SWC Urges UN Secretary General Guterres To Fire Anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic Special Rapporteur

December 14, 2022

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on United Nations Secretary General António Guterres to denounce and fire UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Frances Albanese following the discovery [as first reported in The Times of Israel] of her history of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda. 

“It is an outrage to allow a proven anti-Zionist and anti-Semite to head the UN Human Rights Council’s already biased investigation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” said SWC’s Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg, SWC’s Director of United Nations Relations and Strategic Partnerships.  

“How Albanese was ever allowed to be appointed to this position is yet another file in the mounting evidence of the systemic prejudice against Israel, and the acceptance of maligning Jews in the United Nations today.”  They particularly noted recent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements made by all three members of the blatantly biased UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 

Albanese is an Italian lawyer who was appointed this year by the UN Human Rights Council as the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories. 

But a review of her statements, including public speeches and social media posts shows she has compared Israelis to Nazis, dismissed Israel’s security concerns, sympathized with Palestinian terror groups, and used the false accusation that America and Europe are subject to a “Jewish lobby” - the obscene and  dangerous anti-Semitic accusation designed to promote untrue conspiracy theories about greedy Jews controlling world events, which incites hatred of the Jewish people, coming at a time of skyrocketing anti-Semitism around the world.  

The review also found that Albanese regularly falsely calls Israel a settler-colonial enterprise and refers to Jews in the pre-state British mandate and in Israel today as foreign interlopers subjugating an indigenous Palestinian population.

“One can never find Albanese criticizing the Palestinians for failing to accept or offer peace plans,” Rabbi Greenberg said.  “Albanese’s anti-Jewish propaganda is straight from the Goebbels playbook,” referring to the infamous chief propagandist of the Nazi Party. 

“If her false charges were made against any other people or country, the United Nations would be in an uproar of disapproval. This double standard at the UN must stop. Albanese must be removed, and the Human Rights Council’s biased witch hunt against Israel must be dismantled if the UN hopes to retain credibility.”  

For further information contact the Center’s Communications department at pressinquiries@wiesenthal.com, join the Center on Facebook, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).