In March 2022, Francesca Albanese was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the “situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” The record demonstrates that Albanese has an extreme anti-Israel bias, as seen in:

  • Participation in events hosted by organizations that have alleged ties to terror groups and that promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel.
  • Moral failures, as shown in labeling individuals convicted as terrorists as a “human rights defender” in her October 2022 report to the UN Human Rights Council.
  • Consistently dismissing Israel’s security concerns, denying Israel’s right to self-defense, and tweeting in support of terrorism.

Antisemitism

Francesca Albanese has used antisemitic themes and imagery to demonize the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Examples include: 

  • Albanese has drawn false comparisons between Israel’s actions and the Holocaust. In May 2021, Albanese equated the “Nakba” to the Holocaust, stating that “Just as tragic, terrible, unspeakable, is the tragedy that befell the Jewish people with the Shoah, so for the Palestinians, the Nakba represents the crumbling of the connective tissue of a people.” 
  • In January 2015, Albanese shared a post on Facebook that compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, equating “resistance” by Hamas and Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.
  • During the 2014 Gaza conflict, Albanese shared on Facebook a letter she sent to her family’s diocese (July 31) claiming that “America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves with the only means they have (deranged missiles), instead of making Israel face its international law responsibilities…” (emphasis added). Although Albanese reportedly apologized for the comment, she has not removed the post from her Facebook page.

Troubling Statements Regarding Terrorism

Characterizing Terror Operatives as “Human Rights Defenders”

  • Francesca Albanese celebrates individuals whose actions epitomize the opposite of universal human rights and peace. She falsely labels as “human rights defenders,” or “HRDs,” individuals convicted of terrorism, as well as someone convicted for diverting humanitarian funds to Hamas.
  • In a report prepared for the 77th Session of the General Assembly (A/77/356), Albanese characterized two Palestinians as “human rights defenders”:  Salah Hamouri and Mohammed el-Halabi. 

Albanese’s Extreme Bias

  • Francesca Albanese has a record of anti-Israel partisanship, and does not appear to fulfill the requirements of impartiality and objectivity as required by the HRC in Resolutions 5/1 and 5/2 and the UN OHCHR Code of Conduct. In fact, in a 2021 lecture, Albanese admitted questioning her ability to be impartial: “I feared [that] embarking on a matter [on] which I had deeply held personal views could compromise my objectivity.” 
  • Albanese has accused Israel of “advance[ing] its ‘colonization’ plans — committing serious human rights violations and keeping captive millions of civilians.” She has organized and participated in events focused on demonizing Israel, including a November 2022 conference on “Ethnic Cleansing.” 
  • In a report prepared for the 77th Session of the General Assembly (A/77/356), Albanese called for the UN General Assembly to “develop[] a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime.” However, Albanese appears to believe that “apartheid” isn’t strong enough to describe the situation on the ground and “the apartheid framework presents some limitations.”
  • Albanese has also attacked Israel’s very existence, based on false historical claims, saying that Israel is “in long-standing breach of the basic principles of international law, which started 70 years ago with the forced depopulation of two-thirds of the indigenous Arab population in what became the State of Israel in British Mandate Palestine.” She further asserted that Israel was created “IN Palestine” and tweets under the hashtag “#NoMoreNakbas.”
  • In November 2022, Albanese negated Israel’s right to self-defense, stating in a conference that “The occupation can’t say it is protecting itself when it is occupying a land that doesn’t belong to it.”

Invented History

  • In January 2021, Albanese posted a link to the movie “Jenin, Jenin,” writing “Jenin, Jenin in Italian. Don’t miss this one.” Mohammed Bakri’s “Jenin, Jenin” suggests that Israel committed a massacre in Jenin during Israel’s 2002 invasion of Jenin, but known to be full of false claims. According to Human Rights Watch, it “found no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in Jenin refugee camp.” Multiple Israeli courts stated that the movie is “not based on any factual basis, not even a minimal one,” “misleading,” and “contains libels.”
  • In a report prepared for the 77th Session of the General Assembly (A/77/356), Albanese fabricated a “millenia” long history of a “native Palestinian Arab population” and Palestinian “indegineity”, while erasing the Jewish origins in and connection to the region, and falsely claiming that Jewish presence consisted of “largely European Jewish settlers and refugees from Europe.”