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Francesa Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, speaks at a conference, \u201cA Cartography of Genocide: Israel\u2019s Conduct in Gaza,\u201d at the Roma Tre University, in Rome, Italy, Oct. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS\/Remo Casilli<\/p>\n
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations\u2019 special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, is facing backlash for calling for an end to military assistance to Ukraine and arguing the war there serves a broader geopolitical interest in keeping Europe weak.<\/p>\n
The controversy follows remarks Albanese made on September 19 at the Festival di Open in Parma, Italy. Asked about the war in Ukraine, Albanese said that she agreed with those who believe weapons shipments to Kyiv should stop and that the conflict should instead be brought back into the political arena for talks. She acknowledged that Russia invaded Ukraine and described the invasion as illegitimate, while arguing that there were broader political and geopolitical factors behind the conflict.<\/p>\n
Albanese, who has a mandate from the UN to advise the international body on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, acknowledged last week that she did not have a solution for ending the war in Ukraine and said that she was not an expert on the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with those who believe that we need to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and bring the discussion back into the political sphere,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have the solution for ending the war,\u201d she continued, \u201cbut I am convinced that the situation in Ukraine is being exploited to justify that horrible argument that we are already at war and that it is a hybrid war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN adviser also suggested that there was a political calculation within NATO, which she said is led by the United States, that could benefit from a weaker Europe and prolong the conflict at the cost of Ukrainian lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a number of reasons that led to that war, but a war remains a war and it is illegitimate,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Albanese lamenting what she described as a perceived double standard in the international community\u2019s approach to Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. She argued that international institutions were much more vigorous in applying international law to the conflict in Ukraine and suggested that the lack of sanctions applied to Israel indicated unfairness in application of such laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I said from the beginning to the diplomats I met, especially those from the Western world, was that when Russia invaded Ukraine, you applied international law exactly according to the books and manuals on how to respond to aggression, from A to Z,\u201d she said. \u201cHow is it possible that, in the face of a case that, from the standpoint of aggression, presents similarities \u2014 I\u2019m not saying the situations are the same, but there is still an act of aggression \u2014 such as Israel\u2019s against Palestine, the same thing is not done?\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics were quick to castigate Albanese for her comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussian propaganda immediately seized on Albanese\u2019s words and her UN title to validate Moscow\u2019s narrative,\u201d UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in a statement. \u201cHaving acknowledged Russia\u2019s aggression, she insinuated that there were \u2018reasons\u2019 for it and then sought to deprive its victim of the means to defend itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia Direct, which is a Russian propaganda social media account, quickly reposted Albanese\u2019s remarks while spotlighting her position \u00a0as a UN rapporteur.<\/p>\n
Journalist Oz Katerji slammed Albanese as someone who \u201capologizes\u201d for anti-regimes in Syria, Russia, and Iran, as well as for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. \u201cSo, of course she thinks Ukraine should be cut off from arms,\u201d he added on social media.<\/p>\n
Palestinian activist Ihab Hassan quoted Albanese as saying in 2024 that \u201cthe situation in Ukraine falls out of my mandate, and I cannot comment on that,\u201d before noting that \u201cshe is publicly arguing that weapons shipments to Ukraine should stop.\u201d He then asked, \u201cSo, what changed?\u201d<\/p>\n
Albanese has repeatedly presented the Gaza conflict through the framework of international law and alleged double standards. Her critics argue that her public interventions frequently move beyond the narrowly defined role of a UN special rapporteur and into political advocacy.<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s special rapporteur system is designed to provide independent expertise on specific human-rights situations. Albanese\u2019s mandate concerns human rights in the Palestinian territories, rather than European security or the Russia-Ukraine war.<\/p>\n
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held her current position since 2022. It authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged \u201chuman rights violations\u201d that Israel supposedly commits against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.<\/p>\n
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.<\/p>\n
Albanese has an extensive history<\/a> of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas\u2019s attacks on the Jewish state.<\/p>\n In the months following Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities across southern Israel, Albanese <\/a>accused Israel of committing \u201cgenocide\u201d against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed<\/a> report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.<\/p>\n The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese in 2024 for allegedly accepting a trip<\/a> to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters<\/a> rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represented a \u201crevolution\u201d and gave her \u201chope.\u201d<\/p>\n While speaking at a Washington, DC bookstore in October, Albanese also accused Israel of weaponizing the fallout of the Oct. 7 slaughters to justify the continued \u201ccolonization\u201d of Gaza.<\/p>\n Citing her alleged antisemitism and intense anti-Israel posture, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Albanese in 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cToday I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,\u201d US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X in July 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cAlbanese\u2019s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,\u201d he added. \u201cWe will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francesa Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, speaks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-303076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-israel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117318212168328785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}