WHEN THE WORLD SLEEPS

“A blemish on humanity.”

Albanese, an Italian lawyer who serves as the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, opens with an address to that body’s representatives, asking plaintively, “Is it possible that after forty-two thousand people have been killed, you cannot empathize with the Palestinians?” That speech is from October 2024, and of course the number is far higher now, but Albanese’s point remains: namely, that “now the task at hand is to stop the genocide and find a way forward.” She writes, peace is “possible,” but only if both sides commit to it. What is more, she notes, that commitment extends to other nations of the world, including President Donald Trump’s U.S., which—having banned Albanese from entry—“has repeatedly intimidated anyone who dares to touch Israel,” no matter what international crimes Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel commits. Albanese enumerates such “atrocious crimes”: the sundering of humanitarian law and the suppression of the rights of sovereign citizens of another state, the imposition of martial law, the seizure of private property for illegal settlements, and the repeated violation of a fundamental U.N. tenet, “that it is forbidden to acquire territory by force.” Assisting Albanese in driving these points home is a chorus of Palestinian voices, most affectingly those of children, one of whom says, with wisdom beyond years, “Being afraid of death doesn’t stop you from dying; it prevents you from living.” Emphasizing that “I am not here to justify any crimes that the Palestinians may have committed against Israeli civilians in the long course of their oppression,” Albanese suggests a different kind of resistance on the part of allies to punish Israel economically by means of divestitures and other instruments, while pursuing humanitarian relief and legal remedies.

A trenchant call for justice in the face of “the ferocity suffered by the Palestinian population.”