[Francesca] Just to make sure we are safe,
can you confirm that police is here to protect all of us?
[Crowd cheers]
Good!
[Crowd cheers]
[Wieland] So I have the great pleasure of welcoming
Francesca Albanese
[Crowd cheers]
United Nations Special Rapporteur
for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian territories.
Before I hand over to Francesca for some preliminary
remarks I would just like to inform everyone that
at the last update
that I received, we had 1 ,700 people viewing the live stream.
[Crowd cheers]
So this this may be a small room, but the virtual space
we are occupying is a large one.
So without further ado,
Francesca please speak to us.
[Crowd cheers]
[Francesca] You're not police, right?
[Crowd laughs]
Camouflaging okay.
So I have to admit that about 75
hours in this country have made me pretty nervous.
I can't wait to go back to peaceful Tunisia
[Crowd cheers]
because the situation is bad
for freedom of expression pretty much
everywhere and still I've never felt this sense of
lacking oxygen as I do here.
So please, please, I know they're very happy to see me.
Make sense.
Yes, but I'm someone who speaks
of genocide and there is a genocide ongoing
and doesn't matter how much genocide denialism there is,
we need to be really aware, aware of
what we need to do all together because I really want
to be heard loud and clear before we start talking about
what I came to know the most, genocide, this year.
I want to say a few things on which I absolutely don't want to be
taken wrong and misquoted,
but of course I will be misquoted!
So it is a great pleasure for me to be with you today
and I wish to thank DiEM, A Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the
Middle East, Eye on Palestine and Gaza Committee
for their immense work,
[Crowd cheers]
Stop it!
[Crowd laughs]
for their immense work
in bringing this meeting together
and for inviting me to be here in Berlin.
I'm sure you have the gratitude of so many for
creating this platform for many to come together to speak
on one of the most urgent issues of our time.
Without your courage and dedication, we would not be
here today, although, although, for the venue we must thank
Junge Welt who has given the event last-minute asylum
and of course,
[Crowd cheers]
You are unruly!
and of course, we have to also
acknowledge the Israeli ambassador, pro-Israel
groups and professional smearers in Germany,
a number of German politicians including the city mayor,
Berlin police without whose relentless work and pressure and
intimidation we would be in another, much bigger venue.
I know how you feel.
I feel it, too, somewhat, even though the intimidation has
gotten on my nerves, but not yet under my skin.
And with German authorities' permission, I plan to return,
as I said, to the safety of my home in Tunisia
before this changes.
We should not fear words.
We shall fear crimes.
Those that commit them, and those who deny them.
And as we proceed, I must acknowledge that some of
the words I will speak today might be heavy.
I recognise that many of you carry significant pain,
and it is with this awareness that I ask for your patience and
understanding as we explore these difficult subjects.
Please know that my intention is not to add to that pain,
but to bring light, healing, and perhaps a sense of solidarity
as we move forward together.
As you are all aware, my presence in Germany
these few days has been controversial for many.
Universities, the beacon of free speech, the cradle of
free debate, where people can also disagree, right?
have cancelled events where I was supposed to give talks or
lectures without any warning, let alone an apology.
That's rude.
The organisers in many cases have had to switch venues
at the last minute, facing threats, condemnation and
harassment on the street and online, hopefully not on site
as if I were someone advocating for hate or someone
wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
Instead, I'm just a legal expert appointed by the
United Nations to document and report on the violations
committed by Israel.
This is what the resolution creating my mandate says,
even if I also document the violations committed by Hamas
and the Palestinian Authority.
I'm the eighth special rapporteur to do this after
illustrious jurists such as John Duggar, Richard Folk, and
Michael Link, and the first woman to serve in this
position after 33 years.
It is in this capacity...
This is where you applaud.
[Audience laughs and applauds.]
I really want to chill a little bit because it's heavy.
It is in this capacity that I came to Berlin.
I arrived here.
This is something I'm saying just to remind everyone that
I came as a special rapporteur, still representing
the United Nations, if there is an inch of respect
for this institution that is left in this country.
I arrived here after traveling across Northern Europe and
being generally welcomed, even where pro-Israel groups
succeeded to have some cave in to their pressure and
mafia-style techniques.
And I'm shocked to see how absurd the world that we
live in has become, where impartiality to the facts
and the requirements of international law generate
more controversy than the killing, maiming,
torturing, raping, starving, burning alive,
and entire people as such
for 16 months and counting,
and yet, this is the world we live in.
But so, before getting into the debate,
what is impartiality and what does it mean?
What is it not?
Because this is something that I would like you to carry
with you after this wonderful afternoon together.
Impartiality for human rights defenders, investigators and
monitors like myself entails an obligation to investigate
and establish the facts objectively,
studying everything that is brought to our knowledge against
applicable international law.
Once the assessment is done, my job is not to be
equidistant from the parties, whatever it is,
but to insist on measures to restore legality, to undo injustice
and prevent further abuses.
In the case of Palestine, it is overwhelmingly documented
that Israel commits intentionally, and as a matter
of state policy, the gravest human rights offenses,
as part of its long-standing plan to maintain control over
what Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem has
called, quote: 'A regime of Jewish supremacy
from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.'
[Crowd laughs]
Full stop, end of quote.
Impartiality cannot be used as a pompous name
for indifference and an elegant name for ignorance.
Impartiality is not about maintaining the pretense of
both sides in the face of international atrocities,
of maintaining, as I was saying, an equidistant position
between conflicting parties, even when their positions
are structurally and historically unequal.
When one side occupies, depredates, and oppresses,
and the other is being occupied, depredated, and dispossessed,
this is a recipe for disaster and violence.
impartiality is not neutrality.
