The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has appointed Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer, as the new investigator on Palestinian human rights, even though she has called Israel an “apartheid” state and repeatedly compared the Israel-PA situation to the Nazi Holocaust.
Albanese, who worked in Jordan for UNRWA, will be the next “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories,” whose mandate is to investigate solely “Israel’s violations.”
The UN Watch, an NGO which monitors the world body, compiled a 25-page report revealing that Albanese has repeatedly equated the “Nakba” with the Nazi Holocaust, accused Israel of apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes.
On her application, Albanese was asked whether she holds “any views or opinions that could prejudice the manner in which the candidate discharges the mandate.” She replied “No.”
Yet just last year, Albanese acknowledged the opposite, saying her “deeply held personal views” on the issue “could compromise my objectivity.”
She has said Israel is “keeping captive millions of civilians,” organized a panel on “Israel Apartheid,” and campaigns for an arms embargo against Israel.
On her application, Albanese also certified no personal conflicts of interest, failing to disclose that her husband, who compares PA Arabs to Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto resisting the Nazis, formerly worked for the Palestinian Authority, where he authored a report on Israel’s “exploitative” policies.
BREAKING: Top candidate to be U.N. Palestine Rapporteur equated Palestinian "Nakba" with the Nazi Holocaust, called Israel an "apartheid" state.
Rapporteurs have a duty to be impartial and objective. I call on @USUN @UKUN_NewYork @GermanyUN to reject @FranceskAlb's candidacy. pic.twitter.com/XymtGS1C5l
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 19, 2022
“According to its own rules,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, “the UNHRC must give paramount importance to impartiality when selecting its experts, and Francesca Albanese is the very opposite of impartial.”
Albanese is likely to follow her predecessor’s anti-Israel agenda.
“In this regard, one can expect that she will follow in the footsteps of the outgoing Special Rapporteur, Michael Lynk, who did nothing to advance the peace process and instead only entrenched the discrimination inherent in the mandate through his one-sided UN reports and statements that gave a free pass to systematic violations by the PA and Hamas,” Neuer charged.
