Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled sanctions towards the UN rapporteur on Palestinian rights simply over every week after the US demanded she be fired for “virulent antisemitism and assist for terrorism.”
Rubio excoriated Francesca Albanese, an Italian native who has served because the rapporteur for the Palestinians since 2022, and accused her of pushing the Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC) to clamp down on the US and Israel.
“Right now I’m imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Particular Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to immediate [ICC] motion towards U.S. and Israeli officers, firms, and executives,” Rubio revealed on X.
“Albanese’s marketing campaign of political and financial warfare towards the US and Israel will now not be tolerated,” he added. “We are going to all the time stand by our companions of their proper to self-defense.”
Final month, the Trump administration implored UN Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres to fireplace Albanese, bashing her for doling out missives to prime American firms that had been “riddled with inflammatory rhetoric and false accusations.”
“In her letters, Ms. Albanese makes excessive allegations, reminiscent of that the entities could also be contributing to purported offenses together with ‘gross human rights violations,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘genocide,’” performing US ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea wrote, per the Washington Free Beacon.
“She wrongly asserts that recipients have violated ‘preemptory norms of worldwide regulation’ and face publicity to ‘potential prison legal responsibility,’ and calls for that they stop actions regarding Israel.”
A Guterres spokesperson later insisted that he “has neither the authority to rent [rapporteurs] nor does he have the authority to fireplace them.”
Albanese additionally authored a UN Human Rights Council report alleging firms like Google and others had been profiting off “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza.
She has continuously accused Israel of committing genocide within the Gaza Strip and equivocated Hamas’s lethal Oct. 7, 2023, assault on the Jewish state, arguing that it needs to be saved in “context of many years of oppression imposed on the Palestinians.”
Final 12 months, she reposted an incendiary comment from self-described journalist Chris Hedges claiming the “Israel foyer has purchased and paid for Congress and the 2 ruling events.”
She’s additionally made feedback likening Israel’s insurance policies to the “Nazis and the Third Reich.”
Rubio burdened that “The US will proceed to take no matter actions we deem crucial to answer lawfare and shield our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
These sanctions towards Albanese coincide with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s go to to the US, the place he has obtained a heat reception from President Trump and GOP congressional leaders.
Throughout Netanyahu’s US trek, Albanese took to social media and raged towards nations that allowed the Israeli chief to fly by way of their airspace regardless of the ICC warrant for his arrest, issued final 12 months.
The US and Israel have ratified the 1998 Rome Statute that created the worldwide tribunal, which relies in The Hague, Netherlands. Earlier this 12 months, Trump slapped sanctions on the ICC.
“Italian, French and Greek residents should know that each political motion violating the int’l authorized order, weakens and endangers all of them. And all of us,” Albanese fumed on X Wednesday.
