Ynetnews/APADL: Switzerland financing terrorism wrote:
US-based Anti-Defamation League slams multibillion dollar deal Geneva struck with Iran for supply of natural gas. Full-page ads in major newspapers proclaim Switzerland world's 'newest financier of terrorism'
A major US Jewish organization on Tuesday stepped up opposition to a multibillion-dollar Swiss-Iranian natural gas deal by claiming it makes Switzerland ''the world's newest financier of terrorism.''
''When you finance a terrorist state, you finance terrorism,'' said the New York-based Anti-Defamation League in full-page advertisements in major Swiss newspapers and in similar ads in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.
The US government and the World Jewish Congress have criticized Switzerland for the deal, saying it gives encouragement to Tehran's hard-liners.
''ADL is concerned that Iran's profits from the energy deal could help the regime to accelerate and complete its nuclear weapons program and provide tens of thousands of additional missiles to Hizbullah and Hamas, two terrorist groups and sworn enemies of Israel who routinely benefit from Tehran's largess,'' said a statement on the league's Web site.
The version of the ad in The International Herald Tribune on Tuesday began, ''Guess who is the world's newest financier of terrorism? Switzerland.''
Swiss Jewish group: Claims 'exaggerated'
The Swiss Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism. Alfred Donath, president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, distanced himself from the ads. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey traveled to Iran in mid-March for the signing of the a deal between the Swiss energy trading company EGL and state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company. The deal is worth $28 billion to $42 billion.
The nationalist Swiss People's Party also has taken Calmy-Rey to task over a photo of the March 17 signing ceremony with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which a smiling Calmy-Rey in a white head scarf is seated below a picture of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said the deal conforms with Iran sanctions of the United Nations and United States and that Switzerland is far down the list of countries buying exports from Iran.
Donath, whose organization had already criticized the gas deal, said the accusations were ''exaggerated.''
He confirmed a report in the Lausanne-based daily 24heures that he was personally briefed by Calmy-Rey on her Iran visit and that she did not like having to make the trip. He said he held the entire government responsible.
Calmy-Rey has said the contract is in line with Switzerland's rights as an independent country with its own strategic interests to defend.
EGL plans to sell the gas to European customers that rely heavily on natural gas from Russia - which in the past has used its monopoly to exert political pressure on its neighbors.
EGL, majority owned by Axpo Holding AG, has said gas deliveries from Iran will begin in 2009.
swissinfo.chswissinfo.ch wrote:
Jewish group attacks Swiss-Iranian gas deal
The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has condemned a Swiss-Iranian natural gas export deal, accusing Switzerland of financing terrorism.
The Swiss foreign ministry for its part repeated that the agreement violates neither United Nations Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme or US laws.
"As the Swiss government pursues its own narrow economic interests, it is bankrolling the world's leading sponsor of terrorism," declared one of the messages in the full-page advertisement the group took out in Tuesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and several other international and Swiss newspapers.
The Jewish association's advert claimed that pro-Iranian Hezbollah missile teams in Lebanon, Hamas suicide bombers in Gaza, Iran's own nuclear weapons programme and terrorist cells around the globe all stood to benefit from the energy deal.
"The reproaches in this advertisement do not fit the facts," said foreign ministry spokesperson Lars Knuchel.
An agreement for the delivery of natural gas was signed in Tehran on March 17 between a private Swiss energy company and Iran in the presence of the Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Energy supply
The 25-year deal with National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) covers the delivery of 5.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year to Europe through a pipeline by 2012.
It is thought to be worth between €10 billion (SFr15.9 billion) and €22 billion, depending on factors such as the price of oil.
Calmy-Rey said in Tehran that the deal was important in the long term for both parties and said it was Switzerland's strategy to diversify its source of energy supplies.
Switzerland currently buys its supplies in northern Europe (Norway, Netherlands, Germany), Algeria (through France) and Russia. Consumption of gas represents about 12 per cent of Switzerland's energy needs.
"The gas contract signed between the Swiss and Iranian companies does not violate international sanctions taken by the United Nations and the US. Numerous countries which are much bigger than Switzerland maintain trade relations with Iran," pointed out Knuchel.
These include the European Union, China and Japan. Switzerland does not feature on Iran's list of top ten countries receiving Iranian exports, whether commercial goods or raw materials.
Switzerland uses its good offices to represent US interests in Iran and Iranian interests in Washington. The US and Iran broke off diplomatic relations in 1980.
Asked whether the deal might influence Switzerland's mediation role, Knuchel added that a State Department spokesman had said last week there was no change in US policy.
Reactions
ADL director Abraham H. Foxman said Calmy-Rey's decision to go to Iran was "irresponsible" and sent out the wrong signal to Iran.
"She should have known that she was being manipulated by the Iranians to show that they are not isolated," he told swissinfo.
"The Swiss government has much to be embarrassed about with this gas deal, and has to take responsibility for its actions.
"Switzerland should be most embarrassed about what Iran could use the money for: its nuclear weapons programme, buying missiles for Hezbollah, and financing Europe-based terrorist groups."
The ADL is not the first organisation or country to react to the Iran gas deal. The US said it was "disappointed" with the accord and has officially requested a copy of the contract to examine whether the deal violates UN sanctions against Iran. The World Jewish Congress and Israel have also attacked the gas deal.
Former Swiss ambassador François Nordmann told swissinfo the ADL response was a "cry of indignation, an individual reaction" to the deal. "It is an NGO's attempt to influence public opinion and discredit Switzerland and its foreign ministry," he said.
