[Prefatory Note: The text below was published in The Nation on July 15, 2025, appears here unmodified. The delay due to a weak Internet here in Turkey. There has been much critical reaction to this US Government defamatory statement justifying the imposition of sanctions on this exceptional independent expert appointed by the UN to an unpaid position, and left to hang in the wind by the politically motivated show of indifference by the UN Secretariat.]
Sanctioning Francesca Albanese: Marco Rubio Tramples on Law, Justice, and Truth
Richard Falk
Justifying US Sanctions
US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a dazzling Orwellian display inverted reality by slapped sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the much-embattled UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories of East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza. If the sanctions are implemented against this extraordinary citizen of Italy, in the face of strong UN objections, Albanese will be barred from entering the US, presumably even to discharge her annual UN duty to present a report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly. Additionally, as a vindictive feature of the sanctions, whatever American financial assets she happens to possess, including real state, will be frozen. It is relevant to take notice of the that not only is Francesca Albanese, the first UN unpaid officeholder to be sanctioned, but she happens to be the first woman to be named UN Special Rapporteur of Occupied Palestine.
Relying on an earlier Trump Executive Order 14203 (“Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court”), which is a stretch when it comes to the SR role played by Albanese, Rubio resorts to this lawfare ploy to connect her with an analogous sanctions imposed in February on five members of the ICC for their involvement in the issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli former Minister Defense, Yoav Gallant. The only link between the ICC and Albanese derived from her most recent SR report that explores the connections between the profits earned by some 60 named corporations in the US and European defense sectors and her carefully documented allegations of Israel’s criminal responsibility for genocide in Gaza. The recommendation in her report to the UN of investigation and indictment by the ICC provides the basic for accusing Albanese of waging ‘economic warfare’ against the US and Israel. As might be expected, big tech and arms dealers exerted their own pressures for the US to strike back, and strike it did.
Anyone familiar with the vicious Israeli campaign against Albanese since her appointment in 2022, fully seconded by the US, will jump to the plausible conclusion that these objecting countries were waiting for just such a setting to take punitive action against this fearless scholar and passionate advocate of human rights for the Palestinian people. Rubio acknowledges as much when he departs from the technical rationale for sanctions, giving voice to the deep roots of US hostility to Albanese. Rubio’s words read as if scripted by the most militant of AIPAC or UN Watch loyalists: “The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.” His statement goes on falsely contending that “Albanese has spewed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” Hardly a word of this defaming allegation is true beyond the partial exception of the ‘open contempt’ phrase. What seems relevant is that the sanctions were imposed days after the release of Albanese’s report that focused on corporate complicity with Israel’s criminality in Gaza, naming a series of prominent corporations that profited from supplying weapons and other military equipment facilitating the genocide. Rubio’s formal statement signaled the context by unusually referring to ‘economic’ as well as ‘political’ interests.
Background of Attacks on Albanese
The last three Special Rapporteurs on Palestine, of which I was one, were each subjected to harsh pushbacks in the form of character assassinations, death threats, and smears. These were similar to what Albanese experienced prior to the July 9 sanctions. We were much less visible and influential than Albanese, in part due to her public prominence, documented confirmation of inflammatory genocide accusations. As her fearless and persuasive critical assessments of Israel’s criminality began gaining growing credibility at odds with the mainstream news cycle upholding the legitimacy of Israel’s response to October 7 she became a prime target of government and societal diehard supporters of Israel. So when her last report named leading defense industry companies, and recommended ICC investigations and prosecutions it was apparently the last straw for US foreign policy establishment.
