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US Envoy to UN Criticizes Albanese, Who Compared Netanyahu and Hitler, in Sharpest Language Yet
UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese, October 27, 2022 (Photo: Screenshot)
JNS.org – Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, is “not fit for this or any other position at the UN,” Washington’s envoy to the global body said on Friday, after Albanese compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
On Wednesday, Albanese responded to a post on social media by an anti-Israel, former UN human rights administrator, Craig Mokhiber, who wrote that “history is always watching” alongside photos of crowds celebrating the Nazi leader and Israeli prime minister. The latter came during Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday.
“This is precisely what I was thinking today,” wrote Albanese, a UN “independent expert” appointed by the Human Rights Council. She has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide, including well before the current Israel-Hamas war.
On Friday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, stopped short of calling for Albanese’s termination, but wrote that “there is no place for antisemitism from UN-affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights.”
“While the United States has never supported Francesca Albanese’s mandate, it is clear she is not fit for this or any position at the UN,” Thomas-Greenfield wrote.
Biden administration officials have been critical of Albanese in the past, but Thomas-Greenfield’s language was the sharpest yet.
Michèle Taylor, US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council, wrote that Albanese’s “comparison of Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and antisemitic. There should be no place for such dehumanizing rhetoric. Special rapporteurs should be striving to improve human rights challenges, not inflame them.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry reacted furiously to Albanese’s posting, stating that Albanese “is beyond redemption. Once again she spreads vile hatred and abuses the memory of the Holocaust.”
“It is inconceivable that Francesca Albanese is still allowed to use the UN as a shield to spread antisemitism,” it added.
“When a current UN ‘expert’ endorses Holocaust distortion spread by the former director of UN human rights in New York,” wrote the Israeli mission to the global body in Geneva, Switzerland. “No doubt possible, the system is rotten to its core. It’s high time to UNseat Albanese.”
Daniel Meron, the newly-installed Israeli ambassador to the body in Geneva, added that Albanese “abuses her UN Human Rights Council title to spread hatred and inflammatory rhetoric. The UN system should stop tolerating this and unseat Albanese.”
“The German government strongly rejects Ms. Albanese’s recent comment likening the Israeli prime minister to Hitler,” wrote Steffen Seibert, the German ambassador to Israel. “Such a comparison coming from a representative of the United Nations is unacceptable.”
Albanese has a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and has backed Hamas’s terror activities, calling Israel’s right to defend itself “non-existent.”
She is under an internal UN investigation for a lobbying and fundraising tour of Australia and New Zealand, which several pro-Hamas lobbying groups said they sponsored or helped to organize.
The investigation is currently being handled by Albanese’s own colleagues within a UN Special Procedures committee. That committee had released a statement in May absolving Albanese of wrongdoing and casting bad faith aspersions on her accusers.
After months of pressure from JNS, the UN Human Rights Office said early this month that it paid for the estimated $22,000 trip, rather than the pro-Hamas lobbying groups, though it has yet to provide any documentation to substantiate that claim.
Asked earlier this month whether US Secretary of State Antony Blinken supported a motion by UN Watch, a nonprofit, to terminate Albanese’s position, a department spokesman told JNS that “we opposed the mandate of this special rapporteur, which we believe is not productive.”
“When it comes to the individual who holds that position, we can’t help but note a history of incendiary comments online and in her public statements,” the Foggy Bottom spokesman added.
The office of UN Secretary-General António Guterres has consistently declined to comment on Albanese’s statements and actions, with his spokespeople saying that Guterres didn’t appoint Albanese and has no authority over her.
Albanese serves in a voluntary role under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, and Guterres’s office claims that due to her being among the “independent experts” in that mechanism, she is free to speak as she wants without repercussion or criticism from the secretary-general.
The post US Envoy to UN Criticizes Albanese, Who Compared Netanyahu and Hitler, in Sharpest Language Yet first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Readies for a Nationwide Strike on Sunday
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are calling on for a general strike to be held on Sunday in an effort to compel the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal with Hamas for the release of their loved ones and a ceasefire. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.
The October 7 Council and other groups representing bereaved families of hostages and soldiers who fell since the start of the war declared they were “shutting down the country to save the soldiers and the hostages.”
While many businesses said they would join the strike, Israel’s largest labor federation, the Histadrut, has declined to participate.
Some of the country’s top educational institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, declared their support for the strike.
“We, the members of the university’s leadership, deans, and department heads, hereby announce that on Sunday, each and every one of us will participate in a personal strike as a profound expression of solidarity with the hostage families,” the Hebrew University’s deal wrote to students.
The day will begin at 6:29 AM, to commemorate the start of the October 7 attack, with the first installation at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Further demonstrations are planned at dozens of traffic intersections.
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Netanyahu ‘Has Become a Problem,’Says Danish PM as She Calls for Russia-Style Sanctions Against Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a “problem,” his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said Saturday, adding she would try to put pressure on Israel over the Gaza war.
“Netanyahu is now a problem in himself,” Frederiksen told Danish media, adding that the Israeli government is going “too far” and lashing out at the “absolutely appalling and catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza and announced new homes in the West Bank.
“We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members,” she said, specifying she referred to “political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole.”
“We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect.”
The devastating war in Gaza began almost two years ago, with an incursion into Israel of thousands of Palestinian armed jihadists, who perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
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As Alaska Summit Ends With No Apparent Progress, Zelensky to Meet Trump on Monday
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the press conference after the opening session of Crimea Platform conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, 23 August 2023. The Crimea Platform – is an international consultation and coordination format initiated by Ukraine. OLEG PETRASYUK/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – After US President Donald Trump hailed the “great progress” made during a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was set to meet Trump on Monday at the White House.
“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway,” Trump told reporters during a joint press conference after the meeting.
Many observers noted, however, that the subsequent press conference was a relatively muted affair compared to the pomp and circumstance of the red carpet welcome, and the summit produced no tangible progress.
Trump and Putin spoke briefly, with neither taking questions, and offered general statements about an “understanding” and “progress.”
Putin, who spoke first, agreed with Trump’s long-repeated assertion that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had Trump been president instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump said “many points were agreed to” and that “just a very few” issues were left to resolve, offering no specifics and making no reference to the ceasefire he’s been seeking.