YouSaid · the spoken record

Francesca Albanese

lines on the record: 53
first: 2025-03-24
most recent: 2025-03-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Every day as October 7th. And do you think the Israelis who have lost their family members, who have still members of their families in Gaza, do you think that they are safe in this moment mentally, mentally? These are people who have been destroyed and devastated. And how Israel is going to cope with what an entire army has done over the past six months? Are we talking about the society rate among Israelis because of what's happening? No one is taking really a people-centered, a people focused approach because ultimately policymakers do not care. But we are not policymakers. We are human beings and we need to step up and make sure that our leaders are held accountable for what's happening.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That had turned into political doctrine. Is it that different today? Maybe the groups that targeted groups are different, but there is today the political environment stinks racism in a different way, more sophisticated way than the last century, but one century ago, but we are still there. We still are coping and adapting without dealing with the fact that as Western societies, we remain racist. And this is why we don't look at the Palestinians today empathetically, as we look at the Israelis, I have a lot of empathy for the Israelis. And this is why after October 7th, because for you, this is where history begins, I assume, since you asked me, you didn't ask me about the massacres that had happened in Gaza alone in 2008 or in 2009 or in 2012 or in 2014 or in 2012.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of genocide, but any violation of international humanitarian law, and you have leaders in this country who have not engaged with the legal qualifications of what was happening, in my view, in order not to take responsibility. Now maybe things might change, but it's still we didn't get there all of a sudden overnight. The peace process and the two-state solution has been used as a kick in the can in the air, because why the United Kingdom has never recognized the state of Palestine, for God's sake? You see the incongruity and the incoherence. How does it make you feel? Are you British? Yeah, how does it make you feel as a British citizen considering also the moral responsibility that the UK have vis- ⁇-vis the question of Palestine? Because again, as an Italian, I tell you, everything I do somewhat is determined by the fact that at a certain point Italians committed awful crimes in the name of an ideology.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Aliser, again, this is like the Overton window is the framework of acceptable words and concepts. We decide to operate within to analyze given subjects like Palestine. And yes, I take it that the two-state solution has been the framework to discuss Palestine in the past 30 years. But frankly, while we were discussing the possibility of a state, nothing has been done to make that state possible. And the United Kingdom is part and parcel of it, which is shocking. So not only the UK has been trading with Israel and transferring military aid, including at the time in the International Court of Justice had recognized the plausibility of acts of genocide being committed. When the International Court of Justice had reminded the member states not to transfer directly or indirectly in total components arms that could be used to commit crimes.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any single writer that you can imagine, but also the system, I mean Palestine is a revealer today of a crime scene where the fingerprints are not just of Israel, of the US and other countries. This is the thing. The impunity somewhere breeds impunity everywhere.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Concerning Palestine, it's what's happening to the United States itself, which is so influential that what happens at the domestic level has an impact for all of us, unfortunately, in this order. But when I saw President Trump announcing the cutting of access to sport for transgender children in front of a cheering crowd of blonde mothers and children, I mean, I remembered what my colleague, I mean, a fellow lawyer Agnes Calamar, the Secretary General of Amnesty, had said last year. Are we in 2024 or in 1924? So there is something extremely, extremely scary, but this mandate and didn't start with me. It goes back to John Dougher and Richard Folder. He has been sounding the alarm on the one hand saying Palestine is a powder keg. It's going to explode sooner or later. The Palestinians cannot keep on being deprived of.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Palestine is a destruction in a sense that what I told as I landed to Copenhagen and out of the plane I read about the declaration by Trump about the Gaza Riviera because since then every morning this part of the world has waken up with a crazy statement about some international matter. But on that day I said this is absurd, this is surreal doesn't mean that it's not dangerous. It's unlawful saying such a thing is unlawful first and foremost is also irresponsible because it's going to trigger instability across the region and is immoral because these people that have already backed then 18,000 children had been killed. So what are you talking about, President Trump? So this was my reaction, but I would like to push this forward Rory because one of the scariest images of this administration are not even”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Order the name has continued to be eroded bit by bit. Israel has been violating international law for many decades. So what happens now is an acceleration of the impunity that has been tolerated. And now, again, as I said, the mask has fallen off. I mean, the US administration doesn't even have to pretend to respect international law, but let me be very clear. The genocide of the in Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinian people that has started in Gaza and has expanded is something that was enabled financially, politically