About Francesca Albanese: our letter to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Spain must demand the dismissal of Albanese at the UN
Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union, and Cooperation:
We are dismayed at the recent statements of Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur of the UN for the Palestinian territories, which join a long list of dehumanisation of the Jewish people. From ACOM we ask that as a member of the Human Rights Committee of the UN, Spain demands the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guerres to immediately dismiss Francesca Albanese from a position that is incompatible with her permanent attacks against Jews and their national home.
After the latest fatal terror attacks committed by Palestinian terrorists, in which were murdered the Italian tourist Alessandro Parini, the Anglo-Israeli sisters Rena and Maya Dee and their mother Lucy Dee, Francesca Albanese made the following abhorrent statement: “Israel does not have the right to defend itself from terrorism”. Which means in practice to promote the murder of civilians.
In her sad career Albanese has referred to the “Jewish lobbies” with terms more in line with a follower of conspiracy theories than with an international civil servant. She has compared the Israelis with the Nazis. She has supported the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) of antisemitic nature (see the definition of the IHRA, supported by Spain). She has accused the Jewish State of atrocious crimes like Apartheid or genocide. She has referred to organisations related to terrorism as “defenders of human rights”. She has compared the Nakba to the Holocaust, and the terrorist group Hamas to the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto. She has ignored the autocracy and the corruption that the Palestinians suffer under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. She has praised Palestinian terrorists like Leila Khaled. She has defended the launching of missiles from Gaza against Israeli civilians. She has publicly praised the Hamas terrorist organisation appealing to the “right to resist”.
According to the Code of Conduct of the United Nations, the activities carried out by the Special Rapporteurs must abide by criteria of “impartiality and objectivity”. The statements of the rapporteur Albanese flagrantly violate said principles. Her degrading rhetoric is unequivocal: Albanese does not accept the permanent connection of Jews with the land of Israel. Albanese plain and simply aspires to the disappearance of the State of Israel, promotes the ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people in their National Home. For this she has become an obstacle to coexistence and peace.
The hateful prejudices of Albanese are the same that led to the extermination of the European Jews eighty years ago. Members of Congress of the United States, members of the Italian Senate, and several international organisations that fight antisemitism (such as the International Legal Forum, which unites more than 4,000 lawyers) have already shown their condemnation, stating that the Secretary General of the UN and the High Commission of the UN for Human Rights must dismiss Albanese. It is time that, honouring its Plan to fight Antisemitism, Spain also raises its voice in the UN.
Yours sincerely
Angel Mas
President of ACOM
