UN's Albanese cites Holocaust while supporting 'conspiracy theorist' anti-Israel academic

The University of Bristol fired Miller in 2021 for a series of controversial statements, including claims that Israel wanted to "impose [its] will all over the world."

By MICHAEL STARR JANUARY 8, 2025 17:44

FRANCESCA ALBANESE, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories speaks in Cairo, earlier this year. Her antisemitic rhetoric has caused the US to call for her removal, the writer notes. (photo credit: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Jewish groups expressed outrage this week after United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese on Saturday cited the Holocaust to explain her support for Iranian regime media producer and anti-Israel academic David Miller.

"Never again. We, the generation who grew up with a sense of deceit, guilt, and responsibility for the ignorant and coward ancestors of ours who made the Holocaust happen, we have a role to play today," Albanese said in a now deleted X post. "I stand with justice, against racism, against apartheid, and with Professor Miller."

Albanese had responded to Miller's announcement that there was an appeal against an October UK tribunal ruling that Anti-Zionist beliefs are protected under anti-discrimination laws and his 2021 dismissal from Bristol University for anti-Israel remarks had been unfair.

"The University wants to overturn this," Miller had warned in a call for donations. "If we win at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, we’ll strengthen this precedent, which is invaluable and necessary for pro-Palestine campaigners across Britain and beyond."

Board of Deputies of British Jews President-elect Phil Rosenberg (credit: Phil Rosenberg)

Jewish organizations condemn Albanese 

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said in a Monday statement that Albanese's support of a "notorious  conspiracy theorist and employee of the Iranian regime's Press TV," was another instance in which she had dragged "what remains" of the UN's reputation "through the mud."

"We call on our government to openly request Ms. Albanese's dismissal; her ongoing association with the UN is a disgrace to the entire organization," said the Board.

Media watchdog Honest Reporting said on social media Sunday that it was beyond the pale for Albanese to misappropriate the Holocaust to justify standing by "an extremist and an antisemite who regularly spews Jew-hate."

Campaign Against Antisemitism continued criticism of Albanese on Tuesday after she had deleted the social media post. CAA questioned if she had done so because last August, he had claimed that discrimination against Jews barely existed and their overpresentation in positions of power meant that they had the ability to discriminate. CAA also noted that Miller had described Chabad as a cult and infestation. On Monday, Miller claimed on his Palestine Declassified that the Chabad movement was "ultra-Zionist" and was involved in a supposed genocide in Gaza, believing it's "legitimate to kill Palestinian children because they might in the future grow up to threaten the Jews."

The University of Bristol fired Miller in 2021 for a series of controversial statements, including claims that Israel was "the enemy of world peace" and wanted to "impose [its] will all over the world," according to The Jewish Chronicle and The Guardian. Miller also reportedly described the Bristol Jewish Society, a campus Jewish organization, as an "Israel lobby group," and that Jewish students were being exploited as political pawns.