written? Who writes them?

[B]

These organizations? I used the model of Human Rights Watch, which then became the accepted model Everywhere. I'll just start by saying this is where the process works. In December of 2024, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Doctrines Without Borders, in the same period of a couple of weeks issued reports declaring Israel commits genocide. Three of the most influential financially capable, understate the term organizations in the world made the same declaration. They issued reports. Some of those reports, I think Amnesty was over 200 pages. Human rights Watch, perhaps half, some of them very well illustrated. Dr. La Borders had lots of graphics in it, but then you read the details. At least I do. And by the way, when Daniela Haas resigned from Human Rights Watch and the things she said and written after, which is nobody, they know that nobody's going to read these reports. No journalist who gets this report 24 hours before the embargo is lifted and writes a story is going to read 200 pages of text, or even 10 pages of text. We read them and we analyze them and they usually have massive amounts of footnotes to have the pseudo academic look of a serious investigative report. But then you look at where the footnotes go. They are very often self citing. Amnesty International references, an earlier Amnesty International report or maybe an Oxfam report.

[A]

You can't do that. You're not supposed to reference Wikipedia and you're not supposed to reference yourself.

[B]

Well, exactly. Or they reference the United nations, which references Amnesty International, or they reference Euromed, Human Rights Network, Monitor, whatever it is, Monitor or one of the Al Haq, which is another major Palestinian organization with completely hidden finances, all sorts of things like that. It's a shell game. So when you read, when I, when we, our staff, other people actually read those reports and realize that it's a house of cards or a castle built in the air. There's no substantive foundation that can be independently verified. And that's another very strong characteristic. So I have spoken to serious journalists, people who I consider to be serious, who've written those stories, and they say, I get this report, I. My editor says, we need a story on this. You have 24 hours to write it or less. I'm not going to read 200 pages. Nobody's going to read 200 pages. I will give you one example. There was a case that took place of an issue that came up in Israel and there was actually, it was a legal process. And the human rights representative gave a press conference after a decision that was made by an Israeli court. The decision was in Hebrew. That person was briefed to the meet, a brief to the media. It was cited in the New York Times online. And I asked the Reporter who I knew in the New York Times what the basis for that Human Rights Watch statement was, because that individual doesn't read or speak Hebrew. And this was five minutes after the Jesuit was released. They removed that sentence from the story. That's an anecdote, but that's how the process works. So very rarely I sympathize with the journalists, but I don't think that's a legitimate professional response that you end up simply. You see them end up simply quoting the press release as if that was the substance of the report and not going beyond that. I believe there's some changes that are taking place and that I think I'll credit my own organization, but others as well who are repeatedly showing that these reports don't have substances. An interesting event that took place. Another NGO called Committee to Protect Journalists. I think it's called. Yeah, Press Freedom, as there is their username on. On Twitter or X. And another NGO based in the US Very highly respected. All of those things that has been repeatedly for the last three years accusing Israel, repeating Hamas propaganda, that Israel is deliberately killing journalists and that now has been picked up and expanded in Kisbala for Lebanon and Hezbollah. The organization continue to protect journalists that yesterday or the day before issued a statement on their website. No social media. It's interesting, saying that they are revising their claims. And the list of journalists that were killed allegedly by Israel, recognizing that a significant number of them were actually deeply embedded in the terrorist framework and not actual journalists. It took them three years. The evidence has been out there from the beginning and widely cited.

[A]

The damage is done already.

[B]

The damage is done, but at least, again, looking at it, slightly less cynical than I should be. Perhaps there's some willingness and pressure. I believe that probably came from some of their donors and board members. Pressure because they're losing credibility. And I think that's a significant step. It needs to be expanded greatly. And people who watch this podcast or who read Quillet perhaps will then become aware of the need to go beyond the halo effect and putting these groups on a pedestal.

[A]

I think on the right, at least there's. It's acceptable or people understand that the UN is corrupt or flawed. In particular, in Australia, I would say conservatives really started to look down on the UN when it came to climate stuff. So any climate reports on, you know, Australia being a number one polluter or. Because after those reports we, our government or successive governments began to introduce, you know, well, we. We'd sign up to these Kyoto Protocols or whatever, Paris Accord or whatever to. To, you Know, impress the UN essentially. And a lot of people on the right therefore developed a disdain for the un. But I think people are less knowledgeable or aware when it comes to the human rights stuff. They're more credulous. And I think the left, I, I don't know many people on the left who would criticize these NGOs or the UN. It's sort of like they are the epitome of human rights for these people and it's very hard to argue with them.

[B]

Yeah, that's right, because it's a religion and you can't argue with religion. It's a, it's faith based and there are high priests and those high priests in. It was New Zealand, Ken Roth. He may have come to Australia too. I didn't track that. But Ken Roth was invited to come to New Zealand. He was invited by a former Prime Minister whose name escapes me for the moment. And did

[A]

Jacinta o', Donne, the woman?