and militarily by the previous administration. So what is Trump is doing at the international level? It's extremely scary, scary and should worry all of us. But certain things, when it comes to”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have a say in Italian that, I mean, in Latin in fact, history doesn't take leaps. I mean, we didn't get here all of a sudden. It's not that Trump brought about a revolution. It's an evolution because I can tell you the dismantlement of the international law or the international multilateral order prime minister upon international law, as I was describing, has been happening for decades. And it's the moment do not respect the basic principles that you cannot declare war against another state, either because you are being attacked by the state or because there is an authorization of the use of force by the Security Council. These are the only circumstances, the Turkey circumstances under which you can legally use force under international law. So already after 9-11, we saw the open, open assault against the international multilateral”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A nail in the coffin in a multirateral order premised upon respect of international law as a system of rules, as a system of mechanisms that are universally agreed upon and universally respected.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have to say that this question reassures me because when you said sea or change, I thought you would take me to the silver lining, the very tiny and fragile silver lining out there, the possibility of changing the world around Israel and Palestine because of the global mobilization that is taking place. But no, no, I want to focus on what you say, the sea of change in the abandonment of that posture, that performative posture of believing in a peace process that can lead to the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state that has been eroded over 30 plus years of pretense of negotiation, but also what is very, very important for me as a lawyer is that what has happened in the past 16 months risks to be”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Comes from study and investigations. I mean, in 1000 years, I can promise I had to really, like for many, many Westerners, I had to bang my head in the face of what is happening to understand that this genocide, because in the beginning, in the beginning, I was among the special rapporteurs, I would say, no, no, no, no, we cannot say that, we cannot say that it's too much. And then one of my colleagues told me, if not even you, even you struggle understanding what it is. And I had back then Israeli story and saying, why don't you speak out, you see what's happening, these are genocidal statements and is an obligation to prevent genocide. So the moment genocidal statement is made, there is an immediate obligation of states to react to prevent genocide. And it took me weeks to get there. It really took me weeks. But then, of course,”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the fact that I've lived there and I've done so much work and research, including in the following years, allowed me to have something that, for example, some of my predecessors didn't have living experience in the occupied Palestinian territory, which I knew fairly well. However, I can tell you, I was an expert on forced displacement of Palestinians, so I knew very well the history, the 100 years of deprivation, a violation of the right of self-determination of the Palestinians, because the Palestinians have this right even before it was codified as a universal right, and that's been violated. And I knew how Palestinians had been displaced not just from what is today Israel, from the occupied Palestinian territory, and from the Arab region. I mean, the Palestinians continue to be forcibly displaced. I was not an expert on the occupied Palestinian territory. All what I know is something”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Will be impossible. And I said, no, no, that's not true. But yeah, let me take this opportunity. And it was very telling, but this is another story. But Israel has banned special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory from entering the occupied Palestinian territory, which is against the law. Israel doesn't have that power. Since 2008, Professor Richard Falk was arrested, detained, and deported in 2008.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably yes, probably yes, but would I been able to reach any results? No, because they are in an obstinate and willful ignorance of the facts and the legal qualifications that as a mandate holder I bring to the fore and let me say this is non-Newton. It has nothing to do with who holds this mandate because Israel has never cooperated with anyone in this position. You think that it's me not being able to enter the occupied Palestinian territory? Sorry, I didn't answer the question. Last time I went to Palestine because after leaving Palestine in 2012, I've returned regularly for work and research. And the last time I went was in March 2022 because an Israeli friend called me and he said, Francesca, you are and the nominees by the Human Rights Council. So if you want to visit Palestine last time, go now because”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I understand to an extent Israel, what I do not understand is the rest of the world. And I am unfair here, because the rest of the world is not a monolith. And there are member states who are clearly against it, and in this big realm, there are those who take a stand. There are a few, but they take a robust stand and measures and steps. And then there are the bassals of the system that is represented by Israel and the United States. And it has never been as clear as that. So in retrospect, could have been more diplomatic toward countries like Germany and France”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My strategy is to remind the member states of their obligations under international law not to recognize as lawful the consequences of any legal endeavor and not to aid and assist in any possible way”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“During my term as a special operator, Not substantively but probably strategically yes. But at the same time, I mean, it depends. It depends on what the strategy is.