Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, is “not fit for this or any other position at the U.N.,” Washington’s envoy to the global body said on Friday, after Albanese compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
On Wednesday, Albanese responded to a post on social media by an anti-Israel, former U.N. human rights administrator, Craig Mokhiber, who wrote that “history is always watching” alongside photos of crowds celebrating the Nazi leader and Israeli prime minister. The latter came during Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday.
“This is precisely what I was thinking today,” wrote Albanese, a U.N. “independent expert” appointed by the Human Rights Council. She has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide, including well before the current Israel-Hamas war.
On Friday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stopped short of calling for Albanese’s termination, but wrote that “there is no place for antisemitism from U.N.-affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights.”
“While the United States has never supported Francesca Albanese’s mandate, it is clear she is not fit for this or any position at the U.N.,” Thomas-Greenfield wrote.
Biden administration officials have been critical of Albanese in the past, but Thomas-Greenfield’s language was the sharpest yet.
Michèle Taylor, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, wrote that Albanese’s “comparison of Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and antisemitic. There should be no place for such dehumanizing rhetoric. Special rapporteurs should be striving to improve human rights challenges, not inflame them.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry reacted furiously to Albanese’s posting, stating that Albanese “is beyond redemption. Once again she spreads vile hatred and abuses the memory of the Holocaust.”
“It is inconceivable that Francesca Albanese is still allowed to use the U.N. as a shield to spread antisemitism,” it added.
“When a current U.N. ‘expert’ endorses Holocaust distortion spread by the former director of U.N. human rights in New York,” wrote the Israeli mission to the global body in Geneva, Switzerland. “No doubt possible, the system is rotten to its core. It’s high time to UNseat Albanese.”
Daniel Meron, the newly-installed Israeli ambassador to the body in Geneva, added that Albanese “abuses her U.N. Human Rights Council title to spread hatred and inflammatory rhetoric. The U.N. system should stop tolerating this and unseat Albanese.”
“The German government strongly rejects Ms. Albanese’s recent comment likening the Israeli prime minister to Hitler,” wrote Steffen Seibert, the German ambassador to Israel. “Such a comparison coming from a representative of the United Nations is unacceptable.”
Albanese has a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and has backed Hamas’s terror activities, calling Israel’s right to defend itself “non-existent.”
She is under an internal U.N. investigation for a lobbying and fundraising tour of Australia and New Zealand, which several pro-Hamas lobbying groups said they sponsored or helped to organize.
The investigation is currently being handled by Albanese’s own colleagues within a U.N. Special Procedures committee. That committee had released a statement in May absolving Albanese of wrongdoing and casting bad faith aspersions on her accusers.
After months of pressure from JNS, the U.N. Human Rights Office said early this month that it paid for the estimated $22,000 trip, rather than the pro-Hamas lobbying groups, though it has yet to provide any documentation to substantiate that claim.
Asked earlier this month whether U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken supported a motion by U.N. Watch, a nonprofit, to terminate Albanese’s position, a department spokesman told JNS that “we opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive.”
“When it comes to the individual who holds that position, we can’t help but note a history of incendiary comments online and in her public statements,” the Foggy Bottom spokesman added.
The office of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has consistently declined to comment on Albanese’s statements and actions, with his spokespeople saying that Guterres didn’t appoint Albanese and has no authority over her.
Albanese serves in a voluntary role under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, and Guterres’s office claims that due to her being among the “independent experts” in that mechanism, she is free to speak as she wants without repercussion or criticism from the secretary-general.