President Joe Biden withdrew a controversial human rights pick for a position at the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday who had described Israel as an “apartheid state” and accused a House Democratic leader of being “Bought. Purchased. Controlled” by AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
On Friday, the Biden administration announced that they had chosen James Cavallaro to become an independent member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an organ of the Organization of American States mandated with protecting and promoting human rights in the Americas, the Associated Press reported. The White House described him as a “leading scholar and practitioner of international law” with vast experience in human rights in South America.
But in the aftermath of the Algemeiner running an exposé of Cavallaro’s long history of inflammatory posts against Israel and American support for Israel, the State Department announced on Tuesday that his candidacy had been rescinded.
The report by the New-York based news outlet noted that in December 2022, Cavallaro posted a tweet that could easily be viewed as using antisemitic tropes, accusing Democratic House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries of being bought off by pro-Israel groups.
“Bought. Purchased. Controlled,” Cavallaro’s tweet said. It included a link to an article about Jeffries receiving donations from AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbyists.
Another tweet, according to the Algemeiner, alleged that Israel was guilty of committing “atrocities.”
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday that the Administration had not known about Cavallaro’s anti-Israel posts before declaring him as a candidate for the position, stressing that they do not represent the policy of the State Department.
Cavallaro, a co-founder and Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights who was previously on the commission between 2014 and 2017, told the Associated Press that his views were consistent with those of international human rights organizations, and also insisted that he had informed the State Department about his social media activism before his candidacy was officially announced.
His nomination would have gone to a vote by the 34 member states of the OAC this summer.