J7 Task Force Letter to The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

July 30, 2024 

H.E. Mr. Volker Türk

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Palais Wilson

52 rue des Pâquis

CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland 
veronica.birga@un.org  
 
 

Dear High Commissioner Türk,  

 
We, the undersigned, representing the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel, write to you today regarding United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.  Ms. Albanese has a long record of promoting antisemitic conspiracies and using of hateful and violent language to attack the Jewish State of Israel.  

The most recent example is her July 25th post on the social media platform X, which promoted an image that compared Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, with the comment “This is precisely what I was thinking today.” Making comparisons between Israel and the Nazis is one explicit example of antisemitism in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and is unambiguously considered antisemitic by the Jewish community.  Her post trivializes the memory of the Holocaust and the six million Jews killed, promotes antisemitism, and emboldens others to voice their anti-Jewish hate. 

Prior examples of Ms. Albanese’s antisemitic comments and other problematic posts include: 

• Repeated comments about how the US government is controlled by a Jewish lobby, a classic antisemitic stereotype about Jews controlling governments. 

• Diminishing the horrific Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th and blaming Israel for Hamas’s atrocities.

• Repeatedly defending Hamas and advocating for Palestinian “resistance,” views which amount to support for violence against Israel and Jews. 
   

Ms. Albanese’s pattern of antisemitism, her clear bias against Israel, and justification of and even support   for violence stand in direct opposition to the United Nations’s values of peace and tolerance. She is clearly ill-suited for any official UN role, let alone one that deals with a highly complex and sensitive matter like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

We therefore respectfully request that you initiate a process at the upcoming UN Human Rights Council session in September to remove Ms. Albanese from her Special Rapporteur position.  As you know, the Human Rights Council has long had a reputation for tolerating antisemitism and bias against Israel.  If you, as High Commissioner, were to successfully drive a process to have the Human Rights Council withdraw Ms. Albanese’s mandate, that action would contribute to the rehabilitation of the Council’s reputation.  By the same token, lack of action would further harm the Council’s standing and would add yet another example of toleration of antisemitism within the UN system.