Francesca Albanese sued for defamation by US charities after ‘UN immunity ends’

It alleges: “Albanese launched a malicious and false campaign accusing the charities of war crimes and other heinous acts – claims that are wholly baseless”.

She “knowingly published these falsehoods despite explicit warnings from both the charities and the US Department of Justice that her accusations were defamatory and dangerous,” NJAC said.

Special rapporteurs are individuals deemed by the UN to be independent experts who are responsible for monitoring specific human rights. The United States imposed sanctions on Albanese in July citing statements she allegedly made in her official. As a result, she is now banned from traveling to the US. The UN has invoked her immunity as one of its officials and called on the US to remove the sanctions against her.

However, human rights lawyer and director of watchdog UN Watch Hillel Neuer suggested that this has expired: “She can now be sanctioned and she can be sued,” Neuer said.

Smearing the Christian groups as “war criminals” is a “dangerous lie that puts good people at risk”, NJAC CEO Mark Goldfeder told news agency the Jewish News Syndicate.

The lawsuit included copies of letters, which accused two charities of aiding illegal settlements, assisting the IDF, denying the Palestinian right to self-determination, and supporting the illegal annexation of Palestinian land.

The accusations against the organisations led Leo Terrell, the head of an antisemitism task force at the US Department of Justice, to warn Albanese that her allegations were false and defamatory.

Albanese subsequently published a UN report titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” that attacked the two Christian groups, and called for them and others to be punished by governments, courts and the public.

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.”

The report demanded the organisations pay reparations to Palestinians, cease any work linked to “crimes against the Palestinian people” and be investigated by international and US authorities.

NJAC said the report was a false “pressure campaign against Americans who support Israel”.

Albanese has been accused of making antisemitic statements in the past – an accusation that she denies. In 2014, she posted an open letter to her Facebook page during the Israeli military operation in Gaza.

She wrote: “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.

On October 7 2023, the day of the Hamas attacks in Israel, she tweeted: “Today’s violence must be put in context.”

Last year, she likened the war in the Gaza to the Holocaust, calling it a “concentration camp of the 21st century” and reposted an image comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, with the comment: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”

She also rebutted the statement of French President Macron that October 7 constituted the greatest antisemitic massacre of our century.

Writing on X, Albanese said: “The 'greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century'? No... The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel's oppression.”

The JC approached Albanese for comment.