On the very day that the documentary Disunited Nations was screened in 122 Italian cinemas, attracting 10,000 viewers, French Foreign Minister Barrot called for Francesca Albanese’s resignation, accusing her of anti-Semitism for a statement that does not appear in the video of the forum promoted by Al Jazeera.
The accusation is that she called Israel “the common enemy of humanity,” while Francesca Albanese’s statement was as follows: “The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed it, provided it with political excuses, political cover, economic and financial support is a challenge. If international law has been struck at its heart, it is also true that never before has the global community faced the challenges we all face. We who do not control large amounts of financial capital, algorithms, and weapons now see that as humanity we have a common enemy. The common enemy of humanity is the system that made the genocide in Palestine possible, including the financial capital that finances it, the algorithms that obscure it, and the weapons that make it possible.”
Connected together with MEP Cecilia Strada to the 122 theaters where the documentary was screened, the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories responded with her usual direct and passionate tone to the accusations of the French minister, which were promptly echoed by many representatives of the Italian right. “I expect the minister to apologize because he said something wrong. If he doesn’t, it’s bad faith. There is an organization whose job is to defend Israeli apartheid, which is circulating a tampered video, which has been corrected. I can’t believe that the Foreign Minister saw that instead of my response. He accused me of anti-Semitism and called for my resignation for saying something I didn’t say, namely that Israel is an enemy of humanity. That’s crazy. We are in an Orwellian phase, where lies are truth and truth is lies.”
Yet another lie, and yet another opportunity to express solidarity with a courageous woman who has been the target of the worst fake news simply for telling the truth about the horror of the genocide in Gaza and the shameful complicity that allowed it to happen.