Belgian UN hunger expert investigates Canada

"De Schutter does not want you to know that Havana’s Communist government created his post, nor that the co-sponsors included China, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe. [...] "De Schutter has repeatedly made one-sided attacks on Israel lacking any nexus to his mandate. Last July, he issued a pre-emptive attack against his own boss, in a press release titled “UN Special Rapporteur opposes Ban Ki-Moon’s conclusions on flotilla.” De Schutter was outraged that a panel appointed by the UN chief found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, to stop Hamas importing Iranian missiles, was actually legal — contradicting what De Schutter’s human rights council had said the year before."

Source: Hillel Neuer: As much of the world starves, a UN hunger expert investigates Canada, National Post (May 4, 2012)

“There is no food and no clean water, nothing,” Mahmoud, a 12-year-old boy from Homs, Syria, told Reuters Thursday. “There is no shop open and we only have one meal a day. How can we live like that and survive?”  According to the World Food Program, half a million people don’t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.  This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” is not going to Syria.  [He is a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.  In 2006 he wrote this report for a Belgian human rights NGO: Failing the Palestinian State : The human rights impact of the economic strangulation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory ]  Instead, the UN’s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada.

That’s right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada—a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.

A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter’s mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of “failing Canadians … and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all.” The group calls instead for a “People’s Food Policy.”

I asked De Schutter if his time wouldn’t better be spent on calling attention to countries that actually have starving people.  “Globally, 1.3 billion people are overweight or obese,” he responded via his spokesperson, “and this causes a range of diseases such as certain types of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases or (especially) type-2 diabetes that are a huge burden.”  In other words, the hunger expert is not even that interested in hunger, but the opposite. Sure, we should all eat less fries, but do Canadians need a costly UN inquiry to tell us that?

Photo of Swiss teacher with nasi goreng pack in front of the Auschwitz gate

On a visit organised by a Jewish association to the Auschwitz extermination camp, Bernard Junod, a Swiss teacher had his photo taken holding a pack of nasi goreng and posted it on Internet.  And what a happy and smiling face he has.

On his Smartvote profile he indicated that his favourite book is «Mein Kampf» and that his favourite composer is Richard Wagner, much loved by the Nazis and Adolf himself. As to «Mein Kampf», Bernard Junod confirmed that he likes the book because the author came from nowhere and climbed to the top.

It is not uncommon in Europe for people to make fun of the Jews and of the Holocaust.

Source: 20 minutes. The title of the article is pretty unfortunate, it reads that a teacher "shocks the Jews". One would have thought that he has shocked more people than just the Jews...

Switzerland: again Muslims use 'Jewish-star' in anti-Islamophobia protest

A reader (RR) sent this: "In fact, the yellow star used by the Nazis as a badge of shame against the Jews was first introduced by a caliph in Baghdad in the 9th century, and spread to the West in medieval times." (Bernard Lewis - The Jews of Islam - Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 25-26)

It is not the first time: Swiss Muslims denounce islamophobia with infamous yellow badge (August 2011)

And now this two months later:

Source: Islam in Europe - Via Tages-Anzeiger (German):

Several hundred Muslims gathered from across Switzerland Saturday for a protest against Islamophobia. The 'Day against Islamophobia and racism' was organized by the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS). 

Swiss Muslims denounce islamophobia with infamous yellow badge

Recently, the Swiss were invited to enjoy a BBQ and a beer while killing Jews. Now this.

A Muslim radical group has launched a poster campaign (above) to denounce rampant islamophobia is Switzerland.

The campaign is also approved by moderate Muslims.  "It is true that as Muslims we feel we have become the new scapegoats", says Lucia Dahlab, vice-President of the Union of Muslim Organizations in Geneva.

"A parallel with the discrimination suffered by Jews in the 1930s is made here and I do not say otherwise. Now playing with a symbol like the yellow star is inevitably difficult. But is it not a means to make people think? I think we have entered an era where communication campaigns focus on shocking people. As the UDC campaigns show. So yes, I would campaign with a more nuanced approach. But do we still have a choice?"

A record 220 Swiss NGOs support the Gaza flotilla

Swiss NGO, the Red Cross, hasn't been incapable, in five long years, of doing anything about Gilad Shalit - not event to obtain evidence that he is still alive, but 220 Swiss NGOs are busy supporting the anti-Israel flotilla.

