Interview with Francesca Albanese
At the end of May ‘24, the third international conference of “The Alliance for Justice between Israelis and Palestinians” was held in Nuremburg. Guest speakers from Israel, Palestine, the USA, England and Germany spoke to more than 200 participants. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was also present. She has a doctorate in international law and spoke on the topic of what the UN can do for the people of Israel/Palestine.
As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, you are in the spotlight of a global political crisis situation, in which one can often only with difficulty differentiate between lies and the truth. There’s a German proverb that goes roughly like this: “The larger the lie, the more invisible it becomes.” Are you familiar with this system in your political work?
Albanese: Oh, yes. I’m familiar with that. I’m very familiar with that. In the area of political work, that’s what I call “The Truman Show”. It’s what was presented in an exemplary way in the film of the same name: the representation of real life as a reality show. In other words, the construction of a parallel reality. Concretely, for instance, in the relationship between Germany and Israel–I would simply say, in all modesty, that in Germany, or, to be more precise, in German politics, there exists a narrative about Israel that has nothing to do with the reality in either Israel or in the Palestinian territories. In Germany, the Holocaust card is constantly played. A mindset which stimulates German feelings of guilt is constantly being evoked. And that’s why I consider this debate so important, particularly for Germany. And that’s why I’ve come to this conference of “The Alliance for Justice between Israelis and Palestinians”.
A significant part of this stimulation is being carried out by the German media…
Albanese: …Journalism has failed so far. The academic world has remained silent or prevented any involvement. Civil society is in some ways remarkably constrained. Only the young people are rebelling. It was a shock for me to see how roughly and brutally the German police treated protesters who were demanding solidarity with Palestine. Solidarity with Palestinians does not automatically mean hostility towards Israelis. It is already the case that people here bury their heads in the sand and do not want to see reality. And I see this catastrophic, murderous reality every day–be it in Gaza or in the West Bank. We must fight against the prevailing ignorance, especially in Germany.
Somehow it seems that in Germany these “life lies” are emerging again, according to which Germany has overcome its bad past and is therefore on the good side…
Albanese: You say “lies”; I would say “trauma”. If I may venture to say this: Many Germans have apparently not sufficiently dealt with the trauma of what Germany did during the Third Reich–the extermination of the Jews. And, on the other hand, there is a “life lie”, as you call it, among the Jewish majority in Israel, which simply does not want to accept what it has been doing to Palestinians for decades–from massacres at the founding of the state, to permanent ethnic cleansing and expulsion, to increasing violence in the West Bank, due to a brutal settler colonialism, to the current mass murder of women and children in Gaza. I call this genocide. And I am not the only one, by the way. South Africa and other countries have reacted in this direction. For me, as a lawyer specializing in international law, and with all this misery before my eyes, it is completely clear: If the Jewish majority in Israel ever realizes what has really happened, how the livelihood and culture of Palestinians is being systematically destroyed and annihilated, it will ultimately have devastating psychological effects for Israeli society.
How do these lies influence your work as a special rapporteur at the UN?
Albanese: These lies have led to enormous hypocrisy, particularly in Western countries but also in Israel, which I have to fight against every day. And my part in this “Truman Show”, to come back to that again, is to unmask or disrupt this choreography of hypocrisy.
Because of that, you are vilified in parts of the German press (particularly in Germany’s Springer Press), but also internationally, as a “BDS icon”, an anti-Semite or even a Hamas supporter. Does that affect you? How do you deal with that?
Albanese: That is, of course, painful but also somewhat ridiculous. Especially for me, who grew up with Primo Levi’s books. How can I be a Hamas supporter when this terrorist group oppresses, uses and exploits the Palestinians whose interests I am supposed to represent, whose human rights and human dignity I am supposed to stand up for? The Palestinians were the first victims of these dictatorial Hamas policies. These slanders, this smearing of me are all campaigns that primarily serve the Israeli government and are being unleashed by its political and media friends. It is all intimidation.
Israel is obviously not being persuaded by UN resolutions or orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to abandon its policy of violence. On the contrary, the killings continue. International law is being violated. In fact, international law has been permanently suspended by Israel in this specific conflict for decades. There are demonstrations against this all over the world.
Albanese: The many young demonstrators all over the world were and are very specific in their demands for the application of international law. But even then they are often confronted with this hypocrisy that simply lets Israel do what it wants. The Israeli ex-diplomat Daniel Levy once said: “We must keep an eye on the general impunity that Israel enjoys in all its activities, along with the resulting growth of extremism inside and outside of Israeli society.” We must be persistent in implementing international law both for the Israelis AND for the Palestinians. And we must try to understand not only Jewish history, but also the history of the Palestinians, who have suffered oppression, injustice and twelve armed conflicts since 1948. We must work towards creating an understanding between both parties.”
That is easier said than done. The traumas on both sides are so great that one might have the impression that this conflict is ultimately unresolvable.
Albanese: Yes, it seems so. But these traumas are being further fueled by current events–the terrible massacre carried out by Hamas on October 7th, 2023 and the genocidal response by the Israeli military that followed. All of this must stop, immediately. An Israeli colleague recently said to me during a trip of mine to Israel: “The Holocaust happened. We were persecuted and killed. That is historically recognized, and we must keep this memory alive. Now we can start anew. We can reflect on how we suffered. But the Palestinians cannot do that, because their history is not an issue in the West. They are not in a position to historicize their history. They experience the present as a continuation of the ‘Nakba’ of 1948–the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And they stand there with nothing in their hands.”
Many Israelis view the Nakba, the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from their villages, completely differently. According to this view, the Palestinians left voluntarily on the orders of their leaders. Or–the land was promised by God to the Jews anyway. Different versions of history are clashing here.
Albanese: We should be honest. The radical Zionist, Vladimir Jabotinsky, and the founder of the Israeli state, David Ben-Gurion, repeatedly spoke of the “colonization” of Palestine. The following quote from Jabotinsky has been passed down: “Did you ever see indigenous people who did not revolt when their land was taken away from them?” So we are dealing here with settler colonialism, a term that is strictly rejected by the Zionist leadership and its allies, including Germany.
Do you believe that an understanding will be possible in the near future, despite these historically defined hurdles? That the Israelis will give up their clearly dominant position, which is, above all, based on its military?
Albanese: I can only hope. There is a book by the Israeli linguist Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, entitled Palestine in Israeli Schoolbooks: Ideology and Propaganda in Education. In this lucid and meticulous study, the author describes in dramatic detail how students in Israel are indoctrinated, positioned against Palestinians and exposed to racist theories. Thus, a “Jewish identity” is formed. A frightening analysis. One could lose all hope for a peaceful future. With this indoctrination, the young people then go into military service, perhaps to the occupied territories–and the cruelties that take place there shouldn’t surprise us.
Most Israeli media, especially television, report on the war in a very biased way. You hear that many people don’t know or don’t want to know what is going on in the current war. How can the Israelis be freed from this deadlock?
Albanese: Yes, there is a specific blindness in Israeli society. But my answer to your question is quite simple: the international community has to put enough pressure on Israel, in order to credibly represent and enforce the orders of the International Court of Justice. And in concrete terms, that also means imposing sanctions against Israel, so that the country can be brought to act following international law. And naturally, you have to negotiate.
We now know how sanctions against Russia have worked. They have been pretty unsuccessful.
Albanese: Israel is a different case. The country is heavily dependent on the West in the technological, security and AI sectors. If there is unity in the West, that would definitely have an effect.
Ms Albanese, thank you for the interview.