Barnard College is being called out for inviting a United Nations official who has likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler and Israel as the Nazi "Third Reich" to speak at the elite Manhattan school this week.
A pro-Israel UN watchdog group is urging the Columbia University-affiliated Morningside Heights college to cancel the Wednesday event featuring Francesca Albanese, the controversial special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, who’s been accused of spewing antisemitism.
A persistent critic of the Jewish state, Albanese has been accused of excusing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
She has accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza. She also once claimed the US was controlled by the "Jewish lobby" and has spread other antisemitic tropes, critics said.
"This is exactly the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that has led to allegations of Columbia fostering an egregiously antisemitic hostile educational environment, and to allegations of the harassment, threats, and intimidation against Jewish and Israeli students, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871," UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in a letter sent Monday to Barnard College president Laura Rosenbury and Columbia Katrina Armstrong.
The event is hosted by Barnard’s departments of human rights, economics and anthropology.
UN Watch, the Anti-Defamation League and others blasted Albanese — who was appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories in May 2022 — for likening Israel’s response in Gaza to the Holocaust, calling it a "concentration camp of the 21st Century."
In February, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron referring to the Oct. 7 massacre as “the largest antisemitic massacre of our century,” Albanese tweeted: “The greatest antisemitic massacre of our century? No, @EmmanuelMacron.
"The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism but in response to Israel’s oppression,” she wrote.
The governments of France and Germany subsequently condemned Albanese for criticism of Israel and excusing "antisemitism."
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield in July said, “it is clear [Albanese] is not fit for this or any position at the UN. There is no place for antisemitism from UN- affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights.”
Following a November 2022 Hamas-sponsored event in Gaza, Albanese said of the terrorist designated group, “you have the right to resist this occupation.”
She tried to excuse Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and the terror group killing 1,200 people and taking hostages, saying, “Today’s violence must be put in context.”
In the letter, UN Watch’s Neuer noted that Columbia has been roundly criticized for "enabling" hundreds of students, faculty and others to set up an encampment occupying the Ivy League university’s South Lawn for weeks last spring, where "the harassment and abuse of Jewish and Israeli students only intensified, filled with calls for a global Intifada—the worldwide murder of Jews—and other antisemitic slogans and chants."
"By inviting Francesca Albanese, an internationally condemned antisemite and supporter of Hamas terrorism, Columbia will be subjecting itself to additional claims for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, New York Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law, and the Ku Klux Klan Acts," Neuer told the Barnard and Columbia presidents.
“因此，我们敦促您立即撤销哥伦比亚大学对国际谴责的反犹分子和恐怖主义支持者弗朗西斯卡·阿尔巴尼斯的邀请。”
艾博年也是乔治城大学（Georgetown University）的“学者”，他没有回复要求置评的电子邮件。
巴纳德学院的一位发言人为邀请艾博年进行了辩护。
巴纳德的教育使命在于探索具有挑战性的思想。该发言人说：“学院长期以来一直允许学术部门就困难的话题举行讨论和辩论，演讲者代表了广泛的观点和背景。”
“这种做法并不构成机构对任何外部发言人或他们表达的观点的认可。所有演讲者，就像我们社区的所有成员一样，都应该遵守我们的非歧视政策，”巴纳德的代表补充说。
巴纳德学院是一所附属于哥伦比亚大学的私立女子学院。巴纳德学院的学生可以在哥伦比亚大学上课。
与此同时，艾博年预计将于周二在普林斯顿大学、周四在纽约市立大学约翰杰伊学院和周五在新社会研究学院发表演讲。
亲以色列团体，如贝塔犹太复国主义运动，纽约赫鲁特和其他主要的犹太组织将于周五出现在位于第五大道和第13街的新学院，抗议艾博年的出现。她定于下午4点出现。
贝塔将有一个传呼机送给弗朗西斯卡·阿尔巴尼斯代表她对恐怖主义的支持。
“新学院不会接待三k党成员，他们不会接待新**分子，但他们会接待反犹分子。我们不会沉默的面对这仇恨和打算大力提高道德意识的声音内外的新学校,”组织者说。
