Of all the anti-Israel officials at the UN (there are so many to choose from), surely Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, deserves pride of place. Now she has just delivered a report to the UN Human Rights Council, which accuses Israel of “genocide.” More on this outrage can be found here: “UN report claims Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, call for arms embargo,” by Leon Kraiem, Jerusalem Post, March 25, 2024:
A report compiled by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, expected to be delivered to the body’s Human Rights Council on Tuesday, says that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and recommends an immediate arms embargo on the country and a referral of “the situation in Palestine” to the International Criminal Court.
Do the Israelis round up Gazans and send them to camps, where they are sent to “showers” to inhale Zyklon B? Does the IDF have those mobile killing vans used by the Einsatzgruppen in Poland and Russia? Are Gazans stuffed into cattle cars where they die of suffocation? Has the IDF been lining up Gazans at the edge of huge open-air pits, shooting them one by one in the back of the head, where they then topple into those pits, one by one? No, none of that has happened. And indeed, from 1967, when Israel first took control of Gaza, until 2005, when it relinquished such control, the population of Gaza went from 400,000 to 1.3 million, that is, it more than tripled. And in the West Bank, the data are similarly telling. In 1967 the Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank was 900,000. Today it is three million. Again, it has more than tripled. And what of Israel itself? In 1949 the Arab population was 160,000. Today it is two million, a fourteen-fold increase. Which leads to an obvious question: Genocide? What genocide?
The drafted document, available online, presents the supposed genocide as “driven by a genocidal logic integral to [Israel’s] settler-colonial project in Palestine,” comparing Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians to the US’s relationship to Native Americans, drawing on a highly controversial interpretation of Israeli history.
As the numbers above show, there has not been a “genocide” in either Gaza, or the West Bank, or in Israel proper. Instead, in every case, there has been a massive increase in the Palestinian Arab population. But Francesca Albanese knows better. She thinks that the war in Gaza is “genocidal” because the Israelis are “driven by a genocidal logic integral to [Israel’s] settler-colonial project in Palestine.” And she draws a parallel between Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and the treatment of Native Americans by the European settlers who took their land.
But the Jews of Israel are not “settlers.” It is the Jews who are the indigenous people of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Jews have lived uninterruptedly — though in much-diminished numbers until the twentieth century — in that area for the past 3500 years, more than 2000 years before there was a single Muslim Arab in that now-disputed territory. The Jews are not “colonial-settlers” of their own historic homeland. They have not been sent by some “colonial power” to “colonize” the area, the way French settlers were sent to Algeria, or British settlers were encouraged to settle in Kenya.
The UN special rapporteur writes that genocide has always been “an inevitable part of the forming of Israel,” claiming that “practices leading to the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s non-Jewish population occurred in 1947–1949,” as well as in 1967. The report does not mention either of the wars fought during those respective time periods.
Albanese’s malevolence, and miscomprehension, are staggering. There was no “genocide” in the “forming of Israel.” During the period of the Palestine Mandate, Jews were allowed to immigrate to the area and to buy land — not seize it — from Arab and absentee Turkish owners, at prices that exceeded those being paid at the same time for the best farmland in the world, in Iowa. Not a dunam of land was taken from the Arabs during the Mandate period. As for “genocide,” it was the Arabs, not the Jews, who carried on a murderous campaign, beginning in 1920, with attacks on unarmed Jews in the Old City in 1920 and 1921, and the wiping out of the ancient community of Jews in Hebron in 1929, as well as the murderous attacks on Jews during the Arab Revolt that lasted from 1936 to 1939.
Albanese refers to the “mass ethnic cleansing” of Arabs during the 1947-1949 period. There was no “mass ethnic cleansing.” Beginning in late 1947, Arab leaders outside Mandatory Palestine encouraged the Arabs inside to leave the area, warning them that a “momentous massacre” of the Jews was about to occur, and they should leave the area of what was sure to be a bloody battlefield, and then they could return as soon as the Arab armies had vanquished the Jews. Many of the Arabs left precisely because of those warnings. Some Israelis, such as the Mayor of Haifa, and members of the Histadrut trade union, tried to persuade the Arabs to stay, but few did so, for they assumed that they would soon be back, accompanied by the victorious Arab armies. It was not to be; instead, the Israelis defeated five Arab armies, and about 600,000 Arabs who had left, expecting to soon return, found themselves instead as refugees. There were a handful of cases when Jewish fighters harried Arabs out of their villages where their presence was a security threat to the Haganah. The Arabs, overwhelmingly, were not driven out but, quite sensibly, chose to leave.
somehistory says
Another snake. And then she claimed she had been receiving death threats.
MD Anthony says
Albanese fails to mention Islamic terroists are continuing their genocide against their own people by always using them as human shields
Emilie Green says
I have enough awareness to know the thoroughness of Israelis along with its competency. If there was a genocide, we’d know it.
tim gallagher says
Total bullshit, but that is no surprise from a wanker from the UN. Personally, after what the subhuman Muslim scum from hamas did back in early October, I don’t give a shit what the Israelis do as long as they wipe all the hamas scum out. That is what should happen. Pretty well all the Palestinians support what hamas did, so i couldn’t give a damn about such degenerates, sad for the kids of course, but their parents would bring those Palestinian kids to be hate-filled, evil hamas-loving scum, so , if you are a Palestinian and a parent, you make your bed, by supporting hamas, then you get to lie in it. There are the usual, endless sob stories around now about how terrible it is in Gaza, but hamas caused it all and they need to be wiped out.
