U.S. Officials Chide ‘Antisemitism’ of UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese

Latest Developments

The Biden administration issued a fresh rebuke of Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur “on the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” on October 29, ahead of her arrival in New York as part of nationwide speaking tour. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield maintained that Albanese is “unfit for her role” and that “the United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”

Albanese has a long history of promoting antisemitism and justifying terrorism. On social media, she has described the United States as “subjugated by the Jewish lobby” and claimed that the “Israeli lobby,” directed by “Israel’s greed,” has skewed media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On October 11, 2023 — four days after the Hamas assault on southern Israel — Albanese cast doubt on the mass rapes and other sexually-based atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists.

In a March 2024 report, Albanese falsely accused Israel of committing genocide and called for an arms embargo against the Jewish state, a UN General Assembly plan to punish Israel for supposedly provoking the war Hamas launched, and an “international protective presence to constrain the violence” against Palestinians. At the time, the Biden administration dismissed Albanese’s accusations as “unfounded” and expressed opposition to “the mandate of this special rapporteur,” noting Albanese’s “history of antisemitic comments.”

Albanese released a new report in October in which she claimed that “Israel has pursued a pattern of conduct” intended to create “conditions of life calculated to bring about” the “physical destruction” of the Palestinian people.

Albanese’s antisemitism was once again on full display in New York this week when she called on the United Nations to suspend Israel from the international body. Speaking on October 31 before the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People — a body created in 1975 in the immediate wake of the UN General Assembly’s denunciation of Zionism as a form of “racism” — Albanese described herself as a “reluctant chronicler of genocide” and claimed that there is a “bigger design behind” Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza. She told the committee that “it is time to consider suspending the credentials of Israel as a member state of the UN.”

A briefing that Albanese was due to give members of Congress on October 29 was canceled, one day after she told a Washington, DC, audience that the October 7 atrocities had been seized by Israel as an “opportunity for Israel to complete and channel the project of colonial erasure.” Asked by a reporter at the State Department’s October 29 press briefing whether Albanese should have been granted a visa to enter the United States in the first place, spokesperson Matthew Miller replied, “We have an obligation as the host country for the United Nations. We take that obligation very seriously, and one of those obligations is to grant visas to any number of individuals with views with which we do not agree.”

Expert Analysis

“U.S. policy can’t have it both ways — offering the United Nations our money and participation without conditions and then recognizing some of the terrible ways the United Nations abuses that money and participation. We need to start holding the United Nations accountable, not just complaining about an anti-American and antisemitic system we subsidize.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

“The UN special rapporteur position dedicated to scrutinizing Israel is discriminatory and antisemitic by its very nature, applying double standards to the Jewish state not expected of any other country. So, in that sense, Albanese, with her track record of antisemitism, is very fit for the role.” — David May, FDD Research Manager and Senior Research Analyst

“More outrageous UN anti-Semitism: High-level official says Israel to blame for Palestinians murdering Jews,” by David May and Richard Goldberg

“Netanyahu Slams United Nations Antisemitism in General Assembly Speech,” FDD Flash Brief

“U.S. Rejects ‘Unfounded’ Genocide Claim in UN Report Targeting Israel,” FDD Flash Brief

“How Antonio Guterres betrayed the Jews,” by Ben Cohen