Francesca Albanese, appointed in May 2022 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has long coopted antisemitic tropes and legitimized support of terrorism in her critiques of Israel, using her platform to spread intense anti-Israel rhetoric. She is the first Special Rapporteur to be condemned by both Germany and France for antisemitism, and has been condemned by the U.S. Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council, Michèle Taylor.
UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures Mandate-holders or Special Rapporteurs, are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, tasked with investigating human rights in an area or topic. Special Rapporteurs are bound by their Code of Conduct to, “...ensure that their personal political opinions are without prejudice to the execution of their mission, and base their conclusions and recommendations on objective assessments of human rights situations.” Special Rapporteurs must also, “In implementing their mandate, therefore, show restraint, moderation and discretion so as not to undermine the recognition of the independent nature of their mandate or the environment necessary to properly discharge the said mandate.” From the start Francesca Albanese’s bias and lack of impartiality towards Israel has been obvious. She has a long record of promoting antisemitic tropes and using hateful language to attack the Jewish State of Israel, which includes comparing Israel to the Nazis, conspiracies about Jewish power, denying and diminishing the Oct 7th massacre, and supporting and advocating violence against the Jewish state.
Below are select antisemitic and/or inflammatory statements from Albanese:
Holocaust Distortion, Trivialization and Comparisons to Nazis
On October 14, 2024, Albanese likened the systematic extermination of Jews under the Nazi’s “pure race” policy to Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. Albanese compares the Jewish State’s war against Hamas, to the “Third Reich” who perpetrated the Holocaust, tweeting: “Our collective obliviousness to what led, 100 years ago, to the Third Reich’s expansionism and the genocide of people not in conformity with the “pure race” is asinine. And it is leading to the commission of yet another genocide...”
In August 2024, in a tweet addressed to the German government, Albanese likened Germany’s actions and German civilian’s complacency during the Holocaust under the Third Reich, to Germany’s support of Israel claiming, “This is 2024 and while you could stay quite [sic] and silent in the corner of history, you are doing all you can to make it wrong, once again.”
In August 2024, Albanese likened Israel’s war on the Gaza strip to the Holocaust, calling it a “concentration camp of the 21st century.”
In July 2024, Albanese trivialized the Holocaust, reposting an image comparing Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, with the comment: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”
In December 2023, Albanese compared the Israel’s war in Gaza to the Holocaust saying: “Fellow Europeans, Italians, Germans: after the Holocaust, we should instinctively know that Genocide starts with dehumanizing the Other. If Israel's current attack agst [sic] Palestinians doesnt [sic] prompt our strong reaction, the darkest page of our recent history has taught us nothing.”
Conspiracies about Jewish power
October 2024, Albanese retweeted with the caption “A must-read for the ages...” a tweet from Chris Hedges that read: “I fear, given that the Israel lobby has bought and paid for Congress and the two ruling parties, as well as cowed the media and universities, the rivers of blood will continue to swell. There is money to be made in war. A lot of it. And the influence of the war industry, buttressed by hundreds of millions of dollars spent on political campaigns by the Zionists, will be a formidable barrier to peace, not to mention sanity.”
Demonization and Delegitimization of Israel
In August 2024, Albanese labeled the targeted Israeli assassinations of terrorist leaders, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, as “murders” and “acts of aggression.”
In July 2024, Albanese compared Israel to the terrorist rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, after the Taliban banned the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan from entering the country, stating: “The Taliban displays the same disdain toward the UN and its values as Israel’s Apartheid.” In Taliban ruled Afghanistan, women are banned from speaking or showing their faces in public.
In June 2024, Albanese claimed “genocidal intent” in the Israeli rescue efforts to free four hostages kidnapped from Israel into Gaza by Hamas terrorists.
July 2024, Albanese tweeted “Time to #UNseatIsrael from the UN.”
Denying or Diminishing the Oct. 7th Massacre
In March 2024, Albanese diminished the reality and suffering of Israeli women on International Women’s Day without reference to those who were murdered, dehumanized, kidnapped and raped by Hamas: “My thoughts also go to the Israeli women, especially the soldiers: what have you done, what have you become. Dears, when you realise it, you will be haunted forever.”
In February 2024, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron referring to the October 7 massacre as “the largest antisemitic massacre of our century,” Albanese tweeted: “The greatest antisemitic massacre of our century? No, @EmmanuelMacron. The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression.” For this statement, the governments of France and Germany condemned Albanese for her antisemitism, making it the first time in UN history that both France and Germany condemn a UN rapporteur for antisemitism.
France responding: “The October 7 massacre is the largest anti-Semitic massacre of the 21st century. To deny it is wrong. To seem to justify it, by bringing in the name of the United Nations, is a shame.” Adding that, “These remarks are all the more scandalous given that the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of racism are at the heart of the founding of the UN.”
Germany also replied to Albanese’s comments, stating: “To justify the horrific terror attacks of 7/10 & deny their antisemitic nature is appalling. Making such statements in a UN capacity is a disgrace and goes against everything the United Nations stand for.”
During a webinar, while discussing the October 7 massacre, Albanese said: “There might have been people carrying out the attack who might have been motivated by hatred. But the attack itself, and this is the thing, there is something like intent at the level of the attack, and all the statements that were collected at the level of command have not pointed to aggression against the Jews. There is another point that in Arabic, Palestinians refer to the Israelis as Yahudis and the Israelis refer to the Palestinians like the Arabs. This is something that shouldn’t escape a western audience. It is a way to refer interchangeably to the Israelis.”
In October 2023, following the brutal massacre perpetrated by Hamas, Albanese called into question Hamas’ crimes “including beheadings/rape.”
On October 7 2023, the day that Hamas targeted Israel’s civilian populations massacring of over 1,200 people and kidnapping 250, Albanese’s reaction was to minimize Hamas’ atrocities stating that, “Today’s violence must be put in context.”
Justification of Violence
In a November 2022 response to a Hamas-organized conference in Gaza, Albanese said “you have the right to resist this occupation.”
In June 2022, Albanese stated that “The Palestinians have no other room for dissent than violence,” justifying violence against Israel.
Upon the start of her term as Special Rapporteur in May 2022, Albanese began to justify terrorist violence stating: “The Palestinian violence that we see is inevitable because for 55 years, almost three generations, the right to exist of a people has been denied.”
Albanese’s antisemitism prior to her UN appointment
In 2014, in a post since hidden from her Facebook page, Albanese employs antisemitic tropes in an open letter to the BBC stating that: “The Israeli lobby is clearly inside your veins and system,” claiming of an “orwellian [sic] nightmare caused once again by Israel’s greed.”
In 2014, Albanese expressed excitement on Facebook that Hamas was removed from the list of terror organizations by the EU General Court: “Two good news one after another from the radio while I was taking a nap. Normalization in the relations usa cuba [sic] and removal of hamas [sic] from the list of terror organizations. Was i [sic] dreaming???” The EU’s decision to declassify Hamas as a terrorist organization was overturned by the European Court of Justice (EJC) in 2017.
In 2014, Albanese stated: “America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust.” When uncovered in 2022, Albanese’s comments were condemned by US Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt as “blatantly antisemitic.” Albanese has since said that she regrets this remark.