Israel Lobby to Block Reappointment of Mrs. Albanese

Following is a compilation of objections made to the reappointment of UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese. See also UN Watch's 60-page dossier documenting her abuses and misconduct, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing."

2025 Opposition to Reappointment of Francesca Albanese

• UN Watch submission invokes 8/PRST/2 (March 26, 2025): "Ms. Albanese's breaches of the Code of Conduct are widespread, systematic and grave. She repeated makes inflammatory and antisemitic statements that violate the fundamental principles of impartiality and integrity required of special procedure mandate-holders." In support of its objection, UN Watch also submitted to the President a petition with 100,000 signatures.


• U.S. Government (April 3, 2025): "We condemn [Ms. Albanese's] virulent antisemitism, which demonizes Israel and supports Hamas. She has clearly violated the UN's code of conduct and is unfit for her role. Her reappointment would show the @UN tolerates antisemitic hatred and support for terrorism."


• The Netherlands (March 26, 2025): "Several of her social media statements are at odds with the Code of Conduct. The Cabinet disapproves of these expressions. The Cabinet does not support Albanese's possible reappointment."


• Hungary (April 1, 2025): "...the extension of Special Rapporteur Albanese's tenure would send a regrettable message to victims, human rights defenders and those committed to credible multilateralism."


• Israel (March 24, 2025): "Francesca Albanese continuously engages in blatant antisemitic behavior and discourse, pedaling narratives that are dangerous for the Jewish people and detrimental to the fabric of societies as a whole."

For many of us, this has been foreseen and explicitly warned about today's fascist, populist right-wing politics ... I named it:

GEOPOLITICS IN ERA OF TECHNOCRATS

Earlier writings spot on.

Forever War and The New American Police State

by Steven D Wed May 17th, 2006

(Front paged at Booman Tribune and also posted at Daily Kos)

If any country is always at war, perpetually threatened by one enemy or another, what once seemed impossible soon becomes inevitable. Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com has it exactly right when he writes:

The price of perpetual war is a police state, one in which a permanent state of "emergency" - the threat of a terrorist attack - is utilized to break down institutional safeguards, the system of constitutional checks and balances, that protect us from dictatorship.

A foreign policy driven by the imperial impulse is bound to have grave domestic consequences, none of them conducive to the American form of government ...

Some may think the Bush administration is an extreme aberration brought on by an overreaction to the 9/11 attacks, and Bush's willingness to exploit that event to garner more power, both for his own Party electorally, and for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government of which he is the head.  However, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Bush is merely the culmination of a trend that began a half century ago upon the conclusion of the World War II, and with the beginning of the US/Soviet conflict.

The Republican Party first began to fixate on the use of smear campaigns and charges of treason by Democrats and liberals at the beginning of the Cold War.  What had once been a party of isolationist fervour, determined enough to deny President Wilson his dream of a strong League of Nations at the end of World War I, took the opportunity the Cold War handed it to create fear and generate the myth of Democratic weakness in the area of National Defense.

GOP leaders who had once railed against foreign entanglements and international intervention now raised the specter of Communism as a cudgel to browbeat Democrats and accuse them of being soft, weak and ill-prepared to defend America against the Satanic menace of an all powerful International Communist Movement.

Thus, we saw the rise in the GOP of smear merchants, fear mongers and rank opportunists like Nixon, Roy Cohn [adviser to Donald Trump], the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) members and, most of all, Senator Joseph McCarthy. It is no surprise that the height of their power came  during the Korean War when many innocent men and women in the State Department and elsewhere in the Federal Government had their careers ruined through the judicious use of slander, innuendo and outright lies by these political assassins.

[links added are mine - Oui]

My recent writing ...

Bush Doctrine of Empire Expansion: Manifest destiny

The most concise statement of the Bush Doctrine can be observed in George Bush's Second Inaugural Address: "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." While this statement captures the essence of the Bush Doctrine, it is useful to examine the principles upon which it is based.

Cheney using strong arm politics on Europe ...

NATO Summit in Bucharest: A 2008 Declaration of War

Anti-Americans should stop masquerading as anti-war

My letter to the Editor on the South Ossetia crisis was published by both the Irish Times (today) and as the featured Letter in Saturday's Irish Independent, the largest circulation newspaper in Ireland.

It has also drawn a vituperative response in today's Irish Independent.

Another case of America-bashing - Letters, Opinion - Independent.ie

Monday August 18 2008

After a week in which Russia repeatedly violated the sovereignty of a small neighbour, targeted civilian infrastructure, occupied several towns and villages in Georgia proper, ordered their tanks to within 20km of Tbilisi, and topped it all off by threatening a nuclear strike on Poland, the letters by Frank Schnittger and John Gunning attempting to link America to the catastrophe were ludicrous.

The former's insinuations about a supposed role played by the McCain campaign in fomenting unrest in the region, would be laughable if they weren't so serious.

For his part, Mr Gunning claims to despise war -- a noble sentiment no doubt, yet one that seems in his case to be surpassed by a virulent anti-Americanism.

His assertion that we are witnessing, not a Russian invasion of a sovereign state, but an "American war by proxy" exposes a somewhat casual acquaintance with reality.

