Why did the Trudeau government suddenly cancel a planned meeting with Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967?
By: Ovide Bastien
(Slightly modified version of French article published in Presse-toi à gauche November 12, 2024)
https://www.pressegauche.org/Pourquoi-le-gouvernement-Trudeau-annule-t-il-soudainement-la-rencontre-prevue
Last week, I scathingly criticized the U.S. ambassador to the UN Security Council, Linda Thomas-
Greenfield, who bluntly attacked Francesca Albanese, the courageous and impressive UN
special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, who dares to denounce
relentlessly, publicly, forcefully and tenaciously the atrocities underway in Gaza, which she does
not hesitate to describe as genocide.
Thomas-Greenfield's public attack on Albanese came at a time when the situation in Gaza was
becoming apocalyptic; when Israel - not satisfied with having already killed 43,000 Palestinians,
including 17,000 children and 700 babies, wounded 103,000 and bombed so much of the
infrastructure that Gaza has become little more than rubble and human remains - continues its
assault on Gaza; while Israel intensifies its barbarity by imposing a month-long siege on
northern Gaza, systematically cutting off all energy, food and medical supplies; while Israel is
once again ordering the population of northern Gaza to move south; while the Knesset, the
Israeli parliament, has just passed, by an overwhelming majority, a motion declaring UNRWA,
the only UN agency with sufficient infrastructure and experience to provide humanitarian aid,
education and health services to the Palestinian people, to be a terrorist organization, and
formally banning all UNRWA operations in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
If Thomas-Greenfield was in New York at the time she was attacking Albanese, it was precisely
to attend the urgent meeting convened by the UN Security Council to discuss the shocking
motion adopted by the Knesset the day before. What deeply outrages me is to see the
American ambassador, in such an apocalyptic context, directing her fury against Albanese, who
is denouncing the genocide in progress, and not against the country that is committing it.
“I want to reaffirm the United States' belief that she is unfit for her duties,” Thomas-
Greenfield tweets. “The United Nations should not tolerate anti-Semitism from a
UN-affiliated official committed to promoting human rights.”
What deeply outrages me this week is the behavior of our Canadian government.
On November 5, Francesca Albanese was in Ottawa for a meeting with the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Mélanie Joly, and other senior Canadian government officials. And then, suddenly and
at the very last minute, she was informed that the government was cancelling the meeting.
How unbelievable and revolting!
Is it not a crude and immoral strategy on the part of our government to refuse to meet with the
person who could cause it enormous public embarrassment? The person who would oblige it to
look at itself in the mirror... The person who would undoubtedly publicly invite it to respect its
international obligations in a rule based order, the person who would ask Canada to sanction
and sever its commercial and diplomatic ties with a country which, according to the
International Court of Justice, has not only been illegally occupying Palestinian territories since
1967, but is also plausibly in the process of committing genocide...
Why has Israel always systematically refused to allow Francesca Albanese to investigate directly
in the occupied Palestinian territories? Didn't she receive her mandate directly from the UN?
According to the UN, isn't every member country formally obliged to open its doors all UN
special rapporteurs? If Israel and its great American ally find Albanese to be anti-Semitic and to
give only one version of events, why not give her the opportunity to exercise her right to go
into the field? Wouldn't this experience be the best way for Albanese to see reality as it is?
Why has Israel been systematically refusing all foreign media from entering Gaza and reporting
directly from there? Is this really the best way to protect against false and antisemitic slanted
news? Is this really the best way to demonstrate to the world that Israel represents the
crowning jewel of freedom and democracy in the Middle East? Does this not amount to a mere
crude attempt to hide the truth?
Why did the Israeli military invade Al Jazeera's offices in Israel on May 5, confiscating its
broadcasting equipment, cutting it off from cable and satellite companies and blocking all its
websites? Al Jazeera, which, thanks to its many Palestinian reporters living in Gaza, enables
viewers to see live images of horrors. Reporters whose courage and perseverance are
extraordinary, with a historically unprecedented number of them having died, often directly
targeted by the Israeli military.
I reproduce below, for the benefit of readers, large excerpts from Francesca Albanese's press
conference with media in Ottawa shortly after she learned that her meeting with Mélanie Joly
would not take place. 1 When asked by a journalist why she thought the meeting had been
1 UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories Speaks to Media in Ottawa, CPAC, November 5, 2024.
Retrieved the same day.
cancelled, she replied that it was undoubtedly due to the immense pressure exerted by pro-
Israel groups, who are very vocal, very virulent and very aggressive.
