Calls for resignation after UN rapporteur criticizes Israel
The foreign ministers of Germany and France have strongly criticized statements made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, and called for her resignation.
After Albanese spoke of a “common enemy” in connection with Israel in a speech, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned her statements. He stated that Albanese’s position was “untenable”, and posted on X that she had “already made numerous outbursts in the past.”
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also called for Albanese’s resignation during a question and answer session in the Paris parliament.
“France unreservedly condemns the exaggerated and culpable statements made by Ms Francesca Albanese, which are not directed against the Israeli government, whose policies can be criticized, but against Israel as a people and as a nation, which is absolutely unacceptable,” said Barrot. “In fact, there is only one response to her provocations: her resignation.”
Barrot said Albanese’s comments “join a long list of scandalous statements” in which she speaks of a “Jewish lobby” or compares Israel to the Third Reich, among other things.
Albanese is not an independent expert, Barrot said, but rather “a political activist who makes hate speeches that harm the cause of the Palestinian people, which she claims to defend, and the United Nations.”
Albanese, who has already been widely criticized in the past, spoke of a “common enemy” at a conference organized by the Al Jazeera news channel in Qatar last Saturday – presumably with reference to Israel.
Instead of stopping Israel, she said that most of the world has armed Israel and helped the Jewish state with “political excuses,” as well as economic and financial support.
Albanese later appeared to row back on her comments. In an Instagram post she wrote that “the common enemy of humanity is THE SYSTEM that has enabled the genocide in Palestine, including the financial capital that funds it, the algorithms that obscure it and the weapons that enable it.”