Neutrality meaning maintaining an equidistant position
between conflicting parties even when their positions
might not be equal and usually to deliver life-saving aid.
It's not my mandate and not even that of universities
and not even that of your politicians.
Our job is not to stay neutral, our job is to stay
truthful to international law.
This is what all of us have in common.
And I stand firmly on universal human rights
of respect for life and human dignity.
And whenever it is the case that a state is being allowed
with impunity to violate these rights, I must speak up, firmly,
on the side of the oppressed.
If those who found my presence tonight controversial
could understand this basic principle, the difference
between impartiality and neutrality, perhaps there
would be far less controversy in the first place,
and of course, there should be understanding and condemnation
for what has happened to Israeli civilians during
the brutal attack that
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups carried out on
October 7, 2023, as there should be understanding
and condemnation for the massacres, violence,
and oppression that the Palestinians have experienced
since the Nakba and before the Nakba,
resistance and opposition to which has certainly
not spared the Israelis.
But here we are in an era where speaking out on human
rights has become a hateful act or even a crime where
truth is a lie and lies the truth that is used to justify this.
I mean, I don't see anyone but I was prepared
to see more police.
Orwell's famous proclamation that: 'War is peace, freedom is slavery,
ignorance is strength' and that quote has never
been more true than in the discourse surrounding
Israel and Palestine.
This brings me to the elephant in the room, the genocide that
Israel has been allowed to commit after 56 years of
unlawful occupation of Palestine and 77 years since
the mass ethnic cleansing of the Nakba began.
An event that was in ways irrefamiliar in the present
day carried out amid massacres and destructions
that have been recounted by its victims, Nakba survivors,
but also recorded in the testimonies of its
perpetrators in some instances or documented in Israeli
archives and brought to light by diligent and
honest Israeli historians, an architect who were able to
access those archives for a brief period of time
some 30 years ago.
For even the most sophisticated and experienced
practitioners of doublespeak, this truth is no longer
possible to deny.
I just want to point to one thing and then we move into
the discussion regarding,
I mean, the topic of today, genocide.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice
has recognised beyond any reasonable doubt that
the occupation that Israel maintained in Gaza,
the West Bank, and East Jerusalem is unlawful
and must be relinquished totally and unconditionally.
The troops, the military barracks, the military
presence, but also the civilian presence,
all the settlements must be dismantled.
Which doesn't mean that there will be an uprooting
of all Jewish people living in the occupied Palestinian
territory, but the land is to be returned to their owners.
and perhaps the Jewish Israelis who are there may
want to rent instead of stealing and living as
Palestinians if there is a Palestinian state.
[Crowd cheers]
And this is not even new.
This is not even new.
Everyone knew that the occupation was unlawful and
not just for violations of international law here and
there, because Israel kidnapped children and adults including
in the middle of the night and and put them in jail
for days, weeks, months, and years until they confessed
crimes that they had not committed.
And not just because of torturing, demolishing homes,
killing people arbitrarily, no, not because of that.
The occupation is unlawful because by its very presence
it prevents the Palestinians from enjoying
the right of self-determination, the right to exist as a people,
free to determine themselves as a people, which is still being contested
and it shouldn't be confused with a two-state solution.
Because this is the political consensus that has formed
so that the Palestinians have the right, exclusive rights
to a state, independent state in the land that remains.
But nonetheless, any other rights lose meanings and
becomes an exercise of intellectual rhetoric
without the right of self-determination.
So in the face of this groundbreaking advisory
opinion which has confirmed what everyone knew,
it is the obligation not only of the German government,
but every German person, including those having businesses,
living in the settlements, working as soldiers in the Israeli
occupation forces, not to do that anymore.
Otherwise, they might face consequences.
And this is where we are today.
Instead of working on this and seeing how to abide by
this incredibly important advisory opinion,
the government of this country continues to repress
the critical voices that ask for accountability.
[Applause]
[Wieland] Thank you very much for those preliminary remarks.
No doubt we'll get back to some of those
points again later.
But what I wanted to ask you about, and well, this is the
title of this part of the program:
International Law in the Face of the Gaza Genocide.
And something that's often been spoken about over the
last 16 months by yourself and by many actors of all sorts,
legal experts, civil society figures, activists,
is that the very concept of international law has been
under attack because the genocide has been allowed to
take place and measures that
have been set in motion to stop it have also not
achieved that result.
The world has let it happen and many feel that
international law has become impotent and even though in
the decades since the United Nations were founded and
we had the establishment of the Geneva Conventions
and the various pillars of international law were built up,
of course this is not the first time
that a power allied with the so-called West
has chosen not to abide by international law and recent
decades have seen many other cases, the invasion of Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, etc.
So, how is the situation different now?
What additional or greater damage has been done to
international law and how does one continue to work with
the standard of international law from now on?
[Francesca] First of all, let me clarify a couple of things and then we
will have the opportunity to talk about what constitutes
genocide because there seems to be much
confusion in this country.
So should I say that now or can we get back to this later?
[Wieland] I think we can get back to it later.
[Francesca] Perfect, as long as you say that.
And so, international law is a set of norms
that member states have agreed upon,
either through treaties
or that they have developed as customs, as practice,
believed to be compliant with general principles
of law and humanity.
So what constitutes international law
is a normative framework intended to prevent violations
and to correct violations.
So it's a normative and remedial, it has a normative
and remedial function.
Aside of it but complementary is the system that is there to
regulate the conduct of states and so it's the multilateral
order which is to be regulated by international norms.
So while international law has been selectively applied,
more or less systemically violated, today we see the depth of it
and we see the system behind it, I believe.