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Understand that I should keep a straight back and look straight ahead. What's the purpose of this mission, this human rights mission? So it's not about me. They can keep on offending and insulting and vilifying as much as they want, but they will remain as an Israeli friend told me back then in one of my rants. They continue to do so. This is a Francesca treats them for what they are dogs barking at an airplane. And here we are.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On anti Semitism, the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti Semitism, which I mean, others criticize, but at least it says, criticizing the State of Israel for its policies and practices toward the Palestinians is not anti-Semitic because anti-Semitism is discrimination against Jewish people as Jews, like discrimination against Muslim people as Muslim is Islamophobia, etc. So these people had reached out to me to say, can you help us? Because there is this push to have the IHRA definition being approved by the UN and we have tried to be part of the debate and we can't. So this is how I became friends with these people and these are the people who have helped me.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be interested in doing that because we need bridges, we need to unify people around the basic concept of humanity. We cannot keep on working in silos. We need as a human rights community to be able to break the silos. It has always been difficult now, it's more difficult than before. But so there has been such a mobilization among Jewish people, Jewish organizations and Jewish scholarship against the weaponization of anti-Semitism that is formidable. When I became a special rapporteur, the IHRA, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, this definition that doesn't define a thing other than create the ambiguity to confuse criticism of the State of Israel for what it does to the Palestinians and anti-Semitism. This had already been quite advanced and 350 Jewish scholars had signed and other declarations”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is what we were talking about months ago because as soon as I became a mandate holder, what did I do was the following. I said in my speaking to the Human Rights Council saying I could be a special rapporteur if you like I said I will engage constructively with Palestinians and Israelis and with a Jewish community and Palestinian community in the diaspora and before even becoming a special rapporteur when it was in the air that I was among the nominees we really had this door-to-door policy to Israeli scholars like lawyers and the Israeli human rights organization saying my predecessors have not engaged with you proactively and you have not engaged with them can we change course of action and I remember the head of Betslem back then with whom I've developed a very good relationship said why would you”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has everything changed in the political spectrum now that it's said that Israel maintains an unlawful occupation that must be dismantled totally and unconditionally the military presence, the settlements and the control of natural resources. The settlers shouldn't be there and instead they are allowing to roam freely, tormenting everyone in Palestine. This is the context. So when I was told the first time I saw that it was all over the news and including in my own country, I saw my head of special rapporteur rolling down the hill and I said, that's okay, but I don't want my mom to read this, you know, that I'm an auntie Semite. So what shall I do? And this is where the Jewish scholars, I had been engaging with, like Professor Ramos Goldberg or later Professor Alonkonfino, who passed away recently, who said Francesca, welcome to the world. This is it.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because this is the past. But we won that battle, we won the battle, because me and others mobilized so many people. So this is just to tell you the past. Then when I am told in 2022, look, because I knew that this would come to me as well, because my predecessor, Michael Link, had been tormented, tormented with this accusation, like anyone in the human rights community who dares criticizing Israel. And Michael Link's predecessor, Richard Falk, is a Jewish American himself. And he was condemned as a self-fating Jew for saying what I say. Because from John Dugard, Richard Folk, Michael Link, and myself for 22 years, 23 years now, this mandate has said the same thing that Israel violates international law because it maintains an unlawful occupation and now it's also said by the International Court of Justice finally.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because they wanted to put a commemorative plate to Giovanni Gentile, who was the Minister of Education at the time in a Mussolini government, who signed the racial laws. The laws which in 1935 banned Jewish people from many professions, so where this is the act, the legal act, the literally kicked them out of civil life. This is the institutionalization of discrimination against them. So because of this, I said we cannot have this. This is a shame. This is a stain on our university. And I don't want to be part of a university that does that. So you see my sense of what did I have to do with it? I went up to talk to Eliot, who was back then the chief of the Jewish community in Italy, the chief rabbi in Italy. And I said, we need your signature on this appeal because they want to do this and that. And he said, look, I'm not going to sign.