UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, already notorious for her vitriolic criticism of Israel, on Tuesday again came under fire for a series of anti-Israel posts on social media.
One of those posts compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and Albanese wrote, among other things, “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, yet another regional war and potentially yet another global one.”
In another post, the UN rapporteur accused Israel of killing hundreds of UN staff and called for it to lose its seat at the UN.
“For decades Israel has violated international law, including UN resolutions and CJ orders. This year it has bombed dozens of UN premises, killed hundreds of UN staff, accused UN officials of ‘terrorism’ and ‘antisemitism’ among others. Now it is attacking peacekeepers. When will Israel be UNseated?” she wrote.
In a third post, Albanese mocked the Hezbollah UAV attack in which four young IDF recruits were killed. Sharing a post from Sky News which identified the four soldiers, all 19 years of age, as “teenagers”, she wrote, “Is Sky News accusing Israel of child soldiers?”
Her posts were condemned by the World Jewish Congress, which said, "The constant statements made by Francesca Albanese comparing Israel to Nazi Germany are not only deeply offensive, but a gross distortion of history. This blatant Holocaust inversion and antisemitism weaponizes the tragedy of the Jewish people to demonize Israel.”
“Such speech by officials not only undermines the UN’s integrity but also violates the principles on which it was established—principles born from the Nazi attempt to destroy the Jewish people. It’s imperative the UN ensures its platforms are not hijacked to spread hatred and fuel division. Accountability is needed now,” it added.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations also condemned Albanese’s rhetoric and demanded that she be removed from her role.
“The United Nations system has long demonstrated ceaseless, deeply-ingrained bias against the state of Israel. Since the Hamas pogrom of October 7, 2023 and the beginning of Israel’s war to defend itself, the UN’s one-sided condemnations have reached a fever pitch,” it said.
“One of the worst offenders in the entire apparatus is Francesca Albanese, the body’s Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories. Albanese’s malign fixation on the Jewish state has of late escalated to comparing it to Nazi Germany, mocking the recent tragic deaths of four IDF soldiers, and even demanding that Israel be stripped of its seat at the UN. This comes after she claimed that the Hamas pogrom was not an act of antisemitism, which drew the condemnation of several governments, including the United States.”
“Albanese’s rhetoric reflects a lack of basic decency and humanity and consistently violates her obligations under the Charter and code of conduct of the UN. She therefore must be immediately removed from her post if the UN is to salvage the modicum of its integrity that still remains,” the statement concluded.
Albanese’s anti-Israel bias was first exposed in 2022, in the form of antisemitic posts she made on social media, in which she claimed that the “Jewish lobby” controls the US.
At the time, Albanese rejected arguments that the comments about the “Jewish lobby” were antisemitic and claimed they were “mischaracterized”.
Since the Hamas massacre on October 7, she has condemned Israel for defending itself and gone as far as to claim that Israel has no right to defend itself.
Later, Albanese denied that the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on October 7 was antisemitic.
More recently, she endorsed a social media post comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry fired back, slamming her on X as being “beyond redemption.”
In August, the UN rapporteur accused Israel of “genocide” after the IDF struck a Hamas command center which was embedded inside a mosque in the Al-Taba’een school compound.
