Israel calling Francesca Albanese a witch!?

That is the problem. When an ambassador speaks, he speaks 'as' his country. It's why I said all official speeches have to be reviewed and approved. That doesn't mean every Israeli person agrees but it is the official line of the Israeli government.

Dare I say is … she does seem a bit of a witch!

Sorry that’s not very feminist of me. But the views expressed are purely my own.

"She has called Israel worse, why can’t they retaliate?". She hasn't called Israel worse during an official UN speech. This was the most insane official UN speech ever!

"I don’t think the concept of her being a witch was deeply woven into it"?? It was the main theme of the speech. He accused her of casting spells.

The real question is, which lunatic wrote and approved this speech. Watch the video. The whole speech is precisely and carefully written. This wasn't him rambling on. Someone, somewhere, needs their sanity checked.

I don't agree with calling women witches, its misogynistic but its hilarious to see people clutching their pearls about it. Silencing her? How does calling her a witch silence her? As if Israel care about diplomatic niceties where this woman is concerned, whose rabid hatred for Israel has completely clouded her judgement. Her twitter output is inflammatory and unprofessional by anyone's standards, quite apart from other things she's done and said.

What a truly pathetic thread.

And very unpleasant at that. ‘Antisemite’ doesn’t mean anything anymore? Fuck’s sake.

@Everexpanding is … the title of their thread is: Israel calling Francesca Albanese a witch!?

He was talking about a report she’d authored which he disagreed with so was obviously going to be taking about her, and was stating opinions of her and her motives and Israel are not the only ones of that view.

She has called Israel worse, why can’t they retaliate?

I don’t think the concept of her being a witch was deeply woven into it, he said it a few times, probably got caught up in a theme. An extreme description but also Albanese is pretty extreme, in her supposedly impartial role, in publicly and blatantly displaying her anti Israel basis and support for Hamas, and the accusations against her are untenable for her position.

How can you write a report about what’s going on in Gaza without mentioning Hamas?

She is a disgusting woman and deserves all she gets IMO.

No one is saying it's the views of the whole country. The point is, the speech would have been reviewed and approved no matter who wrote it and once again, Ambassadors don't write their own speeches, As well as what I said that whatever they say has to be carefully in line with their governments stance on the subject, they usually don't have time to be writing their own speeches.

We have no idea of knowing whether the witch comment was part of his speech or his personal opinion.

Either way it clearly does not represent the views of a whole country. Like Wes Streeting’s comments wouldn’t be if he said something controversial, keeping with the example used by @PevenseygirlQQ

UN Ambassadors do not write their own speeches. They are written for them by a team of policy experts as the speech must precisely reflect the official foreign policy of the ambassador's government. They do make impromptu remarks during Q&A sessions and press interactions but this was not that. It was a prepared speech which means it was reviewed and approved by the Israeli government. If I was him, I would have been furious as it made him look like a lunatic, not a professional diplomat.

If for instance someone in our government, for argument say Wes Streeting went to a UN/Council/G7 summit whatever occasion where he was representing the UK and called someone a witch, I can likely assume thay our government would make a statement to condemn this, Wes would likely have to make a public apology and maybe lose his job.

I do agree that one man has said this - we have no idea what was written on his notes (as far as I know) so there is a possibility he went of on a tirade - would the Israeli government have advised him to say that, we can’t confirm.

From my understanding, I could be wrong, but the Israeli government has not condemned what he said as nonsense and that it was wrong, this is where I think there is error for the government as a whole.

No, one person has accused someone else of being a witch.

Looks like he’s reading a prepared speech. Most likely not written by him. 🤔

I listened to his speech - it was mostly a personal attack on Albanese and the concept of her being a witch was deeply woven into it. I agree it’s frankly bizarre.

There is something about powerful articulate women that causes particular ire. It goes against the grain. The calling her a witch taps into this. Even if we were to say it was one man who called her this, until we here from Israeli leaders that their ambassador said something misogynistic - how do we know it does not tap into their underlying beliefs about her as a woman?

She is very brave and resilient in raising her concerns.

I never said it was mainly related to her being a female. Try reading my last post again.

Ambassadors do not typically write their own speeches; it's a collaborative process that usually involves professional speechwriters or their staff.
So basically, the collective opinion of Israel.

Only one person has called her a witch.

The general criticism against her is not related to her being female. We may have to agree to disagree on that because it comes down to personal opinion.

@Twiglets1

I disagree it’s got nothing to do with her being a woman, particularly in light of the witch comment by Israeli ambassador and lack of Israeli leadership response to this.

Her main crime however is mainly raising concerns about Israeli treatment of Palestinians. It is unpalatable to some, but that’s her job.

It’s not unusual for people who are drastically losing a moral argument to resort to name calling. If there was a defence, he’d have used it, but there isn’t. The bottom of the barrel is being scraped because no one without a personal interest believes Israel is justified anymore.

The criticism against her is nothing to do with her being female @Stripes56 and I think you are just wrong @Everexpanding about Danny Danon not being his own person but somehow “Israel”.

Danny has some unpalatable views but so does Francesca.