report of Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese titled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.
By Dina Rovner, Legal Advisor at UN Watch
The main purpose of this report by the UN’s antisemitic rapporteur Francesca Albanese is to isolate the State of Israel, cause it to be shunned by the international community, and bring about its demise. From beginning to end, this report constitutes one giant libel, deliberately painting Israel-the world’s only Jewish state-as especially criminal. Albanese characterizes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a “joint criminal enterprise” and a “genocidal machine” (Para 91). Notably, from 1948 to 1967, while these territories were governed by Jordan, which had annexed the West Bank in violation of international law, and Egypt, there was no global outcry on behalf of the Palestinians accusing those countries of denying the Palestinians their right to self-determination and a state.
Even Israel’s achievements and contributions are demonized and recast as crimes. Thus, in Albanese’s view, Israel is deserving of wide-ranging boycotts, divestment, and sanctions which will block it from the international economy, exclude it from the academic and intellectual community, and drastically impair its ability to defend itself, ultimately threatening its existence. While the title of the report suggests it is focused on companies supporting the “occupation,” a close reading of the report makes it clear that Albanese is targeting companies doing business with Israel as a whole. “Any investment” in Israel “sustains a system of serious international crimes,” declares Albanese (Para 92).
The report is patently one-sided, ahistorical, and lacking any discussion of context. It places 100% of the blame on Israel for “denial of self-determination” to the Palestinians and proceeds to accuse Israel of “a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage to extrajudicial killing and starvation” (Para 2). The term genocide-in its different forms-appears some 57 times in the 38-page report, while the words Hamas, terrorism, and attacks appear zero times in the report (excluding citations in footnotes).
The report’s numerous deficiencies include the following:
1. Omits Key Facts
- Does not mention Palestinian rejectionism over a period of more than 100 years, including of the 1947 UN Partition Plan and other two-state solution offers such as in 2000 by Ehud Barak in 2009 by Ehud Olmert, which is the main reason the Palestinians do not have a state today.
- Completely erases deadly Palestinian terrorism and its underlying genocidal ideology.
- Ignore the existence of ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hamas and the current war, initiated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which Hamas refuses to end by surrendering and returning all the hostages.
- Disregards the historical and indigenous rights of the Jewish people to the territory spanning thousands of years, instead falsely casting Israel as a “colonial” enterprise.
- Rails against physical destruction in Gaza, but ignores Hamas responsibility for that through its human shield strategy of operating from civilian infrastructure.
2. Criminalizes Israel’s Creation
In the very first paragraph, Albanese makes clear that she views Israel’s creation as illegitimate when she characterizes that event as “Israel’s colonization of Palestinian lands” (Para 1), completely ignoring the historical and indigenous rights of the Jewish people. Moreover, Albanese maligns Israel as a state “created” through “militarized violence” (Para 29) and accuses Israel of “denying Palestinian self-determination for decades” (Para 1), ignoring the fact that it was the Arab states who rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan and responded to Israel’s Declaration of Independence with a war of annihilation by five invading Arab countries. Throughout the report, Albanese deliberately employs terms that demonize and delegitimize the very idea of the State of Israel, referring to it as a “settler-colonial project” (Para 29), “regime of settler-colonial apartheid” (Para 1, 45), and a “genocidal machine” (Para 92).
3. Denies Israel’s Right To Self-Defense
By attacking Israel’s defense sector, including its innovative life-saving technology and its partnerships with international companies, Albanese aims to undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself. The call for widespread arms embargoes, if implemented, would enable Hamas and set the stage for the next October 7th against which Israel and its citizens would be defenseless.
4. Ignores Iranian supply of weapons and training to Hamas and PIJ
While Albanese maligns the Israeli defense system and attacks Israel for investing in its own military, she completely disregards the role of Iran in fueling deadly conflicts throughout the region, including in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. In the Palestinian arena alone, the Islamic Republic has provided tens of millions of dollars to Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah for weapons and training. Albanese deliberately misleads her audience by ignoring this Iranian military support and instead characterizing Palestinians as “a virtually defenceless civilian population” (Para 89). Iran’s support of Palestinian terrorist groups has directly contributed to the prolongation of the conflict and loss of life on both sides.
5. Disparages Israel Through Selective Morality
Albanese dismisses as “paternalistic” arguments that corporate activity across the green line helps Palestinians (Para 48). Yet, her own approach to the Palestinians is the pinnacle of paternalism. Albanese completely denies Palestinians any agency by refusing to hold them accountable for their own decisions and actions over more than 100 years-rejecting all offers for statehood, including the UN Partition plan, choosing to flee the territory in 1948, and repeatedly opting for terrorism over peace-directly leading to their lack of statehood today.
6. Criminalizes Israeli Ingenuity
- Military Technology - The report is highly critical of Israel’s advanced military technology, accusing Israel of “testing” it in the “ the occupied Palestinian territory” (Para 36). The reality is quite different. Faced with the ongoing threat from Palestinian terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which routinely operate from civilian areas in violation of the laws of war, Israeli defense companies have developed technologies for precision targeting that save civilian lives. At the same time, Israeli air-defense systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling provide essential protection to Israelis against indiscriminate terrorist rockets.
- Jerusalem Light Rail - The report attacks companies involved in the maintenance and expansion of the Jerusalem Light Rail as being complicit in “segregating Palestinians.” Albanese’s criticism is due to the fact that the Light Rail now includes “27 kilometres of new tracks and 50 new stations in the West Bank [i.e., East Jerusalem]” and connects “colonies,” referring to Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, “with West Jerusalem” (Para 51). In fact, the Jerusalem Light Rail completely disproves the “Israel apartheid” narrative promoted by Albanese because it shows how Israel provides equal services and access to Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab residents. Any company involved in this project should be proud of its contribution to promoting integration and peace among Jerusalem’s Jews and Arabs.
