‘She must go’: US envoy pressures UN to remove special rapporteur on Palestine

US Representative for UN Management and Reform Jeff Bartos on Monday accused Albanese of harboring hatred toward the US, the West, Israel, and the Jewish people.

“[The UN] allows a charlatan to soil the UN uniform—even as she stokes the very conflicts this body was created to end—and even as her words are found in terrorists’ chants,” he said.

He claimed that UN colleagues have privately expressed similar views, characterizing Albanese and others like her as “institutional poison” and “good for no one.”

“Start by saying publicly what you say to me privately. That the UN should not be a nursery for evil. That its brand has been soiled long enough. That Albanese must go,” Bartos insisted.

Albanese is an Italian scholar and international lawyer specializing in human rights and West Asia. Since May 2022, she has served as the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

The UN rapporteur has published several reports on the humanitarian crisis in Palestine and has described the Israeli aggression against Palestinians as “the cruelest genocide in modern history.”

On March 26, 2024, Albanese presented the report “Anatomy of a Genocide” before the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. She stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel was intentionally committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.

On March 23, 2026, she released a report on the human rights situation in Palestine titled “Torture and Genocide.” In it, she explained the torture that Israel has systematically inflicted on Palestinians since October 7, 2023.

She elaborated that, since October 2023, Israelis have systematically tortured Palestinians and that this has become an integral component of the “settler-colonial genocide.”

She added that the intent to commit genocide is apparent, as torture is perpetrated across the entire territory of Palestine and sustained through policies that destroy the conditions of life.

“Torture has always been a central feature of the dispossession of Palestinians by Israel. Yet, since October 2023, Israel has employed torture on a scale that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent,” she stated in her report.

Because of her many remarks against Zionist regime and her condemnation of the occupying regime’s aggression against Palestinians, Albanese has been designated persona non grata by Israel and is denied entry to the occupied territories.