"In Switzerland, more than 200 NGOs are supporting the flotilla. It is being coordinated by a Geneva-based group called Droit pour Tous (Right for All), which in March 2011 sponsored ‘The First International Conference on the Rights of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees.” Three members of the Swiss National Council, the lower house of the Swiss parliament, want to sail with the flotilla.

If Gaza has become an obsession for many ordinary Europeans, so too for Europe’s political class, which rarely misses an opportunity to rebuke Israel for a blockade the latter says is necessary to prevent weapons for reaching Iran-backed Hamas militants."

Source: Pajamas Media (Europeans Are Major Force Behind Second Gaza Flotilla, by Soeren Kern, Senior Analyst for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group.)

Switzerland: enjoy a BBQ and a beer while killing Jews

Anti-Semitic Poster Shocks Geneva Jews - A poster showing a Jewish figure shot by an arrow is spurring outrage in Geneva.

The ad for a Swiss national day party planned for Aug. 1 by the extremist group GNC shows a doll wearing a skullcap and an Israeli flag with an arrow in its forehead, evoking the legend of William Tell, with the slogan, “Save Switzerland: Shoot Straight!” in French. "This is a call for the murder of Jews," Jonah Gurfinkel said.

A GNC (Genève Non Conforme) member said the ad was directed against the Israeli government, not Jews.  Jewish groups say they are considering a lawsuit.
____________________________________________
Figure 1 - not antisemitic according the Swiss group:

Figure 2 - after charges of antisemitism, the group made two alterations - it is not anti-Jew, it's anti-Israel:

The poster for the party scheduled for August 1, the national day, promises "music, roasted [!] food, beer and much more": 

The poster as it features now on the association blog.

Switzerland: Court sides with pro-Palestinian group

More of the same tedious anti-Israel bashing, but a amazing source of enjoyment and preoccupation for Europeans.

Source: YNet (Swiss court: Ban on anti-Israel signs violates free speech, by Daniel Bettini)

Swiss train service is ordered to allow signs that claim 'Israel was established with violence on Palestinian land'.
A Swiss court has ordered the state's national train service, the SBB, to allow a pro-Palestinian group to hang anti-Israeli posters in Zurich's central train station, the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported on Tuesday.

Members of the Palestine Solidarity Action first attempted to hang controversial posters in several locations within the station in 2009, but were ordered by the station's management to take them down after three days.

The posters appeared to argue against Israel's right to exist. "Sixty-one years of Israel, 61 years of injustice," the sign read.  "A country without a people did not exist in the Middle East for the people without a country," it claimed. "Israel was established with violence on Palestinian land. The injustice demands resistance!"

Jimmy Carter: Hamas wants an end to the violence, but not Israel

- Jimmy Carter reiterates apartheid accusations against Israel ... and much more

Swiss newspaper Le Temps has more on former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's views on Hamas and Israel.  Translation of an excerpt :

"What do you say to Hamas leaders ? Do you trust Khaled Meshaal [a Hamas leader who is a refugee in Damascus] who is considered as a terrorist in your country?

Let's be reminded that he was not considered a terrorist until he won the elections in 2006. The United States insisted that elections be held, I was there.

When I meet with Hamas officials, they say clearly that they will accept any peace treaty negotiated between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas and which is to be approved by the Palestinian people through a referendum. Such a referendum is both a Hamas and a Fatah requirement. They also told us that they would not be opposed to an agreement based on the Arab Peace Initiative. I have been meeting Hamas leaders for many years. They have always stated that they would accept a truce [Carter confuses truce and peace] in the West Bank and in Gaza if Israel did the same. Israel has rejected this proposal because it does not want a truce in the West Bank. Hamas wants an end to the violence."

- Carter offers Jewish community ‘Al Het’
- Jimmy Carter to U.S. Jews: Forgive me for stigmatizing Israel
- Carter: Grandson’s race not reason enough to apologize ...

Jimmy Carter reiterates apartheid accusations against Israel ... and much more

"I'm not saying that Israel is not a democracy, but it is not a democracy like ours." (Subtle distinction)

"Gaza is like a cage in which 1.5 million Palestinians live, 75% of which are refugees."

"If you look up an English dictionary, apartheid means the domination of one people by another and the formal separation of these two peoples [!]. This is what is already happening in the West Bank. Israel is clearly the dominant power and requires by law the total separation between Jewish settlers and Palestinians. That's why I use the word apartheid."

"When I meet with Hamas leaders, they clearly state that they will accept any peace treaty negotiated between Abbas and Israel that is approved by referendum by the Palestinian people."

