To write an entire article relating to the topic of the current war between Israel and Hamas without mentioning even once why it began and without referring to the fifty hostages still being held twenty-one months later by the terrorist organization that started that conflict must take some doing.
The BBC’s Geneva correspondent nevertheless managed to do exactly that in a report published on the BBC News website on July 3rd under the headline “UN expert calls for companies to stop doing business with Israel.”
Imogen Foulkes continues to portray the controversial United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories as an “expert” in the body of her report, without defining her supposed “expertise”:
A United Nations expert has called on dozens of multinational companies to stop doing business with Israel, warning them they risk being complicit in war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. […]
UN experts, or special rapporteurs, are independent of the UN, but appointed by it to advise on human rights matters.
Moreover, she goes on to portray her protagonist as having legal qualifications:
Ms Albanese is an international lawyer from Italy, and she is known for her bluntness; in previous reports she has suggested that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
On Thursday she repeated that claim, accusing Israel of “committing one of the cruellest genocides in modern history”. […]
It’s unlikely the US administration will pay much more attention to the words of one international lawyer.
Apparently Imogen Foulkes does not read the Italian edition of Vanity Fair and is hence unaware of the fact that in late May, Francesca Albanese herself stated in an interview with that magazine that she did not pass a legal bar examination and has not been licensed to practice law.