Barnard College is being called out for inviting a United Nations official who has likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and Israel as the Nazi “Third Reich” to speak at the elite Manhattan school this week.
A pro-Israel UN watchdog group is urging the Columbia University-affiliated Morningside Heights college to cancel the Wednesday event featuring Francesca Albanese, the controversial special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, who’s been accused of spewing antisemitism.
A persistent critic of the Jewish state, Albanese has been accused of excusing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
She has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza. She also once claimed the US was controlled by the “Jewish lobby” and has spread other antisemitic tropes, critics said.
“This is exactly the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that has led to allegations of Columbia fostering an egregiously antisemitic hostile educational environment, and to allegations of the harassment, threats, and intimidation against Jewish and Israeli students, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871,” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in a letter sent Monday to Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury and Columbia Katrina Armstrong.
The event is hosted by Barnard’s departments of human rights, economics and anthropology.
UN Watch, the Anti-Defamation League and others blasted Albanese — who was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories in May 2022 — for likening Israel’s response in Gaza to the Holocaust, calling it a “concentration camp of the 21st Century.”
In February, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron referring to the Oct. 7 massacre as “the largest antisemitic massacre of our century,” Albanese tweeted: “The greatest antisemitic massacre of our century? No, @EmmanuelMacron.
“The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression,” she wrote.
The governments of France and Germany subsequently condemned Albanese for criticism of Israel and excusing “antisemitism.”
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield in July said, “it is clear [Albanese] is not fit for this or any position at the UN. There is no place for antisemitism from UN- affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights.”
Following a November 2022 Hamas-sponsored event in Gaza, Albanese said of the terrorist designated group, “you have the right to resist this occupation.”
She tried to excuse Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and the terror group killing 1,200 people and taking hostages, saying, “Today’s violence must be put in context.”
In the letter, UN Watch’s Neuer noted that Columbia has been roundly criticized for “enabling” hundreds of students, faculty and others to set up an encampment occupying the Ivy League university’s South Lawn for weeks last spring, where “the harassment and abuse of Jewish and Israeli students only intensified, filled with calls for a global Intifada—the worldwide murder of Jews—and other antisemitic slogans and chants.”
“By inviting Francesca Albanese, an internationally condemned antisemite and supporter of Hamas terrorism, Columbia will be subjecting itself to additional claims for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, New York Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law, and the Ku Klux Klan Acts,” Neuer told the Barnard and Columbia presidents.
“Accordingly, we urge you to immediately rescind Columbia’s invitation to internationally condemned antisemite and terrorism supporter Francesca Albanese.”
Albanese, who is also a “scholar” at Georgetown University, did not respond to an email for comment.
A Barnard spokesperson defended the invitation to Albanese.
“Barnard’s educational mission depends on the exploration of challenging ideas. The College has long permitted academic departments to host discussions and debates on difficult topics with speakers who represent a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds,” the spokesperson said.
“This practice does not constitute institutional endorsement of any external speaker or the viewpoints they express. All speakers, like all members of our community, are expected to comply with our policy on nondiscrimination,” the Barnard rep added.
Barnard is a private women’s college that is affiliated with Columbia. Barnard students can take courses at Columbia.
