In short
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese describes how US sanctions affect her life and argues that Israel’s Gaza campaign involves genocide and other international crimes, while addressing accusations of antisemitism and impartiality.
Guest background
Italian human-rights lawyer; UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories since May 2022; produces evidence-based reports using international law; previously lectured and worked with US-linked academic/organizational partnerships; studied and lived in Palestine.
Key claims
US sanctions create a “civil death” (no US financial transactions, bank accounts, or US affiliations); sanctions aim to chill others working on Palestine. She argues genocide under the Genocide Convention (intent to destroy a protected group) and also cites widespread/systemic war crimes and crimes against humanity (e.g., starvation, forced displacement). She says “impartiality” means assessing facts, not opinions.
Notable examples
Rubio’s X post sanctioning her for ICC-related cooperation; October 7 and subsequent Gaza war; her “annihilate Gaza” language example from leaders/soldiers; inability to open accounts in Italy/Europe; Gaza day-to-day: tents, flooding, rodent plague, collapsed health system, limited aid. Accusations addressed: APAC “Jewish lobby” remark (apologized/clarified), Holocaust-Netanyahu comparisons (contextualized as commentary on standing ovations), and her defense of invoking Holocaust history “with precision.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOFrancesca Albanese's Journey
0:45 to 3:24
Francesca discusses her background and the impact of her new role as UN Special Rapporteur.
“When I started this position, I was full of good intentions, which I still have.”
The Impact of Sanctions
3:24 to 7:40
Francesca reveals the severe implications of US sanctions on her life and work.
“Francesca Albanese, welcome to Today in Focus.”
Legal Grounds for Genocide Claims
7:40 to 9:21
Francesca explains the legal basis for her claims regarding genocide in Gaza.
“Last Friday, a US court of appeal overturned that decision.”
War Crimes and Human Rights Violations
9:21 to 11:43
Discussion on the war crimes committed in Gaza and the systemic nature of the situation.
“I studied what the main experts have said, and I had no doubt whatsoever that we could already speak of genocide in March 2024.”
Addressing Criticism and Impartiality
11:43 to 14:00
Francesca tackles the criticisms against her and discusses the concept of impartiality.
“Certain crimes, when they are widespread and systemic, like the deprivation of food, the deprivation of humanitarian aid, this is systemic.”
Francesca Albanese's Perspective on Anti-Semitism and Criticism
14:00 to 23:00
Francesca Albanese addresses her controversial statements and the accusations of anti-Semitism while discussing the historical context of her views.
“So I tell the Israelis, the Israeli governments or the Israelites, Germany, Italy or France in Europe, challenge the facts, challenge the facts.”
The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
23:00 to 26:08
Albanese describes the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and its impact on the population post-October 2023.
“Both since the ceasefire last October and especially since the outbreak of war in Iran, the world's attention has shifted away from Gaza.”
The State of International Law
26:08 to 28:00
Francesca Albanese discusses the violations of international law and the implications for ordinary citizens amid global unrest.
“What hope is there that there will be accountability and what could it look like or what will it look like?”
Francesca Albanese on Fighting Injustice
28:00 to 28:27
Francesca Albanese emphasizes the importance of standing together against injustice.
“This is the time to stand together and defend the rule of law system.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Francesca Albanese:This is The Guardian.
0:08Francesca Albanese:Today, the cost of speaking out, the human rights lawyer sanctioned by the US.
0:25David Lindo:my life was calm I wouldn't say ordinary because I don't know what ordinary is but I was um I mean I was with my family I had started lecturing in various videos this is Francesca Albanese
0:39Francesca Albanese:You might have heard of her. You've probably seen her. She's the Italian lawyer who, in May 2022, became UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
0:51David Lindo:When I started this position, I was full of good intentions, which I still have. But I was so naive. I really thought that member states didn't know enough, didn't understand enough, or were animated by good intentions.
1:10Francesca Albanese:It is an unpaid job, and it's never been an easy one. 18 months into the role came October the 7th, and Israel's war on Gaza.
1:20David Lindo:And then my life has been completely turned upside down ever since.
1:28Francesca Albanese:Francesca's work is to monitor and compile evidence on human rights abuses. She is called to be an independent expert to the United Nations and writes exhaustive reports using international law to assess what's happening in occupied Palestine. It's not work you expect would make her go viral on social media or to see her become sanctioned by the Trump administration. The U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X saying, I am posing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts
2:01David Lindo:to prompt international criminal court action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies and executives.