Nordmann did not think the criticism by the ADL and the US would have any consequences for Switzerland, adding it was not a matter for discussion between Switzerland and the Americans.
"The US applies its own sanctions. The Americans are also pushing for further sanctions at the UN... But Switzerland doesn't have to answer to the United States over this deal."
The Swiss Jewish community has meanwhile distanced itself from the ADL media campaign.
In an interview in the French-language 24 Heures newspaper, the president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, Alfred Donath, declined to give his support to the ADL, even if he was unhappy with the gas deal.
"The press campaign is meddling," said Donath. "Its criticisms of Micheline Calmy-Rey are unfair and unwarranted. It's the position of the government as a whole that should be discussed."
Donath confirmed that he had been personally informed about the foreign minister's visit to Iran. He said his view was that Calmy-Rey had not travelled to Tehran enthusiastically.
And from the ADL's site
ADL Op-EdsADL wrote:
Swiss Err on Iran, Israel
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey's visit to Tehran was billed as an opportunity to deliver a stern message about the need for Iran to end its human rights violations and its threats to destroy Israel. This was according to the government's official announcement of her March 17 diplomatic visit.
As a secondary matter, the announcement noted, Calmy-Rey would attend the signing of a gas deal between Iran and a Swiss energy company.
But Calmy-Rey herself inadvertently exposed the flimsy human rights pretext when she acknowledged on the day of her departure that she was traveling to Tehran in response to Iran's invitation.
It is highly unlikely that Iran invited Switzerland's foreign minister to chat about Iran's bleak record on human rights or its belligerent statements about Israel. The real purpose of the visit, which included photo ops with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was to raise the profile of a $28 billion energy deal, one that has consequences for Iran's continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.
The Swiss are not alone in signing gas contracts with Iran, but the size of the deal and its timing so soon after the latest round of United Nations sanctions will surely encourage Iran on its march toward nuclear weapons and in its defiance of international demands to stop enriching uranium.
If Switzerland were committed to ending the Iranian nuclear threat, it would join with other responsible countries to reinforce the isolation of the ayatollahs' regime. If Switzerland were serious about supporting an effective strategy, it would join the movement to target Iran's energy industry.
This gas deal is just the latest example of Swiss actions that are out of step with the West's determination to confront Iran and commitment to the security of Israel.
Switzerland joined Saudi Arabia, Cuba and other dictatorships in support of the U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that condemned Israel's reaction to the rockets from Gaza while ignoring the actions of Iran's terrorist client, Hamas. The resolution was so biased that Canada, an international leader in human rights promotion, voted against it, and every European Union member of the council abstained.
The Swiss ambassador feebly explained that the importance of condemning Israel's alleged wrongdoing outweighed all other considerations.
That decision logically followed from Switzerland's apparent policy of censuring all Israeli military operations, no matter how justified. In their condemnations, the Swiss invariably invoke international humanitarian law, with which they are closely associated as the depository for the four Geneva Conventions. Missing, though, is evidence of understanding the proper application of those laws of war.
In one egregious example, Israel's raid on a Jericho prison in 2006 was denounced for "violat[ing] the principle of proportionality." In that incident, Israeli soldiers had surrounded the prison, which five armed terrorists, including the assassins of an Israeli government minister, had taken over.
One prisoner and one prison guard were killed in an exchange of fire, but the terrorists and other Palestinian prisoners were convinced to surrender without any further hostilities. Even that successful operation the Swiss condemned as a disproportionate use of force.
Switzerland hasn't been content to undermine Israel's right to self-defense. Calmy-Rey has also tried to undercut Israel's diplomacy. Brazenly disregarding Israel's sovereignty and democratically elected government, Switzerland sponsored negotiations between private Israeli and Palestinian individuals, known as the Geneva Accord.
Unlike the Oslo negotiations, which were backed by the Israeli government after the first couple of private meetings, the Swiss project was officially rejected by Israel and the Swiss ambassador summoned to receive a protest.
Regardless of the content of the resulting document, the Swiss action represented an inexcusable intrusion by a foreign government in the peace process and an end run around the "road map" that reflected the will of the international community and demanded an end to Palestinian terrorism as a condition of further Israeli steps.
Some of the above examples of unfriendly behavior toward Israel could be explained away as soft-headed do-goodism. But one incident in particular punctures that theory.
In December 2006, Tehran hosted its infamous Holocaust denial conference, which responsible nations condemned unequivocally. Switzerland's reaction was different. A week after the Tehran conference, Calmy-Rey met with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Said Jalili in Switzerland.
According to the Swiss government's minutes of the meeting, subsequently leaked to the Swiss press, she proposed that "a seminar about different perceptions of the Holocaust could be organized in one of the Geneva centers." Public outrage killed that idea, but the fact that Calmy-Rey made the proposal provided encouragement to the Holocaust deniers in Iran and elsewhere.
In the battles against the Nazi regime during World War II and communism during the Cold War, Switzerland pursued its narrow self-interest by professing neutrality.
Today the Swiss appear to be taking the same approach in the current global war against the radical Islamist threat, spearheaded by Iran, which menaces Israel's existence and the security of the West. But neutrality isn't an option. And for Switzerland, a country that takes pride in its liberal democracy and claims to have learned from its history, it shouldn't even be considered.
The ADL ads Link (PDF versions)
The above image is from swissinfo.ch
