Foreign Ministry Accuses Albanese of Misusing Primo Levi’s Auschwitz Writing

Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, of misusing Primo Levi’s writing about Auschwitz in a social-media post about Gaza on Monday. The ministry said she was exploiting Holocaust memory to spread hatred of Israel, described her use of the text as antisemitic propaganda and renewed its demand that she leave her mandate. “She must go,” the ministry said. Albanese’s post appeared shortly after 1 a.m. Israel time on November 9, before the ministry’s afternoon response. Writing about images she described as showing children in flooded tents in Gaza, she said they made her feel sick and invoked Levi’s words. She argued that Europeans study those words at school but forget them when they enter politics or diplomacy. Her post included an English version of Levi’s poem headed “If this is a man.” The ministry had also called for Albanese’s departure on October 29. In that earlier statement, it accused her of denying Israel’s right to defend itself and its people even after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.