Israel slams UN expert, accuses her of ‘anti-Semitism’ for comparing Netanyahu to Hitler

Israel accused a United Nations (UN) human rights expert of “anti-Semitism” on Friday after she liked a social media post comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, has faced heavy criticism from Israel in the past, particularly after she accused Israel in March of committing genocide in the Gaza war.

On Thursday, Albanese commented on a post on X that featured a photo of Hitler surrounded by a crowd of people giving Nazi salutes over a shot of Netanyahu being greeted by members of the US Congress this week.

“History is always watching,” Craig Mokhiber wrote in the post. Former UN human rights official Mokhiber resigned in late October, accusing the international organisation of failing to prevent genocide from being committed against Palestinians in Gaza.

“This is precisely what I was thinking today,” Albanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022, replied in a comment on the post on Thursday.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry was quick to respond, criticising the expert as “beyond redemption”.

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“It is inconceivable that @FranceskAlbs is still allowed to use the @UN as a shield to spread anti-Semitism,” the ministry posted.

The Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva also commented: “When a current @UN “expert” endorses Holocaust distortion spread by the former Director of @UNHumanRights in New York…No doubt possible, the system is rotten to its core.”

It said it was “high time” for Albanese to be removed from her position.

Israel’s new ambassador to Geneva, Daniel Meron, made the same call, noting: “Francesca Albanese is abusing her (UN) position to spread hate and inflammatory rhetoric.”

The US, Israel’s biggest ally, also joined the controversy.

“UN Special Rapporteur @FranceskAlbs’s comparison of Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and anti-Semitic​. There should be no place for such dehumanizing rhetoric. Special rapporteurs should be striving to improve human rights challenges, not inflame them,” commented US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council Michele Taylor in a post on X.

Albanese responded to the criticism on Friday, stressing in a post on X: “The Memory of the #Holocaust remains intact and sacred thanks to people of conscience worldwide.”

“Institutional rants and outbursts of selective moral outrage will not stop the course of #Justice, which is finally in motion,” she added.

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