I will not claim any credentials, but my predecessor, John Dugard, and my successor, Michael Lynk, were world class jurists, whose views on international law issues were widely solicited and impressively influential long before they became UN SRs and have continued after their SR terms expired. This Israeli tactic of attacking the credibility of the messenger instead of addressing the message seemed to commence in the 2005-2010 period. Although not acknowledged by either Israel or its European and North American supporters this tactic appeared perversely responsive to the overwhelming evidence of highly visible Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in their administrative occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s core duty as embedded in the Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation was daily being flagrantly violated. It specified the obligations of an Occupying State to uphold the safety, security, needs, and interests of an occupied people. Among the most serious violations was the encouragement of Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank a fundamental breach of international humanitarian law that doomed peacemaking ventures, especially the viability of any durable two-state solution that is not a Bantustan buyoff. It also gave rise to the strong suspicion, later confirmed, that the Zionist Project coveted not only East Jerusalem, which was the unlawfully incorporated into Israel after the 1967 War, and proclaimed Israel’s eternal capital, but the West Bank as part of ‘the promised land’ in Jewish traditions.
To deflect attention from its lawless behavior, Israel chose to go after Special Rapporteurs and prominent critics by recourse to launching personal attacks rather than by addressing substantive criticisms by relying on counter-arguments. The centerpiece of this strategy came to be identified as ‘the weaponization of antisemitism,’ reinforced by manipulating the influential polemical IHRA definition of antisemitism. Criticisms of Israel’s behavior, including of its practices of ethnic cleansing and Knesset enactment of a Basic Law in 2018 of Jewish supremist ideology. Critical reactions by UNSRs and others were repudiated by Israel, derided as the purveyors of hatred toward Jews, and with US support mounting an intensifying campaign to eliminate the SR Mandate for Occupied Palestine. In this pushback against Israel’s critics, accusations were invariably directed at individuals who had strong reputations as strengthening human rights and had no animosity whatsoever to Jews as persons or as a people. These smearing tactics were intended to harm professional reputations and to be emotionally hurtful. The broader goals of these campaigns were to create toxic intimidating consequences for anyone who dared cross these ill-conceived red lines. These discrediting attacks have proved alarmingly effective over the years in diverting attention from Israeli wrongdoing, sowing doubts either cynically or by a naive citizenry and a self-censoring media that responds as folk wisdom instructs, ‘where there is smoke there must be fire.’
No one has endured more unwarranted hate and deserved admiration along these unscrupulous lines than Francesca Albanese. She has heroically persevered in an entirely objective expose of Israel’s prolonged, transparent, and cruel genocidal assault against the civilian population of Gaza
Exposing the Genocidal Narrative of Alleged Retaliation
It is against this background, knowingly or pragmatically indulged by Western governments and influential corporatized media platforms, that brought Albanese under fierce attack from the moment she was appointed SR by the UN. After October 7, 2025 when the Israeli response in Gaza assumed from its outset a genocidal quality, Albanese rose to the challenge of the UN mandate by naming the massive high tech violence against Gaza as ‘genocide’ when the mainstream mobilized to keep the debate about whether Israel was winning in gaining its public goal of exterminating Hamas. Albanese showed that this outcome was politically enabled by the prior dehumanization of the Palestinians. Her periodic reports to the UN brilliantly analyzed genocide as embedded in the Zionist Project of ‘settler colonialism,’ the essence of which consisted of persecuting Palestinians as strangers in their own homeland. She was energetic and effective in disseminating these provocative findings and allegations, building a global reputation unlike any previous Special Rapporteur across the spectrum of 58 mandates established over the years by the UN Human Rights Council. However fierce, intimidating, and unfair these attacks, Albanese courageously did not bend to the pressures mounted against her, which seemed to further frustrate and incense her vengeful adversaries in Israel and the United States. They could not quiet her voice or divert her message, no matter the fury of the insults or threats, including from pro-Zionist groups spread around the Global West. It is unlikely that the imposition of US sanctions, however punitive, will overcome these past strenuous efforts to silence Albanese’s eloquent global voice of conscience fortified by deep knowledge of what she speaks.
