Forty-one Members of the Swiss Parliament have initiated a motion demanding their government prevent Swiss funding to NGOs that promote antisemitism, racism, hate speech and BDS. The Swiss government will discuss this in its upcoming June parliamentary session.
This monumental achievement and milestone – European parliaments starting to take responsibility for their NGO funding – comes as a direct result of meetings and briefings by NGO Monitor Staff with senior Swiss officials.
The Swiss media have covered these developments. The Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung published an article,  “Opposition in Swiss Parliament to Money for Campaigns Critical of Israel” (in German), highlighting Swiss funding that mainly, if not exclusively, goes to organizations that are active in campaigns against Israel. The Swiss MP who proposed the parliamentary initiative, stated: “It is clear that neutral Switzerland should not fund biased organizations anywhere in the world, nor organizations that are opposed to the principles and goals of Swiss foreign policy.”
The article also discussed Swiss funding for the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, noting that Switzerland pays for luxury salaries in Ramallah. As explained in the article, the Secretariat’s manager in Ramallah earns $10,000 a month, over 20 times more money than the $430 basic salary of a teacher in the Palestinian Territories.