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UN Watchdog Files Complaint Against Official For Trying To Skirt Rules On Honorarium Offered By Fake ‘Chief Rabbi Of Gaza’
A United Nations watchdog filed a complaint Monday morning against a top official at the international organization for trying to skirt the rules of accepting honorariums.
The complaint is based on a series of emails obtained by The Daily Wire in which a top official was duped by the satirical “Chief Rabbi of Gaza” to speak at an anti-Israel protest. Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, was fooled last month by the invite and honorarium offer to speak at Columbia University’s encampment by the parody account “Rabbi Linda Goldstein,” known for using progressive talking points to mock anti-Israel protesters.
In the emails, Albanese’s assistant proposed the eight-month anniversary of Hamas’ attack for the speech, asked for the Zoom link, and requested that the honorarium amount be given to an outside organization to fund her assistant’s fellowship.
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, filed a complaint on Monday calling for an investigation into Albanese “illegally requesting payments for work done in official capacity.”
“As the evidence shows, Ms. Albanese is engaged in a practice by which she knowingly and unethically circumvents this prohibition, by requesting instead that, in exchange for her lectures, payments by external groups be made to her research assistant,” Neuer wrote.
“Excellencies, in light of the foregoing, we respectfully request that you commence an immediate and independent investigation into Ms. Albanese’s violations of the Code of Conduct,” he added.
Neuer requested a full disclosure of all of Albanese’s payments, whether direct or indirect, the name of the institute that was going to send the invoice, and an explanation into the legality of Albanese’s actions.
The letter was addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
Goldstein is a well-known parody account that uses progressive anti-Zionist language to make jokes about the anti-Israel movement several times a day on X.
“On behalf of the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, we wish to invite Special Rapporteur Albanese to deliver a keynote address at her convenience to the thousands of students gathered at the camp,” Goldstein wrote to Albanese in the invitation. “Many anti-Zionist Jews like myself have taken a leading role, and we would be honored to have you. I look forward to hearing from you.”
Email correspondences indicate that Albanese was willing to participate.
Research assistant, Eleonora De Martin, responded to the invitation, asking for more details on the topic and the length. “In full solidarity with what you are doing, Ms Albanese would like to know some more details on her intervention,” De Martin wrote.
De Martin maintained interest in the proposition, even after being told it was a speech about the “morality of the intifada.”
“[W]e want to hear about the ‘Morality of the Intifada,’ which Zionists have co-opted and turned into a dirty word,” Goldstein wrote. “There is also a small honorarium available.”
De Martin responded, asking if Albanese could speak on May 7—the eight-month anniversary of the Hamas attack.
“If I understood correctly, you would like Ms Albanese to deliver a keynote speech of around 15/20 minutes to the students,” De Martin said, adding that Albanese could not officially accept an honorarium, but asked for it to go elsewhere.
“Moreover, concerning the honorarium, she cannot take honorarium for anything she does in her official capacity,” De Martin wrote. “However, she kindly asks for this honorarium to be transferred to the Fellowship of her volunteer which supports her mandate work. Could you please provide some detail on the sum of the honorarium? The research institute will then send you the invoice for payment.”
Sara Troian, another research assistant, told The Daily Wire that Alabanese “never agreed to Linda Goldstein’s request,” even though emails show her team asked for a Zoom link. The assistant added that she wanted the honorarium to be sent to her university to fund her own work.
Francesca Albanese’s staff asked to speak to the Columbia University encampment on the seven-month anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians.
“Regarding the honorarium, there seems to be some confusion: it was me proposing that it would be sent to my University for the purpose to fund my fellowship,” Troian said. “The Erasmus University of Rotterdam, which hosts me as a Research Fellow, collects funds from individual donors with the only purpose of accompanying the Special Rapporteur in her country-missions. My work of support to the Special Rapporteur’s mandate is fully voluntary and I do not get paid for it.”
After Goldstein asked if the honorarium could be donated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) instead, Albanese’s team stopped replying.
“Is it okay if it’s donated to UNRWA in her honor instead?” Goldstein wrote. “Since I was displaced from Gaza as Chief Rabbi after October 7 it’s near and dear to us.”
Francesca Albanese, the embattled UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories was duped by a satirical X account.
Troian said Albanese’s team did not respond to the last message because they realized Goldstein “was not a reliable account.”
The character of Goldstein told The Daily Wire that she fears her “arch-nemesis Hillel Neuer is probably the most effective Zionist.”
“All of us anti-Zionists (NOT anti-Semites) fear him,” she said.
“As the Chief Rabbi of Gaza, I know how it feels to be targeted by Zionists,” Goldstein said. “Perhaps if she’d follow through with her speech and hadn’t disrespected the Chief Rabbi of Gaza, her ethical issues wouldn’t have come to light.”
Albanese is known for inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric which led to her being barred from the Jewish state in February after she contended that French President Emanuel Macron was wrong for labeling Hamas’ October 7 massacre as the “biggest anti-Semitic massacre of our century.” She instead said the attack was “launched as a way to break the occupation against apartheid.”
The Daily Wire previously reported in February that Albanese told Harvard University students that Israel did not have the right to defend itself from the terrorists who raped, murdered, and burned people and homes.
“It didn’t have the right to act in self-defense, meaning waging a war because it couldn’t wage a war against the people it maintains under occupation,” Albanese said. “What Israel had to do was to repel the attack on its own territory, arrest and detain and treat humanely the people who had been arrested and ensure justice.”
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