The Larger Stakes
More than Albanese’s reputation and ability to carry out the duties of Special Rapporteur is at stake in this struggle. National sanctions imposed by the host country of the UN violates two important international treaties designed to balance state sovereignty against UN effectiveness and independence. [International Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN; Host Country Agreement]. The US has repeatedly refused to be bound by international law and morality when these normative imperatives clash with strategic interest in shielding allies from criticism and censure. It also slams the door on the integrity of unpaid civil servants who enjoy a reputation for exceptional performance as is the case with Albanese. All members of the UN are of course fully entitled to express disagreement with the views and recommendations of an SR, hopefully in a responsible manner. It is quite another to join a campaign of slander without the slightest effort to engage the well documented arguments of an experienced and highly respected human rights defender and international law scholar of Albanese’s stature. Worse yet, the US Government is joining Israel in reinforcing slanderous attacks by punitive action that intentionally interferes with the performance of an elected and appointed UN official selected by the Human Rights Council after an elaborate vetting process that included the recommendation of a committee of UN diplomats who evaluate a large pool of applicants, shortlisting for review by the President of the HRC who passes on his recommendations to the Assembly of UN member who must endorse the SR nominee by a consensus vote (interpreted as registering no negative votes) among members states of the HRC. To impose sanctions on such a UN appointee due to disagreements with her assessment of a controversial situation is to weaken the influence of a UN institution and discourage qualified persons from subjecting themselves to unseemly reprisals for performative integrity. It is also a terrible precedent, overriding the objective reportage of the most severe violations of international law by recourse to strongarmed geopolitics.
Albanese’s central allegations of genocide and disruptive Israeli interference with the international delivery of humanitarian aid for the desperately deprived civilian population of Gaza were in harmony with the near unanimous interim measures ruled upon in 2024 by the ICJ, and defied by Israel. The ICJ judgment although provisional was widely admired across the world as an exercise of judicial independence, exhibiting the professionalism of its judges. This included the American judge, Sarah Cleveland, who sided with the South African request for interim relief from the devastation being wrought by the relentless military assault as did the judges from Israel-supporting Germany and Australia. Because of the drawn-out procedures of the ICJ, including delays in the proceedings granted to Israel, it may be several years before this judicial body renders a final judgment on these central questions, and even then, in a manner confined by conservative judicial practice than are SR reports.
In this sense, the establishment of the position of Special Rapporteur was a brilliant innovation in UN procedures, enabling responsive reporting by 44 SRs on a variety of international themes ranging from the rights of free expression to abusive treatment of women, as well as 14 country SRs deemed deserving of attention. The SR on Israeli violation of human rights in Palestinian Territories occupied after 1967 was established in 1993, and has been subject to Israeli and US objections ever since its inception. Despite such opposition this UN position has steadily gained influence, prestige, and media respect. Its prominence reached a peak during the first three-year term of Albanese’s tenure, now extended as is in keeping with usual practice for a second and final second three years. Her reports were invaluable sources of trustworthy and well-researched assessments of an international controversy that increasingly pitted the West against the rest. Thirty years ago, Samuel Huntington predicted a turbulent sequel to the end of the Cold War in the form of ‘a clash of civilizations,’ and only a few would doubt that it has come to pass.
Albanese surmounted this contentious political atmosphere with reason, knowledge, and a lifelong dedication to international law and human rights under the most difficult of circumstances. Instead of being sanctioned and maligned by the US Government, Francesca Albanese is now honored by heading the line of nominees waiting to receive the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. If Americans were living in a democratic and peace minded country our President would insist on the resignation of Marco Rubio for his shameful act of overreach. It would be a dramatic show of national support for internationalism even when it goes against US foreign policy. This currently inconceivable double outcome of honor for Albanese and infamy for Rubio could have strengthened the UN and recognized civil society contributions by engaged citizens the world over who are devoted to justice and peace, and above all, in relation to the weak and vulnerable currently epitomized by the plight of the Palestinian people.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
You don’t attract. You pull fate in.
