Your tax Francs at work: Foreign Ministry calls on Swiss government, city of Zurich to withdraw support from Breaking the Silence exhibition
Israel's Foreign Ministry is urging the government of Switzerland and the City of Zurich to
withdraw support from an exhibition being put on by
Breaking the Silence, a
European-funded Israeli NGO that has made
false accusations against the IDF in the past. The withdrawal of support would apparently lead to the exhibition not taking place. This is from the first link.
A senior official in the Foreign
Ministry in Jerusalem said Israel's ambassador to Switzerland, Yigal
Caspi, called the head of the Middle East and North Africa Division in
Switzerland's Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday to issue a formal
complaint, and request his government quit funding the NGO's
exhibition.
The Israeli
official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the
matter, noted that Caspi "vigorously protested" Swiss support for the
exhibition, which, he emphasized in his conversation with the Swiss
official," serves to slander Israel." As such, he said, the Israeli
government is concerned by the fact that Switzerland is financing it.
The exhibition, which is due to open in June in
Zurich, would include photos and testimonies of Israel Defense Forces
soldiers alleging human rights violations in the West Bank.
Two weeks ago, the Israeli news website NRG reported
that Switzerland's Foreign Ministry contributed 15,000 Swiss francs
($16,100) to support the exhibition, and that the Zurich municipality
contributed an additional 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,700).
If the formal complaint doesn't work (and it probably won't), maybe Hotovely should instruct the ambassador to show up at the exhibition. That's
worked pretty well in the past.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Breaking the Silence, European anti-Semitism, human rights, Palestinian terrorism, Swiss anti-Semitism, Switzerland, Tzipi Hotovely, Zurich
Same old, same old
Those who complain about how Swiss neutrality means ignoring sanctions on Iran fail to understand two things: Nothing excites a Swiss government official like the sight of a Nazi. And Swiss neutrality is meant to advance one thing and one thing only:
Swiss wealth.
With a new round of EU and US Iran sanctions to be implemented on July 1, there is growing frustration from the American side that the Swiss have failed to join the Western coalition trying to stymie Iran’s nuclear work.
“We expressed our disappointment. We would like them to do it [follow the EU on Iran sanctions],” US Ambassador Donald Beyer told a news conference in Geneva in earlier this month.
In an email to The Jerusalem Post on Saturday, Josh Block, a senior fellow at the Washington- based Progressive Policy Institute and a former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, wrote, “It is incomprehensible that the Swiss government would seek to undermine global pressure on Iran that is designed to blunt Tehran’s dangerous nuclear ambitions. A respectable member of the international community would not allow its banking system to help Iran evade sanctions, yet it appears the Swiss government is shamefully doing exactly that.
“It begs the question, whose side are they on, Tehran or the West?” Block asked.
It should be obvious which side they're on: Their own. But then, isn't the same true of Obama?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Swiss anti-Semitism
Time for the Jews to boycott Switzerland
A court in Bern, Switzerland has overruled a decision by Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to refuse to put
anti-Israel posters in the main train station in Zurich.
In 2009, members of the Palestine Solidarity Action group hung posters with the words “Israel established with violence on Palestinian land. The injustice demands resistance” in the main transportation hub. Additional posters contained the message: “61 years Israel, 61 years of injustice.”
The posters remained on display for three days, however after SBB management became aware of their content, it had them removed.
According to the Bern court decision, the SBB ban on the posters violates the free-speech rights of the pro-Palestinian group.
The SBB argued that it maintains a policy prohibiting advertisements and messages addressing “explosive foreign policy themes.”
While the posters could be construed to call for violence against the Jewish state – and a rejection of the existence of Israel – the Bern court stated there is no indication for a call to violence.
There's no indicatino of a call to violence - until it just 'naturally' happens. What could go wrong?
Labels: Swiss anti-Semitism, Swiss Federal Railways
Rabbi attacked in Switzerland
The assistant rabbi of a synagogue in Lausanne, Switzerland was attacked by three '
youths' last Wednesday night as he was leaving his synagogue. Two of the 'youths' were caught after passersby stopped the attack, and the rabbi is pressing charges against them.
CICAD called the incident the "worst attack of anti-semitism in Switzerland in recent years." This is surprising, in that just two years ago, CICAD reported on a “sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts [in Switzerland],” and lamented the "unresponsive" Swiss authorities. There were with 38 attacks in 2007 and 96 in 2008; statistics on attacks since then are unavailable.
A poll conducted in Switzerland in 2007 showed that 41% of respondents thought that Jews have too much power in the business world, 40% believed that Jews have too much power in international financial markets, and 45% felt that Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust. Seventeen percent of the Swiss respondents agreed that the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus.
You might recall that Swiss President
Hans Rudolf Merz met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the Durban II conference in Geneva two years ago. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has also been seen
cackling with Ahmadinejad. Anyone else think those two factoids might be connected to the country's treatment of its Jews?
Labels: Durban II Conference, Hans Rudolf Merz, Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss anti-Semitism