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, but let me say because it's shocking that today the word anti-Semitism is no longer what it was for me three years ago when I mean I was sick in my stomach, sick in my stomach the first time I... I was accused on the media and all of a sudden it was all over social media for me and he meant told you you're an anti-Semite is so deep he gets straight into my guts because first of all first of all for the record just I mean anti-Semitism is Or discrimination against the Jewish people because they're Jewish. Now the criticism or the allegations of anti-Semitism against me have nothing to do with it. I'm accused to be an anti-Semite because”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“End of it. Aha. Seriously, I never judged it because I don't think it was my role, but of course it made me realize that there was this deep divide like a membrane that I couldn't penetrate. So I have to say, you asked me about Israeli friends. I have many more Israeli friends now that I've ever had after I became a special rapporteur. Before, no, I had probably about six Israeli friends back then, not many”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With one, the discussion was very open, with the other it was quite style because the fact that I was working, look, and even sometimes in the waiting room, the Israelis would be so gentle and so kind, and especially when you meet women and say, oh, where are you from? And they are from the US and you start wondering, where does she live? Does she live in Israel? So is she in the hospital in Jerusalem? Is she from a settlement and still you try to say, okay, don't judge, don't judge, just listen. And then, yeah, they will ask you, so what do you do here? I work for the United Nations. There was already a barrier starting to come, you know, becoming more apparent. And then I would say, which United Nations? What do you do? I deal with Palestinian refugees.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was very difficult back then to To have Israeli friends, the Tazar too compartmentalized world. I remember I had medical issues for which I would go to a hospital. I had two very dear Israeli doctors accompanying me through the process.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will never forget I was made 2011 and in the middle of the night all over East Jerusalem there were the settlers marching I opened the window and I could see people dressed in religious clothes I mean like praying and it was such a cognitive dissonance with what they were chanting Because back then I had two visitors, actually there were no visitors were people who had moved to Jerusalem. We had not a big house, but we had the place where we could host colleagues who were coming and looking for a place to be with colleagues rather than in a hotel. And this and who became a friend of mine, she said, they are saying, I was like, what are they chanting? I say, death to the Arabs. The top 2”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This heavy energy here. And you know also I have to give you two elements. So one was the personal space. So I was living in East Jerusalem. I was living in an area which was clearly part of the occupied territory, but you couldn't say anything really belonging to the Palestinians. Actually, the Palestinians were being evacuated in the middle of the night or in daylight, were kicking out of their homes as I was going to work, as I was coming back from work. Sometimes the road was stopped by the police and there were mattresses and chairs and kids crying in the street in the alley near that I had to go through to go to my place. And then all of a sudden you would see like a few days after Israeli flags and menorahs appearing on the fragile roofs of the homes that belong to the Palestinians.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now I have the words to describe what made me extremely uncomfortable for three years living there. It was unbearable. It was the most psychologically excruciating work I've ever done. Because of the apartheid, and I didn't know how to describe it. Really, it made me feel psychologically unwell. I've never been unwell at work. I have an ability and I'm trained for this. I have an ability to keep distance from my work and sometimes tough. These 16 months have been really tough because I've been interviewing victims and perpetrators and I've been documenting and reporting on the most horrible violations of international law I could have ever come across. I mean I've never expected to become a chronicler of genocide as I say but still when I was there I felt psychologically unwelled after six months I was there I was talking to a friend of mine and say oh my god I wanted so much to get this job but I feel depressed what is it what is it”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gaza Oh, yeah. And then the other thing is that this is when I started following what ANRA was doing. And it seemed to me light years and of anyone else. There was Chris Gannis, the spokesperson. This is how he arrived to Palestine”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cultivating a different interest in the question of Palestine back then. Because you know, when I was at SOAS, I understood that the question of Palestine was not just a political issue to discuss in terms of one state, sorry, back then it was two states and negotiating peace in perpetuity. There was a huge question of injustice from a legal point of view and as a lawyer I felt really compelled and interested and engaged. So I've been reading a lot about that over the years. But that was it. Then there was seriously caste-led operation and this is when I heard John King who was the director of ANWA in Gaza. I remember this man getting a canister and throwing out of a UN, I think it was a parking lot. There was a gas station nearby. So this guy takes with his hands a canister, an exhausted canister and throws it away. And he said, wow.