Germany has demanded that the UN’s special rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, step down or be dismissed by the United Nations.
Yesterday, tthe German foreign minister Johann Wadephul wrote on X: “I respect the UN system of independent rapporteurs.
“However, Ms. Albanese has made numerous inappropriate remarks in the past. I condemn her recent statements about Israel. She is untenable in her position.”
Previously, Wadephul’s French counterpart, foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot, had called for Albanese’s resignation in a speech in the French National Assembly on February 11, saying he wholly condemned the “reprehensible remarks” of the UN rapporteur who he called “a political activist”.
Albanese is facing ever more resistance from UN member states over her alleged anti-Semitic views.
Also on February 11, Italy’s right-wing Lega party filed a resolution calling for Albanese’s immediate resignation.
Today, Czech FM Petr Macinka also called for the UN rapporteur’s resignation, saying: “Patience has its limits. Her latest statements are unacceptable and indefensible. I expect responsibility, professionalism, and impartiality from UN representatives.”
Austria’s liberal foreign minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger accused Albanese of spreading hate on X but later deleted her post without comment.
The latest storm of criticism was incited by a video widely circulated on social media in which Albanese allegedly described Israel as “the common enemy of humanity” during a conference organised by Al Jazeera in Qatar.
Albanese claimed the video was a misleading montage, telling newspaper Le Monde yesterday: “I have never uttered those words, and the evidence is public.
“It is astonishing that the call is for the resignation of someone denouncing serious crimes, rather than demanding accountability from those who commit them.”
The 48-year-old Italian lawyer posted her own recording of the conference on X which showed her cryptically saying: “We, who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms and weapons. We now see that, we, as a humanity, have a common enemy, and … the respect for fundamental freedoms is the last peaceful toolbox that we have to gain our freedom.”
The recent uproar is only the latest in a series of anti-Semitism accusations against Albanese. She had been sanctioned by the US administration under President Donald Trump in August, 2025, for her attempts to drag US and Israeli officials in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Albanese has repeatedly been accused of using anti-Semitic tropes, downplaying Islamist terrorism by Hamas and other actors and pushing conspiracy theories against Israel.
In one controversial post from February 10, 2024, she wrote that the 1,300 Israelis who had been murdered by Palestinian attackers on October 7, 2023 “had not been killed because they were Jewish, but as a reaction to Israeli oppression”.
