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Royal CommissionNewsAustraliaWorld

Humanitarian organisations fail on antisemitism: new research

Reearchers have called for an independent body to oversee humanitarian organisations after a survey found they are failing to deal with internal antisemitism
Deborah Stone
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Published: 14 July 2026

Last updated: 3 August 2026

More than half of Jewish professionals working in secular humanitarian organisations say they have experienced or witnessed anti-Jewish bias and almost three-quarters said organisations' responses were ineffective.

The figures come from a survey of more than 70 Jewish and non-Jewish professionals within the humanitarian, development, and environmental organisations from Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs), including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières/MSF), Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mercy Corps, Plan International, Save the Children, and UNICEF.

The survey was conducted by a group of human rights professionals called EiGHT, who compiled the results in a submission prepared for the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

The research identified internal cultures that dehumanise Israel and are hostile to Jewish identity, with a lack of effective complaints procedures or consequences. There was a one-eyed view of the Israel-Palestine conflict where Zionism was assumed to be an evil and anyone who identified as a Zionist– Jewish or not – was marginalised.

“Jewish staff reported exclusion, psychological harm, and professional vulnerability within workplaces ostensibly committed to equality,” the submission said.

Staff reported they were afraid to speak out within their workplaces. “Jewish employees raised concerns openly at first. Then less often. Then not at all. In time, they were all gone,” one worker from an international NGO told researchers.

The submission said complaint procedures were not effective. Several contributors reported that concerns about antisemitism were reframed as interpersonal conflict, political disagreement, or communications issues rather than discrimination requiring institutional response.

“It was incredibly frustrating to have professional issues treated like a personality clash. Eventually, I was so traumatised by unaddressed toxic behaviour that I told my boss I needed to take a couple of sick days. He knew the background to the situation; he just didn’t want to handle it. He said, ‘Sure. Enjoy your time off’,” an employee who has since left the job reported.

This pattern was repeated in many NGOs. “Documented complaints about hostile behaviour related to Jews, Israel, or Israelis, and professional standards failures connected to Israel work have consistently failed to produce meaningful consequences,” the researchers found.

The researchers have called for the establishment of a standing independent oversight mechanism for NGOs to:

  • Develop and enforce sector-wide standards with independent benchmarking
  • Commission an independent survey of Jewish staff experiences
  • Require NGOs operating in Australia to provide staff with access to genuinely independent, third-party reporting pathways for discrimination complaints
  • Condition public funding on enforceable accountability standards
  • Provide public reporting of findings and outcomes for complaints.
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About the author

Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone is Editor-in-Chief of TJI. She has more than 30 years experience as a journalist and editor, including as a reporter and feature writer on The Age and The Sunday Age, as Editor of the Australian Jewish News and as Editor of ArtsHub.

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Comments2

  • Avatar of Jacqueline C

    Jacqueline C17 July at 05:37 pm

    “ There was a one-eyed view of the Israel-Palestine conflict where Zionism was assumed to be an evil and anyone – Jewish or not – was marginalised”

    This should be the basis of any future investigation. That means that it should NOT be limited to Jewish victims only. If this is perceived as antisemitism, it is YOU who has a problem comprehending the magnitude of horror still being inflicted & witnessed by a majority of the global population, on the indigenous people of Palestine.

  • Avatar of Simon Krite

    Simon Krite14 July at 03:35 am

    This is the most important article TJI has published !!!!

    This pattern has been playing out for years. Groups like Students for Palestine, JCA and APAN borrowing moral authority from these NGOs whose own Jewish staff were being quietly pushed out.

    ‘Then less often. Then not at all. In time, they were all gone.’ Read that line twice.

    What we are witnessing is a Jewish purge. Even the US State Department has now moved against the ICC. THINK about that for a minute.

    When human rights institutions can’t protect their own Jewish employees, the rot is intrenched. The Royal Commission must make this submission central evidence. Every nefarious submissions to the RC so far referrers to these captured groups.

    Thank you, Deb, for putting it on the record.