In the sense that it's clear that the system has never,
I mean, the multilateral order, the General Assembly,
which is now more democratic than it was 77 years ago, for example.
When the United Nations system was created, it was made
of about 50, 53 states, and now it's made of 193 states.
So clearly, it has changed.
but the center of power, it has not changed.
The system that was birthed as dominated by the colonial world
like Europe and European offsprings,
like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada,
and of course, the first colonies, the first settler colonial
realities where so many genocides had been committed,
Latin America, Central and Latin America, sorry,
Latin America.
I mean, these were also part of the system,
but the center of power was with the West,
what we would call today improperly: West, and remains there.
So I think that the phase we live in has exposed how
unequal the system is, how it cannot serve as is the
interest of everyone in the face of a
fundamentally now a unipolar order, where the United States dictates
pretty much what is to be done and what's not,
regardless or even blatantly against international law.
So we are at a critical point, and the system is breaking.
When we international human rights experts have said for years,
especially this mandate, it's 20 years that
whomever has held this mandate has said over and over,
the system is breaking.
The Occupied Palestinian Territory is a powder keg
and it will explode and will take all the system with it because
it's a settler colonial frontier, more violent
than any other.
It's not the only form of colonial domination,
but it's an active settler colony where people are really struggling
for what settler colonialism is in its more brutal form.
One people taking control of land, of resources,
pushing other people out.
Again, and it's the only one actively, actively militarily,
politically, financially supported and enabled
by Western countries.
So this is the breaking point because there are many people
who identify themselves with injustice that the
Palestinians have suffered.
There are many people who for the first time realise
and there is a global awareness about this
and dissatisfaction.
We see in the fragility and how lonely the Palestinians
are in the face of all these powers, our own fragility,
and this is why so many stand in solidarity
with the Palestinians.
On top of the fact that it's a simple empathy,
the fact that what happens to other human beings touches us and doesn't
I mean the fact of seeing bodies of children
hanging from the wall or turned into smithereens
whatever they are, incinerated in refugee camps
or in tents, plastic tents if not buried under the rubble.
I mean this is something that doesn't make many people sleep at night
and it's normal, it's a good sign, it's healthy
and we shouldn't become idle in the face of this pain.
Yeah, so we need to decide.
Now it's the time, we are at the turning point
and we need to decide.
The system, of course, will become uglier and more
resistant and more fierceful, but because the system
is being challenged.
The system of which Israel's abuses are a symptom.
And not, yeah, are a symptom.
So this should be a wake up call for all of us
people of conscience.
I often say a bit rhetorically but I somewhat believe it.
I mean in the sense it's not the case that the UN Charter
is not just about states' obligations but it says:
'we the people' because ultimately, it's we the people who
are the guardians of these values, these norms.
Human rights, I mean, I know that people complain a lot
about international law: 'It serves no purpose.'
Yeah, because you are not the ones who had to
struggle to abolish slavery.
You're not the ones who had to struggle to have women's
rights recognised, even if I admit we still have
a lot of work to do.
But so, there have been so many struggles that have led to
the development of human rights the way they are.
So while we tend to see human rights as a tool of
emancipation and that it's failing, I want to also
remind you, if you take a step back and look at the arc of history
that these human rights are first and foremost
the result of someone else's struggle for emancipation.
And we have grown just too lazy in this part of the world
because you see the Palestinians, like many other people,
they don't even have the time to think:
shall I fight or not?
Fight peacefully.
I mean, because many people have no choice.
If you have the choice, it means that you have
privilege, that you have chosen not to use.
And it's your choice, but trust me,
everything is in line right now.
It's coming.
The way repression works in this country is scary,
should really, should scare the hell out of people.
And the fact that you don't...
Thank you.
[Inaudible]
[Audience claps]
No, and the fact that people don't register
how serious it is.
The fact that media continue to be as pathetic as they are.
Again, it's something that, I don't know,
I'll try to help by continuing to tell what I've seen here.
But again, I've been in many countries, including countries
that are lectured by Germany about freedom of
- freedom of oppression -
[Audience laughs]
Sorry.
[Weiland] Appropriate choice of word.
[Francesca] No, freedom of expression and
[Audience laughs]
freedom of...
It was not even the worst that came out,
the worst lapses that came out of my mouth today.
However, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly,
I mean, countries that have been lectured by Germany about how
important these rights are and who are really struggling
to guarantee these rights.
I mean, don't want to guarantee these rights to citizens,
don't even make a mystery out of it.
And still, I've experienced much less intimidation
and fear than here.
So I again, I'm with you
and yeah, let's brace for what happens next.
[Appause]
[Weiland] What I want to get out a bit because I think this is also
something that really many people in the world have been
asking themselves or asking other people is:
if international law wasn't able to prevent this genocide,
if there were not the necessary mechanisms
of enforcement
really to stop the people who are committing it,
what does it still offer?
[Francesca] Yeah, so as I was saying,
there has been a phase where human rights protection
of individual rights was not there.
We are lucky because we have those rights.
Those rights also allow us to keep some sanity
and saying this is completely wrong.
Now, there are the standards,
there are the law enforcement mechanisms
that in many respects have never worked for Palestine.
Palestine has always been the big exception
and for a number of reasons.
We don't need to unpack all the problems of the world now.
[Wieland] Number 2?
[Francesca] No, I'm serious.
But the thing is that, when governments do not enforce,
do not abide by international law, next in line is
like watchdogs that are the civil society, NGOs are the
natural watchdogs of what the government does,
unless there is an ombudsman.
There are protection mechanisms at the
country level.
Otherwise, there is the international...