Jimmy Carter was in Switzerland where he gave an interview to two newspapers Le Temps (Switzerland) and Le Soir (Belgium).  He reiterated his vicious accusations against Israel - Israel has apartheid policies and is not a democracy - while whitewashing Hamas.  His allegations are in stark contrast with the apologies he offered to the U.S. Jewish community in 2009 : Carter offers Jewish community ‘Al Het’, Jimmy Carter to U.S. Jews: Forgive me for stigmatizing Israel and Carter: Grandson’s race not reason enough to apologize ... 

Unauthorized translation of excerpts of Jimmy Carter's interview:

Jimmy Carter's "strong views on the Israeli occupation have earned him much sympathy in the Arab world and the contempt of the Israeli governement. Jimmy Carter is back from a trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner delivers his analysis.

How was your last trip?
The Palestinians' situation is as follows: in Israel, they are subject to 35 laws which discriminate specifically non-Jewish citizens, who were denied the right to own land, to marriage, to travel, to have access to medical care and the media. In East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel - the Palestinians are not treated as citizens. The Silwan community, where there are 55,000 Arabs, has no playground and there is no school building. Jerusalem Mayor apologized while explaining that he was planning a tourist and archaeological site there. The Arabs who have lived there for sixty-five years will be forced to leave. In the West Bank, more than 300,000 Israeli settlers have confiscated land and properties off the Palestinians to build their own houses. Finally and even worse, Gaza is like a cage in which 1.5 million Palestinians live, 75% of which are refugees.

Exhibition at Paris Museum of Modern Art: parallel between Nazi camp/Gaza Strip

"Seen from Europe, it is not because the frightening reality of the Nazi concentration camps began on the soil of our continent ["our continent" is Europe where six million Jews were industrially exterminated, of which 1.5 million children], that we can now accept the reality of what has become in 60 years, with the radicalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a genuine Palestinian internment camp at the gates of Israel." (Edouard Carmignac) 

"To journalists outraged by the infamous parallel Nazi camp / Gaza Strip Carmignac Gestion protested without arguing or convincing."
 
Honest Reporting report on Kai Wiedenhöfer: Getty Images Awards Photo Bias
 
Source: Véronique Chemla (« Gaza 2010 » de Kai Wiedenhöfer)

The prestigious museum of Modern Art of Paris is showing an exhibition by German photographer Kai Wiedenhöfer entitled "Gaza 2010".  Kai Wiedenhöfer, a photographer with Lookat Photos in Switzerland, was awarded  the first ever the "Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prize".  The Prize was created in 2009 by the Luxembourg/French fund manager Carmignac Gestion and the first theme was Gaza after the Lead Cast operation.  Vivienne Walt, of Time Magazine, was a member of the jury.  The prize comprises EURO 50,000 for further work on Gaza, an exhibition, a book, published by Steidl Publishers (from the U.K. [1]- making it a truly pan-European enterprise) and a deluxe catalogue The Book of the Destruction Gaza – One Year After the 2009 War offered to journalists at the exhibition opening together with … a 20-page summury of the Goldstone report in French.  And lots of exposure.

French journalist Véronique Chemla has made an harrowing account of the exhibition. 

The head of the Carmignac fund, Edouard Carmignac, explained the reasons behind the choice (unauthorised translation):

"It is unacceptable for the victims of one of the most terrible tragedies of the century to remain virtually forgotten and abandoned by all.

Seen from Europe, it is not because the frightening reality of the Nazi concentration camps began on the soil of our continent, that we can now accept the reality of what has become in 60 years, with the radicalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a genuine Palestinian internment camp at the gates of Israel.

Henri Dunant, ’first Christian Zionist’, honored at international commemoration event in Geneva

"Already in 1866, 30 years before the first Zionist Congress, Dunant [founder of the International Red Cross] had proposed a repopulation of Palestine by Jews. As a personal friend of Theodore Herzl he was one of only a few non-Jews to attend the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. He was once referred to by Herzl as a ’Christian Zionist’, this being the first time the term was ever used. [...] "The values of Henry Dunant were the values of most Christian social reformers for the last 300 years, from William Wilberforce, 100 years before Dunant, to Martin Luther King 100 years after him. These great men of faith and social justice had a deep understanding of the struggles of the Jewish people and supported their right to self-determination," Sandell explained. The event clearly illustrated the fact that while the modern state of Israel currently faces a vicious NGO campaign of delegitimization and dehumanization the social pioneers who founded their movements were mostly warm friends of Israel."

