{"id":529685,"date":"2025-11-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=529685"},"modified":"2025-12-13T22:42:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T21:42:35","slug":"letter-to-ruth-dreifuss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/policy\/switzerland\/letter-to-ruth-dreifuss\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza and the SP: open letter to Ruth Dreifuss"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this open letter to the former Federal Councillor, writer Nadine Richon expresses her concern at the one-sided discourse on Israel and Palestine promoted by the Socialist Party, and calls for greater nuance within this political family.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Dear Ruth Dreifuss,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This letter was prompted by my close reading of the quarterly magazine of the Socialists of the City of Geneva, Common causes<\/em> October-November 2025. My comments reflect the dismayed questioning of a great many Jewish people in French-speaking Switzerland, as well as their supporters, of whom I am one. Logically - and increasingly so, given the current climate in Europe - this support includes a reaffirmation of Zionism insofar as it has enabled the creation of a state for the Jewish people, entirely shaped by this people, indigenous and from the diaspora, for Jews and part of the Arab Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought it was a pity that I didn't come across this dense brochure from the Geneva Socialist Party on the question posed by Shimon Peres: why shouldn't the future Palestine, in the same way, include a Jewish minority anxious to live close to its holy sites? I'm sure you appreciate this question as much as I do. Alas, it has never been asked in these twenty or so texts by a variety of writers, but it's true that it raises other thorny questions that are no doubt insoluble in terms of the opinions expressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also | Israel-Hamas: the feelings<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The first feeling I had when I read this book, which is supposed to be a song of peace, is still vivid in my mind: if you're left-wing, in the sense promoted here, you can't love Israel. It's a terrible turnaround, and not just because of the war, which was unfortunately total, and whose end should have been called for because it was so deadly, as in any context this urbanized, with a large, often very young, population. Common causes<\/em> meticulously describes the devastating effects, calls for treatment in Switzerland for the severely wounded, the massive return of humanitarian aid, an arms boycott - and I won't dwell on these wise statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also note the attention paid to the West Bank, one of the elements of the peace plan associated with President Trump, 19th<\/sup> But it's impossible to avoid. Doesn't the future of Gaza go hand in hand with that of the West Bank? At least we can say that Common causes<\/em> asks the question. Without, however, going so far as to amend this partly obsolete publication by associating with it a text on the peace agreement signed on October 13, 2025 in Sharm el-Sheikh. Is it because we are \u00abat a time when the genocide in Gaza is intensifying\u00bb, according to Dominique Ziegler, and when Dominique Choffat claims to be able to \u00abofficially qualify the genocide, at last\u00bb and say \u00abthe fetid smell\u00bb of our Federal Council?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also | Let's unite against Islamism<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Alas, the rightful mention of the West Bank is essentially approached from the angle of Palestine \u00abfree from the sea to the Jordan\u00bb, to quote Ataa Dabour, who also complains of the \u00ablimp nature of the demonstrations in Geneva\u00bb: let's bet that some of them, including the recent riot in Berne, which attracted a good number of French-speaking people, must have reassured her. On the question of a single state for all, which she has been promoting since Geneva, she points out that it is \u00abup to the Palestinian people to decide their future\u00bb. What about the people of Israel? No question asked, superfluous, no doubt, because \u00abin the Palestinian project there is room for everyone\u00bb, including, as the final position of the SP also claims, with the \u00abright of return\u00bb of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under what conditions for the Jews? No one cares about that in these pages. Because it's not about religion at all, we're repeatedly told. Except as regards the \u00abcivil religion\u00bb created, according to Franco-Lebanese politician Ziad Majed, by the \u00abmemory of the Shoah\u00bb. Another speaker, Houda Asal, a specialist in \u00abanti-Palestinian racism\u00bb, writes that the Israelis simply \u00abinvented Palestinian anti-Semitism\u00bb. Since September 11, 2001, \u00abworldwide Islamophobia\u00bb has been expressed in Israel on the basis of \u00absupposed racial inferiority\u00bb - sorry, that goes back even further, since, according to her, \u00abthe Nakba has been going on for 77 years\u00bb, to the point where she affirms \u00abthe right of the colonized people to resist their oppressors by any means necessary\u00bb. By all means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also | The \u00abnon-violent\u00bb occupation or the oxymoron of the militant<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with Alain Bittar from Geneva, the Intercommunity Coordination against Antisemitism and Defamation (CICAD) promotes a positive image of Israel (how awful...), even though this country, which \u00abcolonizes Palestinian land\u00bb (no further details) and whose creation was approved \u00abby only 36 states\u00bb, represents \u00aba fundamentalist threat to peace\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without denying the rise of religious fundamentalism in Israel also<\/em>, I'm surprised to see absolutely no mention of Islamism in these 47 pages, barely a mention of the \u00abattacks of October 7, 2023\u00bb (for city councillor Yasmine Berrada, these \u00abattacks\u00bb have \u00abcertainly shaken up the international scene\u00bb, nothing about the trauma for Israelis, Jews and the whole of humanity), two or three concessions to the aggression suffered by Israel on the part of Hamas, a mention of October 7 as the opportunity for Israel to \u00abtake advantage of the occasion\u00bb (Dominique Ziegler), hardly any mention of Hamas in these texts, and once to regret that so much is said about it! Your own text mentions it, and you're the only one to see \u00abtwo peoples\u00bb linked in suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also | October 7, 2023, the world turns upside down<\/a><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Without naming Hamas, the editorial board's introduction refers to \u00abthe indisputable horror of October 7\u00bb - indisputable, indeed, since it will be discussed so little in order to speak, indisputably this time, of genocide and not war, according to the title of this introduction: \u00abPutting an end to genocide\u00bb. Christina Kitsos, an administrative councillor, pleads for the children sacrificed, rightly denounces the quest for \u00abtotal victory\u00bb and wonders \u00abhow to justify the detour of humanitarian aid\u00bb, but without ever mentioning Hamas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Sami Kanaan, there's the \u00abunspeakable tragedy of Gaza\u00bb, he's right, but also unspeakable under his pen is Hamas and unspeakable the blockades of cities, high schools, train stations, and the intimidation of fellow Jews by our anti-Israeli militants (for example during the two feminist demonstrations excluding Jewish groups in Lausanne). In this text by the former mayor of Geneva, not necessarily validated by him, a drawing from the satirical magazine\u00a0Vigousse<\/em>\u00a0shows CICAD as a soldier determined to bring down the \u00abgang to Vigousse<\/em>\u00bband we think of the Islamist assassins decimating the\u00a0Charlie Hebdo<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n