The University of Southern Maine (USM) has canceled an agreement to host the "Consequence of Palestine" conference, which was set to feature Francesca Albanese, a UN special rapporteur known for her anti-Israel bias who was recently sanctioned by the US government, JNS reported.
The day-long event, scheduled for February 28, was to be held in the school’s Hannaford Hall and organized by USM's criminology and sociology department, in collaboration with the Maine Coalition for Palestine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights.
The university informed JNS that it rescinded the agreement after discovering that one of the speakers, Albanese, is sanctioned by the US government and appears on the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons. This list legally prohibits US individuals and entities from engaging in any transactions with those included.
In a statement, USM explained that its decision was in response to the legal restrictions on dealing with individuals on the OFAC list.
Albanese has continued to face widespread criticism over her anti-Israel statements. She was recently condemned by several European Union foreign ministers for comments made at an Al Jazeera conference, in which Albanese had said: “The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support ... We who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms and weapons, we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy."
Albanese later claimed in an interview with France24 that she "never, ever, ever said ‘Israel is the common enemy of humanity,'" calling the accusations "completely false accusations."
Albanese’s history of anti-Israel statements and actions is well-documented and dates back to social media posts uncovered in 2022, 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", but her anti-Israel bias has continued to be exposed since.
Her criticism of Israel has grown since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack in Israel. The attack, in which Hamas terrorists killed over 1,200 people and took 250 hostages, was described by Albanese as an act that must be viewed in “context" and as a response to Israeli “aggression."
She has also, in recent months, accused Israel of genocide, likened the Government of Israel to the “Third Reich," and compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Albanese was sanctioned in July by the administration of US President Donald Trump after she wrote letters to American companies accusing them of contributing to gross human rights violations in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.