2:09Francesca Albanese:For many, Albanese is a hero for calling out a genocide in Gaza. But she's divisive. She's been accused of anti-Semitism. And she's had all sorts of abuse thrown at her, even at the United Nations itself.
2:23David Lindo:Miss Albanese,
2:25Francesca Albanese:you are a rich, and this report is another page in your spellbook. You have tried to curse Israel with lies and hatred, but your poison has failed.
2:47David Lindo:To be vilified, mistreated for standing side by side with those who are invisibilised and silenced It's awful. I am no one. I'm just a Ligonet expert who has studied and lived in Palestine and has written boring academic research about Palestinian forced displacement. And then, during my mandate, awful crimes start to happen. What shall I do? I just tell what I see, the way I see it. From The Guardian, I'm Noshin Iqbal.
3:23Francesca Albanese:Today in Focus, Francesca Albanese in her own words.
3:31Francesca Albanese:Francesca Albanese, welcome to Today in Focus. Now, you are an international lawyer specialising in human rights in the Middle East. And since 2022, you've been the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Last July, in an extraordinary move, the US government sanctioned you. It's a fate that you shared with Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and the late Ayatollah Khamenei. What impact did that have on your life?
4:01David Lindo:Yeah, the impact is severe. The impact is severe. It equates to a civil death. I cannot perform transaction. I cannot make payments. I cannot receive payments through financial transactions. So I cannot have a bank account. But this is not just in the US. This is everywhere because the banking system of the US reaches everywhere, including in the part of the world I come from. I've not been able to open a bank account in Italy or in any other European countries where I've tried.
4:32Francesca Albanese:So you can't use a credit card or a debit card?
4:35David Lindo:No, but all the more. I mean, I've not been able to benefit from my health insurance because I'm sanctioned. or, you know, I have property in the US was been frozen because we used to live there. So we decided eventually after so many years of work to purchase the apartment. It's a small apartment, but this is the place where I gave birth to my first child. And she's American educated. She's 13 and she's been going to throughout the US education system. And she's always said that she wants to go to study in the US. So this has not impacted me only. It has impacted my family. And not just because of the freezing of my assets and because I'm no longer economically independent.
5:23David Lindo:I have the same degree of independence that I had when I was a young child. Someone needs to take care of me, which is absolutely embarrassing and humiliating.
5:34Francesca Albanese:So even going to the supermarket, something as trivial as that, you're always having to carry cash.
5:38David Lindo:No, I need to borrow money. I need to borrow money. I cannot access my earnings. They're blocked in so many places. The U.S. sanctions operate in this way. Their aim is to create a chilling effect around the sanctioned person that you understand. It makes total sense if the person is a narco-trafficking or a threat to the US. And so you say, OK, I need to protect my citizens from someone who really represents evil to my people. So all those who support or have relations with the sanctioned person transferring goods or services, they can be punished up to 20 years in jail or$1 million fine.
6:23Francesca Albanese:And so this includes your own employment as a professor as well, right? So this includes you teaching in the US, which you did. You can't do that. You can do that no longer. Yeah.
6:32David Lindo:No, I've lost all my affiliations with the US partnerships, with US organizations, with US universities. I've seen people running away from me because, of course, the chilling effect is powerful. Those working on Palestine are vulnerable to the capriciousness of this government, of this administration.
6:54Francesca Albanese:The US government has said it sanctioned Francesca Albanese for cooperating with the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which is pursuing prosecution of Israeli nationals for war crimes. It also accused Albanese of being unfit for service as a UN special rapporteur. In February, Francesca's husband and daughter filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that she was being punished for speaking out about Israel's abuses against Palestinians. Two weeks ago, a federal judge in Washington DC backed their claim. Albanese, he wrote, in quite a scathing legal opinion, has done nothing but speak.
7:35Francesca Albanese:He ruled the sanctions should for now be lifted. Finally, Francesca had some relief. Last Friday, a US court of appeal overturned that decision. Francesca remained sanctioned
7:58Francesca Albanese:As the UN Special Rapporteur you were one of the first people in the United Nations to call Israel's military campaign in Gaza a genocide and you knew making that argument was going to be huge risky even What was the legal basis for your argument at that point?
8:20David Lindo:My main legal basis was the Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention is one of the most adamant and clear legal instruments ever produced by international community. And it says that the intention to destroy a national, ethnic, religious or racial group as such is considered genocidal. And it can happen through various acts, acts of killing members of the group or inflicting severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group, creating the conditions of life calculated to destroy the group as such, the prevention of birth, of the subtraction of children. The thing is that these acts are crimes in and of themselves.
