The World Bank is facing calls to fire an Israel-bashing top economist who sued President Trump over US sanctions that were slapped on his wife, a UN human rights lawyer, for alleged antisemitism and support of terrorism, The Post has learned.
Two US officials want the World Bank to boot Massimiliano Cali, who works in the bank’s Middle East and North Africa unit, after he filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday on behalf of his wife Francesca Albanese — the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories whose inflammatory statements drew sanctions last year.
Cali himself has made anti-Israel comments that have caused concern inside the bank and may violate its code of conduct on social media use, according to sources inside the international lender.
The Italian, who declined to comment, made waves internally for a string of now-deleted posts in which he labeled Israel, a World Bank member, as a “colonial and apartheid project” that is “perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.”
“If the Bank is truly committed to enforcing its own guidelines for employee conduct, this staffer seems to be in willful, blatant violation of those rules. It is obvious that they should be dismissed,” a US official told The Post.
“It seems clear to me that they violated the bank’s policy by creating ‘real or perceived conflicts of interest,’ not just through their antisemitic social media postings but also by suing the President of the United States,” the person briefed on the matter added.
Cali, who has a cushy role at the World Bank — where “senior economists” can earn up to $353,800 a year — once argued that Europe should have taken “a vastly larger share” of refugees from the Middle East.
A former Palestinian Authority advisor, he also once made the bizarre suggestion in a World Bank paper that Israel dismantle West Bank security checkpoints as a means to boost economic growth.
“It is totally pathetic that an avowed globalist institution like the World Bank, which preaches ‘tolerance’, is sheltering avowed anti-Semites, who defend their hatred of Jews by suing the United States,” said another US official who called on the World Bank to kick out Cali.
Albanese — who sparked a furor after accusing Israel of genocide — came under US sanctions in July, with officials alleging she improperly coordinated with the International Criminal Court and engaged in political and economic warfare against the US and Israel.
She suggested to the Associated Press that the sanctions were a political move, saying they were personally harmful, too.
Cali claims in the lawsuit that the US government violated the couple’s First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights by freezing his wife’s assets in an attempt to stifle their criticism of Israel.
The State Department defended the sanctions, which were issued last July, as “legal and appropriate.”
A spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit as “baseless lawfare” and called Albanese “a disgrace.”
According to leaked World Bank guidelines obtained by The Post, employees “are perceived as representing the World Bank Group, even when expressing views in a personal capacity.”
The documents remind staff that they are international civil servants who have “a special responsibility to avoid situations and activities that may reflect adversely” on the bank.
A spokesperson for the World Bank did not respond to The Post’s questions about whether Cali had broken those internal guidelines.
Because UN rules bar Albanese from suing, Cali filed the suit on his family’s behalf, naming Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as defendants.
He griped that a US travel ban prevents the couple from accessing their swanky Washington, DC, condo that official property records show as being located in the city’s trendy Adams Morgan neighborhood.
Cali’s World Bank profile on its internal staff directory, obtained by The Post, shows that he is currently based in Tunisia.
“Sanctions, used appropriately, are a powerful tool to disrupt and undermine the activities of terrorists, criminals and authoritarian regimes,” Cali wrote in the lawsuit. “Sanctions are abused, however, when they seek to silence disfavored points of view and to violate the constitutional rights of people the government does not like.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon voiced support of the White House’s actions, calling Albanese “Hamas’ de facto UN spokesperson.”
“Anyone who continues to abuse their platform to defend terrorism and align with designated terrorist groups should rightly be sanctioned,” Danon told The Post, branding the new lawsuit “shameful.”
Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 authorizing sanctions against individuals assisting the International Criminal Court in investigating or prosecuting US personnel or allies.
Rubio added Albanese to Uncle Sam’s sanctions list last summer after her highly controversial report, which included the allegations that US asset managers BlackRock and Vanguard were profiting from the Israel-Hamas war.
“Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West,” Rubio said July 9.
The Treasury Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The World Bank staffer’s move to sue the most senior members of the current administration could heap yet further scrutiny on the development lender.
It has come under fire in recent months for its alleged mismanagement of so-called climate change projects and its lavish taste for executive travel, as exclusively reported by The Post.
The World Bank’s jet-setting bureaucrats enjoy first-class flights – and sometimes even private aircraft for the body’s top brass – when they head abroad to lecture developing countries on raising living standards.
Last year, Bessent slammed the World Bank and IMF for what he branded “mission creep” as they focused increasingly on woke causes that strayed from their original mission.
The initial goal of the World Bank, set up in 1944, was to provide loans to countries rebuilding after World War II.
The United States is the only government from the 189 World Bank countries with the power to veto any changes regarding how it is run because it is the global body’s main founding member and its largest shareholder.
The bank’s employees rake in eye-watering tax-free six-figure salaries, with the biggest earners able to pocket as much as $526,400 a year without handing over a dime to the Internal Revenue Service.