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was working for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which was the second UN agency I've worked for in my life. So I was with the United Nations Development Program in Morocco, working on a regional program on North Africa between 2003 and 2005. Then I went to London. completed my human rights legal master and then I started working with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on a range of issues primarily national preventive mechanism human rights institutions and the strengthening of national human rights mechanisms including on the prevention of torture so this is what I was doing and then there was the caste-led operation the first war that Israel launched against Gaza part of the occupied Palestinian territory in 2008 2009 and it was shocking it's absolutely shocking so I started”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm an ambassador on international law. This is how I see myself. It's about international law. But of course, it's on the facts and the legal qualification of the facts that take place in the occupied Palestinian territory. So it's not the ambassador of a country, of course, but it's a voice of international law.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Been doing the job. Yeah. I said ambassador because in order to give a sense of what the diplomatic status that I have carries is the status. So when I come, I have a rank, I guess it's comparable to that of an ambassador. So when I come to a country, I mean, I have an institutional mandate. So normally when I go to a country, I'm received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Deputy Foreign Minister, as it's in Ireland, often the president, and it depends, and there are countries like Brazil, Chile, and Colombia now I'm discussing with governments to go to their countries, which is pretty unusual for a country mandate. This is the first time that this mandate”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely not. Normally, this is not the only question. The question is that other special rapporteurs, those who deal, for example, with the right to food, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, so those who do not have a country mandate, those who look at human rights as thematic issues can fundraise, while particularly this mandate cannot because it would be seen as a breach of independence and therefore I work As a volunteer and through a network of volunteers.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, it's not paid. It's not paid. And the thing is that especially, well, the first year I kept my job until October 2023, I mean, my main job was to be an advisor on migration and refugee issues in the Arab world for an Arab think tank that I've been working with for a number of years. And now this is suspended. So I'm on extended Sabarigal and I would like to go back to that at some point. And also I was teaching in universities. I've been lecturing and being part of the teaching body of a number of universities on the question of Palestine from an international”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not an official of the United Nations in stricto senso, in the sense that the United Nations have asked me to serve pro bono, to document and report violations of international law taking place in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and report to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. So my main role, this is what I knew from the beginning, would be what my predecessors had done to speak to the General Assembly, to speak to the Human Rights Council, but also do investigate specific cases of violations. This is what my predecessors have done and what I do behind the scene there is a lot of day-to-day investigations and also undertaking other actions that I deem necessary within the scope of my mandate. And this is where the media comes in. Because I said, how do we communicate with what international law is and what the United Nations do to the younger public?”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's all very strange, I have to say. And it's not that I'm a social media animal. I mean, I opened my Twitter account, which is the main platform of my views, because also Instagram is a replica of what I say on Twitter. Twitter is what I handle 100%, and then I copy-paste. Basically, it's very, very artisanal, homemade, if you see what I mean. Also, just for the benefit of your audience, let me say, as a special rapporteur, because I don't want to assume that everyone knows what a special rapporteur of the United Nations is. I'm like an ambassador of the United Nations that has been asked to document and report violations of international law, because I'm a lawyer and I've published on the question of Palestine, primarily Palestinian refugees or forced displacement for a long time. I've been working with the United Nations for a long time before getting to this. So now I'm...”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not a media or communication expert by all means, but I can tell you that through my experience I have the impression that we live in a landscape made of eco-chambers. When it comes to social media, what we read and what we feed into, I speak as someone who has a public platform and voice, it's very much determined by algorithms. And as I say, algorithm, I talk of something that I imagine as a device that redirect filters or adjust according to certain things that are determined not by me or by those who listen to me, if you see what I mean. So I sometimes have the feeling that while in the social media we are in the open air, at the same time they are prescribed paths and it's very difficult. It's not a democratic space. Yes, there is a way to open up”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Carter poppers for power if you want. And now we have a much more complicated situation because it's very difficult. We don't have free media anymore. It's very difficult to have an informed debate. And also there is a general lack of preparedness about international affairs compared to before. So for example, for the new generation, what they know about Congo, about Sudan, about what's happening in Serbia, for example, or Palestine comes from social media because it's not what I'm talking about is not necessarily discussing mainstream media. So there is now there is this disconnect between the mainstream media which speak to the older generation, my age and above and the younger generation grows through other means and we are”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Intellectuals in their own domain, and still they didn't have clean