Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Former Swiss president: funding freeze for Middle East NGOs ‘more than wrong’

Former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss
The Swiss foreign ministry discontinued its support for six Palestinian and five Israeli NGOs at the end of October, a move that Dreifuss calls "more than wrong". Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Ruth Dreifuss has criticised Switzerland's funding freeze for Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, saying it weakens the peace movement on both sides.

NGOs promote peace and cooperation in civil society, Dreifuss said in an interview with the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende published on Saturday.

“Where else in the world other than in the Middle East have so many people been campaigning for peace and human rights in such a tense situation for so long and with concrete activities?” she asked. She described the decision of the Swiss foreign ministry as “more than wrong”.

More

The ministry discontinued its support for six Palestinian and five Israeli NGOs at the end of October. This was due to the new situation since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the resumption of hostilities, it said.

Organisations as beacons of hope

The commitment of the organisations in the Middle East gives her hope for a solution, said Dreifuss, who held the rotating Swiss presidency in 1999. There must be a solution. “Be it with two states or with one state in which all people can live together in mutual respect for their diversity,” said the former interior minister. The Israeli settlements had literally blocked a two-state solution in the meantime. The form of a unified state still had to be found.

Dreifuss was the first member of the Swiss Federal Council of Jewish origin. Politicians should not be reduced to their Jewish background, especially in the current situation, she said: “The war concerns us all.”

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

films

More

Swiss films made their mark abroad in 2024

This content was published on Several Swiss films exceeded the 100,000 admissions mark worldwide in 2024 and received widespread praise at international film festivals.

Read more: Swiss films made their mark abroad in 2024

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR