An anti-Israel group of current and former U.N. staff members held a webinar earlier this month during regular work hours about “training on advocacy and persuasion for the human rights of Palestinians.”
United Staff for Gaza, which used to be called and, in several places, is still listed as “UN Staff for Gaza,” sponsored the afternoon training session on March 4.
Aleksandra Risteska, a New York-based U.N. program management officer and one of the webinar organizers, said that it “has not always been easy to walk the line between abiding by U.N. staff rules and regulations while speaking up about what should be, at its core, really grave human rights violations.”
“But, of course, in reality, we all see how these issues are being politicized,” Risteska added. “We know that many colleagues share this concern, which has led us to partner with Bystanders No More to help fine-tune our tools for advocacy and persuasion.”
United Staff for Gaza said that about 140 people attended the webinar, which is posted on its website.
The group brought on Bystanders No More, a purported volunteer group that promotes boycotting Israel, to help webinar attendees learn to persuade what it calls the “movable middle” to take action.
Jess Blijkers, a former Amnesty International administrator, led the webinar for Bystanders No More and advised attendees to find “passive allies,” who “sit close to institutional decision-makers.” That, Blijkers said, includes a trustee, who “might be able to trigger the review of hundreds of millions in investments” or a procurement officer, who “might be able to shift entire supply chains just by asking the right questions or challenging in the right place.”
Adam Fifield, a former deputy director at the U.N. Children’s Fund, told attendees to cite Jews who agree with them when pushing back on charges of antisemitism for their anti-Israel activity.
“I often reference Israeli-American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov,” Fifield said. “He’s one of at least a half dozen Israeli Holocaust scholars who’s determined that what’s happening in Gaza is a genocide.”
Fifield also used Jewish Voice for Peace, an ardent anti-Zionist group, as an example, along with “Jews Against Genocide.” The latter is apparently a Facebook page linked to a loosely-affiliated WordPress site that promotes material from antisemitic publications, such as Mondoweiss and the Hamas-linked Palestine Chronicle.
“Their voices show that criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitism, and you can name the fact that there’s a clear and troubling pattern of false accusations of antisemitism being used to silence criticism and debate,” Fifiled said. “And that these false allegations also dilute and undermine the fight against real antisemitism, and in so doing, make Jewish people less safe everywhere.”
Multiple speakers tried to guide attendees, who work for the United Nations, on how to avoid getting caught for running afoul of the organization’s staff rules and regulations about neutrality. (JNS sought comment from António Guterres, U.N. secretary-general.)
The United Nations standards of conduct for international civil servants advise against taking sides or expressing convictions publicly on controversial matters.
Sara Chahin Agosta, a Beirut-based program manager in the U.N. International Organization for Migration, whose LinkedIn profile calls for sanctions against Israel, described an initiative “under the umbrella of what we do at IOM.”
Agosta detailed a campaign asking the administration of the U.N. agency that employs her to cancel partnerships with organizations listed in a report by Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinians, whom Washington has sanctioned for making antisemitic remarks and, in that report, for bullying American companies and organizations with ties to Israel.
The U.N. International Organization for Migration program manager also recounted an event organized with U.N. colleagues in Rome last November, in which Albanese encouraged U.N. employees, according to Agosta, to “make sure that we do not work in silos and only focus on our mandate but understand that, especially in the context of occupied Palestinian territories, all the mandates are interlinked.”
Lourdes Orlando, a Rome-based food policy officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, also spoke during the webinar.
She said that as a U.N. consultant or staff member, “there is no limitation” on “reaching out to your colleagues and to your friends and kind of working at this collective education.”
She added that attendees should “try to find a network” for their advocacy. “There are a lot of us in the U.N., and, of course, we’re acting in our technical capacity,” she said.
UN Staff for Gaza was formed in August 2025. It said that it aims to “speak out against the atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
It says that it is a “private association, neither formally affiliated with nor endorsed by the United Nations.”
Among its first appointments was Maher Nasser, U.N. assistant secretary-general for global communications, who, it says, is taking part “in his private capacity” as a senior adviser to the group.
Reuters reported that U.N. staff representatives received a confidential management note on Sept. 17 asking them to stay impartial on the Gaza conflict.
Catherine Pollard, U.N. under-secretary-general for management strategy, policy and compliance, wrote that “I want to remind you that staff associations should not organize or promote activities that may be perceived as political in nature,” Reuters reported.