**************
“It is not lost on me that despite the urgency of the current moment, with a few
important exceptions the political leadership in this country chose either not to
meet me or withdrew invitations to meet me. Meanwhile, it is with such an honor
that I know that the original custodians of this land are making plans to fly from all
over Canada to meet with me and discuss what is happening in Palestine.
“And it is also the young people as well as a fair number among my peers who have
fought to have me speak and sought out venues. It would seem that my words, my
candid reading of facts, international law and justice, my insistence about speaking
honestly about the genocide that is unfolding in Gaza, and the serious risk that it
spreads throughout the region, scares the political class and those who hold power.
“Including economic and financial power. Which we know from Edward Said to
Antonio Gramsci, that holding power also determines cultural hegemony.
“It is clear to me that the Canadian people want more clarity, integrity, and
concrete actions from their government on the atrocities we all see unfolding in
Palestine.
“In Gaza we are forced to watch as Israel’s constant bombing, sniper and artillery
fire continues to spare no one. Journalists, doctors, teachers, scholars, nurses,
persons with disabilities, people seeking food and safety, humanitarian workers,
including UN staff, including in the so-called humanitarian zones.
“Conservative figures estimate that the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed, injured,
and maimed, or buried under the rubble some 155,000 Palestinians, entire families
exterminated. And 70 percent of those killed are women and children. Seven
hundred, among those more than 17,000 children killed, were babies.
“Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble, garbage and human remains, where survivors
hold onto life amid deprivation and disease. The Palestinians trapped there have
experienced a level of violence not seen anywhere else in this century. They have
nothing to return to. And all of this is by design.
“And still, Israel intensifies its onslaught as we speak. Meanwhile, the violence is
metastizing to the West Bank where clear patterns are replicating from Gaza. Since
October 7, 2023, the rate at which Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank
have increased tenfold on the previous 20 year average, including 169 children. One
fifth of all children Israel has killed there since 2000. Palestinian academics, human
rights defendants, scholars, doctors, nurses, and children are arbitrarily swept up
and incarcerated in a campaign of massive arrests and are now facing deprivation
and torture in squalid conditions, and all this without charge or trial.
“Thousands of Palestinians have been displaced in the largest land grab in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem in the last thirty years.
“And as I have continued to investigate and document the acts of genocide, it is
clear that there is also a denialism and obscurantism that hides behind the common
perception of what is genocide. It has been clearly shaped by the massive horrors of
the Holocaust and probably the features of the Rwandan genocide. In both cases,
the almost industrial scale and brutality of the extermination has defined our
collective understanding of the crime.
“But I remind you; genocide is not defined by personal opinion or personal histories.
You can have genocide without mass killing and extermination, and still, in Palestine
we have this as well.
“The colonial amnesia of most Western states has led us to forget the hundreds of
millions of people who have experienced genocide be it in Namibia, Australia, the
Americas, or here. Memory of the past is what will allow the future to be different.
“And this is why knowledge today is subversive.
“The crime of genocide consists of acts accompanied by intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. While destruction of
the group is interpreted in physical, biological terms, genocidal law derives from
acts whose intent is to destroy the spirit of a people, the will to live, and of life
itself.
“So, when expressing intent, we must remember that genocide is a process, not a
single act, including a plurality of acts and actors. So key is to identify the thread of
intent that runs through this collective conduct. So, in line with the latest
jurisprudence, my latest report assesses Israel’s intent to destroy the Palestinian
people holistically through a triple Lense approach. Considering the totality of Israeli
conduct, and crimes against the totality of the Palestinian people as such, across the
totality of the Palestinian territory unlawfully occupied by Isael.
“And while I insist on this framing, let me explain you why. Because Palestinians
have been suffering war crimes and crimes against humanity for decades. But these
alone do not expose the extent of the crime, nor illuminate the serious risk of
erasure they are facing. And I am far from being alone in my assessment. By
November 2023, thirteen UN independent experts had already determined that
there was plausible genocide.”
****************
I invite you to read the full report that Francesca Albanese submitted to the United Nations
General Assembly on October 1, 2024. 2 Even though I am sure that doing so will prove to be
very taxing for you on a human and emotional level. Not any more taxing, however, than
watching the horrors unfolding daily on our screens.
2 Genocide as colonial erasure, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian
territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese. October 1, 2024. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