Source: European Coalition for Israel

Geneva, 1 November, 2010 - The remarkable life of International Red Cross founder and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Price, HenryDunant was honored on Saturday at a private ceremony in Geneva in the presence of descendants of the Dunant family and the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Betty E. King. Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry Dunant.

Though most people remember Henry Dunant primarily as the founder of the International Red Cross very few know the man behind the vision.

"Henri Dunant was a man of faith who already at the age of twenty had committed his life to be more effective in Christian charity, heat up lukewarm believers and to convert those who had not met God," European Coalition for Israel Director Tomas Sandell said at the event quoting the Henry Dunant Society.

"This is a side of his life that documentaries seldom talk about but which helps explain his life and vision. Henry Dunant was a Christian activist (he helped found the World Alliance of YMCA in 1855), and a fervent believer in the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland of Palestine. Already in 1866, 30 years before the first Zionist Congress, Dunant had proposed a repopulation of Palestine by Jews. As a personal friend of Theodore Herzl he was one of only a few non-Jews to attend the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. He was once referred to by Herzl as a ’Christian Zionist’, this being the first time the term was ever used.

"Henry Dunant understood already in 1866 what it took others another 80 years to grasp, namely that the Jewish people were entitled to live in their own ancient homeland of Palestine, side by side and in peace with their Arab neighbours. Just imagine how many lives could have been spared if also this life vision would have come to pass during his lifetime," Sandell concluded in his speech.

Int'l Red Cross: How settlements became 'illegal'

"No one spoke of a Palestinian state; there was no "Palestinian people." Many legal experts accepted Israel's right to "occupy" and settle its historic homeland, because the areas had been illegally occupied by invading Arab countries since 1948. One organization, however - the International Committee of the Red Cross - disagreed."

Source: article by Moshe Dann in JPost
The writer, a former assistant professor of history, is a journalist.
moshedan@netvision.net.il

In 1967, under attack, Israel struck back and conquered the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem (the West Bank) from Jordan. Israel had been threatened with a second Holocaust, and few questioned its actions. No one spoke of a Palestinian state; there was no "Palestinian people."

Many legal experts accepted Israel's right to "occupy" and settle its historic homeland, because the areas had been illegally occupied by invading Arab countries since 1948. One organization, however - the International Committee of the Red Cross - disagreed.

Meeting secretly in the early 1970s in Geneva, the ICRC determined that Israel was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Based on the Hague Convention, GC IV was drawn up after World War II to protect innocent civilians and restrict brutal occupations. Unilaterally, the ICRC turned it into a weapon to delegitimize and demonize Israel.

As far as is known, the ICRC did not rely on any legal precedents; it made up "the law." Judge and jury, its decisions lacked the pretense of due process. Since all decisions and protocols of the ICRC in this matter are closed, even the identities of the people involved are secret. And there is no appeal. Without transparency or judicial ethics, ICRC rulings became "international law." Its condemnations of Israel provide the basis for accusing Israel of "illegal occupation" of all territory conquered in 1967.

Although most of the international community, its NGOs and institutions accept the authority of the ICRC and other institutions, such as the International Court of Justice, as sole arbiters of what is "legal," or not, it's strange that some Israeli politicians and jurists cannot defend Israel's legal claim to the territories. And Israel's case is strong.

Adopted in 1945, the UN Charter (Article 80) states: "...nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." This means that the designation of "Palestine" as a "Jewish National Home," incorporated in the British Mandate and established by international agreements adopted by the League of Nations and US Congress, guarantees Israel's sovereign rights in this area. All Jewish settlement, therefore, was and is legal.

Two years later, amid growing civil war, the UN proposed a division of Palestine between Jews and Arabs - changing the terms of the Mandate; the Jews accepted, the Arabs launched a war of extermination.

When Britain ended the Mandate and left, the State of Israel was proclaimed and local mobs who had been attacking Jews for years were joined by five Arab armies. The armistice in 1949 - for Jews, independence, for Arabs, nakba (tragedy) - did not result in a Palestinian state, because the Arabs did not want it. Arab leaders never accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state - most refuse to do so today.

Pressured by Russia and the Arab states, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which spoke of Israel's military withdrawal from some - not all - of these conquered territories in the context of a final peace agreement. The question of sovereignty remained elusive and problematic.

