Letter from U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to Francesca Albanese
Welcome to my official DOJ X account! See the below letter to Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, on her pattern of antisemitic rhetoric & campaign against institutions supporting our close ally, Israel. The DOJ Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will not stay silent! pic.twitter.com/gLuddtqd07
- Leo Terrell (@LeoTerrellDOJ) May 20, 2025
May 19, 2025
Dear Ms. Albanese:
We write in response to your alarming campaign of letters targeting institutions that support or invest in the State of Israel. Your suggestion that these organizations may be criminally liable for aiding and abetting genocide or war crimes is not only legally groundless. Your actions are defamatory, dangerous, and a flagrant abuse of your office.
Let us be clear: Israel acts in lawful self-defense. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering over 1,200 people and taking hundreds of others hostage. Atrocities included gang rapes, the burning of children, and other unspeakable acts of violence. Since that day, Israel has been forced to confront a terrorist organization committed to its destruction.
Consider the story of Hadar and Itay Berdichevsky, a young Israeli couple murdered in their home as they tried to protect and feed their 10-month-old twin babies. Terrorists executed the couple at point-blank range. The babies, miraculously found alive more than 14 hours later, had been left crying in their shelter. Why? Because the terrorists left them there knowing the sound of crying infants might lure neighbors out of hiding so they could be gunned down too. That is who Israel is fighting. That is the terror you continue to excuse.
Then there is the Bibas family, 9-month-old Kfir, 4-year-old Ariel, and their mother, Shiri Bibas, who were kidnapped and later murdered in captivity. In a calculated act of psychological torment, the children’s father, Yarden Bibas, also held hostage, was told on video that his entire family had been killed. Hamas later returned three bodies they claimed were those of Shiri and her sons in exchange for terrorists and publicly celebrated the exchange, treating the return of murdered Israeli children as a moment of triumph and celebration. Only afterward was it revealed that one of the bodies was not Shiri’s at all, compounding the cruelty and deception.
And most recently, the murder of 30-year-old Tzeela Gez, a pregnant mother on the way to give birth. Terrorists ambushed her on the road, killing her, and Hamas then praised the attack as “heroic.” These are not isolated tragedies. They are the core strategy of a terrorist movement that glorifies civilian death and aims to globalize the intifada, which would lead to more tragedies like these.
The horrors inflicted by Hamas continue to this day. There are still hostages being held and tortured in Gaza, their fate largely ignored by the international community and by your office. We know from the hostages who have returned to Israel that Hamas tortured them, sexually assaulted them, starved them, chained them so tightly their skin tore, and mocked them when they cried out in grief at the news that their loved ones had been murdered. Hostages were often given scraps of pita while Hamas fighters feasted on aid boxes they had stolen from Palestinian civilians.
Where are the clear, unequivocal statements from your office demanding the immediate release of all hostages and calling for unfettered access by humanitarian agencies to feed, visit, and provide medical care to those in captivity? Where are the unambiguous condemnations of the deliberate slaughter of Jewish civilians, the murder of babies, the execution of pregnant women, and the public glorification of these crimes? Generalized expressions of concern are not enough. The moral failure to speak forcefully and specifically against such atrocities, and to unambiguously defend the raped, tortured and murdered, is a staggering moral lapse. Your persistent evasiveness and rationalization of terrorism do not reflect neutrality. They reflect complicity. A Special Rapporteur who consistently minimizes or excuses terrorism when it targets Jews forfeits all authority to speak on human rights.
Unlike Hamas, Israel upholds the laws of armed conflict, even placing its own soldiers in harm’s way to do so. Israel provides medical care to Palestinian civilians and even to wounded Hamas terrorists. The Israeli Defense Forces take extraordinary measures to avoid civilian harm, including issuing evacuation warnings, dropping pamphlets, making phone calls, and delaying operations to give civilians time to flee combat zones. These efforts reflect a serious commitment to minimizing civilian casualties, even as Hamas does everything possible to increase them. Hamas embeds itself within civilian infrastructure, hiding weapons and terrorists in hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods. This includes UNRWA facilities reportedly used to store weapons, conceal tunnels, and house command centers. Hamas uses civilians as human shields, not only to deter Israeli strikes, but to manufacture suffering for propaganda-propaganda that your actions recklessly amplify. The contrast could not be starker. That this even needs to be explained to a United Nations official is profoundly troubling.
No country is perfect, and Israel is no exception. The loss of any innocent life is a tragedy. But to obsessively single out the world’s only Jewish state, one that takes extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties while other regimes across the globe commit atrocities without so much as a word from you, is not principled human rights advocacy. Such double standards are antisemitism, plain and simple. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose definition has been adopted or endorsed by many nations around the world, makes clear that applying double standards to Israel is a form of antisemitism. Your actions exemplify that bias.
When individuals in official roles like yours amplify false narratives and refuse to unambiguously condemn terrorism against Jews, they legitimize antisemitism across the world.
Your silence and selective outrage send a chilling message that Jewish lives are worth less, that violence against Jews is excusable, and that terrorism can be rationalized when the victims are Israeli. That message reverberates far beyond the United Nations, fueling hatred and endangering Jewish communities globally.
Furthermore, you have no standing to lecture anyone on ethics. Your long and well- documented record of antisemitic remarks includes likening the genocide of Jews during the Holocaust to Israel’s war on Hamas, claiming that the October 7 victims were killed “in response to Israel’s oppression” and asserting in reference to the United States and Europe that one is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust….” These statements are a gross perversion of history and are classic antisemitic conspiracy theories that disqualify you from any credible human rights work.
According to various sources like UN Watch and The Jerusalem Post (May 14, 2025), you received approximately $20,000 from pro-Hamas groups to fund trips to Australia and New Zealand in late 2023, shortly after the October 7 massacre. Taking money from Hamas-linked groups while accusing Israel of genocide is not merely hypocritical. Such conduct is a profound betrayal of the very principles you claim to defend.
The United States has no stronger ally than Israel. We share democratic values, strategic interests, and commitment to fighting terror. Individuals, companies, institutions, and governments standing with Israel are standing with freedom, justice, and the rule of law. Your campaign of threats against them will fail.
Your conduct has discredited your position and disgraced the institution you represent. We call on the United Nations to immediately remove you from your role and restore the integrity of the Special Rapporteur mandate.
Sincerely,
“NOTHING TO HIDE”: UN Watch's damning new report exposes how Francesca Albanese and the UN engaged in a year-long cover-up to hide her illicit funding by pro-Hamas lobby groups.
📜 Read: https://t.co/Q1cbS17ncP
📍Sign: https://t.co/XV9yn4EOly pic.twitter.com/2i1LUBEmpk- Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 20, 2025
BREAKING: The UN & Francesca Albanese engaged in a cover-up for 16 months to conceal her funding by pro-Hamas lobby groups. Funds were collected partly by her aide @saratroian_ via @issnl in The Hague. Exposed in our damning new report, “Nothing To Hide”:https://t.co/Q1cbS17ncP pic.twitter.com/jNqv9rks5Q
- Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 19, 2025
