An antisemitic, pro-Hamas United Nations official is scheduled to speak at multiple college campuses and the U.N. General Assembly’s human-rights committee in the coming days.
U.N. Special Rapporteur for Palestinians Francesca Albanese has an extensive record of making antisemitic and pro-Hamas statements, according to a report released by the Human rights organization U.N. Watch released on Tuesday ahead of her upcoming her U.S. tour.
The U.N. watch report documents repeated instances in which Albanese questioned the veracity of the accounts of atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 against Israeli civilians. She has also gone as far as to justify the attack, in which Hamas fighters killed over 1,200 civilians and captured roughly 250 on October 7, as a form of “resistance.”
Albanese is scheduled to deliver speeches to students at Georgetown and Princeton in the coming week. Afterwards, she is expected to speak to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City and address students at nearby campuses.
In 2022, Albanese attended a Hamas conference and told them they have “a right to resist,” rhetoric she has since used to justify the October 7, 2023 massacre.
“Killing soldiers is not an international crime. I mean, why is this so unbelievable? You seem to be puzzled by this. What is the right to resist for the Palestinians? No one wants to live under oppression,” she told Jewish News Syndicate in December when asked about the October 7, 2023 attack.
Several Hamas officials and at least one Palestinian Islamic Jihad official attended the conference, according to U.N. Watch. Hamas and other terrorist organizations have used Albanese’s statements for propaganda purposes to attack Israel and justify violence against the Jewish state.
Albanese routinely espouses antisemitic rhetoric, such as comparing Israel and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, which killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust last century. Last week, Albanese suggested Germany and Italy should be opposed to Israel’s war against Hamas because of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany with support from fascist Italy.
She previously claimed “America is subjugated by the Jewish Lobby,” a longstanding antisemitic trope popular among opponents of Israel. Albanese has called Gaza a 21st century “concentration camp” and falsely accuses Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians.
Her antisemitic remarks have been condemned by the U.S., Germany, France, and many Jewish activist organizations. She routinely questions Israel’s right to exist and frequently demonizes Israel, to the point that she has pushed for Israel to be expelled from the U.N., a violation of her U.N. mandate.
The U.N. Watch report lays out numerous false statements and disinformation she has shared about Israeli military activity in Gaza, such as an article that falsely claimed 186,000 Gazans had died since the start of the conflict.
Additionally, she is under investigation for suspected financial improprieties for allegedly requesting payments for official speaking engagements and a fake lecture created by an online prankster. The U.N.’s internal oversight office took up the investigation earlier this year after a U.N. watch complaint detailed the alleged financial misconduct.
The complaint highlights a $20,000 trip to Australia Albanese took to deliver lectures and meet with anti-Israel Australian politicians. A Palestinian lobbying group says it sponsored Albanese’s trip, although Albanese has said the U.N. paid for it because it was in her official capacity.
“She uses her UN mandate to spread Hamas lies and misinformation. In a complete fabrication, She mobilizes other UN experts to sign statements, then they get quoted by the ICJ. So she is laundering antisemitism, using her UN mandate,” said U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
“An internationally-condemned antisemite, who is deeply entangled with a designated terrorist organization, should not be welcome anywhere in America.”
U.N. Watch is recommending the U.S. bar Albanese from entering the country and impose financial sanctions, such as freezing her bank account and allowing families of terror victims to file lawsuits against her.
If not, U.N. Watch hopes the U.S. imposes geographical restrictions to ensure she does not incite antisemitic activities and pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses. National Review has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Anti-Israel protests and antisemitic activity on college campuses nationwide has surged following the October 7, 2023 massacre, especially over the summer when Columbia University’s anti-Israel tent encampment received sustained national attention.