Israel's political echelon and Supreme Court refrained from asserting full sovereignty over the newly acquired areas but, in the absence of any reciprocal gestures, agreed to allow Jews to return to Jerusalem's Old City and Gush Etzion, where a flourishing group of settlements had been wiped out in 1947. Striking a compromise, it allowed the building of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, where the Jewish community had been wiped out in Arab riots of 1929; Jews were permitted to pray at the Cave of Machpela, an ancient building containing the tombs of Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, for the first time in 700 years.

Although free to leave UNRWA refugee camps, with new opportunities and challenges, Palestinians did not call for statehood or peace with Israel. The PLO, which claimed to represent Palestinians, was dedicated to terrorism, not nation-building.

For some, this is not a "legal" issue, but a moral one: Jews should not rule over ("occupy") others. So Israel withdrew unilaterally from nearly all "Palestinian" cities, towns and villages and turned over vast tracts of land to the PA/PLO as part of the Oslo Accords in 1994 and a few years later in the Wye and Hebron agreements.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, it became a bastion of Hamas. "Land for peace" in reality means "land for terrorism." Influenced by these events, incited by Islamists, encouraged by Israeli concessions and seeking to undermine the state, Israeli Arabs identify as "Palestinians," demanding an end to "Jewish occupation" and discrimination, and the destruction of the state itself.

Others contend that "Israel's Jewish and democratic" nature will be threatened if it continues to include large numbers of Arabs who are not loyal and do not identify with the state. But nearly all "Palestinians" live under PA, not Israeli rule. The dispute now, therefore, is over territory, not people.

Predictions of an "Arab demographic time bomb" have not proven realistic or accurate. Moreover, allowing Arab residents full civil and humanitarian rights, without political rights, as exist in most other countries, could be considered in conjunction with resettling Arab "refugees" in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc., dismantling UNRWA camps and ending terrorism and incitement against Israel.

That a second (or third) Arab Palestinian state would be an existential threat to Israel seems obvious. "Land for peace" has failed. Why then promote it?

In Switzerland, Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization

"In Switzerland, Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization." (Swiss foreign ministry)

Israel furious over Hamas leader's trip to Switzerland

The Foreign Ministry is furious over news that Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official based in the Gaza Strip, recently headed a Hamas delegation to Switzerland for talks with Swiss diplomats. A senior Foreign Ministry official said the visit will further destabilize already shaky relations between Jerusalem and Bern, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Switzerland in April for the "Durban 2" United Nations anti-racism conference.

China's news agency broke the story of Zahar's visit nearly two weeks ago.

Officials at the Israeli Embassy in Bern were surprised by the report, since they knew nothing about the June visit. The embassy has requested clarifications from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, but Israeli officials say the responses have not been satisfactory. One Jerusalem officials said it was many days before the Swiss confirmed the Hamas visit to the embassy. Swiss officials told Israel's ambassador in Bern, Ilan Elgar, that the Hamas delegation was invited to Geneva by a nongovernmental research institute. The Foreign Ministry source, however, noted that Swiss diplomats, including the Swiss envoy to the Middle East, met with the delegation during a conference at the institute.

When Elgar requested official clarification regarding the visa issued to the delegation, he was told by the Swiss foreign ministry, "In Switzerland, Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization."

Tensions between Jerusalem and Bern began to build about a year and a half ago, when the Swiss foreign minister went to Iran to sign a major gas purchase contract. In May, in the wake of Ahmadinejad's visit to Geneva and the official working meeting with him held by Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz, Israel recalled Elgar to Jerusalem for consultations in protest.

Source: article Barak Ravid by in Haaretz

- Hamas statements on Israel (2006-2007)
- Nonie Darwish and Tawfik Hamid discuss Hamas at European Parliament
- France halts Hamas broadcasts to Europe
- Nizar Rayyan: Hamas "Human Shield" strategist succumbs to his own stratagem, by Ely Karmon
- Proportionality: international law and practice, Hamas' behavior, Israeli conduct
- EU says Gaza reconstruction won't happen under Hamas rule
- Different values: Israeli soldier and Hamas/Hezbollah 'soldier'

Swiss TV website : "Indian terrorists and Israeli fanatics" at Chabad House in Mumbai

"Indian terrorists and Israeli fanatics" read the title of the press review on the website of the Swiss TV channel reporting on the islamic terrorist attack on Mumbai's Chabad House which left at least six Jews dead. It's truly appalling that journalists find it appropriate to equate cold-blooded murderers with their innocent victims.