No, there are the courts, tribunals.
In fact, in other countries, these are working.
These are mechanisms that have been activated through
strategic litigation of civil society who have sued the
government for complicity in crimes and for transferring
weapons to Israel
at the time, it was committing genocide.
and I hope more and more there needs to be scrutiny of what
universities, pension funds, banks, and any other private actors
who contributes in any possible ways, big or small,
to the unlawfulness of Israel's presence
in the occupied Palestinian territory,
they must be held accountable.
And you know, in a country like that, that is not easy,
because I hear that this is something that has been
tried already and there has been a bit of pushback.
I hope it's not the case because really I had, again
I'm someone who has grown a thinking of Germany as an
example because of its legal scholars and because of
its courageous judges.
I'm not in again, studying Palestinian refugees
in international law writing a book about
Palestinian refugees in international law.
I would like to remind that it was German courts which
allowed to develop the jurisprudence that has
existed on how to protect Palestinian refugees
outside the Middle East.
So even in Germany, it has never been that bad.
You can still go back to a place of sanity.
So courts have to be activated, but also
certain struggles are not brought to court,
cannot not be fought
without the - peacefully fought of course -
without the support of the public opinion.
Because eventually judges also read newspapers.
And the problem is if the debate is so toxic,
if the media's work is primarily not about telling the facts
let alone the legal qualifications,
but about manufacturing consensus so as to maintain a certain narrative
a certain discourse,
it's very complicated.
So what is left is there are international mechanisms
that scrutinise the performance of states,
but again, I'm not starry-eyed on this.
Right now, it sounds like an emergency,
and in time of emergency, you don't go into a long-term plan,
if you see what I mean.
So I do think that most of the work is to be done,
of course, internationally, eliciting solidarity from others,
eliciting scrutiny, because there is, again,
there is a sense that in Germany, things are bad,
but now, I can tell you, if I'm shocked, if I'm that shocked
I can tell you, there is no real understanding
of what's going on in this country,
and I'm afraid that this will continue to spread.
So, yeah, many more people should talk about that,
many more people should ask your government questions
and the subsequent government questions.
So it's a struggle that needs to be continued
on a multi-fronts level.
[Wieland] You said it's about...
[Francesca] Just one second, by the way, the ICJ
and the ICC, because then it seems that nothing
is happening at the international level.
While international justice is very slow, it's moving.
I mean, for the first time, and it would have been
unimaginable years ago, where in this country,
like many other, including my country, was even impossible to say
apartheid, let alone genocide, and despite the difficulties,
now, the ICC has indicted two Israeli leaders, one active,
the prime minister, and the other, the former minister of defense
so they are wanted by the ICC, and hopefully,
I think that there should be many more,
because the colonisation has been ongoing for a long time.
And the International Court of Justice is looking at
genocide in two cases.
Genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
both in the case initiated by South Africa versus Germany, sorry,
Israel, and, sorry guys, I am on two hours sleep,
so be patient, and I was quite sleep-deprived,
and Nicaragua versus Germany.
So your country is brought before an international
court of justice because of its support to
the genocide in Gaza.
[Wieland] You actually just mentioned the ICC warrants,
which I wanted to ask you about.
On January 27th, International Holocaust Remembrance Day,
originally there was a plan for Netanyahu
to go to Auschwitz for a commemoration celebration.
And in the end he didn't, a junior member of government went
but there was obviously much controversy about it,
and the Polish government said quite brazenly that
they would allow him to come.
They would not enforce the warrant.
It wasn't put to the test in the end,
but that's what they said in front of the whole world.
The other week, the unfortunately most likely next chancellor
in this country, Friedrich Merz, conservative leader
said that if there was a plan for Netanyahu to come
to Germany, then of course he would not be arrested,
that these warrants mean nothing.
Now, of course, one could say this is all hot air,
but what could be done?
What would happen?
[Francesca] Well, you see, without even bothering international law,
is it normal that someone who is not even in function yet
or might have governmental function, steps into the realm
of competence that belongs to the justice system?
It's not up to government officials to say whether
someone will be arrested or not, based on the
determination, on an investigation that has
been carried out by the International Criminal Court.
I mean, you see, we are completely dismantling
the system that we have so hardly...
I mean, with so much sacrifice and political
investment built.
Out of what?
Seriously, out of what?
Like, this alliance among politicians who tend
to protect each other when one commits crimes
and end up committing crimes all together.
Now I'm getting arrested, yeah.
In south of Italy has a very specific name.
I'm not going to say that.
But this is not normal.
This is non-normal, the intimidation against human
rights defenders, lawyers, scholars, the pressure in
university in order not to have an honest debate,
frankly, about 60,000 people plus that have been killed?
Without, again, without denying that crimes have been
committed against Israelis, absolutely, no one
has ever denied that,
I have been condemning crimes against civilians because
my red line is that a civilian is a civilian,
and so it's untouchable.
It's the responsibility of the government and of the states
to respond for crimes.
But here's the responsibility of Germany as well.
What is left to the Palestinians?
What is left to the Palestinians not to be
erased in the little that remains of their land?
The guardians of the self-determination
of the Palestinians are member states.
[Applause]
What has Germany done throughout 2023 when 12 pogroms,
according to how they have been defined by many,
including in Israel, have been carried out against
defenseless Palestinian villages by violent, armed,
ideological settlers, escorted, as usual,
by the Israeli army.
And again, homes and cars and other possessions have been
incinerated and so orchards, and Palestinians have been
beaten up and terrorised.
Where was Germany?
And Germany knows, not because necessarily your government
has to read the human rights reports,
but because it has a diplomatic presence in the
occupied Palestinian territory.
