U.S. Sanctions UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
On Wednesday 9 July, U.S. Department of State released a statement announcing the imposition of sanctions on Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza. This comes as a result of the existing sanctions on the International Criminal Court for its case on the genocide in Palestine. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said in an official statement that the U.S. and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute, and the ICC’s case against Israel is “a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries.”
Francesca Albanese is an Italian human rights lawyer and one of the independent investigators who was chosen to be a part of a group of experts tasked with reporting to the Human Rights Council. Albanese is not an official member of the UN, but her reports do assist with pressuring countries found in violation of human rights. More recently, she has wrote letters to different countries urging them to put more pressure on Israel to end its genocide.
The timing of the sanctions is no coincidence. The week before the sanctions, Albanese named a number of U.S. companies in her investigations, saying they have aided Israel in its attacks on Gaza. Albanese stated that her report “shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it’s lucrative for many.” The damning report essential shows that companies within the U.S. are complicit in the genocide and benefiting directly from the slaughter of Palestinian peoples. The week of the sanctions, Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, was visiting Washington, DC to meet with U.S. President Trump. The two leaders discussed the ways to possibly relocate people in Gaza to neighboring countries to give them a “better future.” In other words, they are discussing other ways to carry out their ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling any survivors of the genocide.
Sec. Rubio stated on social media “Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated.” To view reports of human rights violations as ways of exercising “political and economic warfare” could be viewed as an [unintentional] admission of guilt. Do human rights not matter simply because one did not ratify the Rome Statute? To sanction a human rights investigator because they have found evidence that you have benefited from the atrocity of genocide does not help Israel’s “right to defend itself.” The tide is turning; the U.S. and Israel know it, and they are scrambling for control.
What is political and economic warfare is what is going on in Gaza. We are approaching the final stages of genocide at this time. The world has watched, in horror as well as silence, as the Palestinian people have been slaughtered and left to die. What is deemed a ‘food crisis,’ food is practically non-existent in Gaza due to Israel’s almost 2 year bombardment on the city. This has given them another element of their genocide by killing people showing up to food banks and hanging onto the age-old tale of “Hamas is to blame.” This is not only a food crisis; this is starvation and it is a fundamental part of genocide.
Zionists supporters are seeing the growing pressure and are beginning to worry. It is becoming harder to constantly play the victim card when you are the reason thousands of people have been killed and thousands more will die as a result of starvation. It is not self defense to kill people seeking food. It is not self defense to prevent aid from reaching civilians. It is not self defense to detain human rights advocates in international waters and prevent them from accessing Palestine. The media has turned and has outright named Israel in its role in starvation. Outlets like the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, and the Guardian - once outlets that played a significant role in promoting zionism and their propaganda - have seen that it has become increasingly difficult to report as if Israel is the victim. More celebrities, once silent, have started speaking out against the genocide and called for aid to reach Palestine. Better late than never, but it took over 20 months and 60,000 martyrs to reveal the truth.
At the time of this statement, Trump reportedly contradicted Netanyahu’s claim that what is happening is not starvation, saying, “That’s real starvation stuff…I see it, and you can’t fake that. So, we’re going to be even more involved.” By more involved, he means setting up food aid distribution centers. Trump puts much of the blame on Hamas regarding any obstacle in accessing aid, but also stated that Israel bears much responsibility for it as well. The flow of food is a start (should civilians actually survive reaching it), but it is not a simple fix. Extreme malnourishment requires critical treatment. The people of Gaza need not just food but medical interventions to assist in safely re-nourishing people. Ongoing starvation can lead to death if someone eats too much. Israel knows this, and they are betting on this genocide to manage itself until the end.
