Gaza rhetoric is meaningless when there is zero action

What makes Albanese so compelling is her willingness to bypass the language of academia and speak plainly and clearly about issues. Picture: Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty

To the tens of thousands of people who follow Francesca Albanese in academia and on social media, the Italian international lawyer and scholar is nothing short of a force of nature.

Since October 7, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories has been one of the most prominent and accessible voices educating people on both the reality of what is happening on the ground in Gaza, and the history that made it inevitable. Albanese’s candour has seen her pilloried by the pro-Israeli lobby and challenged constantly by a western media she regularly labels as complicit at worst and ignorant at best. Far from being deterred, she appears emboldened by every smear. “It has been tough,” she says, acknowledging the pressures of the mandate she’s filled for two years.