Following protests, the offensive item was taken down and now reads: "Terrorism in India".

Source: UPJF

Pro-Israel views get NGO in Iraq defunded by Catholic charity

The Swiss section of Caritas has stopped funding Wadi, a successful German aid organisation operating in Irak, because it is too pro-Israel. Yet another example of double standards by a European NGO hostile to Israel. It is good to see that such prejudice is being exposed and denounced. Pajamas Media has the story.

See position paper on Palestinian refugees on Caritas website (in English). The Awareness Raising in Switzerland section is worth reading.

"(...) According to the account given by Caritas, the termination notice was provoked by a series of blog entries by Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, the managing director of Wadi and the driving force behind the organization. According to Caritas, Osten-Sacken is supposed to have advocated a military strike against Iran in the event that the Iranian regime could not otherwise be prevented from building a nuclear weapon. Osten-Sacken claims, on the contrary, that he precisely warned against a military intervention. What is true, however, is that the Wadi managing director has persistently condemned the rule of the mullahs in Iran and warned that the regime has long been engaged in a "war" against the West that cannot simply be ignored.
.
Osten-Sacken has also criticized the idea of a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and opposed calls for a boycott of Israel. According to Norbert Kieliger, the head of the "international cooperation" division of Caritas Switzerland, Osten-Sacken thereby took positions that are incompatible with continued support from the aid agency. "We reject all forms of violence," he says. "Political partisanship puts our mission at risk."
.
The Swiss division of Caritas likes to present itself as an apolitical organization, which helps refugees, feeds children, and takes a principled stand in support of the needy and disadvantaged. In reality, Osten-Sacken charges in a written response to the termination letter, Caritas is anything but neutral. Vis-à-vis Palestinian groups that deny Israel’s right to exist and justify terrorist attacks, for example, Caritas displays none of the scruples that it has shown toward Wadi. (The exchange of letters is available in German here.)
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Osten-Sacken points, in particular, to the involvement of Caritas in the "Forum on Human Rights in Israel and Palestine," a Swiss umbrella group that also includes Amnesty International, the Protestant aid agency HEKS, and several Swiss-based Palestinian organizations. Officially, the "Forum" pursues strictly humanitarian aims. In reality, however, the aims are eminently political. Thus, a core item on its agenda is the "right of return": namely, of Palestinians whose ancestors were expelled from their homes sixty years ago. In light of demographic developments in the meanwhile, what in theory may appear a just demand would in practice represent the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
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The most important local partner of the Swiss "Forum" is the Palestinian organization Badil, which also receives financing from the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs. Watchdog groups sympathetic to Israel, like the NGO-Monitor, accuse Badil of harboring thinly-veiled extremist tendencies. On their account, Badil has defended suicide bombings and demanded a complete boycott of Israel - a boycott that is supposed to extend even to cultural exchanges. EU states have thus declined to work with Badil.
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Up to now, Caritas has not taken any official position on calls for a boycott of Israel. But in light of the historical precedent represented by the "Don’t Buy from Jews" slogan, this silence is itself a kind of statement. Officially, Caritas - like most NGOs - condemns all forms of violence. But - as in the case of Colombia and the FARC - in practice the NGOs place a democratically-elected Israeli government on the same level as terrorist organizations. And when it is a mater of condemning concrete human rights violations, it is always the western-oriented governments that get pilloried. (...)".

Switzerland not invited to Israel’s 60th anniversary festivities

From the EJP

"Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has expressed disappointment that no one from the Swiss government has been invited to Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.

Switzerland will be represented at the festivities through its ambassador in Tel Aviv, she told the Swiss ‘SonntagsZeitung’ newspaper.

"Personally, I am disappointed that our country was not invited at government level," she said.

Israeli President Shimon Peres has invited heads of state, ministers, scientists, philosophers and artists for a three-day conference to mark the Jewish state's 60th birthday on May 14.

Among those invited are President Bush, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, a country that has no diplomatic ties with Israel, and Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress.

The relationship between Israel and Switzerland has been strained since a recent visit by the Swiss Foreign Minister to Iran to witness the signing of a multibillion-dollar natural gas supply contract between Swiss company EGL and Iran's state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company.

The deal prompted angry reactions from US Jewish groups because Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel.

Earlier this month the New York-based Anti-Defamation League took out full page adverts in Swiss and international newspapers describing Switzerland as "the world's newest financier of terrorism".

Israel had summoned the Swiss ambassador and lodged a complaint over the deal.