It seems that he is concerned, not with the suffering of the people in the region, or with the brutal contempt shown by the Russians for international law, and the sovereignty of its neighbours, but with using the conflict as a means to spread his anti-American innuendo...

Emmet Dunphy
Loughboy, Kilkenny

Firstly, my letter:

Aftermath of war in the Caucasus - The Irish Times - Tue, Aug 19, 2008

[...]

In my own defence, I would note the following:

• My letter drew attention to the close links between the McCain presidential campaign and President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili - and said nothing, good, bad or indifferent about the US as whole.


• My letter said nothing about Putin's intentions or whether the Russian intervention can be construed as over-reaction - that scenario is still unfolding in any case.


• Given that almost all commentators, from all sides, seem to agree that a Russian response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was foreseeable, if not inevitable, it seems reasonable to ask why Mikheil Saakashvili would engage in such an adventure.

Drew more debate ....

Aftermath of war in the Caucasus | Irish times opinion - 19 Aug. 2008 |

Madam, - No doubt Charles Krauthammer revels in the opportunity to beat the Cold War drums again (Opinion, August 18th), but even he must recognise that recent hostilities in the Caucasus don't really alter any serious strategic realities.

If the worst he can charge Russia with is seeking to be - horror of horrors! - "master of the Caspian Basin", then he should tone his rhetoric down a notch. In no way would this lead to a re-established Russian "hegemony" over Eastern Europe, much of which is now firmly within the institutional clasp of the EU and Nato. A brief assault on Georgia (GDP $20 billion) in no way presages future mastery over Poland (GDP $620 billion), and to claim otherwise is simply bizarre.

Moreover, it should be kept in mind how short-lived Russia's revived "pre-eminence" could turn out to be. The country's population is declining massively, its infrastructure and education system remain decrepit, and its economy is disproportionately dependent on world commodity prices. None of these things augur well for a resurrection of imperial ambitions - or, indeed, a sustainable future of any sort.

The West - and Mr Krauthammer - should simply calm down. - Yours, etc,

Georgia: The conflict with Russia and the crisis in South Ossetia

Bush and Cheney Signal Support for Georgia

Russian Assault On Georgia | CBS News Headline - 11 Aug. 2008 |

Sensing NATO expansion eastward, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin takes control of an ethnic enclave in neighboring Georgia. Alex Rossi from Sky News reports.

Russia to Meet NATO Challenge, Nukes As Last Resort | by Oui @BooMan on 27 Dec. 2014 |

President Vladimir Putin has signed a new military doctrine that describes NATO's military buildup near the Russian borders as the top military threat amid Russia-West tensions over Ukraine.

The document released by the Kremlin maintains the provisions of the previous, 2010 edition of the military doctrine regarding the use of nuclear weapons. It says Russia could use nuclear weapons in retaliation to the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression involving conventional weapons that "threatens the very existence" of the Russian state.

For the first time, the new doctrine says that Russia could use precision weapons "as part of strategic deterrent measures." The document doesn't spell out conditions for their use.

The August War, Ten Years On: A Retrospective on the Russo-Georgian War | August 2018 |

The road to war -- a tale of deliberate escalation, miscalculation, revanchist ambitions, geopolitical traps and America's inability to stop events from unraveling -- offers insights into how a conflict may someday start between Russia and NATO. Today, a similar situation could lead to a much more cataclysmic result, especially if handled the same way from Washington.

A Conflict Remembered, or Misremembered?

In August 2008, the conflict spiral between Russia and Georgia initially centered on Georgia's enclave of Abkhazia, but the actual war broke out in and around the separatist region of South Ossetia. Tbilisi's plan was to recapture South Ossetia with its capital Tskhinvali, reintegrating what had by then become a Russian dependency and outpost of Russian influence back into Georgia proper. The course of the war, and Georgian military preparations, reflected the fact that Georgia did not expect to defend against a major Russian offensive. Georgia hoped to deter Russian intervention, not fight it. Tbilisi spent four years reforming, expanding, and modernizing the Georgian armed forces such that it had a viable operational plan to restore Georgian territorial integrity. How Georgia planned to solve the issue of Russian peacekeepers, a tripwire force present in both separatist regions, remains a quandary and a subject of continued dispute. Russia had no intention of allowing Georgia to retake the regions by force, and began working in 2006 on its own military options against a Georgian operation.

U.S.-Russian relations had changed considerably from 2006 onward, but in 2008 there were important catalyzing events with the recognition of the independence of Kosovo by the United States and most E.U. states, and NATO's 2008 Bucharest Summit, where the alliance promised that Ukraine and Georgia would someday become members of NATO. For Moscow, both of these decisions crossed red lines. By 2008, Russia had fleshed out plans for a military operation to impose its will on Georgia. The strategic aim was to give Moscow plausible deniability when it came to whom to blame for the conflict while preventing Georgia from being able to choose its own strategic direction. Moscow actively sought the war, and hoped it might result in regime change in Tbilisi.

McCain's Ties with Lobbyist Scheunemann | Oui @BooMan - 15 Aug. 2008 |

UN pulls Hasbara Posters from Israeli exhibition due to false claims