Swiss blasted for anti-Israel UN vote

Canada opposed the anti-Israel UN vote while Switzerland supported it
Haviv Retting in the TJP reports:

"Switzerland has "joined forces with countries that have little regard for human rights" in its vote in support of a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Thursday condemnding Israel over the escalating violence in Gaza, according to the American Jewish Committee.

In a letter to Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey on Sunday, the AJC blasted the move as "detrimental" to "efforts to rectify the situation in the Human Rights Council, and even more importantly, to promote peace in the Middle East."

"Most appallingly, the resolution fails to even mention the terror attack perpetrated last week by a Palestinian gunman against a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, in which eight students were murdered, although this heinous crime was committed on the same day that the Human Rights Council adopted its resolution," reads the letter, signed by AJC's director David Harris and president Richard Sideman.

The resolution condemning the situation in Gaza was adopted by a vote of 33 to 1, with 16 abstentions. Canada was the only state to vote against the resolution, which made no mention of terrorism or Hamas. All Western states abstained on the vote except Switzerland.

According to the AJC, "by some accounts, the Swiss delegation actively lobbied the EU and other countries to support the Arab-sponsored draft in exchange for minor amendments."

"The idea that reasonable countries rooted in democratic values can't distinguish between the arsonist and the fireman, the terrorist and the peace-seeker, despotic Hamas and democratic Israel is dismaying," Harris told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Israel was having a difficult time explaining its position in Europe because "the Europeans are so far removed in recent years from immediate conflict situations or threats to their borders," Harris added. "In the Middle East, either you beat the bully or you get eaten by the bully. Maybe if Switzerland had Hamas on its borders, it would have a different perspective.""

Excerpt from AJC's letter to the Swiss Foreign Minister:
"In our various meetings with you over the past two years, we have shared with you our concerns regarding the situation in the Human Rights Council, which has totally betrayed the mandate given to it by the UN General Assembly in 2006. The Council, we have told you, has been derailed by countries that have little regard for human rights, and whose only agenda, it seems, is to single out and censure Israel. We deeply regret that last Thursday your Government saw fit to join forces with such countries, to the detriment of efforts to rectify the situation in the Human Rights Council, and even more importantly, to promote peace in the Middle East."