Alfred Donath, outgoing president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities said that by signing the gas deal Switzerland sent the wrong message at the wrong time.

But he called the Israeli measure towards Switzerland “exagerated.” Donath told EJP he regrets that "sixty years of friendship between Switzerland and Israel are deleted because of a gas deal." (...)

In March, Switzerland was the only European member of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council to vote in favour of a resolution condemning the Israeli military action in Gaza. The action was prompted by Palestinian groups escalating their rocket attacks against Israeli cities."

Another Tack: No Swiss surprise
Swiss blasted for anti-Israel UN vote

The United Nations and Jean Ziegler

Excerpts from Hillel Neuer's essay, Ziegler’s Follies, in Azure: “On March 26, 2008, to cheers and acclaim, Jean Ziegler was elected by the newly formed United Nations Human Rights Council to serve as one of its expert advisers. It was hardly an unexpected development. Switzerland had announced his nomination in December 2007, beginning an unprecedented lobbying campaign by the Swiss government on behalf of its nominee, featuring, among other things, a glossy booklet sent to capitals around the world documenting his “unwavering commitment to,” “excellent knowledge of,” and “unstinting support for” human rights. (…) Besides being one of Europe’s most successful celebrity activists, Ziegler is also one of the continent’s most industrious anti-American and anti-Israel ideologues as well as a prominent apologist for a rogues’ gallery of Third World dictators, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. During Ziegler’s tenure as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, the cause of world hunger consistently took a backseat to the promotion of his anti-Western ideology. (…) Ziegler has also helped to promote and protect the careers of several European intellectuals with questionable if not disturbing reputations. In April 1996, for instance, he came to the defense of Roger Garaudy, a former French Stalinist and convert to Islam whose book The Founding Myths of Modern Israel denies the Holocaust. In response to the public controversy provoked by the book, Ziegler wrote a letter of support to Garaudy, which the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (codoh) - a group dedicated to the promotion of Holocaust denial - published in full on its website: “I am outraged at the legal case they are making against you.... All your work as a writer and philosopher attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions. It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time.... It is for all these reasons that I express here my solidarity and my admiring friendship.” (…) There are several reasons Ziegler’s official conduct remains largely unchallenged: First, there is the role that major NGOs, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, play at the UN. Few people outside the institution realize just how influential NGOs have become within the UN’s Byzantine human rights system. In fact, they wield immense power: They initiate the creation of new mandates, nominate the mandate-holders, and supply much of the data then cited by the newly appointed experts, who are unsalaried and understaffed. In short, the legitimacy of every UN human rights official lies in their hands. Among the major NGOs, some have openly endorsed Ziegler, while others have been complicit through silence. Many of them have refused to protest Ziegler’s support for such tyrannical regimes as those of Castro and Qaddafi even after being explicitly asked to do so by dissident groups. Instead of using their enormous influence to counteract Ziegler’s questionable conduct, the leading NGOs have enabled it. Second, there is the peculiar culture of the UN itself. Among European officials, more than a few may secretly admire Ziegler’s forthright anti-Americanism and his rhetorical broadsides against Israel. Moreover, in what may be a strategic move on his part, Ziegler has largely refrained from criticizing specific European governments at the UN, thereby disarming potential opposition to his anti-American statements. Most important, however, is the fact that UN diplomats prefer a certain measure of vice over bad publicity for the world body as a whole, leading them to indulge even the most problematic conduct by their peers. To be a UN diplomat is to be a member of an exclusive club that has the potential to reward loyalty with lucrative jobs and benefits from an array of interconnected foundations and organizations. This practically requires that members “go along to get along” - or face the loss of their professional future. For all these reasons, UN officials such as High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, despite repeatedly being asked to speak out against Ziegler’s politicization of his mandate, have - with one exception in 2005 - chosen to remain silent. Whatever Jean Ziegler may say or do, he is still one of their own. It is this same climate of impunity that has led to such serious abuses of UN power as the Oil for Food scandal and the cycle of sexual abuse perpetrated by UN peacekeepers in Africa and Haiti. It is therefore highly unlikely that the newly formed UN Human Rights Council will change the direction set by its predecessor. Libya, for example, has recently been elected to chair the council’s anti-racism program, which is scheduled to culminate in a 2009 “Durban Review Conference,” likely to be a repeat of the notorious anti-Western and antisemitic colloquium held in 2001. Condemnation of Israel remains the council’s first and, it often seems, only priority.” Hillel Neuer is executive director of UN Watch in Geneva

Another Tack: No Swiss surprise

Principled Switzerland. From a TJP column by Sarah Honig (it is well worth reading in full):

"Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her urbane entourage are reportedly stunned by neutral Switzerland's hardly neutral multi-billion-dollar gas deal with Iran. No sooner had new Swiss ambassador Walter Haffner presented his credentials here last week than he faced a dressing-down by the ministerial Western European Desk chief. ...