9:07David Lindo:However, they constitute genocide when they are committed with intent to destroy the group, with intent to destroy physically and biologically the group as such. This is what I used. I, of course, read the main jurisprudence existing in the Rwanda Tribunal, former Yugoslavia Tribunal, the International Court of Justice. I studied what the main experts have said, and I had no doubt whatsoever that we could already speak of genocide in March 2024. Israel was killing without respite, without distinctions, without respect for proportionality and precautions, which are the basic tenets of international humanitarian law, 150 civilians each day.
9:56David Lindo:It didn't count. It didn't matter if there were doctors, priests, infants. Everyone was destroyable. Everyone was killable. Everyone was memeable. And this is how Israel had managed to kill 30 ,000, 30 ,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone in a few months. And it has used international law, jargon, to justify its operations. And international community has allowed it to do so using evacuation orders, human shields, collateral damage, safe zones. Nothing of this has ever been real. And still, this is the language that has allowed Israel to benefit from impunity.
10:41Francesca Albanese:Legally, how do you measure in the case of Gaza that there is an intention to destroy rather than what could be argued it's a criminal or reckless, even vengeful pursuit of war? Okay.
10:55David Lindo:So first of all, first of all, let's put genocide aside for a moment. The occupation is unlawful and the very presence of Israel there is unlawful. The second is Israel should take precautions, should not kill civilians. The moment it kills for days, weeks, months, civilians without respite. What is it? A series of war crimes. Shall not the international community intervene? Of course it should. So war crimes are violations of the law of war. So destroying hospitals, destroying schools, destroying homes. Israel has raided, pulverized the Gaza Strip. Most of it, very little remains standing. Was it necessary?
11:42David Lindo:No. Was it justified under international humanitarian law? No. So why has it not been stopped? But there is another element. Certain crimes, when they are widespread and systemic, like the deprivation of food, the deprivation of humanitarian aid, this is systemic. It's not a single act. It's not a single bombing. This is a crime against humanity. Forced displacement is a crime against humanity. Using starvation as a tool of war, it can be both a war crime, but when it's systematic and widespread, it's a crime against humanity. So why has this not been stopped? But the point is that the intention has been communicated, communicated by leaders, communicated by soldiers.
12:26David Lindo:We will annihilate Gaza. We will turn Gaza to the Middle Age. There will not be Palestinians remain in Gaza. Everyone is responsible. They are human animals. Even the newborns are responsible because they will grow into. This is really, you know that you have this kind of language in the Nuremberg trials. In the Nuremberg trials, there was an officer asked, but why would you kill civilians? Because they represented a security threat, including children, asked the prosecutors. Yes, because they will grow hating us for what we did to them.
13:08Francesca, I don't think anyone listening doubts your passion, clarity, expertise on the subject.
13:13Francesca Albanese:It's why people see you as brave and courageous and all those things. Of course, others have taken a very different view. And I want to talk about some of the criticisms leveled at you. Firstly, that you've been described as unfit for your role, that you lack the impartiality required for the UN. How do you address that? What is impartiality?
13:33David Lindo:This is my question. What is impartiality? Because impartiality is assessing the facts for what they are. Okay. And we are entitled, Nusheen, to different opinions, but we are not entitled to different facts. So impartiality is to look at the facts for what they are and then draw conclusions. And my conclusions are always legal qualification. I don't say what I think as personal opinion. I produce legal analysis. So I tell the Israelis, the Israeli governments or the Israelites, Germany, Italy or France in Europe, challenge the facts, challenge the facts. They don't have arguments to challenge the facts.
14:15David Lindo:So they accuse me and they think that they're going to. I mean, of course, they are harming me. Of course, of course, it's exhausting. And of course, it takes a psychological toll. But look, if we were in 1938, people like me would endure the same, would be not heard or ridiculed or accused or vilified. But I would say today, everyone is morally clear that they would have defended the Jewish people 100 years ago. But 100 years ago, defending the Jewish people was not popular at all because the Jewish people were considered an unwanted population, an unwanted encumbrance. This is what, like the Palestinians today.
14:58David Lindo:So I don't mind taking the brand. And again, it's just a minority of people who stands against what I'm saying or what Amnesty International, the Commission of Inquiry on Israel-Palestine, the Special Committee on Israeli Practices, Israeli historians, Israeli human rights organizations. We are all partials. The only one in partials are the Israelis, the Italian government, the German government, the US government and France.
