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February 15, 2023 5:34 pm
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‘Not Just Israel’: Biden Admin Says Human Rights Candidate Axed for Range of Issues

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avatar by Andrew Bernard

Professor James Cavallaro at an IACHR meeting, 24 March 2014 (Photo: Wikipedia)

The State Department on Wednesday countered claims made by human rights groups and others that it had withdrawn the nomination of Professor James Cavallaro for a human rights posting solely over his views of Israel.

“His social media commentary covered many issues, not just Israel,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told The Algemeiner at a press conference Wednesday. “I know that’s been the focus of much of the commentary, but it went well beyond that. Some of his commentary, as I alluded to yesterday, was deeply inappropriate. Once that information came to light, we lost confidence in this individual and his ability to serve as a successful nominee.”

The State Department on Tuesday withdrew Cavallaro’s candidacy for a commissioner’s post on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) after The Algemeiner published an exclusive investigation on Monday revealing Cavallaro’s incendiary comments about US officials, US foreign policy, and Israel.

As The Algemeiner first reported Tuesday, Cavallaro made extensive disparaging remarks about then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 Democratic primary, referring to Biden as a “nasty MFer”, a “senile gaffe machine”, and said that Biden “has always sought the middle ground between ruthless, unmitigated corporate greed, sexism, white privilege …and…wait for it…mediocrity.”

Cavallaro in a twitter thread on Tuesday claimed that his nomination was withdrawn “because of [his] view that the conditions in Israel/Palestine meet the definition of apartheid.”

Human rights groups repeated that claim Wednesday.

“A state driven attack on a brilliant human rights lawyer because of his view on Israel apartheid,” said Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International. “The US government has not engaged with the legal and empirical bases of positions on Israel apartheid. Instead it is censoring, shutting down debates, and threatening.”

The view that Cavallaro’s remarks were within the mainstream was rejected by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) Wednesday who said that his comments were more than enough to disqualify him for the role.

“Despite Cavallaro’s claim, trafficking in antisemitic tropes and disparaging Members of Congress, including the first African American House leader as being ‘Bought. Purchased. Controlled.’ is disqualifying from being a voice of our country on human rights anywhere in the world,” Schneider said. “Pleased to see the Biden Administration quickly act on new, disturbing information.”

 

Photo: Screenshot

Cavallaro has also made incendiary comments about other elected officials. In November 2021, he wrote of Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) that “I don’t know whether to call you Senator or Shameless Motherf*cker [sic]. Actually I do.”

Cavallaro has not responded to repeated requests from The Algemeiner for comment.

Cavallaro teaches courses on human rights law and practice at Wesleyan University, Yale Law School and UCLA Law School, and he has previously taught at the law schools of Harvard and Stanford. The University Network for Human Rights, where Cavallaro serves as executive director, supervises “interdisciplinary engagement in human rights practice at universities across the country and beyond,” according to its website.

The IACHR, which Cavallaro had been nominated to, is an organ of the Organization of American States (OAS), a regional body headquartered in Washington, DC, that promotes security, democracy, and economic development in the Americas. Commissioners serve in a personal capacity and do not receive a salary either from the US or OAS.

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