UN Palestinian rights investigator denies ‘Jewish lobby’ comments are antisemitic

A UN official investigating Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories says her past statements claiming the “Jewish lobby” controls the US are not antisemitic.

During the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, Francesca Albanese said the Jewish lobby “has subjugated the US,” that the “Israel lobby” controlled the BBC and that Israel started the conflict out of greed. The comments were first reported by The Times of Israel on Wednesday.

In her first public statement since the report, Albanese decries “yet another malicious attack” against her office.

She says her comments were “wrongly mischaracterized as antisemitic,” and the report is “decontextualized and disingenuous extrapolation.”

In a previous statement to The Times of Israel, she acknowledged “mistakes” in her past rhetoric and sought to distance herself from the comments.

The UN Human Rights Council has not responded to a request for comment.

Albanese has also more recently compared Israelis to Nazis, which is considered antisemitic under the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and justified violence against Israelis.

Her statements have been condemned by the White House antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, the US mission to the UN in Geneva, the co-chair of the US House task force on antisemitism, Israeli officials and leading US Jewish groups.

Another UN official, Craig Mokhiber, the director of the New York Office for UN Human Rights, also defends Albanese, calling criticism a “ridiculous campaign of slander” and a “tired old trick” and implies that her detractors are “evil.”

The ridiculous campaign of slander against brilliant #HumanRightsDefender @FranceskAlbs will not succeed. It is a tired old trick that is used by desperate defenders of oppression who cannot argue the merits, because to do so would reveal the evil of their position. #HumanRights

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) December 15, 2022