Benutzer:Fritzober/Solidaritätserklärung für Francesca Albanese vom 20. 12. 2022

"Statement by 65 scholars denouncing the smear campaign against
UN human rights rapporteur Francesca Albanese

20 December 2022

We, scholars of antisemitism, Holocaust, Jewish Studies and related fields, denounce the escalating smear campaign against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Once again, a high-ranking UN official defending the human rights of the Palestinians is being castigated, based on disingenuous allegations of antisemitism. This time, the trigger for such allegations is a statement Ms. Albanese made in 2014, excavated from a personal letter about Israel’s attack on Gaza she had shared on Facebook.

Indeed, Ms. Albanese said therein ‘America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby’. But first, she has rightly distanced herself from this inappropriate choice of words, and second, it is clear from the context of her statement that she was referring to pressure groups that are commonly referred to as the ‘Israel lobby’. Books have been written including by Jewish scholars about such groups. They legitimately exist and their influence, however effective, on American foreign policy towards Israel is real, in particular when it comes to blocking any initiatives aimed at holding Israel accountable for its inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.

When Special Rapporteur Albanese is delegitimized and stigmatized as an antisemite based on isolated and decontextualized statements, this amounts to political abuse of antisemitism, which fundamentally harms the urgent and important fight against antisemitism.

It is no surprise that SR Albanese is being attacked this way. She plays a visible and vocal lead role in efforts to promote accountability for Israel’s violations. In addition, she has spoken out against the political instrumentalization of antisemitism aimed at shielding Israel from international scrutiny. As part of that, she has criticized the weaponization of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism (WDA), which the Israeli government wants the United Nations to adopt. On 3 November 2022, 128 scholars, many of whom are Jewish, published a joint statement warning the UN not to identify itself with that controversial definition. In raising her voice, SR Albanese represents broader concerns.

It is evident that the campaign against SR Albanese is not about combating today’s antisemitism. It is essentially about efforts to silence her and to undermine her mandate as a senior UN official reporting about Israel’s violations of human rights and international law. Against this background, we regret that the US Ambassador to the Human Rights Council and the US Envoy on Antisemitism have issued statements effectively giving a tailwind to the campaign against SR Albanese. We call on other governments to refrain from such statements.

More specifically, we call on the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Member States at large to support and protect Ms. Albanese’s mandate as an independent legal expert and human rights rapporteur. Doing so is of particular importance, while Israel is accelerating towards its most radical government ever, with disastrous implications for the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Moreover, dismissing the smear campaign against SR Albanese protects the integrity and serves the effectivity of the fight against antisemitism, including at and by the UN.

Meir Amor, Dr., Department of Sociology and Anthropology (retired), Concordia University, Montreal
Ofer Ashkenazi, Professor, Director The Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Aleida Assmann, Professor of English Literature and Cultural Theory, Konstanz University
Jan Assmann, Professor, Egyptologist and Religious Studies, University of Heidelberg
Leora Auslander, Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor of Western Civilization in the College and Professor of European Social History, Department of History, University of Chicago
Angelika Bammer, Professor of Comparative Literature, Affiliate Faculty of Jewish Studies, Emory University
Omer Bartov, Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Department of History, Faculty Fellow, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University
Peter Beinart, Professor of Journalism and Political Science, The City University of New York (CUNY); Editor at large, Jewish Currents
Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus, Stanford University
Michael Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History, Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University College London
Donald Bloxham, Richard Pares Professor of History, University of Edinburgh
Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Jose Brunner, Professor Emeritus, Buchmann Faculty of Law and Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, Tel Aviv University
Stephen Clingman, Distinguished University Professor, Department of English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Raya Cohen, Dr., fmr. lecturer Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University and Department of Sociology, University of Naples Federico II
Alon Confino, Pen Tishkach Chair of Holocaust Studies, Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Director Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Frank Dabba Smith, Rabbi Dr., Leo Baeck College
Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hasia R. Diner, Professor Emerita, New York University
Vincent Engel, Professor, University of Louvain, UCLouvain
Katharina Galor, Hirschfeld Senior Lecturer in Judaic Studies, Brown University
Shai Ginsburg, Associate Professor, Chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Faculty Member of the Center for Jewish Studies, Duke University
Amos Goldberg, Professor, The Jonah M. Machover Chair in Holocaust Studies, Head of the Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Harvey Goldberg, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sylvie-Anne Goldberg, Professor, Jewish Culture and History, Head of Jewish Studies at the Advanced School of Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris
Svenja Goltermann, Professor Dr., Historisches Seminar, University of Zurich
Neve Gordon, Professor of International Law, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London
Jeffrey Grossman, Associate Professor and Chair Germanic Languages and Literatures, Member Program in Jewish Studies, University of Virginia
Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Professor, Mae and Benjamin Swig Chair in Jewish Studies, Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, University of San Francisco
Anna Hajkova, Associate Professor of Modern Continental European History, Warwick University
Dafna Hirsch, Dr., Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel
Marianne Hirschberg, Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Kassel
Marion Kaplan, Professor Emerita of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University
Brian Klug, Hon. Fellow, Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton; Hon. Fellow in Social Philosophy Campion Hall, University of Oxford; Emeritus Fellow, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford
Tony Kushner, Professor, Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton
Dominick LaCapra, Professor Emeritus of History, Cornell University
Ferenc Laczó Assistant Professor in European History, Maastricht University
Nitzan Lebovic, Professor, Department of History, Chair of Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values, Lehigh University
Mark Levene, Dr., Emeritus Fellow, University of Southampton and Parkes Centre for Jewish/non-Jewish Relations
Ian S. Lustick, Professor Emeritus, Bess W. Heyman Chair Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Shaul Magid, Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
Paul Mendes-Flohr, Professor Emeritus of History and Religious Thought, University of Chicago; Professor Emeritus at the Divinity School, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dirk Moses, Professor, Anne & Bernard Spitzer Chair in International Relations, The City College of New York (CCNY)
Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of History, Yale University
Adi Ophir, Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University; Visiting Professor, Brown University, the Cogut Institute for the Humanities and the Center for Middle East Studies
Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School
Nicola Perugini, Dr., Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Edinburgh
David Ranan, Dr., Political Scientist and Writer, London/Berlin
Mark Roseman, Distinguished Professor in History, Pat M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, Indiana University
Göran Rosenberg, Writer and Journalist, Sweden
Michael Rothberg, 1939 Society Samuel Goetz Chair in Holocaust Studies, UCLA
Guri Schwarz, Associate Professor of Contemporary History, Vice-Director of the Centre for History of Racism and Anti-Racism in Modern Italy, University of Genoa
Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide, Stockton
Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford; Fellow of the British Academy
David Shulman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dmitry Shumsky, Professor, Israel Goldstein Chair in the History of Zionism and the New Yishuv, Head of the Institute of History, Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tamir Sorek, Liberal Arts Professor of Middle East History and Jewish Studies, Penn State University
David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History, Department of History, Yale University
Lior Sternfeld, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Penn State University
Mira Sucharov, Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa
Kylie Thomas, Dr., Senior Researcher, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam
Barry Trachtenberg, Associate Professor, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University
Enzo Traverso, Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities, Department of History, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Alana M. Vincent, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Umeå University
Moshe Zuckermann, Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy, Tel Aviv University"

Dokumentation der Solidaritätserklärung für Francesca Albanese vom 20. Dezember 2022, wie sie vom Büro der Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 am 16. Juli 2024 per E-Mail an fritzober übermittelt wurde.(Verlinkungen durch Fritzober)