It is said that there are generally only two certainties in life: death & taxes. We can add a third, that the United Nations is rotten to the core in antisemitism, and at the top of this pyramid is Francesca Albanese.
Albanese holds the ubiquitous title of “UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”
In short, her mandate can be described as pathologically singling out the State of Israel for opprobrium and demonization, while reflexively excusing and justifying Palestinian terror.
Despite purportedly being an “independent expert,” even in the pantheon of Jew-hatred at the UN, there has not been another official with such a bottomless CV of unrepentant and unrestrained antisemitism, engagement in Holocaust distortion and whitewashing of terror.
Speaking just this week at Princeton, Albanese — once again — sought to justify the October 7 massacre by Hamas, by alleging it was not antisemitic, but rather in response to Israel’s supposed oppression.
Perhaps Albanese missed the conversation one Hamas terrorist had with his father on the day of the massacre, excitedly calling home to share the news “I killed ten Jews with my own hands!”
But Albanese has repeatedly sought to justify the unjustifiable in the past year, by whitewashing the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
In February this year, responding to French President Emmanuel Macron’s comment at a ceremony in Paris honouring 42 French-Israelis murdered on October 7, where he rightfully referred to the attack by Hamas as “the greatest antisemitic massacre of our century,” Ms. Albanese tweeted: “The victims of 10/7 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel’s oppression.”
The French Foreign Ministry immediately condemned Albanese’s remarks, calling them “a disgrace,” while the German Foreign Ministry added: “To justify the horrific terror attacks of 7/10 & deny their antisemitic nature is appalling. Making such statements in a UN capacity is a disgrace and goes against everything the United Nations stand for.”
Yet, we should not be surprised.
In November 2022, while addressing a Hamas-hosted conference in Gaza, Albanese implored the attendees “you have the right to resist.” Is the mass murder, rape, torture and abduction of Jewish women and children, including Canadians, the kind of “resistance” Ms. Albanese is referring to?
In addition to engaging in wholesale breaches of her obligations of impartiality and independence under the UN’s own Code of Conduct for Special Rapporteurs, Albanese also has a long history in peddling an endless array of antisemitic tropes, like accusing the United States of being “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” and engaging in repeated Holocaust distortion, such as equating Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, and then, yet again this month, outrageously comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
In response to the above post, Albanese was immediately condemned by the United States, France and Germany, who also called for her removal from the United Nations.
Yet the Canadian government has been silent, deafeningly so.
Next week, Ms. Albanese is scheduled to visit Canada, for a series of public speaking events, including at the University of Toronto. Meantime in Montreal, Ms. Albanese is set to speak at an event alongside Charlotte Kates, a leader of Samidoun, a group recently designated by Canada as a terrorist entity, over their links to PFLP.
If the Canadian government is serious about tackling the unabated surge in Jew-hatred, it will deny entry to this unrepentant antisemite and terror apologist, masquerading as a UN official.
In fact, last week, our organization, a global coalition of lawyers, including in Canada, wrote to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, calling on him to do precisely that, having regard to the public interest and his legal obligations. We also noted given Albanese’s ongoing incitement and reasonable likelihood to engage in this kind of hateful and extremist public behaviour, that this poses a clear and direct threat to the safety of the Canadian Jewish community and a violation of the “wilful promotion of antisemitism” under the Criminal Code, which includes also a prohibition of ‘condoning, denying or downplaying’ the Holocaust.
Albanese’s remarks, including the justification of harm to Israelis, the use of mendacious stereotypes and repeated Nazi comparisons, would also squarely fall within the working definition of antisemitism under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the most widely endorsed global definition of antisemitism, which the Government of Canada adopted in 2019.
Regrettably, we have not heard from the minister.
Likewise, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has yet to condemn Albanese’s latest reprehensible remarks distorting the Holocaust, which have been unequivocally condemned by Canada’s allies from the United, France and Germany.
At an Oct. 28, 2024 press conference on Parliament Hill, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the leading advocacy group for the Jewish community of Canada, also called on Joly and the Government to condemn Albanese, citing her deeply troubling record of antisemitic remarks and concerns of the Canadian Jewish community, which are already under relentless daily attacks.
Yet this appeal too seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
It is unquestionable that the United Nations and the very system of multilateralism is part of the Canadian foreign policy DNA. Only last week, on the occasion of UN Day, Joly touted the UN as an indispensable “force for good in the world.” Yet here you have an individual engaging in the most vile and reprehensible antisemitic behaviour, under the umbrella of the United Nations, and Joly is nowhere to be seen, or heard.
If this Canadian government is serious about tackling the scourge of antisemitism that has pervaded Canada and their role as a responsible actor in the international community, they will unequivocally condemn Albanese and say she is not welcome in Canada.
Arsen Ostrovsky is a human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum. You can follow him on ‘X’ at: @Ostrov_A.
National Post