Dr. Lyna Al-Tabal, Rai Al Youm, 11/7/2025
Translated by Ayman El Hakim
Lyna Al Tabal is Lebanese, holds a PhD in political science, is a lawyer by training, and a professor of international relations and human rights.
Yes, I chose to title this article in English. Not because I like to
show off, nor because I believe more in the globalization of language than in
its fairness. But because this phrase has become, without anyone’s permission,
a declaration of global solidarity.
I stand with Francesca Albanese
A short sentence but loaded with meaning... only five words. Spoken
calmly, but classified as dangerous to national security... How?
There is an Italian woman who is currently being prosecuted because of
Gaza. She does not have the genes of resistance, she has no family ties to
Gaza, no past marked by the Nakba, not even a photo. She is not an Arab, she
was not born in a camp, she was not raised on the rhetoric of liberation. She
is not a left-wing dreamer, she may not have read Marx in cafés. She has never
thrown a single stone at an Israeli soldier... All she did was fulfil her
professional duty.
“Crazy,” Trump said. He who monopolizes this label and dishes it out
like narcissists do when they crumble in front of a woman who has not remained
silent in the face of injustice.
Her name is Francesca Albanese. An Italian lawyer and academic, she has
served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the
Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. As an international civil servant,
sitting behind a white desk, she writes reports in precise language and
impartial legal terms. She is not a gifted orator, but she has made her
position clear and unambiguous: what is happening in Gaza is genocide.
She wrote it in black and white in an official report published as part
of her duties, in a language that is understandable under international law:
what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide.
Overnight, her name became dangerous and had to be destroyed, just as
the Israeli army destroys houses in Rafah. Her name was destroyed by a single
political missile, and she was placed on the sanctions list alongside
traffickers and financiers of terrorism.
Now I know: in this world, all you have to do is not lie to be banned
from traveling, have your accounts frozen, and be excluded from the
international system.
Francesca did not break the law, she enforced it. And that is her real
crime.
She did not make any errors in her definition, she did not exaggerate in
her language, she did not overstep her authority. All she did was call the
crime by its name.
No, this report does not deal with the genocide of Native Americans. Nor
does it deal with Vietnam, white phosphorus, Baghdad, or Tripoli... This report
does not stir up America’s past; it deals with an unabashed present. And with
the right that is lost when we claim it... This report deals with international
justice, which is being stifled before our very eyes, and with the charter of
human rights, which is also evaporating before our eyes. While the guilty party
sits on the Security Council.
This report simply talks about the dark world.
This world that strangles all those who don’t want to be like it.
Francesca wasn’t the first.
When the Rome Statute came into being, the US treated the International
Criminal Court as a “legal virus” because they couldn’t control it... Bill
Clinton signed it (without ratifying it). Then George W. Bush came along,
withdrew his signature and passed what was called the “Hague Invasion Act,”
which authorizes the military invasion of the Netherlands if the Criminal Court
dares to try even one American soldier... Barack Obama, the wise man, did not
repeal the law... Then came Trump, the blond cowboy with two guns in his belt,
who delivered the coup de grace to justice... He punished Fatou Bensouda, the
former chief prosecutor of the Court, for opening the Afghanistan and Palestine
cases. He revoked her visa, froze her assets, and hung her on the noose of his
sarcastic tweets.
Then came Karim Khan, the current attorney general, tasked with the
heavy Gaza case and a list of equally heavy names: Netanyahu, Galant... Once
again, the cutlass of political vengeance returned and threatened the sword of
justice.
Karim Khan has been inundated with threats from Congress, the White
House, and Tel Aviv.
On his first day in the White
House, Donald Trump signed the law imposing sanctions on the International
Criminal Court. A man of Pakistani origin who dares to touch untouchable names?
The game is over.
This is how an international institution, with all its staff and
equipment, was placed under US sanctions, as if it were an armed militia... Its
employees were banned from traveling, working, and even breathing freely... Who
said America prevents justice? As long as it doesn’t come near Tel Aviv or the
Pentagon.
And in a moment of sincerity, Joe Biden said it in his convoluted way:
these laws were not written to apply to “white men,” but to Africans... and to
Putin, when necessary.
And so the paradox is complete: 85% of prosecutions and trials before
the International Criminal Court involve Africans.
And when cases are opened on
Westerners, justice becomes a threat... and the Court a target.
And now you know too: if you cross the line,
it is the Court that is being judged,
the judge who is judged,
and the witness who
is being judged.
All that remains is the murderer... sitting in the front row, smiling at
the cameras, receiving invitations to attend a conference on human rights. Why
not?
Trump dealt a fatal blow to international law, a stab in the heart of
the International Criminal Court, then buried what remained of the human rights
system and threw us the corpse: “There, bury it,” he said in the same tone used
to give orders during the massacres on the Syrian coast, when Alawites were
buried under the rubble, without witnesses, without investigation, sometimes
without names, with only a number... A hole, and it’s all over.
Trump acted like a cowboy: he fired first, then declared that the target
was a threat to security. All this in full view of the world. And in full view
of us too... In full view of Europe, to be precise.
Europe drafted these laws from the ashes of its wars, its unresolved
psychological complexes, and its fear of itself.
And today, it watches, silent... With all its psychological complexes,
Europe remains silent today. It buries its legal child in cold blood, just as
the mothers of Gaza bury their children...
With a single tear, because time does not allow for long crying.
Do you understand now? All human rights laws, from the Rome Statute to
the International Charter, are good for academic seminars and training courses
that end with the awarding of diplomas and photos of happy experts.
And everything is decided in Washington.
This is how international justice is administered in the age of
hegemony: a list of sanctions... and a red carpet rolled out for the
executioner.
Did you follow the story correctly?
An Italian woman on the US list of political terrorists... Her name is
Francesca Albanese. She is not from Gaza, she has not been through a war, she
was not born under a blockade. She does not hide weapons or bombs in her bag,
she does not belong to a secret organization... She comes from the world of
law, from United Nations institutions, from a neutral bureaucracy... All she
did was write an official report on what happened in Gaza...
She wrote what she saw: blood, rubble, a crime in its own right... She
wrote that what happened there was not a security operation, nor self-defence,
but genocide... She did her job in the language of reports, without slogans,
without rallying cries, without even putting a red half-watermelon in the
margin... Francesca Albanese shook up the world order because she didn’t lie...
She did not violate diplomatic rules... She simply applied the law...
➤Sign the petition
Nobel
Peace Prize for Francesca Albanese and the doctors of Gaza
