UN official defends her ‘Jewish lobby’ comments, says they were taken out of context

UN Special rapporteur probing Israeli activities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza accuses her critics of ‘malicious attack’ after her comments claiming the ‘Jewish lobby’ controls the BBC were revealed.

By World Israel News Staff

A United Nations monitor charged with investigating Israeli activities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza pushed back on her critics, denying her past comments lamenting the alleged control over the media by the “Jewish lobby” were antisemitic.

On Wednesday, Israeli and American officials slammed UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese after a bombshell report revealed her long history of antisemitic comments on social media.

A day later, Albanese fired back, accusing her critics of intentionally taking her comments out of context for a “malicious attack” against her position.

“Thank you to those from different communities who have expressed their solidarity after yet another malicious attack was launched against the mandate I hold,” Albanese tweeted.

“I will not let anyone define who I am and what I stand for. One request to Ambassadors at the UN and other officials: before rushing towards condemning me based on a decontextualized and disingenuous extrapolation of what I said 10 years ago (wrongly mischaracterized as antisemitic), please wait for further clarifications, which will follow.”

“Meanwhile,” Albanese continued, “should anyone feel the urge to be ‘appalled’ about something, please consider the 215 Palestinians, including 52 children, who were killed in the occupied Palestinian territory this year; as well as the 820 Palestinians detained without charges, amidst 4,760 Palestinians in jail and 500 arrested per month this year; six Israeli soldiers and settlers were also killed. This is the oppressive reality that the politically-motivated attacks against my mandate are trying to obscure.”

Albanese, who is supposed to be a neutral third party observer regarding Israeli policy towards Palestinians, has compared Jews to Nazis and charged that a powerful Jewish cabal is controlling the world’s politicians, a Times of Israel report found.

In 2015, Albanese posted a photo to her Facebook page which directly compared IDF soldiers with Nazis.

A year earlier, she justified Gaza-based Palestinian terror groups’ tactic of shooting missiles intentionally at Israeli civilian communities – which constitutes a war crime – as their sole means of “resistance” against the existence of the Jewish state.

“America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves with the only means they have (deranged missiles), instead of making Israel face its international law responsibilities,” Albanese wrote, according to the Times report.

“The Israeli lobby is clearly inside your veins and system and you will be remembered to have been on the big brother’s side of this orwellian [sic] nightmare caused once again by Israel’s greed. Shame on you BBC,” she wrote to the British news outlet after watching a report which she deemed not critical enough of the Jewish State.

anti-Israel biasFrancesca AlbaneseUnited NationsUnited Nations Human Rights Council