15:23Francesca Albanese:I want to talk also specifically about other criticisms you've received, namely of anti-Semitism. Now, firstly, in 2014, you said that the US was subjugated by the Jewish lobby, which you have apologized for. And then since then, there was a recent retweet which compared a photo of Benjamin Netanyahu to one of Adolf Hitler. and another tweet where you draw a direct link between the Holocaust and what is happening in Gaza. You wrote in February 2024 that October 7th victims weren't killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel's oppression. Francesca, how do you explain those statements?
16:01Francesca Albanese:How do you address them?
Read the full transcript
16:02David Lindo:First of all, the question of the Jewish lobby being subjugating the US, I was I was referring to APAC. APAC is one of the largest lobbying groups who's on record for influencing US policy. Now, the thing is that I know now, like over a decade later, first of all, I never said anything like that in my capacity as a special rapporteur. I didn't apologize. I clarified what I said because I've never meant to offend anyone. But I learned after that saying Jewish lobby is something anti-Semitic. I said, I'm really sorry if it caused suffering, but this was not intentional. And of course, I've not done it ever since.
16:48David Lindo:The other examples that you quote should be contextualized because, of course, if you say, oh, you published a picture of Hitler and Netanyahu next to each other. OK, I would say people listening to you could say, oh, my God, this person is really is really not even minded. But this is not what I did. There was a former UN official with 30 years experience in the US. So it's not a random guy. he posted a picture of a cheering crowd receiving Hitler next to a cheering crowd in the US receiving Netanyahu. It was about the cheering, the cheering of people who would then be accused of heinous crimes.
17:33David Lindo:And so I didn't post anything. I just commented under the picture. I was like, I've been thinking the same Because yes, I've been thinking the same. When I saw the US giving a standing ovation to Netanyahu, when there were already reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity, what's the point of receiving him and giving him a standing ovation? And actually, I do make the connection, which doesn't mean a comparison. I do make the connection to the Holocaust all the time. And you know why? Because I'm European and this is my history. Like any American, any U.S. citizen should realize that their history is one of settler colonialism.
18:16David Lindo:Native Americans have been subjugated, oppressed and eventually erased. So I'm telling people never again is not a tribal slogan. We need to learn from the past because for decades, discriminating, mistreating the Jewish people was considered normal and acceptable in Europe. Now it's not, but the accusation of antisemitism is being thrown at people as confettis just as a way to distract from Israel's responsibilities.
18:47Francesca Albanese:Francesca, I hear what you're saying, but do you not accept that the language and the constant invocation of the Holocaust is in one part hurtful to Jewish people and on the other clunky and perhaps undermines and counterproductive to the arguments you're trying to make? Hmm.
19:08David Lindo:So let's say, let's say, if I say we have learned nothing from the genocide in Rwanda or from the genocide in Bosnia, I'm going to offend the Rwandese, the Tutsi survivors, or the memory of the Tutsi victims, or the Bosnian survivors and the memory of the victims? Is this what you are inferring?
19:32Francesca Albanese:No, what I'm saying is I don't doubt your intent, but the minute that one invokes the Holocaust, you almost lose the room, irrespective of how true it is of the comparison. But so then if you're, as a sophisticated legal scholar, if you're trying to win hearts and minds, is language not important when we all agree that it really matters?
19:54David Lindo:Yes, and this is why I use the language with great precision. The problem is that certain people, especially in the West, continue to describe the Holocaust as an exception. The Holocaust was not an exception. The Holocaust has been the worst crime ever committed on European soil. But it was not an exception. It was part and parcel of an aberration that was typical of white supremacism. White supremacism has been the basis of colonialism. So I have really taken an issue. I really take an issue with the isolation of the Holocaust because it means disconnecting from history, from what has happened to millions and millions of indigenous people in Latin America, in Africa or in Australia.
20:46David Lindo:So I'm sorry if some Jewish people get offended by this. But again, I do not distinguish human beings on the ground of religion. For me, all humans are the same, regardless of sex, gender, political identity, religious identity, or anything. I mean, people are all the same and they should be protected and recognized all the same. And especially because as a European, I've learned from my family and my education that never again is to keep alive the memory of the past. I say, let's unpack what the Holocaust has been. The Holocaust, we have conveniently reduced the Holocaust to the concentration camps.
