Draft report on Israel cut to 25 pages from over 100 under Biden, with official saying 2024 version aims to improve 'readability, Washington Post reports
US President Donald Trump's State Department is planning to significantly ease its criticism of human rights abuses in countries including Israel, El Salvador and Russia, according to a report Wednesday.
Leaked draft versions of the State Department’s annual human rights reports show major changes from previous years, said The Washington Post.
The draft report on Israel eliminates references to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial and his government’s controversial judicial overhaul, the Post reported. It also omits prior findings on Israeli surveillance of Palestinians and movement restrictions, including Amnesty International’s report on facial recognition technology used in the occupied territories, it said.
The new version of the draft prepared for Israel is only 25 pages -- compared to over 100 in the previous report prepared under the Biden administration, it reported.
The draft on El Salvador claims there were “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” in 2024, the Post said, despite the previous year’s report documenting government-sanctioned killings, instances of torture, and “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.”
In the draft report on Russia, the administration also removed references to anti-LGBTQ+ violence and government crackdowns on civil society, the Post reported. It said that internal guidance directed State Department staff to shorten the reports and exclude politically sensitive content unless directly tied to US foreign policy priorities.
“The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report,” a senior State Department official was quoted as saying.
Critics, however, warned that the move undermines longstanding US commitments.
“This administration only cares about the human rights of some people…in some countries, when it’s convenient to them,” Keifer Buckingham, a former State Department official, told the Post.
The congressionally mandated reports are typically released in March or April. It remains unclear whether the final versions will reflect the leaked drafts.
