Israel Condemns UN Expert for “Anti-Semitism” Following Hitler-Netanyahu Comparison

Geneva:

Israel on Friday condemned a UN rights expert for “anti-Semitism” after she supported a social media post comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, has previously faced severe criticism from Israel, particularly after accusing the country of committing genocide in the Gaza war in March.

On Thursday, she responded to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, which juxtaposed a picture of Hitler being celebrated by a crowd with Nazi salutes, alongside an image of Netanyahu being greeted by US congressmen this week.

“History is always watching,” Craig Mokhiber, a former UN human rights official who resigned last October, accusing the world body of failing to prevent the “genocide” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, wrote in the post.

“This is precisely what I was thinking today,” Albanese, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022 but who does not officially represent the United Nations, responded on Thursday.

Israel’s foreign ministry quickly reacted, condemning her on X as “beyond redemption”.

“It is inconceivable that (Albanese) is still allowed to use the UN as a shield to spread anti-Semitism,” it stated.

Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva also weighed in.

“When a current UN ‘expert’ endorses Holocaust distortion spread by the former (UN rights office) director in New York… the system is rotten to its core,” it said.

“It’s high time to #UNseatAlbanese!”

Israel’s new ambassador in Geneva, Daniel Meron, echoed this sentiment, using the same hashtag and criticizing Albanese for using her (UN) title to “spread hatred and inflammatory rhetoric”.

Israel’s key ally, the United States, also voiced its disapproval.

“UN Special Rapporteur’s comparison of Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler is reprehensible and antisemitic,” US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Michele Taylor, said on X.

“There should be no place for such dehumanizing rhetoric. Special rapporteurs should be striving to improve human rights challenges, not inflame them.”

In response to the criticism on Friday, Albanese insisted that “the memory of the Holocaust remains intact”.

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

The Hamas attack that initiated the war on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Of the 251 people taken hostage that day, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has resulted in the deaths of at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.