One might reasonably expect that a United Nations report—carrying the solemn weight of international authority—would exhibit some vestige of legal clarity, factual rigour, or at the very least, rhetorical restraint. But Francesca Albanese’s latest foray into fantasy, “From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide,” is a production of quite a different order. Less a legal document than a theatrical monologue, it is replete with purple prose, ideological flourishes, and the sort of tortured logic that might, in less delicate company, be described as nonsense.

To call Israel’s conduct “genocide” is not merely wrong—it is a calumny. Genocide, for those who care to know, is not an umbrella term for conflict. It is the deliberate, methodical attempt to annihilate a people. It involves intent—measurable, demonstrable, prosecutable intent. Israel’s military operations—however controversial, however tragic their collateral—do not spring from a policy of extermination.

They are, rather, the consequence of a deeply entrenched and asymmetrical war with a group that began its assault with a pogrom and continues to embed itself within civilian populations with perverse delight.

If genocide is what Albanese claims it to be, then one must ask: where are the incinerators? The mass graves? The ethnic screening? Where is the infrastructure of obliteration?

Israel, unlike genocidal regimes of the past, issues warnings in Arabic before strikes, coordinates humanitarian aid, pauses military operations to facilitate evacuations, and pleads—yes, pleads—with civilians to leave combat zones.

Either it is the most bizarrely incompetent genocide ever attempted or, more accurately, it is not a genocide at all.

But Albanese is not content with mislabeling. She proceeds to accuse the entire Israeli economy—along with Western tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft—of being complicit in this fantasy crime. This, we are told, is the “economy of genocide.”

It is, frankly, a phrase so irresponsible, so polemical, and so empty of actual legal substance, that it ought to be studied not in international law faculties, but in creative writing courses.

What she advances, in effect, is a blood libel wearing the trappings of jurisprudence. Let us pause here to appreciate the gravity of this rhetorical shift. Once you’ve declared a nation’s economy genocidal, what diplomacy is left?

What negotiations are permissible with genocidaires? What moral obligation remains to trade, cooperate, or even converse? By branding a liberal democracy with such a term, Albanese is not engaging in advocacy—she is inciting international abandonment.

Worse still, her framing rewrites history. It collapses the particular horrors of the Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Cambodia into a political cudgel, wielded carelessly against the one Jewish state.

Her grotesque inversions of truth collapse the moral lexicon upon which the post-war order was built. If everything is genocide, then nothing is.

And here lies the root of the danger. The language of international law is precious because it is specific. When abused for political ends, it ceases to restrain atrocity and begins to license it.

It becomes, not a shield for the vulnerable, but a sword for the cynical. So what, then, must a counter-argument look like? It must begin where Albanese does not: with a rigorous definition of terms. Genocide is not a feeling.

It is a legal threshold, and that threshold has not been met—not even remotely. The counter-argument must dismantle her pseudo-economics, show the absence of genocidal intent, demonstrate the IDF’s compliance with international humanitarian law, and expose the grotesque asymmetry in how the UN applies its moral outrage.

It must also highlight something Albanese conveniently omits: Hamas. The regime that started this war with mass civilian slaughter, rape, and the kidnapping of children.

The regime that hides in hospitals, stores rockets in mosques, and boasts—yes, boasts—of its civilian “martyrs.” One wonders if Ms Albanese has read the Hamas Charter, or watched the videos of the October 7 atrocities. One suspects she has, and has decided to blink politely.

Indeed, the term “genocide” does not appear in her condemnation of Hamas. Not once. Not even in passing. It is a curious omission for someone allegedly concerned with crimes against humanity. But it is not surprising.

For Ms Albanese, the death of Jews—whether as victims of terrorism or soldiers in defence of their state—is regrettable only insofar as it complicates her narrative.

Let us be clear. This is not about denying Palestinian suffering. It is about the accuracy of language, the fairness of process, and the integrity of international institutions. Ms Albanese’s report is not simply wrong—it is corrosive.

It hollows out our shared vocabulary for atrocity, it undermines future prosecutions, and it emboldens those who would replace legal reasoning with slogans and slurs.

And that is why it must be confronted—not with slogans of our own, but with facts, with principle, and with an insistence on standards. Because if the United Nations cannot distinguish between war and genocide, between a democracy under fire and a death cult in power, then we must question not just its conclusions, but its competence.

Enough is enough.