Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill, June 29, 2020. (AP/Patrick Semansky) / James L. Cavallaro speaks on human rights at the Presidential Palace in Guatemala City, March 14, 2016. (AP /Moises Castillo)
President Joe Biden pulled his pick for a post over tweets deemed antisemitic after the U.S. State Department rescinded the nomination of James Cavallaro to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS), an international organization founded in 1948 for the purposes of solidarity and cooperation among its member states within the Americas.
A permanent body, the commission meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere.
In December 2022, Cavallaro posted, “Bought. Purchased. Controlled” in response to an article about funds raised by pro-Israel lobbying groups for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
That tweet and others were published by the Algemeiner, a U.S.-based Jewish news outlet. In another tweet, Cavallaro referred to Israel as an “apartheid state” and accused both the U.S. and the Jewish state of having committed “atrocities,” The New York Post reported.
Cavallaro teaches courses on human rights law at Wesleyan University, Yale Law School, and UCLA Law School. He is a professor of law and the co-founder and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights. At Wesleyan University, he is a director of the Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, as well as the Wesleyan ACTS for Human Rights program.
Cavallaro also accused Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) of being “bought and paid for” and called Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) “pedantic, self-righteous and pompous,” while suggesting she “learn from the Palestinian people” and resign over her “repeated moral failings.”
According to State Department spokesman Ned Price, Biden was previously unaware of Cavallaro’s Twitter rants when he was nominated and that they “do not reflect U.S. policy.”
“They are not a reflection of what we believe, and they are inappropriate to say the least,” Price told reporters. “We have decided to withdraw our nomination of this individual.”
A State Department spokesman said the Biden administration was unaware of Cavallaro’s tweets when he was nominated.
In a statement posted on Twitter Tuesday, Cavallaro said that his nomination was pulled by the White House “because of my view that the conditions in Israel/Palestine meet the definition of apartheid under international human rights law.”
The withdrawal of Cavallaro’s nomination followed an article in a pro-Israel Jewish newspaper, the Algemeiner about how Cavallaro reportedly retweeted a story about the gratification of pro-Israel groups at the election of Jeffries as House minority leader, the Middle East Monitor reported.
The withdrawal of Cavallaro’s nomination came of the heels of former head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth being denied a prestigious Harvard University fellowship for criticizing Israel.
Cavallaro referred to Roth’s case and described the withdrawal of his nomination as part of broader “censorship of human rights advocates who denounce apartheid in Israel.”
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill, June 29, 2020. (AP/Patrick Semansky) / James L. Cavallaro speaks on human rights at the Presidential Palace in Guatemala City, March 14, 2016. (AP /Moises Castillo)