And everyone knows what's going on in the
occupied Palestinian territory.
And everyone knows the crimes that Israel has been committed
with impunity for decades.
So the Palestinians have been persecuted, abused, oppressed,
killed, blamed, smeared, and in the face of this we
cannot even talk about that?
I mean, again, this is not my problem.
I mean, thank God that I'm not that sensitive that
someone cancels it.
And again, I talk, and I take it personally, I said: As long
as they pay the hotel room for which they invited me.
That's fine.
The problem is yours.
This is the country you live in and your fellow
citizens live in.
So, and it's very serious.
[Wieland] Certainly is.
Thank you.
[Applause]
I'm just looking a bit at the time and we wanted to
give a bit of space for people to ask questions.
No doubt there'll be many questions and not every
question can be taken.
But you said that you also wanted to share some points
about genocide earlier.
[Francesca] Yes, very briefly, as much as I can.
Because it's very important to remind ourselves of what
genocide is and what the risk of genocide triggers.
It's very important in this country,
because it's genocide is not defined by personal
opinions and personal histories no matter how
painful they are and there is no question, no question that
Germany has a lot to atone for for the genocides it has committed.
And at the same time, genocide today,
what constitutes genocide
is written in an international treaty.
What constitutes genocide is acts of killing against the
members of a group, infliction of severe mental or physical
harm to members of the group, the creation of conditions
of life calculated to lead to the physical destruction
of members of the group and prevent, thank you,
prevention of birth and
the transfer of children.
So you see, I hear criticism like in the UK,
for example, 'look at the numbers of killing',
as killing 70,000 people was not bad?
Again, I often ask myself, what kind of monsters
have we become?
But also the brutality of the attack, the way everything has
been destroyed, in a way, as we will have the chance to talk
in a way that has led to conditions calculated to
destroy the Palestinians.
But the thing is that in order to have genocide,
it's not sufficient to commit these crimes.
The crimes have to be committed with intent,
with the determination to destroy the group as such.
And people say it's very difficult to prove intent.
Yes, you know why?
Because it's very difficult to commit, I mean, it's difficult
to prove genocide because it should be difficult to commit
genocide in 2024 or in 2025.
It shouldn't be possible because in the system,
there are some check and balances in a system that calls itself
democratic where there is a rule of law system
with the separation of power.
I mean, you might have crazy government officials making
genocidal incitements and say: starve them all,
kill them all, they are all animals, even the kids.
I mean, Germany is not the first time where this has
happened because I've read the Nuremberg Trials Act
and children were seen as a security threat.
But there might be, there might be,
I mean, cabinet, war cabinet ministers saying that.
And then, what are the other cabinet ministers doing
in the face of this?
What are the MPs, the members of the Knesset, what have they
done to intervene, to stop this, this incitement?
What has the judiciary done when the International Court
of Justice recognised the risk of genocide, ordered Israel to
take measures to stop carrying out its military operations
in a way that could result in genocidal attacks,
as it had been doing, and had Israel complied
with the ICJ provisional measures
of January 2024, we wouldn't be here today, probably.
And what has the judiciary done?
Has the judiciary in Israel investigated any of the
people, senior officials of Israel who have been named
in the provisional measures, in the text of the court that
accompanied in the provisional measures, that system has
proven that being a reflex of the enabling environment
that Israel as a state was.
And the intent has been, it's not even that we need
to dig to find intent, there is direct intent.
Because when Netanyahu and others have ordered, again,
starvation, no water, no fuel, no electricity,
no food, no food.
Of course, this would lead to conditions calculated to
bring about the destruction of a group or members
of the group as such identified as Palestinians.
So in the face of this, there should have been an
obligation, as I said, to prevent because the convention
on genocide is not just about the punishment of
the crime of genocide,
creates for each state, especially influential
states who are providing support, an obligation
to prevent and stop.
And again, in April 2024, in Nicaragua versus Germany,
the court reminded Germany and other member states to
intervene by not transferring weapons to states who might be
committing not just genocidal acts, but violations of
international humanitarian law, including war crimes.
So the killing of 17,000 children, what is it?
This is what journalists should ask your Chancellor.
Because again, it's not about his personal opinion,
which I respect very much.
But it doesn't respond to this question out of personal
commitment, I imagine.
But as the chancellor of this country, which has obligation
under international law.
And the way Germany is evading its obligations and acting
in a way that is prohibited under international
law cannot be hidden.
This is the reality.
[Wieland] That's an appropriate note to end on before we open
it up to the audience.
We are representatives of Students for Palestine, FU,
and also students from the not-so-free university here
in Berlin that cancelled your event tomorrow, so we
are very happy to see you and to ask our questions.
In a recent viral video, you rightfully criticized
the German state and the situation this country is in.
You are also aware of the protests and the repression
we are experiencing.
Our question would be, how can we stand up against
such state repression, and who can we trust when
it comes to our rights?
I mean, we are protesting and boycotting, but
what else can we do?
Maybe you are aware of this, I think we tried to convey a
very comprehensive report on the collaborations of Freie
Universität with a series of Israeli institutions and
universities which we think are in very clear breach
of international law and morality as such too.
To give one example, the Freie Universität is sending its
students very often without the knowledge where it's
specifically sending and what kind of situation it's sending
these students to exchange programs for example with the
Hebrew University which has its students hostels in East
Jerusalem on which we think is
an illegal settlement and we would like if you could say
a few words on what you think are the obligations of German
universities, in particular FU regarding such cases.
We also would like to forward a question for later to Eyal
already, what he thinks, as a scholar originally from
Israel, what the political impact of such campaigns
is also in order to break the normalisation of
occupation and apartheid.
