The lower house of Switzerland’s legislature passed a bill on Wednesday that would force the government to stop funding organizations that promote boycotts of Israel, Benjamin Weinthal reported in The Jerusalem Post.
The measure, which was introduced at the National Council by Christian Imark, a deputy from the conservative Swiss People’s Party, passed by a margin of 111-78. It will be considered in May by legislature’s upper body, the Council of States. If it passes there, it will become law.
Olga Deutsch, an official with the watchdog group NGO Monitor, said that the bill’s passage marks “a milestone in seriously countering BDS campaigns, antisemitism and hatred, by equating them in the motion.”
“The motion sets an important precedent,” she added. “NGO Monitor was instrumental in providing details to Swiss decision-makers regarding their government’s funding of organizations that oppose official Swiss foreign policy, such as NGOs that propagate anti-normalization, BDS, and one-state frameworks.”
Weinthal described the bill as the “first national parliamentary act in Europe to blunt economic and political warfare targeting the Jewish state.”
Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, explained in The Times of Israel on Wednesday that the Swiss federal government contributes one million Swiss francs annually to an organization called the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat. That money, along with funds from other European countries, are then distributed to some 30 Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. Of the NGOs supported by the secretariat, Steinberg wrote, “more than half … are active in BDS and lawfare campaigns (seeking to label Israeli officials as war criminals), and a number of Palestinian recipients have links with alleged members of the PFLP terror group.”
Until now, Steinberg reported, the Swiss funding of these anti-Israel organizations “was largely hidden from view in Switzerland, including from the Parliament.” Given the damage that the massive funding by European governments of NGOs hostile to Israel can do, Steinberg recommended that Knesset members should supply “the details regarding the damage done by irresponsible NGO funding” to their European counterparts.
Many leaders of the BDS campaign, which was launched by Palestinian groups in 2005, have publicly affirmed that they seek Israel’s destruction. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, an opponent of the two-state solution, said in 2014 that Palestinians have a right to “resistance by any means, including armed resistance,” while leading activist As’ad Abu Khalil acknowledged in 2012 that “the real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel.”
[Photo: Peter Mosimann / WikiCommons ]