The Unabashed Albanese

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese speaks with SPIA Professor Razia Iqbal at Princeton University on Oct. 29th, 2024. Courtesy of The Daily Princetonian.

Nothing better captures why college campuses became sites of turmoil after October 7 than the pervasive ignorance about Palestine and the unwillingness to engage with Palestinian perspectives. My conclusions stem from my own experience as the leader of the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at Queen’s University, Canada, where I found it excruciatingly difficult to organize an event aimed at educating the student body on Palestine amidst the hurricane of propaganda that took over after Gaza broke its siege.

In my attempt to break the blockade imposed by the administration against organizing a teach-in, I reached out to Ardi Imseis, a professor of international law at Queen’s, who also sensed that our campus needed someone with the strength and courage of his friend, Francesca Albanese. Ardi's suggestion was laced with sarcasm—a comment thrown out to lighten the frustration that was thick in the air among my friends and me. Yet, a week later, on November 3, we came back to him with a proposal: to reach out to Ms. Albanese on our behalf, hoping to inspire her to undertake a Canadian tour to dismantle the myths around Palestine for an audience desperately in need of the clarity only someone with her authority—the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories—could provide.

To our surprise, Ms. Albanese responded to our proposal with genuine enthusiasm, emphasizing her readiness to engage a North American audience and to work as a “people’s Special Rapporteur.” This message thrilled us—finally, we had found someone who could counter the hysteria surrounding Palestine on campus, a hysteria that had confined our people’s fight for liberation to the brutal labels of “terroristic” and “Jew-hating.” We were ready and eager to organize the logistics, having already secured funding for her flight and accommodations when Ardi sent the initial email. But, as the saying goes—nothing good comes easy. We soon learned that we would need to wait until the following year, as Ms. Albanese was about to embark on a new report examining genocide as a form of Israeli domination in Palestine.

Now, a year later, sitting in the halls of Georgetown, waiting for the very person my colleagues and I at Queen’s had worked tirelessly to bring here to confront the beast that is Israel/Palestine in the North American public sphere, I felt a thrill of anticipation and excitement.

Francesca began her lecture, her symposium, by invoking the genocidal origins and development of the American state, shattering the myth of the American creation story. The way she opened felt monumental, connecting the concept of genocide not as a distant atrocity but as something profoundly rooted in the American experience itself. This framing struck a powerful chord, laying the groundwork for an uncomfortable truth—that the very framework supporting state power in the U.S. has historically operated through dispossession, erasure, and dominance. By beginning here, she bridged the American journey to Israel’s, illustrating how settler colonialism and structural violence persist and evolve across continents, shaping everything from policies to public perception, to the very nature of supporting Israel’s right to self-defence.

Francesca’s main mission was evident in her attempt to overtly challenge prevailing myths about Palestine. She argued that Europe’s historical crimes—its discrimination against and near destruction of its Jewish communities—cannot be rectified by making Palestinians pay the price. This injustice, she noted, is often ignored by European powers, who remain willfully blind to the impact on Palestinian lives. Carefully, she guided the audience toward understanding how Israel’s actions and the entire situation in Palestine stand in stark opposition to international law—a framework born from the very ashes of WWII atrocities. Her critique of Israel’s foundations was sharp, direct, yet restrained. It was fascinating to see her touch on the role of Plan Dalet (though without naming it), and how it factored into Israel's creation. Yet, she stopped short of calling Israel illegitimate, fully aware of the UN’s role in sanctioning Palestine’s partition and the weight her words carry as an UN-appointed figure.

The majority of the lecture focused on the period following 1967, emphasizing how Israel’s occupation has transformed into an apartheid regime that no longer adheres to the basic obligations of an occupier, such as safeguarding the welfare of the population under its control. Here, Francesca’s UN-official voice took center stage, as she spoke in line with rights-based discourse on Israel’s role in depriving Palestinians of their fundamental rights: the right to self-determination, the right to resist oppression, the right to life, dignity, and freedom, and the right to return to their homes and lands. Yet, merged into her formal language were glimpses of her admiration for Palestinian resistance; her words carried weight when she said, “we have a responsibility to defend the defenders,” subtly affirming her support for those standing against oppression.

Francesca’s lecture and Q&A session brought full circle the first six weeks of our coursework, touching on every framework we had examined. Her grasp of Palestine’s past and its present complexities was not confined to a single lens but instead encompassed multiple dimensions: settler colonialism, apartheid, occupation, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. Acknowledging the profound losses endured by Palestinians, Albanese recognized their history of suffering but urged us to expand our imagination in envisioning a path toward liberation. She stressed the importance of a viable solution that grants Palestinians the fundamental rights owed to any people, reminding us of the intricacies involved in pursuing true and lasting justice.