Yesterday (July 16), Human Rights Watch (HRW) posted a “Dispatch” about an Israeli military trial against Issa Amro and Farid al-Atrash for unlawful activity, including violence. The piece echoed the standard NGO themes about the trial, that prosecutors have no case (even though the evidence has not yet been made public) and that military courts “fall well short of any standards of justice.” As noted previously by NGO Monitor, the Amro and al-Atrash case has become a pretext for legal attacks against Israel.

The article was written by a “consultant” named Khulood Badawi, the only article on HRW’s website attributed to this individual.

Who is Khulood Badawi?

She used to work for UN-OCHA – until February 2013, when she was fired for “a bogus post on Twitter alleging that a pictured Palestinian girl had been killed by the IDF during the 2012 shelling of Gaza.” (Honest Reporting noticed that the photo, tweeted under the handle “Long live Palestine,” was from 2006.)

Continuing her Palestinian propaganda role, Badawi moved to the PLO’s Negotiations Support Unit / Negotiations Affairs Department. There, she prepared materials for “Israeli target audiences.”

Since May 2014, and despite being dismissed from UN-OCHA, she has been working with UN Office for Project Service (UNOPS). Her position, Communications Associate, is “part of a joint program” with the Canadian government, and she is responsible for – irony alert – developing “communication strategies” and “media material.”

And, apparently on the sidelines, she also writes propaganda for Human Rights Watch. Which isn’t surprising for HRW, which has an apparent policy of hiring anti-Israel BDS activists.