And to give another example on this, the university's law
faculty, where I am a student at currently, has a couple of
programs running, but one of them is called, Human Rights
Under Pressure, and it advertises with experiencing
and researching these human rights under pressure
in the field, and is
sending programs very often to Israel and the occupied
territories, and as I think Francesca has been made
aware of by a letter that FU professors from the law
department wrote, yeah, it is, you know, this normalisation
is happening through these kinds of corporations.
Anyways, thanks for your attention, we will probably
tomorrow upload the report on bds-fu.de, bds-fu.de,
and try to support the campaign if you want to.
[Applause]
I would also like to really beg for your indulgence in the
sense that, after all, I mean, I'm very happy to be received
by so much warmth and expectations, but also I would
like you to keep realistic expectations on what
can come from me, in the sense I'm really
just a human rights lawyer who's trying to do the right
thing, no more than that, and I'm sorry that it's a rare
commodity in this era, but I don't know, sometimes I
just don't know, because let me tell you, I think that
what the universities are doing is wrong.
It's so wrong that it should be brought to justice.
University cannot have partnerships with anything
that has to do with the settlements.
Cannot have partnership, but really we are being
conservative here because at the time of apartheid South
Africa, it's not that we were going to see how to establish
or cut relations with Israel just in the limit of the
Bantustan, where South Africa was segregating
the black South Africans.
I mean, if Israel commits crimes that should lead to
accountability and justice 360 degrees, so I'm even
uncomfortable as a lawyer to have to split the hair and
say the settlements and not the settlements.
Maya Wind, an Israeli scholar, has done incredible work
on the responsibility of universities.
As such, Israeli universities explaining why it's wrong
today, in 2025, to maintain partnership with Israeli
universities who are part of Israel's infrastructure,
military and surveillance and oppression infrastructure
vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
So not having ties, not having relations, not having
partnerships, not sending students to things that
have to do with the occupied Palestinian territory should
be the minimum bearable for a university to keep on calling
itself free, if freedom calls.
[Applause]
That, by the way, I really object that the university
keeps on having the name free after cancelling me and Eyal.
[Applause]
What can you do?
You should really try to work as much as possible
in solidarity with others.
Because if one thing I've learned by myself, is that
unity brings strength.
And I understand that especially, I don't know
if this is unique to the Palestine Solidarity Movement,
but there is a little bit of snobbish attitude:
Ahhh, I agree with this, but then it doesn't agree
with everything I say.
Can you be minimalist for once and agree on a few points
like end the genocide, end the occupation,
and end apartheid, and then...
[Applause]
Let's say, because in time, in south of Italy, I come from
a region of peasants, so we have a very simple way of
understanding life in a way, and say "in time of deluge,
all arms are needed".
And this is the thing, this is a time of crisis, so all
brains are needed, all mouth and eyes and ears are needed,
so let's just ally along the lines of, there is a need
for a popular front around human rights and justice,
because what's happening in Palestine is
not staying in Palestine, nor in Israel either,
I mean, yeah, it's the same.
And so this is why it's necessary to try to explore
creatively what alliances you might need, including
with universities outside Germany, or with scholars.
There are a few scholars here, but there are a few scholars
who have been speaking out.
I mean, to be honest, Eyal and I, when former Freie
University invited us, it was Freie University invited us.
We received an invitation from Potsdam University.
I cannot ensure 100% that the event
would have not been cancelled, but at least there was an attempt
and we couldn't make it.
But it was too much short notice, sorry.
But again, this is where we need to reach out to everyone
who's sensible enough, who has a minimum of knowledge and
a minimum of decency, which shouldn't be too much to ask,
so as to stand up against the injustice that is spreading
in this country as well.
Thank you, Francesca, for being here and for all the
work that you have been doing for over the past year.
So, you touched a little bit on this, and probably this is
going to be a controversial question, but as a
Palestinian, all these international laws, human
rights, the UN, all of these things, how we can trust
and put our trust in these concepts and
institutions, if they
fail to stop the genocide for the past 16 months when all
the greater powers in the world are not following or
listening to or abiding by all these laws, and also
with the veto right as well, when five superpowers can
just veto any ceasefire or any resolution?
I'm not going to answer that question because the point
is not that you should trust the system.
You shouldn't trust the system.
You shouldn't expect the system to give you anything.
Because again, what the Palestinians have got
is something that the Palestinians had to fight for.
And it's not that the Palestinians are exceptional.
This epitomises the struggle of any
minorities in this world.
And again, so you need really to count on all possible
forces and alliances.
for example, not everything in the United Nations is bad.
No one is saying that
Ah.
I'm joking.
No, no.
But I want to say, I want to say that there have been
30 special rapporteurs.
Now you see me, but there has been 30 special rapporteurs.
And while the struggle and the attacks against me are known,
many others have not even that visibility to complain
or to elicit solidarity.
So it's really about supporting each other and from
the different walks of life we come from, etc, etc.
So the thing is that there is also some difficulty in
exploring how to build these alliances, because we are more
fragile in these societies.
We are not, you see, even grieving together.
Why my lectures have become a place where
people come and cry?
Because in our societies, there is no, we are not
afforded the luxury of places for collective grief.
And where we can also talk about what we have gone
through, we can check on each other and have the courage to
look into each other's eyes and say, it's okay, it's okay
to cry, it's okay to feel crazy, it's okay to be scared
and to carry fear,
it's okay.
And even rage, and even wanting to express oneself in
ways that are not necessarily compliant with German
or even Italian standards, it's okay to be enraged
against the system.
The point is that how do we move beyond grief into action?
