New Delhi: Expressing solidarity with UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has been sanctioned by the US government, a group of prominent economists has praised her work for shedding light on the “political economy of Israel’s occupation and genocide” and urged the UN to ignore demands to remove Albanese from her post.

“In a few years, almost everyone will claim they opposed this genocide. But it is now that people of good conscience need to take a stand. As economists we stand, today, with Francesca Albanese,” said the economists – among whom are Thomas Piketty, Yanis Varoufakis and Jayati Ghosh – in an open letter.

Serving as special rapporteur or an independent expert on the occupied Palestinian territories reporting to the UN Human Rights Council, Albanese was sanctioned yesterday by Washington on grounds of engaging in the International Criminal Court (ICC)'s efforts to investigate, arrest or prosecute “nationals of the United States or Israel” without the consent of either country.

Earlier this week, Albanese publicly criticised Italy, France and Greece for allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the ICC for alleged war crimes in Gaza, to use their airspace as he was en route to the US.

Recently she authored a report accusing international corporations, including US-based tech giants Google, Microsoft and Palantir, of enabling or profiting from Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

The economists in their open letter lauded Albanese's report for being a “major contribution to understanding the political economy of Israel’s Apartheid state, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and, now, their genocide”.

Its three key findings, as endorsed by the economists, are that “occupation and genocide are highly lucrative for conglomerates”, that the Palestinian territories have “functioned as Big Tech's ideal laboratory and testing ground”, and that top American and European universities have become “financially dependent on remaining wedded to Israel's Apartheid and permanent occupation/conflict political economy”.

Their letter is reproduced in full below.

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ECONOMISTS IN PRAISE OF SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FRANCESCA ALBANESE’S REPORT TO THE UNITED NATIONS: ‘FROM ECONOMY OF OCCUPATION TO ECONOMY OF GENOCIDE’

History teaches us that economic interests have been key drivers and enablers of colonial enterprises and often of the genocides they perpetrated. The corporate sector has been intrinsic to colonialism since its inception, with corporations historically contributing to the violence against, the exploitation, and ultimately the dispossession, of Indigenous people and lands, a mode of domination known as racial colonial capitalism. Israel’s colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories is no exception.

The recent report by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, constitutes a major contribution to understanding the political economy of Israel’s Apartheid state, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and, now, their genocide. As such, we believe, it must be studied and debated widely and freely.

In view of the virulently hostile and indeed intimidating letter from the US government to the UN Secretary General demanding the dismissal of Ms Albanese and the quashing of her excellent report, we felt the need to express our strong support for Ms Albanese and to encourage the UN to dismiss the shrill demands of the US and Israeli governments.

Following a well-trodden path of genocide denial and of bullying anyone who challenges the right of the colonial power to dispossess Indigenous peoples, the US and Israeli governments, with most European governments too timid to take a stance, demand that the international community turn a blind eye to the ongoing genocide and, in particular, to the key role that multinational and national corporations are playing in maintaining the Apartheid regime and enabling the subsequent genocide. 

As economists we feel the duty to highlight three key findings that Ms Albanese’s report unveils with clarity and precision.

First, occupation and genocide are highly lucrative for conglomerates. These include not only the usual arms and ‘defence’ big businesses (e.g., Lockheed-Martin, the primary maker of the F35s, ELBIT, Israel’s own arms manufacturer, and Palantir, the software company whose algorithms have most likely been crucial in the selection of ‘targets’ across Gaza) but also household brand names (e.g., Caterpillar, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Allianz, Chevron, BP, Petrobas, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S). As Israel’s defence budget doubled, with the active support of the US government, it crowded in large ‘investments’ into Israel’s killing machine across this international network of complicit conglomerates in which thousands of Israeli companies are intertwined with US, European, Korean and even a Brazilian mega-corporation. This explains why Israeli equities rose by 161% at a time of falling demand, production and consumer confidence.

The second finding in Ms Albanese’s report that deserves extensive study is that the Palestinian territories Israel occupies have functioned as Big Tech’s ideal laboratory and testing ground – a function that the transition from occupation to genocide has only heightened. No country, for instance, has given as much access to a population’s biometric data as Israel has given to IBM. Since 7th October 2023, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Palantir have been expanding their cloud capital services at a breathtaking pace. Face recognition software, target selection algorithms and automated execution systems are being tested in real time, at will, and with fewer ethical constraints than in the case of experiments on laboratory rats. Big Tech could not be happier!

The third key finding is that top US and European universities are financially dependent on remaining wedded to Israel’s Apartheid and permanent occupation/conflict political economy. Many top US and EU institutions will face serious financial difficulties if they were to stop backing Israel’s genocide. Ms Albanese’s report must be commended for drawing this sordid dependency of stellar Western universities and research institutions (including the Technical University of Munich, MIT Labs, the University of Edinburgh among others). The peoples of Europe and America have a right to know that some of their most cherished academic institutions are financially reliant on helping Israel reproduce its political economy of occupation and genocide. 

In a few years, almost everyone will claim they opposed this genocide. But it is now that people of good conscience need to take a stand. As economists we stand, today, with Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur under attack by the US and Israeli governments because her recent report throws indescribably important light on the political economy of Israel’s occupation and genocide.

Yanis Varoufakis

Thomas Piketty

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Michael Hudson

Guy Standing

Jayati Ghosh

Giuseppe Mastruzzo

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Robert H. Wade

Christopher Cramer

Nidhi Srinivas

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Charles Abugre

Prabhat Patnaik

Branko Milanovic

Adam Tooze

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