Claim of genocide comes from Francesca Albanese, who previously said that the U.S. is controlled by an evil Jewish cabal.
By Adina Katz, World Israel News
A prominent UN officially who has repeatedly promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and justified deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians said on Wednesday that she was investigating the possibility that Israel is actively committing genocide against the Palestinians.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese made the remarks during an anti-Israel conference in the UK, held on Israel’s 75th Independence Day.
Along with calling Israel an apartheid state and saying the country was guilty of ethnic cleansing, Albanese told an audience member that she was seriously investigating whether the country has committed genocide.
“This is something I intend to look into very carefully. There is the question of intent that needs to be absolutely explored, investigated, and documented. So I know that many use the term genocide to already qualify what’s happening,” Albanese said, according to a transcript of her remarks published by Israel National News.
“I personally refrain from it because I want to be absolutely sure of the argument when I make it. And I will get there. I will get there, because I see what’s happening and there is a level of persecution and combination of violations that speak to genocide.”
The term genocide refers to the systematic slaughter of a people. Since the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab population of the Gaza Strip has increased more than five-fold and more than 22-fold since Israel’s establishment in 1948, which would clearly indicate that no genocide has taken place.
When the State of Israel was established in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled to neighboring countries, although some remained and gained citizenship. Today, more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens are of Arab descent.
According to the highest estimates from pro-Palestinian groups and terror organizations, a maximum of 15,000 Arabs – most of them soldiers from the armies of neighboring Arab states – were killed during the War of Independence.
Considering that there were some 950,000 Arabs present during the conflict and that most of those killed were engaged in combat with Israeli military groups, the deaths of 0.015% of the Arab population falls far short of the definition of a genocide.
Additionally, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has recorded a positive growth rate among Arab Christians, with the community’s population growing by approximately 1 percent each year.
Notably, shortly after making comments which implied the murder of the three women from the Dee family was justified due to the unarmed mother and daughters being present in Judea and Samaria, Albanese said there was no non-violent solution for the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Albanese said that the UN and a two-state model were ineffective, so Palestinians should consider “moving away from the narrative of conflict and the call for negotiated solution.”
It’s unclear if Albanese was calling for additional terrorism, rather than diplomatic negotiations, as the answer to the Palestinian issue.
Albanese has said that the U.S. is controlled by an evil cabal of Jews, and that the European Union is beholden to Israel due to guilt from the Holocaust.