And this is where we need to understand what it means,
I think, being in the line, where everything is at risk.
I know that now, it's still, we have some
privilege in our works, but if some of us start to lose
it just for exercising their rights, we should all feel
worried, because sooner or later it will hit us.
This is where we need to build nets, safety nets,
to help each other.
We don't need, really, we don't need to spend
that much in our life.
We can have times of austerity.
We should afford austerity in our own life and trust me,
if you see how my consumption of clothes, my expenditure
for clothes has gone down from two years ago to
now, you understand what austerity means.
But in the sense we don't need as much, so we can afford
less but also share more.
I know it sounds idealistic, but this is where
I have more trust in these than in what you said.
[Applause]
Also, also, apartheid and racial segregation in
the United States and the dictatorships from Chile,
Argentina, Chile, sorry, Brazil, they didn't,
or colonialism, brutal colonisation, although
colonialism is still lingering, and this is the
opportunity to unpack it, because if one thing about
Palestine, the genocide in Palestine has brought to
the fore is what settler colonialism and
colonialism still is.
So it has spoke to the bubble of colonial amnesia that we
have grown into, many of us.
So again, let's take the silver, let's look at the
silver lining out there.
This is a moment to do better.
We have to think together and act together.
This is the only thing I feel to say.
Hi, my name is Mark Barton.
I'm a composer and professor in Germany.
My question is about press freedom for Ms. Albanese and
the provisions that exist under international law to
guarantee press freedom.
We saw in Israel's attacks in Lebanon, we saw the ability
of journalists to respond immediately to accusations,
for example, that hospitals were being used by terrorists.
And we saw the role that journalism can play in
debunking disinformation in real time.
We don't see a lot of that happening in the West Bank
right now, and right now there's a ceasefire in Gaza.
We also don't see a lot of international journalists
active, and I'm wondering if there's anything international
law can do to force that to happen.
When I think of what journalists have done, and
you mentioned Lebanon, I mean, it's even more shocking the
kind of double, I mean the moral compass and the moral,
the double, the selective attitude that has been used
after the Pager attack because I don't know how it was in
Germany but in my own country and other countries I saw
politicians and journalists laughing about that and
commenting on how audacious and genius it was.
[Wieland] Praising the ingenuity of the attack.
[Francesca] But this is where I say the entry point now, where they're
rallying, I mean something to fight because this is
the common enemy, is racism.
Racism it was, racism it is, and racism continues to be.
And then was it, again, I do not think that is
international law was not able to stop genocide.
International law, it doesn't have, I mean, doesn't have
hands to slap the face of government officials who
pretend not to understand what genocide is.
I'm not referring to anyone in this country now, okay?
Seriously, I mean we have enough bad politicians in my
own country and where even the hypothesis of a two-state
solution now is dismantled by the foreign minister because
Gaza's been turned into rubble and the West Bank is too
small and I was saying, are you suggesting
that the Palestinians
take over Israel just because what remains is too little?
So this is the kind of political discussions we have
today and we need to somewhat talk to the intellectuals,
talk to the scholars.
This is also about the constitutional order that
is being undermined, not just international system.
International system has rules, at the constitutional
level we have rules.
What's happening to them?
So again, back to you guys.
My question goes a bit in line, like, seeing that the
current international law has been unable for 16 months
to stop a genocide, I can't believe I'm saying this,
what would, in your expert opinion, be the ideal international
law system, functioning system, who would draft it
who would enforce it?
We know that this one, based on the nation-state, with this
Security Council created by the winning powers from
World War II with a veto power, et cetera, is not functioning.
How would you, yeah, what would be the
ideal international law system in your view?
Thank you.
[World] As I said before, apartheid was not dismantled
by member states.
It was very late, when it was unavoidable that
they started sanctioning apartheid South Africa.
But really, we need to learn from other movements
where resistance, peaceful resistance, has organised at
a global level, admitting that never before, there had been
such a coalition of allies at the international level
aiming to crush solidarity.
This is new.
But again, also the kind of forces that we can mobilise
is new, because the Global South is rising.
And I know that in our eurocentric view of the world,
we only look at the depressed, quite politically depressing
scenario we have, but there are also member states who
are cutting ties with Israel.
There are member states, I mean, I was joking today, but
I say in a few years, we will keep on asking funds, seeking
funds to, I don't know, Arab countries or the Global South
in order to protect our own work in this part of the world,
the human rights work,
but it doesn't matter, this will make us more equal.
So I also think that the discourse should change
because of where the United States is going
is a place of lawlessness.
This is the opportunity for the international community
to step back, but it will not happen automatically
because we are part of this oligarchical order where it's
not about what the people think, it's what about
capitalistic interests decide and this is why I keep on
saying it's difficult and it's
difficult because it's a struggle against the system
of which Palestine is a system, not necessarily
the cause of all evil.
[Applause]
I would like to pose a question concerning genocide,
which you said it's very difficult to prove this mental
state of committing it, but then we have another layer
and this is incitement, which we've been witnessing here
in Germany from the very beginning, October 7, 23,
how Palestinians,
but in all their layers of life, together with their
children, are dehumanised.
We just need to read Tagesschau or Bild, and if I
may read, or not to take time, but this is a serious problem,
and then if I go back to the history and the magazine
Sturmer and compare the images,
not that I'm comparing, but this historical flow of
dehumanising them.
I have no problem with comparison.
Okay, but then I am now careful, so because we
know what can happen.
But the processes of dehumanisations do last,
and they tell us that genocide, like for instance, in the
country where I am from, Serbia, lasts for a long time.
