Watchdog Demands Removal of World Bank Economist Who Claimed Israel “Invents” Terror Attacks
UN Watch demands that the World Bank Group terminate its senior country economist in Tunisia, Massimiliano Cali, on the basis of his systematic violations of the institution's neutrality obligations
The UN Watch has called for the immediate termination of Massimiliano Cali, the World Bank’s senior country economist in Tunisia, for a decade-long pattern of inflammatory social media posts that invert the Holocaust, incite antisemitism, and justify terrorism against Israel and the West.
UN Watch’s Complaint: A Decade of Incendiary Rhetoric
The letter, addressed to World Bank President Ajay Banga, meticulously catalogs Cali’s controversial public statements on Facebook, all made while he served in his high-level role. According to UN Watch, Cali’s posts repeatedly promoted Holocaust inversion, equating actions by Israelis or Americans to those of the Nazis, and justified or minimized acts of terrorism targeting Israeli civilians.
UN Watch’s examples are damning:
In 2015, Cali compared a Jewish child in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust to a Palestinian boy dressed as a "military man." UN Watch argues such comparisons whitewash terrorism indoctrination, deny historical Jewish suffering, and invert the truth of the Holocaust.
In another post, Cali questioned the legitimacy of labeling convicted Palestinian attackers as terrorists, referring instead to “3 Palestinian children in the outdoor prison of Gaza,” even when these individuals were killed while attempting to plant roadside bombs targeting Israelis.
Cali minimized the reality of the “stabbing intifada,” dismissing attacks on Israeli civilians as “phantom attacks” fabricated by Israelis to justify “carnage” against Palestinians, according to his 2019 Facebook Statement.
He labeled Israel “the most terrorist state on earth” and urged sanctions against the Jewish state. Most notably, he consistently promoted the notion that Israel commits “genocide” in Gaza, ignoring context, facts, or Israel’s existential security challenges.
These statements, which are no longer accessible on social media, are criticized by UN Watch for violating the World Bank Group’s strict neutrality and public conduct requirements, as outlined in its Staff Rules and clarified in recent years to explicitly include social media conduct The organization strongly asserts that such behavior, from a senior economist, severely undermines the Bank's reputation as an impartial multilateral actor and exposes it to reputational risk, especially given the centrality of Washington, D.C. as its headquarters.
“Staff members shall avoid any action and, in particular, any public pronouncement or personal gainful activity that would adversely or unfavorably reflect on their status or on the integrity, independence and impartiality that are required by that status.”
U.S. Involvement and the Escalating Stakes
Adding further gravity, UN Watch’s letter reveals Cali has recently been banned from entering the United States under Executive Order 14203, due to statements made both by him and his spouse, targeting the U.S. and Israel. The watchdog group copied U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury enforcement officials on the complaint, stressing the implication for U.S. interests and the Bank’s credibility in the West.
The Albanese Connection: A Family Affair
Perhaps most controversial is Cali’s public promotion of his wife, Francesca Albanese, the current UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories. Albanese, recently sanctioned by the U.S. over extreme bias and breaches of neutrality, has made headlines for statements that many observers call “outrageous” or “hostile” toward Israel and the West.
Among Albanese’s most controversial statements:
Drawing explicit parallels between Nazi atrocities and Israeli actions.
Framing Palestinian violence as “resistance” while failing to condemn Hamas atrocities.
Denied that rape occurred during the October 7 attacks, dismissing documented reports.
Pushing unsubstantiated accusations of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.
The UN Watch complaint lays bare the challenge facing international institutions: preserving both neutrality and credibility in the face of staff whose private and public statements may fuel hate or violence.