tgusa says
Looking her picture I cant tell the difference between hr and the females raped tortured and murdered on Oct 7 in Israel. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Is she related to the Australian prime minister?
tim gallagher says
On Anthony Albanese, our current Australian Prime Minister, Infidel, I can’t stand the guy and I can’t wait for his far left Labor government to be voted out, but, because he is so hopeless I tend to have no interest in him, but apparently his background is that his mother raised him here in Australia as a single parent, which Albanese used to mention quite often during the election campaign that he won, making the point about his having lived in poverty, blah, blah, after she became pregnant to some Italian guy named Albanese who lived in Italy and who Albanese once or twice visited overseas. I think that is the boring old story. To me, Albanese has always been nothing but a far left marxist and his useless government are now wrecking Australia with endless idiotic policies. Just now I’m listening to a political commentator on the radio who is saying that Albanese may well be the worst Prime Minster since Gough Whitlam way back in the 1970s. Oh, well, you get the government that the clowns out here vote into power.
Wellington says
Thanks for that information, tg, about your current PM. Seems he’s a total POS just as Biden is.
My God, it’s come to this, i.e., two of the greatest nations on Earth being led by total scumbags. Dispositive, I would argue, of what can happen when the freest nations on the planet don’t remain eternally vigilant and knowledgeable concerning what it takes to preserve freedom and greatness. Sure happening now in Australia and America.
As for the UN, time is way overdue for America and Australia to pull out of this utterly wretched organization. Send it to Pyongyang or Beijing or Riyadh or Tehran or…or…or….
tim gallagher says
You are welcome to the information about the dismal situation here in Australia, Wellington. Of course, Australia is not all that important to the fate of the free world as the USA is because Australia has only 26 million people in a vast land mass. The USA, the UK, Germany, etc are more important to the fate of western civilisation. As I said, because I consider Albanese and his far left mob to be completely wrong-headed in all their policies, I see them as dangerous, worthless types of people who, given enough time, will destroy the country with their woke agenda in all aspects of life. I tend to turn Albanese off when he appears on TV because i can’t stand the sound of his voice or the sight of him. A fellow conservative friend of mine tells me he does the same. I have to say that Albanese is a lazy, useless clown but not demented like Biden. It is a disaster that someone like Biden could be occupying that position. I know that Obama and his mob probably run the show, but seeing such a decrepit creature as Biden in action is appalling. The issues here in Australia seem similar to those in the USA and many western countries and I just hope that the average citizens out here wake up. Of course, here, China is the biggest threat of all and I have heard commentators say that they already own Australia economically which is probably true. I hope you are going well.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Tim
Thanks for that data. I once saw Gough Whitlam’s picture in a kid’s encyclopedia when I was a kid, and was under the impression that he was a good prime minister, as a result ? Thanks for disabusing me of that notion
Anyway, I looked this lady up on Wiki, and looks like she’s an Italian lawyer & academic. Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume that she’s in no way related to your prime minister, even if she may be just as much of a POS as he is
tim gallagher says
You’re welcome, Infidel. Most people, though not the people on the far left, here in Australia see the Whitlam government as pretty useless, destructive rabble. Thye had been out of power for ages and ages as Menzies and the Liberals (our conservatives) were in power, and when Whitlam’s mob came to power, they lacked discipline , were drunk on power, and enacted a lot of left wing crap which destroyed a lot of business, etc. Albanese might be a common Italian name. I agree with you that both this Albanese and our Australian Albanese seem to be POS.
tgusa says
She is one of those Italians that thought it was a good idea to host the Nazis back in WWII. You could say it was a great idea right up until it wasn’t.
James Lincoln says
First and foremost, Israel is NOT committing genocide.
But interestingly, they are receiving the same undeserved worldwide condemnation as if they were actually committing genocide.
somehistory says
Absolutely, right, James.
The definition of genocide”
“the deliberate killing or severe mistreatment of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group:”
Even if….and that little word “if”….Israel had killed as many as hamas claims (which they have not)…all of the killing would have had to be deliberate. With the warnings, the precautions, etc. Israel has taken upon itself to limit the deaths of babies and others not involved in the attack, anyone who is honest, sees none except the killing of hamas members is “deliberate.”
the only “aim to destroy” is against hamas because they are a terror group. Which is a *choice*….they weren’t born that way and unable to change.
And to your second point: they are receiving way more condemnation than the mozlum terrorists who are *aiming to destroy* an ethnic group and nation, and a religion.
James Lincoln says
All true, somehistory, and thanks for your informative reply.
Shlomo Medina says
Israel is the most humanistic country all around the Middle East and in the western world. This lady s purpose is just playing a role in the fake mission of the barbaric Hama-Issis . Did she published a word about the 250000 victims of the Syrian regime? Did she published a word about Issis s atrocities in the Middle East ? And what about the Cristian’s citizens of Lebanon – why they had to be exiled to other countries ? The antisemitism, the hypocrisy and the culture of lying is a way of the life of this lady! Shame!
Jerry says
UNRWA pioneered ‘Sahid Education’ seventy five years ago – long before Hamas was invented, but about fourteen hundred years ago when the self proclaimed last and final prophet invented his religion of peace to the desert Caravans and Oases plunderers in the name of the 360th (one for each day of the lunar year) idol of the Kaaba, promoted to become the Arabian chief deity.
brenrod says
This “blood libeler“ should be dragged kicking and screaming to a gallows.