Just days after a Jewish father and his 6-year-old son were assaulted by a mob at a Milan-area rest stop simply for wearing kippot, the Italian Parliament rolled out the red carpet for Francesca Albanese—the U.N. “expert” whom the United States has declared persona non grata over her repeated antisemitic rhetoric.
Albanese, whose record includes grotesque claims that Israeli soldiers deliberately shoot children in the head and genitals, was warmly welcomed on July 29 by members of Italy’s left-wing political bloc.
Her appearance wasn’t a debate; it was an anointment. For her admirers, she’s not a researcher or legal scholar; she’s a movement— a standard-bearer for the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda cloaked in the language of “human rights.”
Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has been at war—on the battlefield and in the court of global opinion. From Hamas and Iran to Qatar and Turkey and their backers in Moscow and Beijing, Israel’s enemies are betting that the tide of anti-Israel sentiment will break the Jewish state.
Francesca Albanese, who serves as the U.N.'s special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, is part of that campaign. Her notoriety and platform have grown in tandem with the surge in antisemitism across Europe and beyond.
In her new U.N. report presented to the Italian Parliament, Albanese refers to “genocide” 57 times in just 38 pages—a staggering claim that deliberately ignores the reality of Hamas’s human shield strategy and Israel’s unprecedented efforts to protect civilians, even amid urban warfare.
She makes no mention of the tunnels beneath Gaza or the hostages still held within them. Instead, she echoes Hamas leaders who describe Palestinians as a “people of martyrs” and portrays Israel—a state founded by a millennia-old indigenous people—as a colonial oppressor.
The consequences of her rhetoric are not theoretical. Macron is now pushing Palestinian statehood at the U.N. European institutions are moving to cut Israel out of key scientific partnerships. The message is clear: Jews who once couldn’t defend themselves are no more welcome when they can.
The Italian lawmakers who invited Albanese—Laura Boldrini of the Democratic Party, Angelo Bonelli of the AVS alliance, and others from the Five Star Movement—have embraced her narrative. In her telling, the Jewish lobby controls America, Israel is the new Nazi regime, and IDF soldiers are war criminals. This is not reasoned criticism of Israeli policy. It is demonization.
Meanwhile, Hamas propaganda continues to dominate international headlines. Casualty numbers come straight from Hamas-run agencies, inflating civilian deaths and masking terrorist combatants as victims. As experts and analysts have repeatedly shown, Hamas systematically inflates death tolls, reports the same fatalities multiple times, and uses broad definitions (such as classifying anyone under 18 as a “child”).
Israel, by contrast, has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent civilian deaths—issuing warnings, urging evacuations, and canceling strikes. It does so while under fire from a terrorist regime that hoards humanitarian aid and turns hospitals into command centers.
Even now, Israel’s message remains clear: return the hostages, and the war can end. Yet Albanese has never called for their release. Not once.
In a time when Jewish musicians are ejected from restaurants for speaking Hebrew, when schoolchildren are expelled from planes, and when public institutions equate Jewish identity with guilt, the world should take note of what happened in Rome. A nation’s parliament gave a platform to a voice that dehumanizes Israelis, vilifies Jews, and empowers those who seek their destruction.
Francesca Albanese may wear the badge of “U.N. expert,” but make no mistake: her legacy is already written. She is a megaphone for Hamas talking points, and her presence in democratic halls signals a dangerous erosion of the moral clarity once taken for granted in the West.
To the father and son wearing kippot in Milan: The violence you endured was not random. It was licensed and legitimized by applause and a standing ovation in the Chamber of Deputies in Rome.
