Lawmakers again demand U.N.’s Albanese be fired

"A bipartisan group of House lawmakers wrote to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday, again demanding that Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, be dismissed from her position.

Albanese, despite alleged private criticism of her by Guterres and public opposition from U.S. and allied officials, recently had her employment and mandate extended.

‘This extension sends a signal to the world that the United Nations tolerates and even promotes those who spew antisemitic hatred and harbor long-standing prejudice against Israel,’ the letter reads. ‘This pattern of the United Nations allowing employees to direct vile hatred towards the Jewish people and the obsession with the world’s only Jewish state must end now. Every day that the UN fails to address this systemic bias within its organization, its credibility is undermined.’

The lawmakers argued that dismissing Albanese would be a step to show that the U.N. can address antisemitism in its own ranks.

‘We’ve seen over and over again the deadly consequences of this noxious rhetoric like Ms. Albanese’s that crosses the line from criticism of Israel into antisemitic demonization,’ the letter reads, linking Albanese’s long history of antisemitic comments to the recent antisemitic terrorist attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo., as well as the global surge of violent antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023.

The letter was signed by Reps. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Jefferson Shreve (R-IN), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY).

‘Special Rapporteur Albanese has a vile and extensive history of outlandish antisemitic statements and an extreme bias against Israel,’ the lawmakers wrote. ‘Ms. Albanese consistently uses offensive and dangerous rhetoric to absurdly compare Israel’s war on Hamas to the systematic extermination of Jews in the Holocaust … She has also outrageously stated that Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself and has refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.’

‘She has had plenty of opportunities to take responsibility for her dangerous and misguided rhetoric but instead continues to double down every time she has been called out publicly and states that she has been ‘wrongly mischaracterized as antisemitic,’ the letter continues..."