Antisemitism campaigners have urged the UK government to join France and Germany in calling for the resignation of United Nations (UN) rapporteur Francesca Albanese, citing her anti-Israel stance and history of controversy.
The Italian human rights experts has consistently denied antisemitism but has long been accused of bias in public comments both before and since October 7.
Albanese was made Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories in May 2022.
Her appointment sparked concern, with critics saying she was unsuitable for the post because of her previous statements.
In 2014, Albanese sparked outrage when she claimed that the US and other countries are controlled by the “Jewish lobby”.
Commenting on the Gaza War that was taking place at the time, she criticised states which had failed to condemn what she described as the “massacre that is being carried out” by Israel.
Albanese said: "America and Europe [are] subjugated by the Jewish lobby and, by sense of guilt for the Holocaust of others, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed – the Palestinians."
She later apologised for the remarks, saying they were “infelicitous, analytically inaccurate and unintendedly offensive” adding that the term “Jewish lobby” is one she would “not use today”.
But her comments since her appointment to the role of rapporteur have continued to cause concern over her suitability for the post of a UN official.
In August 2022, she tweeted: “Palestinians' right to resist is inherent to their right to exist as a people. An unlawful act of resistance does not make the resistance unlawful.”
Less than a year before October 7, 2023, Albanese appeared to justify violent resistance as she took part in an official Hamas conference.
Addressing the terror group’s Council on International Relations on “the impact of the Israeli blockade” in November 2022, she said while speaking by video link: “You have a right to resist this occupation. Israel says ‘resistance equals terrorism’, but an occupation requires violence.”
The controversy went on after the October 7 massacre.
She used the crimes of Hitler’s Germany as a reference point for the Israeli military response to Hamas in December 2023, six weeks after the attack. She posted: "Fellow Europeans, Italians, Germans, after the Holocaust, we should instinctively know that Genocide starts with dehumanising the other. If Israel's current attack [on] Palestinians doesn't prompt our strong reaction, the darkest page of our recent history has taught us nothing."
In February 2024, she disagreed after French president Emmanuel Macron called the atrocity in which 1,200 men, women and children in Israel were murdered by Hamas the “greatest antisemitic massacre of our century”.
Albanese posted: “No, Mr.@EmmanuelMacron. The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel's oppression. France & the international community did nothing to prevent it. My respects to the victims.”
In March 2024, in a post directed to women in the IDF, she said: “What have you done, what have you become. Dears, when you realise it, you will be haunted forever.”
Later that year, Albanese questioned the sincerity of Israel’s avowed war aim of rescuing the hostages and accused the Jewish state of genocide.
She tweeted in June 2024: “Israel has used hostages to legitimise killing, injuring, maiming, starving and traumatising Palestinians in Gaza.
“And while intensifying violence against Palestinians in the rest of the occupied territory and Israel… This is genocidal intent turned into action. Crystal clear.”
In July 2024, she agreed with the apparent equivalence of Adolf Hitler and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
After a post showed images of the two men side by side with the comment, “History is always watching,” she wrote: “This is precisely what I was thinking today.”
The same month, she again denied that October 7 had been an antisemitic attack. In a podcast with Slovenian president Nataša Pirc Musar she claimed “the antisemitic thing” is “false”.
She said: "The motives were not antisemitic because the attack was against Israel and Israeli civilians. Unfortunately, regrettably, because they are occupiers... unhealed wounds continue to fester."
The evidence of Albanese’s bias has been drawn from a dossier compiled by watchdog UN Watchdog.
Last week, a cross-party group of 40 members of the House of Lords urged Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to demand Albanese is removed from her post, a call backed by the Board of Deputies. It came after France and Germany had called for her to go, along with the Czech Republic and Austria.
Labour Against Antisemitism director Alex Hearn Hearn said it is high time that the UK follows suit and "does the decent thing".
The call comes after Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer said the British government is using “every tool at our disposal to root out antisemitism so that Jews can live, worship, and thrive without fear”, writing in the Jerusalem Post earlier this week: “It is a travesty that Jews worldwide must live in fear because they are Jewish.”
Hearn told the JC: "Francesca Albanese's sole contribution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been to misuse her position to legitimise incitement against Jews.
"She has promoted conspiracy theories about control of the ‘Jewish lobby’, made Holocaust comparisons with Israel, justified October 7 by saying that Palestinian wounds had 'festered' and denied the antisemitic motives of Hamas. One of her comments even appears to be a blatant call for violent resistance to Hamas itself."
"The government must lead by example if it is serious about showing that hate has no place, either in our institutions or on our streets. Her continuing presence erodes the integrity of international organisations and legitimises those who wish to further an extremist antisemitic agenda."
The UK government and Albanese have been approached for comment.
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