So I, as someone from Serbia, could also recognise
dehumanising images of Bosniaks or Bosnian Muslims
and then Palestinians while reading magazines, Bild,
not that I read Bild, but Bild, Tagesschau, or even I will now
mention the January 19th and the release of hostages,
which was really an important day,
and it is every time when we celebrate freed lives.
but then also freed lives from the prison.
And when we see how they are represented as the groyalde
Menge, can you help me translate this?
Screaming crowd, groyalde or the schreiende.
So this is my question about the incitement, also how
to organise ourselves to be aware, to collect, to archive,
and also then to serve to the legal cause in the future.
And thank you for your patience.
[Applause]
[Francesca] Again, genocide is difficult to prove because genocide
should be difficult to commit.
We should not confuse the intent with the reasons.
I mean, because people say, Israel, we cannot really say
that Israel wanted to destroy Gaza, even if it has destroyed
Gaza, even if it has said, there are Israeli leaders who
have ordered the destruction of Gaza, and general
commanders who have, in fact, ordered their soldiers
so there has been the order, the chain of command effectively triggered,
top to bottom.
They say, yeah, but they were also saying that Israel was
also saying that they want to liberate the hostages
or destroy Hamas, whatever it means.
And no, we shouldn't confuse this because the reasons can
be many, but have really no value in the determination
of intent, which is another thing, it's the mindset.
When the mindset is there to destroy, and
genocide shouldn't even be committed, the incitement
is sufficient to trigger the responsibility to prevent.
And this is where, you know, when the first person to talk
about genocide in the context of what has happened in Gaza
was Raz Sigal, an Israeli historian, who said:
This is a textbook case of genocide.
And ignorant as I was back then, I said: Oh, come on.
It's not a textbook case, because as a good European,
I knew that the textbook case of genocide...
And again, I had seen the failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda
and in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
So my point was, if there are no crematoria, if there are no
machetes, if there is no mass killing, it's not genocide.
It's not true, it's not true.
And this is why genocide has been a niche in legal
studies for a long time, and it's no longer that.
I mean, really, Raz was right when he said that this is a
textbook case of genocide, because it's not just a
genocide, it's a settler colonial genocide.
So the aim is ethnic cleansing, because the aim
is to empty the land of Palestinians, keep on
advancing Palestinian erasure so that the land can be
taken, but also genocidal acts are being committed
in the process.
And it's been said, and it has been done.
So this is not a case where there is no genocidal intent.
But Raz is also, I mean, I remember that Raz has been
one of those scholars calling me as early as February 2023,
saying, as I was writing about the tension and
mass carcerality, mass incarceration, and the
the systemic and widespread nature of
deprivation of liberty of the Palestinians.
And he was saying, but when are you going to
look into the genocide against the Palestinians?
Imagine my reaction.
But I say, okay, let's talk about that.
But then I've realised how much he was right because as
a genocide scholar and someone who has studied the Holocaust
and other cases of genocide, he knows that there
are different steps.
That genocide is not an act, it's a process, and it's
preceded by a number of things, but there is one
element that is common, common across all genocides,
and wouldn't be possible if it was not widespread
among societies.
It's dehumanisation of the other.
So that we do not see the Palestinians
today as Palestinians.
And again, as a European, this is me taking, please don't
applaud, don't nod, don't say anything, hold your breath,
but I need to say that because I wouldn't be
me if I didn't say that.
But as a European, as an Italian, I know that the
genocide of the Jewish people in this part of the world
would not have been possible only for a few monsters
who had planned the deportation, the trains,
the industrialisation, the horror that has been done.
Jewish people in this part of the world, before being sent
to concentration camps, have died out of starvation and
lack of hygiene in ghettos where they had been locked up.
We know that the discrimination started,
the dehumanisation had already started when it was possible
to kick out of their professions,
people because they were Jewish.
Either we do realise that racism was the root cause
for the genocide of the Jews, the Roma, and Sinti, and it's
ingrained in who we are as European, I'm sorry, but 500
years of colonialism have been predicated upon the idea
of a superior race, white, male, Christian,
and it's patriarchy.
[Applause]
Either we deal with it,
No...
[Applause]
It's my responsibility, because
then it's here, I understand that you cannot talk.
I mean, I'm not making comparison, for God's sake.
But also, it's history.
And Germany has committed two genocides.
Please don't applaud, because there is nothing
to applaud to this.
Germany has committed two genocides in history.
[Inaudible]
Oops.
Okay, that's fine.
Two are bad enough.
And again, why can't we talk about that?
Are the Nama and Herero less human?
Do they deserve less acknowledgment, do they
deserve less memory, do they deserve less
reparations?
And again, and another thing, and so me saying that, probably
you should say that, the State of Israel doesn't
represent all the Jewish people in the world.
Otherwise, I wouldn't understand why you invite me
and sit with me today, and so many, I mean, wherever
I go, I'm invited by Jewish people first and foremost.
We need to have the courage to say that.
I do not expect every one of you to say that.
But those of you who have an inch of privilege in this
country, university professors with tenure, Jewish people
first and foremost, we need to say that it's not in our
name that this can be carried out because we have not
been able to prevent the genocide of the Tutsi,
we have not been able to prevent the genocide of
the Yazidi, or the Rohingya in Myanmar, or in Bosnia.
However, however, I really want this to be the last
genocide of human history.
And it's not going to happen until it's stopped.
In order for this to be stopped,
it needs to be understood and recognised.
[Wieland] Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
A perfect point to end, even if, obviously, many of us
would like to continue.
But there are still further parts of this program, which,
somewhat amazingly, has been allowed to proceed this far.
So let's see if we make it to the end.
Yes, so thank you again, Francesca Albanese.
[Applause]