UN official says ‘real threat’ is Israeli 'genocide' during Harvard talk
U.N. official Francesca Albanese previously claimed that ‘[t]he victims of [Oct. 7] were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel’s oppression.’
During the Harvard event at which she spoke, Albanese said: ‘Saying that the motivation [for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack] was anti-Semitism is wrong and dangerous.’
Harvard Kennedy School recently hosted a speaker who has drawn controversy for blaming Israel for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
On Feb. 12, the Kennedy School hosted Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories in the U.N., to discuss “her perspective on the current situation in the Gaza area as well as her experiences working on the protection of Palestinian refugees and migrants,” according to the event page.
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On Feb. 10, Albanese commented on French President Emmanuel Macron’s condemnation of the Hamas terrorist attack, writing on X in French: “The ‘greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century’? No, Mr. @EmmanuelMacron. The victims of [Oct. 7] were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel’s oppression. France and the international community didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“My respects to the victims,” she added.
Two days after making the comment and on the same day she spoke at the Kennedy School, Albanese was barred from visiting Israel by the Israeli government, reported the Washington Examiner.
Albanese’s online talk with the Kennedy School lasted almost an hour. During her address, she called Israel’s counterattack against Hamas “monstrous,” referred to Israeli actions as “genocide,” and said that “saying that the motivation [for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack] was anti-Semitism is wrong and dangerous. . . . the argument is that this attack was launched as a way to break the occupation, against the apartheid.”
“I understand why Israel is using this argument of anti-Semitism because by saying ‘we were attacked because we are Jews,’ it’s feeding the existential threat that many Jews feel. But the point is that the real threat is the apartheid that Israel imposes on the Palestinians,” she continued.
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Campus Reform previously reported on the Kennedy School’s intention to host Dalal Saeb Iriqat, a Palestinian professor who called Hamas’s massacre of Israelis “a normal human struggle for freedom.”
According to Fox News Digital, Iriqat has also stated on X: “We will never forgive the Israeli right wing extreme government for making us take their children and elderly as hostages,” and: “The Israeli public need to realize that their own government had caused all this bloodshed and they remain the ones responsible for this escalation and losses of civilian lives.”
The speaker panel to which Iriqat was invited remains scheduled for March 7 despite the controversy that her comments have generated.
Campus Reform has reached out to the Kennedy School for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