Swamigalkodi Astrology©NAVAGRA – A FREE VEDIC HOROSCOPE READING PLACE
astrological attraction astrology for love spiritual magnetism fated relationships karmic connection
You don’t attract. You don’t seek. You wait, and they come. Something in you pulls them. Not your words. Not your eyes. Something beneath that. A soft gravity. A current they can’t see. It moves through your stillness. It hums in your silence. They notice you before you speak. Especially then. You don’t attract. You pull fate in.
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Magnetism – lonely (intense connections, but not always reciprocated or understood) and complex (the nature of these connections; both nurturing or challenging, reflecting different aspects of ourselves) to define our own identity as a person, and for others to grasp, appreciate, and understand. None-the-less, magnetism compares to how fire entices insects to fly into the flames.
Fate: Personal Destiny in a persons life walk-path. Events, relationships, and experiences astrological influences shaped through personal choices within Life’s Big Picture. Attraction – like basic instincts in animals vs. Pulling, a far more profound connection – like family which speaks to the soul. Less a physical allure, it compliments long standing emotional memories. Presence: your design shaped by your astrological chart and life experiences; and Stillness – a quiet, a grounded confidence: ‘safe space’ for others. It does not require words for it to express this ‘safe space’ sweet smelling perfume. Echoes and Memory, refers to something like your future born children. Energies we share can leave a legacy, shaping not only our lives but also the lives of those who come after us. Energy Exchange, a dynamic interaction between individuals. A healthy sharing relationship with trusted friends.
Astrology and Chinese Taoist thought work in harmony with meditation. Which contrasts the in-haled breath with the exhaled breath. Zen Buddhism refers to the ‘3rd Eye’ as a reference to a focused awareness of the 5 senses “seen” (so to speak) between the eyes during the duration of the inhaled breath. Meditation “feels” the chi expressed within the external reality of living during the duration of the exhaled breath. This meditation seeks to achieve a conscious Mind awareness both internally felt and externally experienced. Hence Taoism has the 5 breath “souls”, in conjuction with the 5 designated feelings – and they all align with the 5 elements of the Universe.
Unlike Astrology, both Chinese and Japanese healing makes its central focus – awareness of precise meridian points and lines rather that Planets and Stars shining in the Heavens above. The shared common denominator which unites the two contrasting disciplines — meditation. Both disciplines which lack meditation compare to positive and negative Torah commandments which have no tohor time-oriented commandment potential to elevate secondary commandments and halachot unto Av tohor time-oriented commandments from the Torah.
For example: The so-called daughter religions of Xtianity and Islam – both remain Av tuma avoda zarah examples of the 2nd Sinai Commandment. These religions employ their own separate but unique ‘replacement theologies’, which supplants T’NaCH, Talmud, Midrashim and Siddur – along with the power of Astrology of Planets and Stars – with Creed based belief systems. Such as belief in some pie in the sky Universal God monotheism! This theology employed to supplant T’NaCH, Talmud, Midrashim, and Siddur.
For example: The Apostle Paul declared Torah commandments like circumcision archaic and invalid. Reform Judaism pulled a similar rabbit out of its hat of magik. The Pauline rhetoric declared that Goyim “not under the Law”; an utterly absurd statement because all societies and civilization require the Order of law and government. Furthermore, the Pauline propaganda, much like Obamo’s 2008 political “CHANGE” declarations made no distinction between T’NaCH & Talmudic judicial common law Legislative Review, which has over-view of all laws passed by Legislatures or Kings; from legal statute law – decrees, issued from some Roman Senate or a Caesar bureaucratic regulatory dictatorship.
Jewish common law depends upon lateral common law courtrooms rather than Greek political rhetoric which promotes ‘Democracy’. Democracy has no place in T’NaCH and Talmudic lateral common law courtrooms. The people pay for ‘Legal Insurance’ which maintains these common law Courts – when not actively engaged in any legal dispute heard before these common law Courtrooms. The Torah refers to vertical courtrooms as bribery; a Torah abomination for the State to pay the salary of Court Justices and prosecuting attorneys.
