UN expert Francesca Albanese just spoke to Channel 4‘s Krishnan Guru-Murthy. And as the presenter attempted to ‘both sides’ Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Albanese stopped him in his tracks.
No platform for the propaganda of war criminals on Channel 4
As Israeli occupation forces destroyed the Gaza ceasefire by resuming its campaign of mass murder in the territory, Guru-Murthy said “I just want to put to you what Israel’s explanation is”. But Albanese rightly prevented him from platforming Israeli propaganda, saying:
I don’t need to hear what Israel says. Can we centre the discussion on international law? And this is not my opinion – there is a commission of inquiry, Amnesty International, Israeli historians. I’m fine with responding to any questions. But I would have the discussion not to be centred about what the government that is led by two leaders who are indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity are saying.
.@FranceskAlbs brilliantly bats away the suggestion that we should listen to Israels explanation for its actions. No, lets concentrate on international law rather than listen to a regime that is led by a wanted war criminal. pic.twitter.com/t6uLRtJRNL
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 19, 2025
The wanted war criminals she mentioned were prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The latter is no longer in government, but recently admitted that Israel had authorised its occupation forces to kill its own citizens on 7 October 2023.
As Albanese points out, the arguments of international legal experts and human rights organisations should always take precedence over the propaganda of war criminals. Because numerous genocide experts have long called out Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And while deathmongers will always try to defend or deny the crimes they’re committing, that doesn’t mean the media should give them a platform to do so.
‘No right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory you occupy’
Albanese has previously set out the international legal position on Israel’s occupation of Palestine and war crimes within it, stressing that:
Israel didn’t have the right to wage a war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
She clarified that:
The International Court of Justice [ICJ] has said in 2004 and in 2024 that Israel didn’t have the right to defend itself.
In 2004, as Al Jazeera reports, the ICJ said Israel “could not invoke the right to self-defence in an occupied territory”. And although Israel did not physically occupy Gaza after 2005, it still exerted control over the territory via its brutal blockade in the following two decades. As Albanese emphasised previously, that amounts to occupation. She said:
Israel does not claim it has been threatened by another state. It has been threatened by an armed group within an occupied territory. It cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory kept under belligerent occupation
In January 2024, meanwhile, the ICJ found it plausible that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
Later, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was illegal. The court avoided talking about self-defence, but the BBC explained the ICJ president’s clarification that:
Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 did not bring Israel’s occupation of that area to an end because it still exercises effective control over it.
“Open mind doesn’t mean empty mind”
Also speaking to Guru-Murthy, Albanese insisted that she entered her position at the UN with an open mind, but that “open mind doesn’t mean empty mind”. She explained:
I’m required to be impartial, to document the facts objectively, and to assess them according to the applicable legal framework, which is humanitarian law, international human rights law, and the other conventions that are a complement to the human rights system. Once I’ve made my conclusions, it’s not up to me to strive for equidistance among the parties.
And having made her conclusions, she asserted:
here, there are no parties. There is an unlawful occupier [Israel], and an occupied people in perpetuity [Palestinians]. There is a state [Israel] that continues to advance what has the hallmark of settler-colonial practices, and it’s committing international crimes.
“An open mind doesn’t mean an empty mind” — @FranceskAlbs with this mic drop moment when asked by @krishgm of accusations of bias on @channel4. #micdrop pic.twitter.com/BeqaeGpa79
— Ahmed Eldin | احمد الدين (@ASE) March 18, 2025
Featured image via screengrab
