The Trump administration has called on the United Nations to remove Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur on Palestinian rights, alleging “virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism,” according to a letter obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.
The letter, dated June 20 and addressed to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, also alleges that Albanese claims to be an “international lawyer” but is not licensed to practice law.
Albanese, an Italian national, regularly accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and has said that the October, 2023, 7 attacks by Hamas must be put in a” context of decades of oppression imposed on the Palestinians.” come under harsh criticism from both the Biden and Trump administrations.
The administration’s warning comes on the heels of a new report by Albanese titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” for which she accuses major US and international corporations of ostensible complicity.
“Israel’s settler-colonial occupation has transformed into an insidious, bureaucratic and militarized regime of destruction — a calculated economy of genocide,” she wrote.
In the letter, acting US representative to the UN Dorothy Shea accused Albanese of waging “an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy.”
The World Jewish Congress also condemned Albanese’s new report, accusing her of promoting a “deeply biased narrative.”
“Ms. Albanese’s report is yet another example of her repeated misuse of her mandate to advance a political agenda rather than to uphold the universal principles of human rights,” said the WJC’s Executive Vice President Maram Stern in a statement.
Pro-Israel groups like UN Watch and NGO Monitor have regularly accused Albanese of anti-Israel and even antisemitic bias. She has said that the “Jewish lobby” controls the US, repeatedly compared Israelis to Nazis, rejected antisemitic motivations for Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, blamed Israel for the invasion, rejected Israeli security concerns, condemned Israel’s killing of Hamas terror chief Yahya Sinwar, and denied Israel’s right to self defense, among other inflammatory statements.
In February 2024, Albanese also received furious backlash when she said that victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel “were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN under President Biden, posted on X at the time that Albanese is “unfit for her role. The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”