gaza

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The Persecution of Francesca Albanese

The sanctioning by the Trump administration of Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law.

CHRIS HEDGES

United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese holds a press conference in Geneva on December 11, 2024. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images)

When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, who today the Trump administration is sanctioning. Her office is tasked with monitoring and reporting on human rights violations that Israel commits against Palestinians.

Albanese, who regularly receives death threats and endures well-orchestrated smear campaigns directed by Israel and its allies, valiantly seeks to hold those who support and sustain the genocide accountable. She lambasts what she calls “the moral and political corruption of the world” that allows the genocide to continue. Her office has issued detailed reports documenting war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, one of which, called “Genocide as colonial erasure,” I have reprinted as an appendix in my latest book, “A Genocide Foretold.”

She has informed private organizations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide in Gaza. She announced that if true, as has been reported, that the former British prime minister David Cameron threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, which Cameron and the other former British prime minister Rishi Sunak could be charged with a criminal offense for, under the Rome Statue. The Rome Statue criminalizes those who seek to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.

She has called on top European Union (EU) officials to face charges of complicity of war crimes over their support for the genocide, saying that their actions cannot be met with impunity. She was a champion of the Madleen flotilla that sought to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, writing that the boat which was intercepted by Israel, was carrying not only supplies, but a message of humanity.

You can see the interview I did with Albanese here.

Her latest report lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.

You can read my article on Albanese’s most recent report here.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned her support for the ICC, four of whose judges have been sanctioned by the U.S. for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. He criticized Albanese for her efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals who sustain the genocide, saying she is unfit for service as a special rapporteur. Rubio also accused Albanese of having “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” The sanctions will most likely prevent Albanese from travelling to the U.S. and will freeze any assets she may have in the country.

The attack against Albanese presages a world without rules, one where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, are permitted to carry out war crimes and genocide without any accountability or restraint. It exposes the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It reveals our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism. No one, from now on, will take seriously our stated commitments to democracy, freedom of expression, the rule of law or human rights. And who can blame them? We speak exclusively in the language of force, the language of brutes, the language of mass slaughter, the language of genocide.

“The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass forced displacement and the mass homelessness, while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation — how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asked in an interview I did with her when we discussed her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure.”

The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watchtowers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheidesque existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance, are as familiar to desperate migrants along the Mexican border, or attempting to enter Europe, as they are to Palestinians.

This is what awaits those who Frantz Fanon calls “the wretched of the earth.”

Those that defend the oppressed, such as Albanese, will be treated like the oppressed

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The Carnation Revolution

In April 1974, Portugal erupted in a revolution that shouldn’t have happened—but did. The Carnation Revolution didn’t begin with foreign bombs or riots. It started as a mutiny within the military itself. It bloomed, quietly, from a decision: not to obey.

For nearly 50 years, Portugal had been under the grip of the Estado Novo dictatorship. Censorship was law. The secret police were always watching. Young men were conscripted to fight endless colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. It was a country drowning in silence.

Inside the military, a group of officers had enough. The Armed Forces Movement (MFA) was born from that exhaustion. They were not politicians. They weren’t career revolutionaries. They were soldiers who saw the cost of obedience—and chose disobedience instead.

On the morning of April 25, 1974, tanks rolled into Lisbon. Orders were given to fire. But the revolution did not start with bullets. Some soldiers refused. Captain Fernando Salgueiro Maia emerged as the revolution’s human face—standing in the middle of the street, calmly negotiating with loyalist tank crews. He had a grenade ready but refused to use it. Legend holds that when a loyalist officer ordered a tank to fire on Maia, the crew refused.

At that moment, loyalty shifted to conscience instead of politics. Soldiers laid down their arms. Tanks turned around. No street battles erupted. Only 5 people were killed during the coup. Democracy was reborn not through force, but through refusal to obey. The revolution ended in flowers.

Celeste Caeiro, a restaurant worker, had been sent home early that morning. As she left, she carried with her leftover carnations meant for celebrating the restaurant’s anniversary. On the street, she handed them to soldiers. They placed them in the barrels of their rifles. Others followed. More civilians brought flowers. War machines bloomed.

It didn’t happen because people were ready. It happened because someone said no.

Now, shift the lens to Gaza.

Since October 2023, airstrikes have flattened entire neighborhoods. Refugee camps like Al-Shati, built in 1948 for Palestinians fleeing their homes, have been bombed again. Mosques, homes, water tanks—gone. People killed while sleeping, praying, charging phones. Not as accidents. As orders.

The language is familiar. “It’s necessary.” “Neutralized threats.” “Human shields.” Euphemisms used not to explain, but to numb. It’s language designed to give soldiers the courage to kill. To convince them it isn’t killing at all.

But just as in Portugal, obedience is not destiny. At that moment, when a tank crew chose conscience over orders, an entire regime fell. What if one soldier in Gaza refuses to fire? What if one international diplomat says no? What if one simply decides they cannot stay silent?

It’s not easy. Portugal nearly didn’t. But the ripple started with one man saying no.

Because the flower in the rifle isn’t a miracle. It’s a decision.

And decisions are always possible.