A group representing Irish Jews and Israel’s Foreign Ministry separately condemn the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, for inflammatory remarks she made this week to the Irish parliament.
Albanese has a history of antisemitism and regularly makes extremist comments about Israel.
Albanese told the Irish parliament’s Committee on European Affairs this week, “Israel has always killed children, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, the use of torture, even rape.”
“It’s destroying the people, the living. You know it when you read the testimonies of people who have been tortured, have been raped, raped by dogs trained in European countries,” she said.
“European people are profiting from selling dogs that will rape people. This is abysmal, and instead of having a system using our rule of law to prevent this, there are people who are in jail for denouncing the system,” she said.
Albanese did not offer any source or evidence for the allegations.
She demanded that the Irish government “show its spine” in opposition to Israel.
The Foreign Ministry says Albanese is “an unhinged conspiracy theorist consumed by her obsessive hatred of Israel.”
“Her vile lies and grotesque accusations are a disgrace to the UN,” the Foreign Ministry says.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland condemns Albanese and the Irish parliament, known as the Oireachtas, for hosting her.
“She dismissed documented antisemitism against Irish Jews on national radio, then appeared before an Oireachtas committee making a series of outrageous, unsubstantiated allegations,” the council says.
“Not one demand for evidence. Not one challenge to her most shocking claims. Instead, she got praise, admiration and smiling photographs,” the statement says.
Hillel Neuer, the head of the watchdog group UN Watch, says in a statement directed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “You allowed this barking mad lunatic and her friends to bring the United Nations into disrepute.”
The Irish foreign minister, Helen McEntee, hails her meeting with Albanese, saying, “Ireland will not forget about Palestine and will continue to stand up for the UN.”
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