U.S. State Department Spokesman Faces Calls to Resign Over Attack on UN Expert

Matt Miller wastes no time to suggest that UN special rapporteur is antisemitic after “Anatomy of a Genocide” report

Matt Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, faces calls to resign after following Israel’s line that Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur, is antisemitic for criticizing the country’s brutal treatment of Palestinians.

Albanese presented a report called “Anatomy of a Genocide” a day earlier and said “there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza,” according to Al Jazeera.

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Miller brushed off Albanese comments, like he does any criticism of Israel, and said he, “can't help but note a history of antisemitic comments that she has made that have been reported," according to Common Dreams.

Albanese is no longer allowed in Israel after comments she made about the motivation behind Hamas’s 7 October attack.

Israel and its advocates in the Western media have tried to portray the attack that killed 1,200 as unprovoked and an example of why the Israelis need to keep their boots on the necks of Palestinians. But some have compared the attack as nothing short of a prison break.

“The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression,” she said in an X post, according to The Times of Israel.

Her comment was in response to France deciding to hold a ceremony honoring those killed in the Hamas attack.

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Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel since 1967, continued, “The ‘greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century’? No, Mr. Emmanuel Macron. The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression. France & the international community did nothing to prevent it. My respects to the victims.”

In 2022, Albanese angered Israelis when she told the General Assembly that the Israeli military was guilty of pursuing the ‘de-Palestinianisation’ of the occupied territory.

Her report stated that Israeli occupation violates Palestinian territorial sovereignty by “seizing, annexing, fragmenting, and transferring its civilian population to the occupied territory.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Albanese’s comments: “The era of Jews being silent is over,” the TOI reported.

“Preventing her from entering Israel might remind her of the real reason why Hamas slaughtered babies, women and adults,” he said.

Albanese posted on X: “BREAKING: Israel's "denying me entry" is not news: Israel has denied entry to ALL Special Rapporteurs/oPt since 2008!  This must not become a distraction from Israel's atrocities in Gaza, which are taking a new level of horror with the bombing of people in 'safe areas' in #Rafah.”

Craig Mokhiber, the former head of the UN’s human rights office in New York who resigned after reaching retirement age, criticized the “endless attacks against” Albanese, who he called “brave and principled.”

“Shame on those who ‘shoot the messenger’ to distract the world from Israel’s crimes. It won’t work,” he posted.

Miller said Monday that Washington has not found Israel to be in violation of international humanitarian law as it carries out its genocide in Gaza. 

This was the last straw for Annelle Sheline, a human rights official at the U.S. State Department, who resigned.

She also said the State Department is lying when it says Israel is complying by international rules.

“Just recently, the State Department ascertained that Israel is in compliance with international law in the conduct of the war and in providing humanitarian assistance. To say this when Israel is preventing the adequate entrance of humanitarian aid and the U.S. is being forced to air drop food to starving Gazans, this finding makes a mockery of the administration’s claims to care about the law or about the fate of innocent Palestinians.”

Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, told Common Dreams that Miller should resign: "Matthew Miller should be forced to resign for trying to endanger the life of a U.N. official with falsehoods."