Controversial United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese has been reappointed to the position for another three-year term. Multiple countries and organizations have condemned Albanese over her history of antisemitic remarks. However, a committee tasked by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) with reviewing complaints about Albanese was convinced by her “detailed explanations” that she was not an antisemite.

“We’re talking about one of the world’s most blatant legitimizers of Hamas terrorism, who says literally that Israel does not have a right to defend itself,” U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital. “It’s a horrible statement on the state of the U.N. today.”

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights Situation in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, looks on at a press conference during a session of the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva, on March 27, 2024. ( FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

In violation of his legal duties under 8/PRST/2, Lauber did not relay complaints about Albanese to a committee that Neuer described as “toothless” with a membership made of “Francesca Albanese’s own best friends.”

In its response to complaints submitted by U.N. Watch in June and July 2024, the committee wrote that “some of her tweets may appear as not being in line with the Code of Conduct and may have been interpreted by some as antisemitic.” However, the committee also said that they were “reassured” by Albanese’s “detailed explanations” that she was not in violation of the Code of Conduct.

UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, gives a press conference at the UN City in Copenhagen, Denmark on February 5, 2025. (Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS )

Albanese has faced accusations of antisemitism since she took the position of special rapporteur in May 2022. The Anti-Defamation League has a running list of Albanese’s statements that have been deemed to be antisemitic. Some of the statements date back to 2014, nearly 10 years before her appointment to her current position.

In February 2024, Albanese was condemned by France and Germany after saying French President Emmanuel Macron was wrong to call Hamas’ Oct. 7 events “the largest antisemitic massacre of our century.” In her response, she said “The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression.”

France said Albanese seemed to “justify” the attacks and that her remarks were “all the more scandalous given that the fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of racism are at the heart of the founding of the U.N,” according to the ADL.