Christian supporters of Israel have filed a lawsuit in the United States against Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, for defamation in connection with her claims that American companies and executives are enabling Israeli “genocide.”
The National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) said in a statement that it is suing Albanese in U.S. federal court in Colorado on behalf of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities and Christians for Israel USA.
She is accused of “trade libel and tortious interference,” in addition to defamation in connection with statements that she has made “accusing, and threatening sanctions, including blacklisting, prosecution and other retaliation” against American firms and individuals that she said did business with Israel.
The lawsuit alleges that “Albanese launched a malicious and false campaign accusing the charities of war crimes and other heinous acts—claims that are wholly baseless.”
Albanese “knowingly published these falsehoods despite explicit warnings from both the charities and the U.S. Department of Justice that her accusations were defamatory and dangerous,” NJAC said, calling her a “racist antisemite.”
Pro-Israel ministries and Christian groups “exist to build bridges of faith and to smear them as war criminals is not just false, it is a dangerous lie that puts good people at risk,” said Mark Goldfeder, CEO of NJAC.
‘No basis in law’
In late June, Albanese published a report accusing American companies and executives who work with Israel of enabling genocide against Palestinians, NJAC said, calling it a false “pressure campaign against Americans who support Israel.”
In the report, titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” Albanese wrote that “the United States-based Christian Friends of Israeli Communities” and global affiliates “sent over $12.25 million in 2023 to various projects that support colonies, including some that train extremist settlers.”
Eugene Kontorovich, a senior researcher on international criminal law at the Kohelet Policy Forum, told JNS on Monday that this report claims that “anything that supports Israel or Judea and Samaria is a war crime, and that everyone involved is a war criminal.”
These accusations have “no basis in law and have not been upheld by any reputable legal source,” he added.
Following the release of the report, Christian Zionist organizations have “suffered from donor anxiety and donor reluctance,” he noted, saying “there’s been hostility directed at them and reputational harm.”
Albanese has a history of making antisemitic statements, including in 2014, when she stated: “America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust.” Albanese has since said that she regrets this remark.
Since becoming the U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories in 2022, she has largely refrained from making public observations about Jews and has focused on trying to create false equivalences between Nazi Germany and Israel, and between the Holocaust and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
In August 2024, Albanese likened Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust, calling it a “concentration camp of the 21st century.”
In July of that year, Albanese trivialized the Holocaust, reposting an image comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, with the comment: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”
The American government, under U.S. President Donald Trump, sanctioned Albanese in early July after she sent letters to U.S. entities accusing them of complicity in alleged Israeli crimes, recommending that the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to which Washington is not a signatory, investigate them.