hands when it came to politics. There were issues with misappropriation of public funds, etc. So the Italian public, there was this big inquiry, this big massive investigations, which was clean hands, manipulated led by a pool of judges in Milan, that led to a political transition. And this is when there was a moment where I think in retrospect, like 30 years later, we were not ready as a people politically to come in with an alternative. So people from the old establishment regenerated themselves, proposed themselves as the change, as the novelty, but they were just people who were recycling themselves. And Berlusconi is one of those. And he has used the power of the media to reshape the mind. And this is, you know,”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Politics and culture. This is a very good point because You know, we have had a transition. I don't know how much your audience is familiar with Italian political landscape. But during the 90s, and again, this was when I was a first adolescent, a young adolescent, this is the time where we have had a political transition that we call the end of the First Republic and the beginning of the Second Republic, which is marked by 20 years of Berlusconi's and the influence he has had. And I understand who you are pointing to this because in a way There has been a political transition but not necessarily for the betterment. So and this proves what has happened in Italy at that point where the transition was prompted by the need to deal with corruption. The politicians which were, I mean frankly they were intellectually much more mature knowledgeable than any politician you would have today and I assume what I'm saying but we're in”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By Jewish Italian authors like Primo Levi. Primo Levis is part of the first authorship I had the privilege to delve into. And so it has very much shaped the way I look at the world, this view that the extermination of a people can happen in the heart of civilized Europe, of civilized Italy simply because you are no longer seen as human and you can be taken away from your professions, from your home, from your life and put in ghettos and starved and be killed with diseases before being put in concentration camps. This is something that has been there in the background and frankly I can tell you I've rediscovered it over the past years because it's really about what humanity is. So I have to say Rory, you're pushing me into something that I've never really thought about or spoken about.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had been isolated, silence, smeared, eventually they were killed. This is when the message of people like Falcone and Borsellino trust me, so many people, journalists, police officers, ordinary individuals, ordinary citizens have been killed by the mafia. The message that Falcone and Borsellino left is that the mafia thrives with our silence, was picked up by the people, and in Sicily in particular, there was a movement against this Omerta, they are silencing us all. And it has been very successful. So I think that this is very much part of Maya bringing. And there is another thing, another thing. As I grew up, it was not necessarily intentional, I believe, but the generation was first exposed to what had happened during the Holocaust. And my upbringing is marked, for example,”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I grew up in South of Italy that it's been plagued by criminality, mafia. I think that when I was adolescent, two important judges who had been really at the forefront of the fight against the mafia like Giovanni Falcone and Borsellino were killed. And this has marked so deeply my sense of justice as something that eventually becomes a fight and a struggle that is taken up by the people because eventually after Falcon and Borsellino who had denounced for a long time that the mafia was not just a criminal endeavor committed by street thugs or ordinary criminals. It was a state within the state that could only thrive because of a commonality and intersectionality of interest between the power, the politics and the financial economic system and they had exposed this and they”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was not always I don't know if it's my generation or people from the part of the world, southern Italy where I come from. We're not quite like the millennials right now who are open to the world naturally. There was no internet back then. And what we knew about the world came through TV, radio programs and books, learning. Knowledge was being shared at a much slower pace, if you want. So I grew up like any child, I would say, in any adolescent in south of Italy, nothing special. I was not expecting to do anything spectacular in my life, but I had this strong sense of, again, as I said, in my seem like an ideological statement, but it's not. I've always been deeply intolerant to injustice. And let me frame it.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then I studied law and I was very passionate about justice. This is the thing. I've always had this feeling of standing up for not just for myself but for others. This has been a trait of who I am. human rights came really as a call rather than as a training. Everything changed, I believe, while I had an understanding of the question of Palestine. It's never been an issue I've engaged with as an activist. As I went to university, though, what I knew about Palestine, which was, as I said, something that comes from growing up in Italy where Palestine and the rights of the Palestinians to exist as a people was a domestic issue. Very much so. And it was understood as something that would never be at the detriment of the state of Israel or the Israeli people. The terms of the debate, the sort of the overtone window back then was not the Palestinians were not an existential threat to Israel. This is the background as I was growing up. And then I went to SOAS.”
2025-03-24 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 126. Israel, Gaza, and the United Nations (Francesca Albanese) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source