- Agribusiness - The Report demonizes Israeli agribusinesses for “producing goods and technologies serving Israeli settler-colonial interests.” Notably, Israeli companies are responsible for groundbreaking innovations like drip irrigation, biological pest control, and foodtech (e.g., developing alternative proteins and milk substitutes). Albanese accuses dairy and foodtech innovator Tnuva of building “market dominance” by “exploit[ing]” the “captive Palestinian market” while charging drip irrigation leader Netafim with branding “itself as a sustainable innovator, while perpetrating age-old techniques of colonial exploitation.” (Para 61-64). At the same time, Albanese ignores the growing Palestinian food sector, as well as Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in many industries ranging from fish farms to sustainable agriculture. She also denies Palestinian agency by failing to hold them accountable for their own economic failures. For example, the Palestinians in Gaza responded to Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the territory by looting and destroying thousands of hi-tech greenhouses, which had been left fully intact for the benefit of the Gazan economy. Furthermore, in its November 2023 Concluding Observations on the PA, the UN’s own Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, expressed concern about government corruption, monopolies, and insufficient protection for workers, all of which contributes to the failure of the Palestinians to develop their own agriculture sector.
7. Misrepresents Statements By CEOs
Albanese smears Israeli corporations and their foreign partners to encourage divestment by mischaracterizing statements by CEOs. For example:
- Albanes wrongly frames statements by the CEO of AI-tech firm Palantir supporting Israel and in defending his company’s AI technology killing “mostly terrorists,” as “indicative of executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-à-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel.” (Para 42).
- She also misrepresents a statement by Tnuva chairman about the importance of dairy farming to Jewish settlement in Israel (Para 62). The term “settlement enterprise” as used by the chairman-does not refer to Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria as Albanese suggests-but rather to Israeli agricultural communities, i.e., kibbutzim, implementing the Zionist ethos of cultivating the land.
8. Blatant Falsehoods
To support her “genocide” charge, Albanese cites to Israel’s “systematic control” over Palestinian natural resources, falsely claiming that Israel “engineered” Palestinian “dependency” on Israeli infrastructure which it then “operationalized for genocide” after October 7th (Para 54). Albanese conveniently omits that control and distribution of these resources is governed by the Oslo Accords, the negotiated agreement between the parties. Indeed, earlier in the report, Albanese had already rejected the Oslo Accords which she said “entrenched” Israel’s “exploitation” of, and “institutionaliz[ed]” Israel’s “monopoly” over, Palestinian natural resources (Para 24). Albanese quotes Yoav Gallant’s October 9, 2023 declaration of a “complete siege” on Gaza to support her false charge that this resulted in Israel “instantly cutting off water, electricity and fuel” to Gaza (Para 54). In reality, Israel never imposed a “complete siege” and since October 21, 2023, Israel has worked in coordination with the international community to ensure sufficient aid entered Gaza at all times. Even during the few months that aid was halted from March 2 to May 19, 2025, there were sufficient provisions already in Gaza due to the high volume of aid that went in during the immediately preceding ceasefire from January 19 to March 2, 2025. Moreover, Albanese’s accusations give Hamas a free pass for its own violations which damaged Gaza’s infrastructure.
- Electricity - Prior to October 7, 2023, Israel had supplied only 50% of Gaza’s electricity through ten power lines, often forgoing payment. The rest of the electricity was produced locally through generators, solar panels, and a power plant. Rocket attacks on October 7th by Hamas and PIJ destroyed nine of the ten power lines from Israel, while the tenth was damaged early in the war. Nevertheless, Albanese falsely asserts that “since October 2023, Israel has cut energy to most of Gaza” (Para 56). It’s not that Israel “cut” the supply, but that Hamas destroyed it. Moreover, Israel has facilitated fuel deliveries to fulfill essential electricity needs.
- Water - Prior to October 7, 2023, 90% of Gaza’s water was produced locally. Israel supplied only 10% of the water via three water lines all of which were damaged early in the war. Absurdly, Albanese accuses Israel of “actively aiding the transformation of water into a tool of genocide” (Para 55) because these three lines, damaged by Hamas, were not fully functional in the months after October 7th. She omits that despite the safety risks, Israel endeavored to repair these water lines under fire and, as of May 2024, all three were fully functional. There are also two active water lines from Egypt, as well as a UNICEF desalination plant in Deir Al-Balah, which together with the Israeli lines are sufficient to serve most or all of the Gaza population’s water needs. Additionally, over 60,000 tons of water entered Gaza from October 2023 to May 2025.
9. Downplays Antisemitism
Albanese dismisses antisemitism within pro-Palestinian university protests arguing that “global crackdowns on campus protesters” were not motivated by “fighting alleged antisemitism” but by “shielding Israel and protecting institutional financial interests,” referring to lucrative partnerships between the universities where protests took place and Israeli institutions (Para 86).
10. Even Norway Says Albanese’s BDS Demands Go Too Far
Even the government of Norway, which is not friendly to Israel on these issues, considered Albanese’s BDS call overly broad. In a detailed response for her demand for the Norway state pension fund to divest from a number of companies, the Norwegian Minister of Finance explained the importance of making decisions based on “as accurate facts as possible, avoiding ‘naming and shaming’ based on allegations,” adding that excluding companies from the fund “on the wrong grounds” is “profoundly serious” and could “lead to the possibility of a lawsuit.” The Finance Minister further emphasized that “under international law, the basic needs of civilians must be met, including the civilian population of the occupying power [i.e., Israelis].” He dismissed many of Albanese’s claims regarding specific companies on grounds that “activities were of too little importance to the maintenance of the occupation.”
