To write an entire article relating to the topic of the current war between Israel and Hamas without mentioning even once why it began and without referring to the 50 hostages still being held by the terrorist organization that started that conflict must take some doing.

The BBC’s Geneva correspondent nevertheless managed to do exactly that in a report published on the BBC News website, under the headline “UN expert calls for companies to stop doing business with Israel.”

Imogen Foulkes continues to portray Francesca Albanese, the controversial United Nations Special Rapporteur on the “occupied Palestinian territories,” as an “expert” in the body of her report, without defining her supposed “expertise”:

A United Nations expert has called on dozens of multinational companies to stop doing business with Israel, warning them they risk being complicit in war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. […]

UN experts, or special rapporteurs, are independent of the UN, but appointed by it to advise on human rights matters.

Moreover, she goes on to portray her protagonist as having legal qualifications: [emphasis added]

Ms Albanese is an international lawyer from Italy, and she is known for her bluntness; in previous reports she has suggested that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

On Thursday she repeated that claim, accusing Israel of “committing one of the cruellest genocides in modern history”. […]

“It’s unlikely the US administration will pay much more attention to the words of one international lawyer.”

Apparently, Imogen Foulkes does not read the Italian edition of Vanity Fair, and is hence unaware of the fact that in late May, Francesca Albanese herself stated in an interview with that magazine that she did not pass a legal bar examination and has not been licensed to practice law.

The reference to Albanese’s “previous reports” in which she “suggested that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza” serves as a reminder that in March 2024, Foulkes similarly promoted claims made by the same UN special rapporteur, without providing BBC audiences with any information about her record.

Foulkes refrains from telling her readers that Albanese’s latest report is titled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” but does make a mention of the latter part of that title:

Francesca Albanese, presenting her report to the UN human rights council, described what she called “an economy of genocide” in which the conflict with Hamas provided a testing ground – with no accountability or oversight – for new weapons and technology.

Foulkes, of course, provides no factual evidence of that “testing ground” allegation. While she names some of the companies mentioned in Albanese’s report — arms manufacturers, tech firms, vehicle manufacturers, and financial institutions — she fails to note the inclusion of other types of companies.

As noted in UN Watch’s legal analysis of Albanese’s report:

The Report demonizes Israeli agribusinesses for “producing goods and technologies serving Israeli settler-colonial interests.” Notably, Israeli companies are responsible for groundbreaking innovations like drip irrigation, biological pest control, and foodtech (e.g., developing alternative proteins and milk substitutes). Albanese accuses dairy and foodtech innovator Tnuva of building “market dominance” by “exploit[ing]” the “captive Palestinian market” while charging drip irrigation leader Netafim with branding “itself as a sustainable innovator, while perpetrating age-old techniques of colonial exploitation.” (Para 61-64).

Foulkes goes on to promote an “apartheid” comparison:

Ms Albanese is, in targeting economic ties, trying to remind multinationals, and governments, of what happened with apartheid South Africa.

For a while many businesses made good money trading with South Africa, but the injustice of apartheid attracted global condemnation and UN sanctions which forced disinvestment and, eventually, helped to end the apartheid regime.

By listing companies which are household names, Ms Albanese is probably also hoping to provide millions of consumers worldwide with information they can use when choosing whether or not to buy something, as they did with South Africa.

Foulkes continues with another misrepresentation of Albanese’s qualifications:

But when Ms Albanese presented her report to UN member states, she received primarily praise and support.

African, Asian, and Arab states backed her call for disinvestment, many agreed that genocide was taking place, and some also warned Israel against vilifying international lawyers like Ms Albanese for doing their job.

Some observers have noted that Albanese’s report is basically calling for the economy of Israel to be dismantled, as she herself told reporters at a press briefing:

Albanese: “It’s a fiction that there is a line dividing, separating the ‘good’ Israel within Israel and the ‘bad’ Israel in the occupied territories. No! The economy is one. Israel’s economy is one and one only and my report exposes a system […] that there is no possibility to fix it and redress it. It is to be dismantled.”

Were Albanese really an “international lawyer” as claimed by Foulkes, she may perhaps have understood the implications of a call for Israel’s economy to be “dismantled” — but clearly neither she nor her BBC Geneva correspondent cheerleader do.

Once again, we see that the long-standing BBC policy of uncritically amplifying UN messaging — while exempting that organization and its various departments, agencies, and officials from any kind of critical reporting — remains firmly in place.

Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared. 

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