... then as now, if there's a bundle to be made, Switzerland will without compunction trade with pathological Jew-haters - who inter alia also pose imminent danger to the entire free world. It betrayed helpless asylum-seekers and buttressed Hitler's economy despite his blaring threats to annihilate all Jews. Likewise, it helps fortify Ahmadinejad's economy despite his blaring threats to annihilate the Jewish state.

Calmy-Rey has never missed an opportunity to reproach Israel for "disproportionate" responses to any and all terrorist outrages. Concomitantly, she is exceedingly sparing in even the minutest display of sympathy for Israeli suffering. Her selective humanitarianism enables her to pooh-pooh Teheran's nuclear buildup, terror sponsorship and human rights abuses. ...

By Calmy-Rey's reckoning, her personal stamp of approval alone suffices to justify and elevate any caprice to the moral high ground. She is the ultimate arbitrator of righteousness. In the name of superior Swiss rectitude, the hyperactive socialist pushed for "alternative negotiations" with Iran, promoted (and financed) the Meretz-brand Geneva Initiative and advocated that the Red Cross replace the verboten Star of David with a meaningless red "crystal." Her combination of guile and smile has made her one of her country's more popular politicos, to the extent that she was elected Swiss federal president for 2007. In that capacity she responded to Ahmadinejad's Holocaust-denial conference by proposing in the tactless spirit of her "active neutrality" that Switzerland host no less than an international symposium on "the varying perspectives of the Holocaust." Ahmadinejad was to be invited to voice his version, while Calmy-Rey was, presumably, to hold court as the upright impartial moderator.

Thankfully, the Swiss government was embarrassed enough to nip her notion in the bud. A pseudo-academic deliberation on whether the Holocaust ever took place would have been too discomfiting for the country that capitalized so unstintingly on the enormous Jewish bloodletting.

But no such unease limits lucrative commercial ties with the Middle East's Hitler wannabe. These remain as compelling as were the ultra-rewarding transactions with the original WWII-model Fuehrer."

Swiss blasted for anti-Israel UN vote
Swiss coincidence
UN Human Rights Council elects Jean Ziegler, supporter of Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy

UN Human Rights Council elects Jean Ziegler, supporter of Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy

Switzerland ... here we go again: Swiss blasted for anti-Israel UN vote Swiss coincidence From JTA: "A Swiss writer who praised a Holocaust denier won an advisory position to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Jean Ziegler won 40 of 47 votes Wednesday to become one of 18 "expert" counselors. His election to the Geneva-based council, dominated by anti-Western authoritarian states, was virtually guaranteed and U.N. Watch, a United Nations monitor, had campaigned to convince Switzerland to withdraw his nomination. That culminated in a letter this week signed by 24 human rights activists and groups opposing Ziegler. Swiss officials dismissed the effort as politicking. Ziegler, a leftist theorist, has praised and supported dictators including Cuba's Fidel Castro, Ethiopia's Haile Mengistu, Libya's Moammar Ghadafy, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and North Korea's Kim Il-Sung. In 1996, Ziegler praised French Holocaust denier Roger Gaurady as "one of the leading thinkers of our time."In interviews, Ziegler says his critics are puppets of his Western opponents and notes that he had helped expose how Swiss banks hoarded funds deposited by Jews during the Holocaust. Also elected as an "expert" adviser to the council was Richard Falk, a Princeton emeritus professor who has likened Israel's dealings with the Palestinians to the Holocaust." Read also: To Sounds of Cheers, UN Human Rights Council Elects Khaddafi Prize Founder to Expert Post Norwegian Parliament Protests Jean Ziegler UN Nomination

Swiss coincidence

Earlier this month we had this from Switzerland:
Swiss blasted for anti-Israel UN vote


And now - what a happy coincidence - we have this:
Iranian-Swiss gas deal irks Israel. Foreign Ministry summons Swiss ambassador to Israel for urgent meeting following signing of major agreement to provide gas between Switzerland and Iran