A high-powered U.S. official is being harshly criticized after attacking UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese as Israel steps up its attacks against the UN to advance its genocide in Gaza.
On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the U.S. believes Albanese is “unfit for her role.” She baselessly accused Albanese, who has been outspoken against Israel’s genocide and occupation of Palestine, of being antisemitic — an accusation that has been leveled countless times against Albanese as Israel has carried out its slaughter in Gaza and beyond.
“The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights,” Thomas-Greenfield wrote on social media.
Critics swiftly responded, saying that Thomas-Greenfield is complicit in attempting to paint over the U.S.’s participation in Israeli genocide.
“Your attack on UN special Rapporteur Albanese is so clearly intended to hide your criminal complicity in an ongoing genocide that you truly should be embarrassed. Is there any trick from the genocidaire’s playbook that you will refuse to carry out?” said the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
“By attacking a person who is courageously speaking truth, you obviously hope to draw attention away from the criminal conspiracy that is the Biden White House, State Department, Department of Defense, and your office, all of which have materially aided Israel in committing genocide,” the group continued.
“Apartheid shill in action yet again,” wrote Middle East expert and analyst Mouin Rabbani.
Albanese has come under attack numerous times by Zionists, including by Thomas-Greenfield, for supposed antisemitic statements. But these accusations have never been backed up by evidence; rather, they echo the same baseless complaints that have long been levied against supporters of Palestinian rights who have criticized Israel’s apartheid and violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Indeed, the attacks on Albanese seem constructed to silence one of the most prominent advocates for Palestinians on the world stage. Thomas-Greenfield’s post came just after Albanese released a report laying out a mountain of evidence and legal arguments demonstrating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — and that decades of foreign-sponsored occupation and colonialism laid the groundwork for the current massacre.
In the report, submitted to the UN this month, Albanese warns that Israel’s clear goal is “full Israeli colonization of Palestinian land while removing as many Palestinians as possible.” She notes that the “long-standing environment of impunity” for Israel’s violations of humanitarian law, made possible in part by UN inaction and the U.S.’s fierce loyalty to Israel, have enabled Israel’s current atrocities.
“Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid,” Albanese wrote. “This ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.”
Thomas-Greenfield’s attack also comes as Israel has massively stepped up its campaign against the UN. On Monday, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills — one banning the UN’s agency serving Palestinians from operating within Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and another labeling it as a “terror” group. The move will have devastating consequences not just for the millions of Palestinians in Gaza for whom the agency is their only lifeline, but also for Palestinian rights worldwide.
UN officials have said that the ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is unprecedented and a violation of the UN charter, as it endangers the protections granted to the agency under international law. Some analysts have said that the move is so extreme that it could lead to Israel’s expulsion from the UN.
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