Following the corruption made by the British Star-Courts which legalized British navel impressment of American sailors seized from American ships in High Seas ‘international waters’. The Founding Fathers attempted to address the issue of Judicial bribery by and through the State. They established the lateral jury system. But the otherwise vertical courtrooms, where the State pays the salaries of the Judges and Prosecuting Attorneys, American judicial law bi-passed the lateral jury court revolutionary approach, by imposing strict terms which limit the scope of how the jury weighs introduced legal evidence/precedents by the opposing lawyers briefs.
Lawyers do not present their legal briefs to the Jury. Rather, the vertical courts restrict presentation of these opposing legal briefs, which only the State paid judges can review. Hence while the Founding Fathers attempted to establish lateral courtrooms, later generations corrupted the revolutionary lateral jury judicial system. And replaced it with just another vertical court having bribed Judges and Prosecuting Attorneys.
Rubio, Trump, the Congress and AIPAC are all tied at the hip. None of them have a shred of credibility.
Like South Africa apartheid, sanctions is the only way to bring Israel back into line. Israel and America have also destroyed the credibility of the United Nations.
Sean Breathnach
Richard, you continue to impress and inspire me with your indefatigable, unyielding, steadfast efforts in seeking Truth and Justice for Palestinians to this Day.
The chutzpah for the US to accuse Francesca Albanese of waging “economic warfare” when the US wages economic Warfare against so many Countries with economic sanctions and tariffs! The US attitude in Global relations is ‘Do as I say, not as I do!’
I may be perceived by some as a Spiritual Militant and that’s not far from the Truth. Reading this, “the Zionist Project coveted not only East Jerusalem, which was the unlawfully incorporated into Israel after the 1967 War, and proclaimed Israel’s eternal capital, but the West Bank as part of ‘the promised land’ in Jewish traditions.”
You can confirm this Richard: The United Nations did not create Israel. The UN did propose a plan to partition Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem placed under a special international regime, but it was not a charter-based creation of Israel. The UN resolution 181 (II) of 1947 recommended this partition and internationalization of Jerusalem, but it did not establish the state of Israel. The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, and was not a result of the UN Charter
Israel has the so called “International Community” and the MSM acting like a covert 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse, not questioning, as if there was no Israeli-Palestinian History prior to October 7.
Bible History started in the Middle East and may end there, reading current news reports if these last days reflect the reality in this Material World. If God promised a Promised Land, there is no need to continually be at War over such a small sliver, blood soaked Land political correctness requires being referred to as the “HOLY LAND”
The major Jewish Prophet Isaiah, in the last chapter of his Book gives us a chance and a choice?
So says the Lord, “The heavens are My throne, and the earth is My footstool; which is the house that you will build for Me, and which is the place of My rest?
If the Earth is God’s footstool, it makes this whole Earth HOLY LAND humans have been degrading. Do you know the place of God’s rest, or are you still struggling, getting through with Peace and Security, the maze of People on this disjointed Earth?
What’s the other choice in Isaiah 66?
In the Past it was called “unthinkable” but the Leading Indicators are telling us Military People are thinking about it these days, thinking they could win if it comes to that, Nuclear WAR with Russia and China?
For behold, the Lord shall come with FIRE, and like a tempest, His chariots, to render His anger with FURY, and His rebuke with flames of FIRE like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA
WE must not lose sight of the historical FACT Donald Trump threatened “Fire and fury like this World has never seem” in his 1st term, with 3-1/2 YEARS to go.
This comment is getting long Richard, so I’ll end it with this.
Easter Sunday all the polls in CanaDa were projecting a super majority of Seats in Parliament for Mark Carney. Emailing him that same Easter Sunday I gave him an ultimatum. If he doesn’t Publicly condemn Israel’s Genocide by Election Day on the 28th, he will end up with a minority Parliament he now has as a check on his government.
