Marco Massari, mayor of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, was presenting a civic honor to Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, on Sunday, when he told an audience of hundreds, “the end of the genocide and the release of the hostages are necessary conditions to start a peace process.”
The U.N. adviser, who has a long history of Jew-hatred, reportedly scolded Massari, as the crowd jeered the mayor.
“The mayor was wrong and said something that is not true,” Albanese said. “Peace does not need conditions.”
Washington has sanctioned Albanese, and it and other countries have decried her antisemitic comments.
“I do not judge the mayor. I forgive him,” Albanese said at the event on Sunday. “But he has to promise me that he doesn’t say this thing anymore.”
“Maybe I said something incomplete,” Massari said. “But I reiterate what I said. Let us not make harsh judgments with each other and seek unity among us.”
