Barnard School is being known as out for inviting a United Nations official who has likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and Israel because the Nazi “Third Reich” to talk on the elite Manhattan faculty this week.
A professional-Israel UN watchdog group is urging the Columbia College-affiliated Morningside Heights faculty to cancel the Wednesday occasion that includes Francesca Albanese, the controversial particular rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, who’s been accused of spewing antisemitism.
A persistent critic of the Jewish state, Albanese has been accused of excusing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel.
She has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza. She additionally as soon as claimed the US was managed by the “Jewish foyer” and has unfold different antisemitic tropes, critics mentioned.
“That is precisely the type of inflammatory rhetoric that has led to allegations of Columbia fostering an egregiously antisemitic hostile instructional setting, and to allegations of the harassment, threats, and intimidation in opposition to Jewish and Israeli college students, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and underneath the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871,” UN Watch government director Hillel Neuer mentioned in a letter despatched Monday to Barnard School president Laura Rosenbury and Columbia Katrina Armstrong.
The occasion is hosted by Barnard’s departments of human rights, economics and anthropology.
UN Watch, the Anti-Defamation League and others blasted Albanese — who was appointed the UN Particular Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories in Might 2022 — for likening Israel’s response in Gaza to the Holocaust, calling it a “focus camp of the twenty first Century.”
In February, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron referring to the Oct. 7 bloodbath as “the biggest antisemitic bloodbath of our century,” Albanese tweeted: “The best antisemitic bloodbath of our century? No, @EmmanuelMacron.
“The victims of seven/10 weren’t killed due to their Judaism however in response to Israel’s oppression,” she wrote.
The governments of France and Germany subsequently condemned Albanese for criticism of Israel and excusing “antisemitism.”
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield in July mentioned, “it’s clear [Albanese] isn’t match for this or any place on the UN. There isn’t a place for antisemitism from UN- affiliated officers tasked with selling human rights.”
Following a November 2022 Hamas-sponsored occasion in Gaza, Albanese mentioned of the terrorist designated group, “you might have the best to withstand this occupation.”
She tried to excuse Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel, and the fear group killing 1,200 individuals and taking hostages, saying, “Right now’s violence have to be put in context.”
Within the letter, UN Watch’s Neuer famous that Columbia has been roundly criticized for “enabling” a whole bunch of scholars, college and others to arrange an encampment occupying the Ivy League college’s South Garden for weeks final spring, the place “the harassment and abuse of Jewish and Israeli college students solely intensified, crammed with requires a worldwide Intifada—the worldwide homicide of Jews—and different antisemitic slogans and chants.”
“By inviting Francesca Albanese, an internationally condemned antisemite and supporter of Hamas terrorism, Columbia shall be subjecting itself to extra claims for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, New York Human Rights Regulation and New York Metropolis Human Rights Regulation, and the Ku Klux Klan Acts,” Neuer advised the Barnard and Columbia presidents.
“Accordingly, we urge you to instantly rescind Columbia’s invitation to internationally condemned antisemite and terrorism supporter Francesca Albanese.”
Albanese, who can be a “scholar” at Georgetown College, didn’t reply to an electronic mail for remark.
A Barnard spokesperson defended the invitation to Albanese.
“Barnard’s instructional mission relies on the exploration of difficult concepts. The School has lengthy permitted educational departments to host discussions and debates on tough matters with audio system who characterize a variety of views and backgrounds,” the spokesperson mentioned.
“This follow doesn’t represent institutional endorsement of any exterior speaker or the viewpoints they specific. All audio system, like all members of our group, are anticipated to adjust to our coverage on nondiscrimination,” the Barnard rep added.
Barnard is a personal girls’s faculty that’s affiliated with Columbia. Barnard college students can take programs at Columbia.