I emailed a letter to Carney at 1:03 pm Thursday, the P.S. being a letter I sent to Aaron Matte an hour earlier. I think it was the email to Aaron that moved him more my covering letter:
At 9:45 pm Thursday, Prime Minister Carney of CanaDa released his strongest statement yet condemning the Israeli Genocidal massacre in Gaza.
I emailed a letter to the PM at 1:03 pm Thursday and I don’t think anything in the body of my letter moved the PM, but I think the P.S. including the letter sent to Aaron Matte an hour earlier may have moved him to doing something.
To: mark carney; pm@pm.gc.ca; Steven.Guilbeault@parl.gc.ca; greg.fergus@parl.gc.ca 07/24/2025 13:03
Prime Minister,
Maybe no one in the PMO noticed? I address you 1st as Mark Carney the Individual, then as PM@pm. Obviously, Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Culture and Identity has to be kept in the loop. I spoke a few words with Greg, my MP, at my porch on Hotel de Ville off St. Redempteur. In my 1st contact Congratulatory Message to you on your birthday, March 16, I projected the best possible Future Culture and Identity for CanaDa!
Because POWER CORRUPTS, you and the other Presidents and Prime Ministers in US DOMINATED NATO wouldn’t recognize it, but the powerless people at the bottom of the Social-Economic PYRAMID can see it!
You and the other NATO Leaders appease Donald Trump more than Chamberlain did coming back with a piece of paper boasting of “Peace in OUR TIME. Your commitment at the G-7 and the NATO Summit to spend more on defence for PEACE than on PEACEFUL Civilian priorities, is just as vain in your delusions.
The Subject above is the Last Word. The Spirit of the letter is gone out to the Word.
For Individuals in government, finance, business or any other position of decision making moving forward, WOE to those who Judge for Hire and Profit, but not for Justice and Truth.
God IS Great!
Ray Joseph Cormier
RayJC
P.S.: To: Aaron J Mate;
07/24/2025 12:11
Good Day Aaron, fellow Concordia U Alumni!
I’m sure you would understand why, more than anyone else on Earth watching the video https://thegrayzone.substack.com/p/max-blumenthal-trump-epstein-and Today, would raise my interest when Max started talking about the Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs of Israel.
I responded to Amichai Chikli seeing this on X December 20, 2024.
Israel’s Minister Amichai Chikli wrote to Pope Francis, reminding him of the Vatican’s Holocaust history and stating, “Jesus was born, lived, and died as a Jew.” He criticized the Pope for attending a display depicting Jesus as a Palestinian Arab with a keffiyeh and accused him of trivializing the term “genocide” in a way that borders on Holocaust denial, following the Pope’s call for an investigation into Israel’s response to Hamas after the October 7 massacre.
@Ostrov_A @AmichaiChikli
My reply to the Israeli Minister’s perspective December 21: Yes, Jesus Christ was 100% Jewish and speaking to Jews before Christians came to be, said ‘You hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draws close to me with their mouth, and honours me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’
Obviously, those words are not addressed to those who don’t believe in Christ Jesus the Jew, but to those who think they do.
‘West Bank mosque set alight, vandalized in apparent settler assault’ Muslim house of worship in town of Marda burned overnight, spray-painted with ‘revenge’ graffiti; police and Shin bet say they opened investigations, though no arrests yet – and most likely there will be no arrests.
Israeli settlers in the illegally OCCUPIED West Bank are the latest incarnation of Hitler’s Brown Shirts, born again in Jewish settlers terrorizing Palestinians to leave with Israel’s current efforts at ethnic cleansing since an Old Testament Jewish Religious Establishment became the base of Netanyahu’s government in January 2023.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/west-bank-mosque-set-alight-vandalized-in-apparent-settler-assault/
The last word posted to my blog Monday is titled: https://rayjc.com/2025/07/21/babylon-the-great-the-mother-of-harlots-and-a-bom-i-nations-of-the-earth/
Best Regards,
Ray Joseph Cormier
http://www.rayjc.com