Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, has a unique view of "human rights."
Only some humans are entitled to them.
Albanese spoke to a rapt audience at Barnard College that didn't include any media representatives. Thankfully, some students who were shocked at some of the UN representative's answers to questions were able to take a lot of it down for posterity.
Columbia University student Eden Yadegar asked if she condemned the rape and kidnapping that happened during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack. Yadegar reports that most of the audience laughed at the mention of Israeli girls and women being raped.
“Tonight’s event further reinforced that Barnard College is perfectly content with platforming and thus normalizing antisemitism,” Yadegar said, describing the event on Wednesday at which Albanese addressed students. “The fact that Albanese was invited by the chairs of the Human Rights, Economics, and Anthropology departments is proof that at Columbia and Barnard, antisemitism is not a bug but a feature of our institution.”
Indeed, Albanese has a rancid history of making crude, antisemitic remarks in the past. Her congressional briefing was canceled after pressure was put on Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), who extended the invitation, to rescind it. Carson is a member of the Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and the New Democrat Coalition.
“As U.N. special rapporteur Albanese visits New York, I want to reiterate the U.S. belief she is unfit for her role,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated on Tuesday. “The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a U.N.-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”
Albanese has a growing record of antisemitic rhetoric, including comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, posting on social media about Israeli “blood lust” and stating that a “Jewish lobby” controls the United States. The French and German governments condemented her past comments, including denying that Jew-hatred played a role in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack in southern Israel.
For the antisemites at Columbia/Barnard, they have no problem with her spouting hate.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, issued a report before Albanese traveled to the U.S., calling her a "wolf in sheep's clothing."
“Her rhetoric is getting more and more wild,” Neuer told JNS, noting that Albanese repeated the debunked assertion that Israel bombed a Gazan hospital in the early days of the war.
“She’s spreading every wild lie. Of course, releasing the genocide libel is exactly that. It’s a blood libel. It’s a danger,” Neuer said. “She is fueling attacks on Jews all around the world, who invoke her reports to attack Jews.”
Neuer pulled no punches in condemning the U.S. government for allowing Albanese to enter the country.
“It’s absurd the United States would have its ambassador to the United Nations saying that she’s fomenting antisemitism, their ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, their special envoy combating antisemitism, the State Department in their own statements condemning her repeatedly for antisemitism, for racism, and then to open doors to her,” Neuer told JNS.
“We have an obligation as the host country for the United Nations,” Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, told JNS. “We take that obligation very seriously, and one of those obligations is to grant visas to any number of individuals with views with which we do not agree.”
Agreed, but where do you draw the line? At what point are someone's views so offensive to the civilized ear that they should be cast into the outer darkness of all civilized nations?
Barnard College gave the standard "We believe in hearing all sides" crap: “Barnard College has a deep commitment to academic and intellectual freedom, and our educational mission depends on the exploration of all ideas, including those that are contentious or provocative. We seek to create a space in which disparate voices speak and are heard so that students may engage with the world and its many challenges. Our embrace of this goal does not constitute institutional endorsement of any particular speaker or the viewpoints they express."
They wouldn't invite a representative of the Klu Klux Klan. The uproar would lead to violence. But they're safe hosting an antisemite.
After all. They're only Jews.
