ByMATHILDA HELLER

JULY 5, 2026 16:19

Updated: JULY 5, 2026 17:08

NGO Monitor's recent report, 'Documenting the Antisemitic Organizational Culture of Doctors Without Borders,' asserts that antisemitism, antizionism, and expressions of hostility are deeply embedded in Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The analysis examines MSF's internal staff discussions and overall culture concerning Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with the firsthand accounts of Jewish employees in the group.

Drawing from numerous accounts by MSF insiders, NGO Monitor concludes that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias are prevalent throughout MSF's organizational culture, voiced by both senior leaders and regular staff members.

One account comes from former MSF Secretary-General Richard Rossin, who informed Canada's National Post on July 13, 2024, that the ideological bias against Israel was noticeable as early as the 1980s.

"Antisemitism within MSF started under the guise of anti-Zionism. It cannot be fixed. How can you fix antisemitism, which is not an opinion but a mental disease?" he remarked.

MSF Holland group declined to engage with an Israeli medical NGO team

The National Post reported that Rossin described an incident in 2010 during a mission to Uganda, where an MSF Holland group refused to collaborate with an Israeli medical NGO team sent to assist. Rossin viewed it as a case of 'one-way empathy,' where bias had undermined the MSF team's capacity to work with Israel toward aiding civilians. He believes these problems persist in MSF's operations in Gaza today.

NGO Monitor also references Alain Destexhe, a physician with MSF in the 1980s and its Secretary-General in the 1990s. In an October 2025 interview, Destexhe noted: “I think now MSF in Gaza is really taking the side of Hamas and against Israel. Americans need to know that Doctors Without Borders is not anymore the organization that it was 15 or 20 years ago. It has become a biased, partial and militant organization.”

“MSF is lying, MSF is partial, MSF is biased, and MSF are accomplices of Hamas.”

Michael Goldfarb, who is Jewish, worked for 15 years at MSF / Doctors without Borders US. He shared with The Jewish Chronicle of London in March 2026 that “European colleagues freely told me, knowing I am Jewish, that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.”

“You see extreme ideological fervour, Israel as a Nazi state, Jews as the oppressive, colonial, white supremacists, Zionism as Nazism,” Goldfarb said. “Nothing meaningful has been done to address antisemitism, to show solidarity with Jewish staff, or call out this hate. That creates a permissive environment in which it flourishes.”

Dr Estrella Lasry, a tropical medicine advisor and consultant in the Medical Branch of MSF’s Geneva headquarters from approximately 2011 to approximately 2025, described experiencing "the appalling lack of empathy in the organisation towards the victims in Israel."

“I said our communication was biased and for an organisation that claims to be impartial, it was creating a biased, skewed, false narrative around what was actually going on. It was giving a very one-sided view … I was told I was part of the ‘Israeli propaganda machine’ in a meeting, and nobody flinched.”

Antisemitism reportedly common on MSF’s internal online staff forum

Antisemitism is also reportedly common on MSF’s closed online staff forum, known internally as “the Souk.”

Posts on MSF’s internal communication channel since October 7, 2023, include: “The fight for freedom … is about liberating the world from the grip of Zionism…”; "Israel is a “76-year-old crime scene” and "As for the accusation of rape against Palestinian resistance fighters, I believe these are propaganda.”

"Clearly, the organization has blatantly and repeatedly violated its claim to act on the basis of neutrality, impartiality, and independence," said NGO Monitor.

The report notes that officials routinely dismissed evidence of systemic antisemitism and requests for action against the hatred.

To tackle the "toxic organizational culture of antisemitism and antizionism," NGO Monitor recommends fundamental changes in MSF’s structure, leadership, and staffing at both the international level and among its many country branches and sections.

Additionally, it proposed independent oversight frameworks to ensure that MSF’s leaders, including board members and funder-enablers, are held accountable.