Arrest of Electronic Intifada journalist exposes deep Zionist footprints in Switzerland

By David Miller

Ali Abunimah, the director of the Electronic Intifada, an independent pro-Palestine news website, was recently arrested in Switzerland and later deported. 

One man was identified as the proximate cause - the Zurich security minister, Mario Fehr.  It was also revealed that Fehr is a fanatical Zionist.

As the Grayzone website reported at a “rally in solidarity with Israel” on Oct. 10, 2023, Fehr openly stated that “the fate of Israel and its inhabitants is close to my heart.”

He also stated that the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran have always called for the "destruction of Israel and the Jews."

"Anyone who rapes women, kills old people, kidnaps children, dehumanizes the dead, takes countless peaceful people hostage is not a negotiating partner – he is a rapist, a murderer, a terrorist," Fehr was quoted as saying.

"Golda Meir was right: ‘You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.’ Peace will not be possible with Hamas and its accomplices!”

But, is the influence of Zionism in Switzerland greater than just one corrupt official?

Let’s have a deeper look.

The Zionist movement is led by the World Zionist Organisation based in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds along with three key allied bodies collectively called the "Israeli national institutions."

In every country where the Zionist movement is organized, there are local branches of these four groups.

Switzerland is no different.

The Swiss Zionist Federation is the local branch of the WZO, which brings together all Swiss Zionist identifying groups.

In addition, there is a branch of the so-called "Jewish National Fund" which is the pre-eminent land theft agency of the Zionist movement.

It has been called a “colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing” by noted Israeli scholar and historian Ilan Pappe. The Swiss branch is called the KKL-JNF Switzerland and it states that it “works closely with the head office in Israel.”

There is also a department of the Jewish Agency the Zionist regime-controlled institution that recruits settlers to come and live on the land stolen by the JNF. 

Lastly, there is a branch of the Keren Hayesod known as the Foundation Fund since it raises money to pay for the illegal settlers and their settlements.

The Swiss branch is called the Keren Hajessod Switzerland.

The global Zionist movement is also supported by the World Jewish Congress.

Its Swiss branch is called the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities. It is given the acronym SIG in German which stands for Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund.  The federation organizes some 18 regional members.

Other Israel lobby groups include:

• Gesellschaft Schweiz-Israel (GIS) [Switzerland-Israel Society] is an organization that aims to strengthen relations between the Israeli regime and Switzerland. Founded in 1957, with ten local branches throughout the country, the GSI has called on the Federal Council to outlaw Hamas. Its president, ambitious Swiss politician Corina Eichenberger-Walther, is also president of the European Alliance for Israel, formed in 2015. In May 2024 GSI’s partner organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Swiss-Israel Society, sent an email to its roughly 2,000 members calling on them to spy on “opponents of Israel.” In the email, Walter L. Blum, the central secretary of the society, called for “opposing actors to be systematically monitored.”
• European Council of Jewish Communities was founded in 1968. It forms a network consisting of over 50 Jewish communities, institutions and organizations from more than 30 countries in Europe including Switzerland.
• The Association of Swiss Jewish Refugee Aid and Welfare Organisations (VSJF) is run by Gabrielle Rosenstein.  She is also a Vice-President at the ECJC.
• Foundation for Contemporary Jewish History is an ostensibly academic repository on Jewish history which has, however, been penetrated by Zionist groups such as the SIG.
• Interreligious Dialogue is an interfaith initiative to normalize Zionism. As they themselves admit it is “an effective and sustainable response to insecurity, tensions and, specifically, antisemitism.”
• European Jewish Congress is a European wing of the World Jewish Congress.
• Platform of Liberal Jews in Switzerland was set up in 2003 and now states that it represents around 1,800 members.
• A new group called NAIN (Never Again Is Now) was created in the past year. It  claims to “defend Israel against anti-Zionist agendas.” It spread lies about Abunimah’s arrest, reposting a statement calling him “an Islamist Jew-hater”.

No wonder Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist who has been a vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause and a fierce critic of the Zionist regime's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, was arrested in Switzerland.

Switzerland has also had a long and close historical relationship with the Zionist movement.

The first-ever conference of the Zionist Organisation was held in Basel, Switzerland in August 1897.

In fact, no city outside occupied Palestine has hosted the World Zionist Congress so often.  Ten of the gatherings of a total of 22 up until 1946 were held in Basel.

The World Zionist Organisation returned to Basel in 2022 for what it called the ‘most significant Zionist gathering of the decade’. It was celebrating the 125th anniversary of the inaugural Zionist Congress.

There are also other connections between Zionism and Switzerland.

In August 1936, the founding plenary of the World Jewish Congress was held in  Geneva. The WJC today is led by Ronald S Lauder, the heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune. 

He led the Jewish National Fund from 1997 to 2007 and has been its board chair ever since. The World Jewish Congress elected Lauder as its president in 2007, a position he continues to occupy.

He was named seventh amongst the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post in 2024. Lauder is an extreme Zionist, supporter of the racist Birthright programme.

As Alan McLeod has written, Lauder is a “close confidant and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was appointed a negotiator for Israel with the government of Syria in 1998.

His presence at a One Jerusalem rally in front of religious extremists in 2001 led to a boycott of the Estée Lauder brand across the Muslim world."

In 1982, the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent an emissary to Zurich which is home to a significant ultra-orthodox Jewish community. Today the genocidal cult that is Chabad-Lubavitch has nine separate branches in Switzerland.

In recent years there have been efforts to proscribe Hamas as a terrorist group and to cut funding to UNRWA. Amongst other groups, the pressure has been applied by NGO Monitor which attempted to undermine pro-Palestine groups and by the Geneva-based UN Watch which poses as independent but is actually a front group for the American Jewish Committee as was reported by Press TV's Palestine Declassified show in 2024.

In late 2023 the Members of the Israel-Switzerland Parliamentary Friendship Group conducted an official visit to Bern. The visitors were two members of the Knesset, MK Yosef Taieb and MK Hamad Amar, belonging to the extremist Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu parties respectively.

It is no surprise then to learn that the Federal Council of Switzerland adopted the IHRA working definition in June 2021 and added it to the existing armory for weaponizing antisemitism in the country.

The Zionist movement in Switzerland makes sure to keep up the pressure to maintain the fake definition of antisemitism by inventing a supposed epidemic of racism against the Jews. 

There are several groups doing this including Intercommunity Coordination against Anti-Semitism and Defamation (CICAD) which is run by a lifelong Zionist Johanne Gurfinkiel. 

Unsurprisingly it deliberately blurs together prejudice against the Jews with pro-Palestine protest.

In addition, the main Israel lobby group the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities co-published a report in 2023 claiming that antisemitism “nearly tripled” after the launch of al Aqsa Flood.

The SFJC collaborated to produce the report with the Foundation Against Racism and Antisemitism. This group is strongly Zionist and explains anti-Semitism in a way that simply echoes the foreign policy lines developed by the Zionist regime. 

Scandalously the lobby groups are financially supported by the Swiss governmental body, the Service for Combatting Racism.

Like many other European countries, the Zionists are firmly embedded in Swiss society. 

Uprooting them and consigning Zionism to the dustbin of history will not be easy, but it is a necessary task wherever the racist ideology is found.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir