Swiss Legislature Passes Bill to Stop Funding Groups That Promote Israel Boycotts

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.”

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