[B]

No, I think it was earlier and maybe a foreign minister. He did the circuit, he spoke at university, he spoke to journalists, he did podcasts and everything else. And it was accepted throughout. As this is someone who's speaking, highly respected. Speaking as world's expert on human rights, I was not aware there was some distancing. There was some distancing from the. I guess I don't know enough about New Zealand politics to call it the right, but not from, from distancing from the left, from that party line. But it was interesting because of the way in which it became a government issue in terms of policies that were accepted or not accepted based on those, that, that influence process.

[A]

Yeah, well, to, to expand on that, I suppose the right term for these people on the right would be, you know, isolationists. That this. And Australia is having a populist surge at the moment and where a lot of Australians are feeling very, you know, resentful of giving money to these foreign organizations or having the UN or whoever it is, the powers that be. Globalists. You know, I say that half tongue in cheek because there is a, there is a genuine issue there, as we can see. You know, I'm not against globalism per se, but I can see why people are pissed off that, that, you know, some organization is, you know, telling us how, what we should do in, in our own country and in particular when it comes to, I mean, I've just been. The rose colored glasses have come off after October 7th and I'm just seeing the, the truth about how corruptible and corrupted so many of these NGOs in the UN is that I'm not sure. I know I'm feeling quite, quite hopeless. I know the UN was started, you know, came out of the League of Nations with very virtuous intentions. But how can this be fixed? Like it seems too far gone.

[B]

That's a very, that's a huge question, which is, as they say, above my pay. Still, I'm going to do it anyway a little bit. That's a very hot issue. The NGOs and the UN are close to tie and there's again a huge amount of money, power, prestige involved in that. So questioning the religion of these are wonderful. Questioning the globalist religion and not in a cynical way, not in the, the, the more hard right, often racist and anti semitic version, but the sense that these institutions embody the principles, the moral, the ethical principles, the values that they were supposed to do. I think that's important. The UN has been hijacked. NGO industry has been hijacked. And the question is, can it be fixed or does it have to be deconstructed and rebuilt from scratch? I'm not going to claim to have a good answer to that, but I do think that using the money as leverage is extremely important. The UN is about to choose a new Secretary General. The current Secretary General Guterres has been a disaster because he's simply a rubber stamp for all the bad frameworks and the power structures, including the Organization of the Islamic Conference Cooperation. People like the special rapporteur on Palestinian issue that has been so, so very viciously anti Semitic.

[A]

Francesca Albanese.

[B]

Francesca Albanese. The name is familiar. Yes, and others as well. Riman Salam, who basically denied the rape of and sexual mistreatment of Israelis and was confronted with victims of that just a few days ago.

[A]

What's her role?

[B]

The whole power structure.

[A]

Sorry, what's her role? Rima, the Jordanian lady.

[B]

She's also a special. I think she's a special rapporteur for the human rights framework on. I've forgotten. On sexual violence.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

UN Watch Hill and lawyer will know that better. Yes, but. And that that's all connected to the NGO issue. Can that I argue. And again, this is a little bit past my. The area that I claim to have expertise in that governments need to use their funding and their leverage. The United States is doing that. Of course. Now if the United States and Trump is doing something, then to be correct, you have to do the opposite. That's not a good answer.

[A]

Australia, what did Trump do, do exactly or threaten to do?

[B]

Trump cut off funding. He has cut off funding for United Nations Relief Works Agency unwra, which perpetuates the Palestinian victimhood myth and everything else. An incitement and. And has many terrorists embedded in it. Actually, the Biden administration did that first. Congress mandated that and then Trump extended it indefinitely. And there are other aspects of UN policies that the US has used.

[A]

As Australia caused funding for unravel and resumed.

[B]

Yeah, as in all good religions, there was a collective or high priest decision when the first terrorists were shown to be. This is UN Watch. Another organization did a brilliant job of that. That there are many terrorists embedded in unwrap. Anybody who was shocked by that is not paying attention. And there after that, the US was first. That was under Biden and then Western Europe. All of Europe froze funding, Canada froze funding, Australia froze funding. And they all restarted the funding except the US within a few months. Because that was the politically correct thing to do. They did the gesture.

[A]

UNIFIL is an issue as well in Lebanon.

[B]

In Lebanon, you.

[A]

Oh, no. Someone else wrote about UNIFIL for Quillette. But even just talking to some Lebanese people I know who live in Australia. Who The Christians. And they're very upset about the. The Australian government sending money to Lebanon. Which sounds fine. Or altruistic.

[B]

Altruistic, yep.

[A]

But really it's just ending up in the hands of Hezbollah.

[B]

The again, it comes back to not going beyond the image, not beyond the halo effect and going into the details. So I don't know enough about the Australian government, but many governments. Canada is a particularly visible one. Gives money to UN frameworks for giving to NGOs. In some cases, an NGO has been found to have terror connections. Its funding is cut off, then it goes. The Canadians then give millions to the un and then the UN structure through a framework called ocha, among others, which is humanitarian. The H is humanitarian. The Office of the Commission of Humanitarian affairs. Huge budget. And they transfer to the same NGOs but do it secretly. And the Canadians say, oh, we don't know, we just give it to the un. I wouldn't be surprised if the labor government in Australia does the same thing. And that way they look clean, but they're not. So following up and looking at the details is extremely important and using that leverage. And perhaps in Australia that seems like a standard governmental process. If you're giving money, follow where it goes.

