U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz expressed his disgust with Spain on Tuesday for bestowing an award on U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, sanctioned by the United States for her “unabashed antisemitism.”
“Any award to Francesca Albanese only shames those who bestow it,” Waltz tweeted.
“She has rightly been condemned by the U.S. and numerous European countries for her vile antisemitism, illegitimate lawfare, and attempts to undermine the peace efforts in Gaza supported by many Muslim countries,” he wrote.
Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, whose country recognized Palestinian statehood in May 2024, awarded the Order of Civil Merit to Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in Madrid on May 7.
“It is an honor to award the Order of Civil Merit to a voice that upholds the conscience of the world,” Sánchez tweeted last Thursday.
The award was for her “extensive work documenting and denouncing violations of international law in Gaza,” according to news site The Diplomat in Spain.
On May 6, Sánchez asked President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to “neutralize” sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Albanese, the paper reported.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions on July 9, 2025.
“The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a special rapporteur,” said Rubio at the time. “Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”
On Feb. 7, Albanese referred to Israel as humanity’s “common enemy” during a video address to the 17th Al Jazeera Forum (Feb. 7-9) in Qatar.
That comment, coupled with her long track record of antisemitic comments and denouncing Israel, prompted Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Italy to call for her resignation.
In May 2025, she accused Israel of torturing and raping Gazans using dogs, said the United States is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” and claimed Zionists faked antisemitic incidents in the United States.
In February 2024, she wrote on X to French President Emmanuel Macron that the victims of the Oct. 7 onslaught were “not killed because of their Jewishness, but as a reaction to Israel’s oppression.”
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 Nazi genocide, reposting an image comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, with the comment: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”
