United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in “Palestine” Francesca Albanese told the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday that she opposed a humanitarian corridor for Palestinian refugees to Egypt because “if there is one place where 75 percent of the people of Gaza have to return, this is Israel.”
Albanese also asserted that Israel has no international legal right to protect its citizens from future terrorist attacks by the genocidal jihadi organization Hamas because “it cannot invoke self-defense against the people it occupies.” She additionally added that Hamas “could have been demilitarized” by the United Nations without elaborating beyond the U.N. moving to “end the occupation.”
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Joel PollakThe U.N. envoy, who answers to the tyranny-led Human Rights Council, maintains her position despite a documented history of making antisemitic comments and supporting Hamas. During a hearing at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, human rights experts noted that Albanese attended a Hamas conference in late 2022 and encouraged its attacks, proclaiming, “You have a right to resist.” Albanese has also made statements complaining of the alleged “Jewish lobby” controlling America. Campaigns, including by American members of Congress, to convince the United Nations to remove her from her position have failed.
Albanese is currently in Australia as part of a tour to galvanize opposition to Israel in light of self-defense operations taken in response to the slaughter of 1,200 people during an unprecedented terrorist onslaught by Hamas on October 7. Hamas terrorists killed hundreds of people in door-to-door raids targeting people randomly, reportedly shooting and stabbing children to death, engaging in gang rape, and torturing the disabled and elderly. Hamas terrorists filmed themselves engaging in the attack and published harrowing videos to the social media profiles of their victims, showing themselves desecrating their victims’ bodies.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart NewsAbout 250 hostages taken on October 7 remain in Hamas’s captivity at press time. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated an operation in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls, in October to both prevent a repeat of the atrocities and rescue those who remain hostage.
Albanese repeatedly dismissed the operation as illegitimate in her interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, condemning Israel as a “military dictatorship” and “draconian system” that allegedly oppresses the Palestinians trapped in Gaza by Hamas.
The rapporteur conceded that the October 7 Hamas massacre constituted “war crimes, no question about that,” but nonetheless concluded that Israel “is not in line with international law” by taking measures to prevent Hamas from attacking again.
“It cannot invoke self-defense against the people it occupies,” Albanese insisted, claiming that U.N. Charter state rights to self-defense only apply to “an imminent threat of a state emanating from a state, not an armed group within a state.”
Albanese later went on to claim, “Hamas could have been demilitarized as it has happened in other contexts through the United Nations system.”
Challenged by the interviewer to explain exactly what the United Nations could have done to “demilitarize” the terrorist organization, given that it has no enforcement mechanism, Albanese said that the way to “demilitarize” Hamas was to “end the occupation.” She did not clarify what actions Israel would have to take to satisfy her definition of “ending the occupation.”
The Human Rights Council official went on to demand Israel create a “humanitarian corridor” for Palestinians to flee but emphasized, “not to Egypt!” Egypt, along with Israel’s other Muslim neighbors, has enthusiastically rejected the possibility of accepting any Palestinian refugees to help them escape from Hamas. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has allowed only limited evacuations of foreigners from Gaza and, in response to calls to accept refugees, suggested Israel could strand some Palestinians in the Negev desert until Hamas was defeated.
Albanese appeared to endorse that idea, as she told the Australian newspaper, “None of these measures can result in a forcible transfer which doesn’t allow the people to return.”
“If there is one place where 75 percent of the people of Gaza have to return, this is Israel, modern-day Israel,” she added.
The rapporteur suggested that one possible end to the conflict in the long term was the creation of “one state where everyone enjoys … equal rights, dignity, and freedom.” She did not clarify if she supported the continued existence of Israel as the one state in that scenario or the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian entity.
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Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart NewsAs “special rapporteur on Palestine,” Albanese has a mandate from the Human Rights Council to document alleged evidence against Israel. Experts speaking to the House of Representatives on Wednesday identified Albanese as particularly problematic for the role, given a documented history of making antisemitic statements.
“Before she was appointed, we informed the Council that Albanese had repeatedly equated Palestinian suffering with the Nazi Holocaust and accused Israel of war crimes, apartheid, and genocide,” Hillel Neuer, the head of the watchdog organization UN Watch, told the House hearing. “In a 2014 Facebook post, she wrote that America is ‘subjugated by the Jewish lobby’ … Last November, she addressed a Hamas conference where she said, ‘you have a right to resist.’”
Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for the Research Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Congress that “Albanese should never have been given her current post” and offered similar examples of antisemitic statements.
“In 2014, she described the United States as ‘subjugated by the Jewish lobby,’” Schanzer recalled. “Separately that year, Albanese claimed that the ‘Israeli lobby,’ directed by ‘Israel’s greed,’ skewed media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
“Albanese has also compared Israel to the Nazis, declared Israel to be a racist endeavor, and repeatedly voiced opposition to the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] working definition of antisemitism,” he concluded.
In February, 11 members of Congress sent a letter to the United Nations urging the body to remove Albanese from the position:
You have stated that “there is no room for antisemitism in the UN,” but it seems you do have room for Special Rapporteur Albanese and others who have repeatedly made statements that are antisemitic. Failure to take meaningful action on repeated instances of antisemitism by UN officials undermines the UN’s credibility. We urge you to demonstrate that the UN is capable of genuinely addressing antisemitism by removing Ms. Albanese from her post
Albanese has dismissed criticism of her remarks and has not faced any publicly known consequences for her statements at the U.N.
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