[A]

That's the best taxpayer money. What's happening with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation? Does that still exist?

[B]

That does not exist anymore. The Gaza war. There is a ongoing ceasefire of sorts. Israel controls about 70% of Gaza territory, Hama still runs activity in the other 30%. There's still tunnels, terror, infrastructure being destroyed. The humanitarian aid process, as it's called, is being conducted through various frameworks and there is greater monitoring. And again, Israel controls 70% of the territory there, so there's less likelihood of massive diversion. The question is, what comes next? The humanitarian Gaza Humanitarian Fund no longer exists. That was temporary. It did its job. Now there's something called the Trump Board of Peace. They have detailed plans for reforming, for rebuilding, for restructuring. Humanitarian aid eventually has to be phased out. Right. There are billions going in every year. People in Gaza have to build an economy that functions and isn't all used for terrorism. If that can be done under international frameworks, perhaps it'll be better. It's not the un. This is called the Board of Peace. Trump put it together and then you have to very much look at the details and it's too early to see where that's going.

[A]

Yeah, I guess that's a bigger conversation for another time. But one other question related, but not directly in your expertise, I suppose, but in your expertise as a political scientist and a Jewish person and someone who, and an Israeli in general, you know what, what has happened to the term Zionism? Clearly it's become a slur, it's become tarred and it's such a shame. I'm going to get personal and go on my own little rant for a second. It's, it's really one of the worst things I think, that's happened, that's come out of the war over the last few years is that, you know, as a non Jewish person who grew up in a small town, Newcastle in Australia, the average Novocastrian, the average person living there didn't know what Zionism was. No one knew. We didn't have to use that term. Most people probably knew that Israel existed, but they never thought about it because they had no need to think about it. They were focusing on their own lives and whatever. And now through this, I would say very well oiled propaganda machine, many of much of the work is done by these NGOs. We've been talking about this term. We, we've, we've, we, we are now in a situation where, you know, I've met a lovely Jewish man who has family in Israel and now every time I introduce my partner to people in Newcastle who've probably never met a Jewish person before, they automatically know that this, this guy or, you know, his family or whatever, Zionists, and that Zionism is a bad thing. And I just hate that that's tarred innocent people. It's tar. It's tarred their, their impression of Jewish people and Jewish self determination. It really. That's my rant.

[B]

I sign on to every word. We have been inundated by an Orwellian flood of massively funded not just since 2023, but really it's been building for roughly 80 years. I could do a whole speech about the origins of Zion and Zionism going in biblical terms as referring to Jerusalem. It's throughout the Jewish Bible, the Hebrew Bible and the return to Zion to Israel as the giving the expression to Jewish self determination in our homeland goes back as a concept, political concept to the late 19th century. But it has very strong religious historical roots and it was hijacked and by massive, massive propaganda. Very Orwellian. I'll leave it at that because otherwise that's a whole other discussion with people. Anat Wolf and others who are brilliant if you don't know the name Anat Wilf is extremely good at that in her book the War, the War of Return and the term that westplaners people from the west who explain the Palestinian suffering becomes anti Zionism. So yes, it's a much broader conversation and you exactly described it. The pit in the stomach that we, we have whenever we hear examples and see examples like that.

[A]

I guess my, my question is these, these organizations, I assume they've changed from being. Or maybe they've always been like this. But it's not merely, it's not merely criticism of Israel that's now popular. It's this idea that Israel should not exist. I'm not sure if that's, if that's actually being said by these NGOs. That's actually very radical.

[B]

It's demonization. It's been an undercurrent again and I go back to Human Rights Watch, Ken Roth and Amnesty and other groups different times that Palestinian, that Israel stole Palestinian land, that Israel was created in sin. Zionism is a form all these. Back in the Soviet Union ran this whole campaign. Zionism is racism. Well these are the modern. The post Soviet inheritors are people like Ken Roth and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. And now using terms like the right of the return for Palestinians, which means no Israel. If you say Palestine, this is all Palestine or from the river to the sea. However, whatever phrase you want to use that is where this is going. And it is definitely a form of demonization that Israel shouldn't exist. And I could also criticize many Israeli political leaders for thinking that it was no longer necessary to explain ourselves our history back this was back when the Oslo Peace agreement in parenthesis was or in quotation marks was fine. So there's a lot more to go on this but I think we've used up more than our share of the time.

[A]

Yes. Gerald, thank you so much for joining me. If people want to read more of your work, obviously they should head head to quillet.com but where else can they go to to find out more I

[B]

think any any kind of search to criticism of NGOs our website NGO monitor NGO hyphen monitor.com the sign in the back is some of that and or you can look my up my name and it's it's pretty much out there academically and whatever media frame platforms they let me speak on and write on. Certainly Cruel Ed is a good place to look.

[A]

Yes. And we love to have you contributing. Keep up the good work and catch you catch you later. Thank you for joining me.

[B]

Good. You too. Absolutely. Everything you do is very much spot on as they say. Thank you. Very refreshing and important voice.

[A]

Sa.