Pro-Israel groups try to prevent Albanese’s UN re-accreditation

After death threats from Zionist groups failed, friends of genocide want woman who has exposed Israel’s crimes ousted from UN role

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has been applauded by opponents of genocide – and continually smeared and attacked by pro-Israel (and therefore friends of genocide) groups – for her forthright and outspoken opposition to Israel’s genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people of Gaza, so much so that she faced death-threats from a pro-Israel fascist group during her visit to the UK last week.

Albanese faced down the threats and went ahead with the visit uncowed, but now other Israel lobby groups are trying to oust her by preventing her re-accreditation as the UN’s Special Rapporteur for human rights in occupied Palestine when it it comes up for renewal next week.

The so-called ‘UN Watch’ – an NGO described as ‘a lobby group with close ties to Israel’ and by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the University of Bath as ‘pro-Israel organisation’ – has objected to the UN renewing Albanese’s mandate and announced its objection in grandiose language:

UN Watch doesn’t quite quote the full provision of UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution 8/PRST/2, which says the Council will:

consider such information and act upon it as appropriate.

In other words, the UNHRC can decide it’s entirely appropriate to tell UNW to put its demand in the round file/where the sun don’t shine, it is in no way bound to listen to an avowedly pro-Israel group demanding the removal of someone who won’t stop highlighting Israel’s crimes.

UNHRC resolution 5/2, to which 8/PRST/2 refers, is a code of conduct for Special Rapporteurs to act impartially and objectively – which is a perfect description of Ms Albanese referencing international law and the findings of the UN, UN courts and human rights groups in her conclusions that Israel is committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity multiple times a day and seeking the extermination of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

‘Impartial’ and ‘objective’ are not words that could reasonably be applied to UNW, which a 2015 University of Bath study found – despite its opacity about its funding – to be funded by a string of pro-Israel groups, mostly in the US:

The AJC (American Jewish Committee), a major UNW funder, has described itself as the “Global Center for Jewish and Israel Advocacy”. UNW CEO Hillel Neuer has previously attacked the UNHRC as ‘despots who…seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people.”

The UNHRC consists of regional representatives as follows:

African group of nations: 13
Asia-Pacific group: 13
Eastern European Group: 6
Latin American and Caribbean Group: 8
Western European and Others Group: 7

The Israel lobby appears not to realise that being UN Special Rapporteur is an unpaid position and removing Ms Albanese from the role is not going to silence or delegitimise her. However, given the composition of the council, the presence of only France, Germany and Netherlands of the avowedly Zionist western governments on the Council and the support for the majority of global south nations for action against Israel’s genocide and the arrest of its war criminal leaders, it is to be hoped that the attempts of the lobby to harangue governments will fail next week.

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