Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, has been condemned for antisemitic rhetoric by the U.S., French and German governments, among others. She went after the Jewish state again on Christmas Eve, calling the Israeli army “rotten to the core.”
A follower of Albanese responded that Jewish “cruelty is without regard,” and “we have all heard the declarations of Pope Francis, ‘What Israel is doing in Gaza is not a war. It is cruelty.’”
“Jews are capable of eating human flesh,” the follower added, echoing a longstanding antisemitic blood libel.
Albanese responded by chiding the follower, but only in part.
“Do not attribute what Israel does to all Jewish people, please,” she wrote. “Many, including Holocaust survivors, continue to rise against Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.”
Albanese was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council and serves under the auspices of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. President-elect Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Human Rights Council during his first term in office, due in large part to the council’s anti-Israel bias.
U.S. President Joe Biden brought the country back into the council’s fold as an observer member in 2021, despite little difference in the council’s posture towards Israel.
