At Columbia’s Barnard, UN expert with history of antisemitic remarks justifies Oct. 7
Student who confronted Francesca Albanese on whether all Israelis are legit targets says school’s platforming of her shows that ‘antisemitism not a bug but a feature of our institution’
Reporter at The Times of Israel
NEW YORK — Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, shrugged when Columbia University student Eden Yadegar asked her if all Israelis were legitimate targets.
When another student asked Albanese if she condemns the rape and kidnapping that occurred during the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack, the majority of the audience laughed, Yadegar told the Times of Israel.
“Tonight’s event further reinforced that Barnard College is perfectly content with platforming and thus normalizing antisemitism,” Yadegar said, describing the Barnard College event on Wednesday at which Albanese addressed students, which was not open to the press. “The fact that Albanese was invited by the chairs of the Human Rights, Economics, and Anthropology departments is proof that at Columbia and Barnard, antisemitism is not a bug but a feature of our institution.”
Aside from addressing the UN Human Rights Committee and Congress during her visit to the US, Albanese will be speaking at several universities, including Princeton, Georgetown, and The New School. But it is Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia University, that stands out since it has been at the epicenter of anti-Israel and antisemitic activity on US college campuses since the Hamas terrorist attack.
Columbia junior Elisha Baker was one of about a dozen Jewish and Israeli students who attended the event.
“I find it incredibly problematic that Barnard not only invited Francesca Albanese but did so in a way that glorified her work as non-controversial. It is as if Barnard were to say that antisemitism should be platformed without questions at all. What was even sadder was that students and faculty who attended the event laughed at a question about rape and murder of Israelis and gave Albanese a standing ovation at the end of her presentation,” said Baker, who is studying Middle East history.
According to the second Columbia University Task Force on Antisemitism report, Jewish and Israeli students faced numerous incidents of intimidation and harassment last academic year, including being sidelined from campus organizations, stalked, ridiculed, and verbally and physically harassed.
Nevertheless, Barnard College defended Albanese’s appearance.
“Barnard College has a deep commitment to academic and intellectual freedom, and our educational mission depends on the exploration of all ideas, including those that are contentious or provocative. We seek to create a space in which disparate voices speak and are heard so that students may engage with the world and its many challenges. Our embrace of this goal does not constitute institutional endorsement of any particular speaker or the viewpoints they express. All external speakers, like all members of our community, are expected to comply with our policy on nondiscrimination,” said a Barnard College spokesperson.
During the event, which had about 100 students and faculty in attendance, Albanese described Israel’s war in Gaza as a “genocide,” justified the October 7 attack, and questioned Israel’s right to exist.
“Israel was created on the land that was inhabited largely by Muslims and Christians, and some Jewish minorities, but when Israel was created after the Holocaust it implied the destruction of 500 Palestinian villages. Palestinians were kicked out of their homes,” she told the audience.
‘Normalizing antisemitism’
Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East historian and executive director of the non-profit Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which works to counter BDS, said he was particularly concerned about the impact of Albanese’s speeches to students.
“She is, to my mind, normalizing antisemitism throughout the United States and tried to downplay 10/7. Many of those students, who took part in the encampments, who don’t know anything about the region are going to hear her present so-called facts and weaponize the conflict. For the younger generation, many of whom spent time in the encampments, she represents those viewpoints,” Romirowsky said.
Albanese has a long history of making antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas statements.
On October 11, 2023, four days after the attack, Albanese said she doubted reports of rape and sexual violence. Instead, she said the US and Israel were spreading these claims to escalate tensions.
She also recently told a Harvard University gathering that when Hamas refer to killing Jews (“Yahudi”), they do not actually mean Jews.
In May, she called accusations that UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 massacre “fallacious allegations,” according to a 60-page report “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Why Democracies Should Sanction UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for Propagating Antisemitism and Supporting Terrorism,” released by UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group. The UN later admitted that at least nine UNRWA employees did take part in the terrorist attack.
UNRWA last week acknowledged that Muhammad Abu Attawi, recently killed by an Israeli airstrike, was an UNRWA staffer. The IDF and Shin Bet security agency said Attawi was a commander of Hamas’s Nukhba force, who led the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter during the October 7, 2023 attack. According to UNRWA, Attawi’s name was included in a letter the agency received from Israel in July that included a list of 100 staff members who were also allegedly members of terror groups, including Hamas. But the agency said it did not take any action against Attawi — who worked as a driver — because Israel did not respond to a request for further information.
Albanese has also said that “America is subjugated by the Jewish Lobby,” according to the UN Watch report. Because of these and other statements, the Biden Administration has repeatedly rebuked Albanese. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently said Albanese “is not fit for this or any position at the UN.”
Likewise, in a post on X, Ambassador Michèle Taylor, the US Ambassador to the HRC, said, “Francesca Albanese’s recent remarks, including evoking Nazis, show yet again that she is unfit for any role at the UN. The US has never supported her mandate, and her conduct is unacceptable.”
Dan Smith, Director of Advocacy at UN Watch, said he was alarmed that she was now addressing university students.
“Each university that hosts a lecture by antisemite Albanese is potentially liable for infringing upon the civil rights of its Jewish and Israeli students,” Smith said, adding that “Antisemitism has spread like wildfire on American campuses since the Hamas attacks of October 7. Albanese scheduled this college tour with the goal of fanning the flames even further.”