21:27David Lindo:The concentration camp was, or the gas chambers, they were the final solutions. But do you think that the Jewish people have enjoyed living in ghettos, being kicked out of their professions, being a victim of events like Kristallnacht, having to be on the run or hide in people's homes not to be killed? This is not genocide. Of course it's genocide. Even if Jewish people were killed outside the concentration camps. And this is why I'm saying, no, no, I'm going to keep on bringing the Holocaust to the center because people need to understand that the genocide happens when there is dehumanization.
22:06David Lindo:And I'm really, I really take an issue with the fact that, you know, this posture of, oh, you know, you are not impartial because, or, you know, you do not respect the Jewish people. Of course, I respect the Jewish people so much that their pain is inside my mind every day. And especially because of that, I recognize that their pain is Palestinians' life every day. Is it that difficult to see the humanity of the other?
22:40Francesca Albanese:Coming up, are we living through the death of international law?
23:05Francesca Albanese:Both since the ceasefire last October and especially since the outbreak of war in Iran, the world's attention has shifted away from Gaza. What's the situation there day to day right now?
23:17David Lindo:It's horrible. It's really horrible. The Gaza Strip was already one of the highest populated places in the world before October 2023. Now, Israel has occupied and has leveled to the ground most of the Gaza Strip. And the population that remains about 1.8 million people, those who have not been killed, those who have not fled, they are quarreled in a piece of land that is in proximity of the sea. So, for example, last winter, they were living in makeshift tents, which have not resisted the elements. There were storms that were flooding. And now that the weather has improved and the temperature are rising, there is a plague of rodents attacking them.
24:07David Lindo:And there is no humanitarian aid properly entering. There are civilian trucks, so good for sale, that have entered. But the health system has collapsed long ago. So they are just on a survival mode. And it's painful to see that. Intellectual media and many politicians have decided to move on.
24:31Francesca Albanese:What toll do you think it's had on you and your mental health, looking and studying and examining what's been happening in Gaza over the last couple of years?
24:41David Lindo:It's dehumanizing. It's dehumanizing because, you know, I'm trained to interview victims of violence. I'm trained to deal with children who have gone through what the Palestinians have gone through. And at the same time, you are not supposed to do that on a daily basis for four years. So clearly it has taken a toll on me. Look, there is no softer pillow than a light conscience. I'm so happy I have an opportunity to do the right thing instead of sitting in the margins and letting history be written by others. I've never been particularly, you know, I've never been an activist, so I've never been particularly courageous, particularly generous other than in my own environment.
25:38David Lindo:This time I'm called upon doing something that is bigger than me, is bigger than anything I've ever imagined doing in my life. And I take it humbly and I say, I'll do my best. and my sense of duty becomes only stronger with every day of unaddressed violence of every day of non-delivered justice.
26:05Francesca Albanese:Francesca, when listeners are taking in everything you've said and when we look at what we've seen and what's happening in the world and commentators saying that there's been a death of international law and that when you look at what's happening not just in Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela Weyla, it's a collapse of the rules-based order. What hope is there that there will be accountability and what could it look like or what will it look like?
26:29David Lindo:Look, it's not the international law that is dead. International law is being violated by those who should apply it. But those who pay the price is citizens, is entire communities. And this is why it's time to push for a convergence. I often say those who have nothing to gain from the collapse of the rule of law system, those who have nothing to gain from a return of fascism, ordinary citizens, wherever they are, on the left or right of the political spectrum, those who do not own the extractive industry, the military industry, the big tech, financial powers and banks and main financial assets.
27:16David Lindo:which means the majority of the world, what do we have to gain from condoning this lawlessness? Why would we let politicians run away with crimes instead of holding them accountable? If all of us wake up from this sort of slumber and realize that if they go after the defenders, ordinary citizens have no means left. If the decisions of the international criminal justice or the arrest warrants of the ICC become dead letter, what is the guarantee we have against the abuse of power? Let me tell you in one word, none. This is the time to educate. This is the time to stand together and defend the rule of law system.
28:07David Lindo:Fighting injustice, it's not like winning a battle on a video game. It's a marathon.
28:17Francesca Albanese:Francesca, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. That was UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Her book, When the World Sleeps, Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine is out now and available to buy from all good bookshops. That's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Noshin Iqbal. It was produced by Eli Block and Saskia Collette. Sound design is by Ross Burns. The executive producers were Sammy Kent and Huma Khalili. We'll be back this afternoon with the latest.
28:56Francesca Albanese:This is The Guardian.
