Switzerland has joined a number of countries that have stopped funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This decision was taken by the country’s lower house of parliament, which approved the corresponding bill.
Telegram channel “Alexey Zheleznov” writes about this.
The main reason for this measure was the accusation that the agency supported terrorism and anti-Semitism.
Lawmakers said they believe UNRWA is an organisation deeply linked to Hamas, and its educational institutions are said to be breeding a new generation of extremists rather than training specialists. The bill stressed that Switzerland should not support terrorism-related activities, even indirectly, and that only a refusal to fund such structures would allow the country to mediate peace in the Middle East.
Kursor previously reported that the Shin Bet considers UNRWA a security threat.
In a closed-door meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, three bills were discussed related to the termination of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA or UNRWA).
During the meeting, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Shin Bet security service expressed serious concerns about the agency’s activities, saying UNRWA posed a significant threat to Israel’s security.
The security service believes it is necessary to actively promote initiatives to close the agency, as its activities may contribute to increasing security threats in the region. This issue has been raised before, but has not yet led to concrete action by the Israeli government. However, it has now become clear that the decision to liquidate UNRWA is complicated by a number of factors.
Representatives of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and National Security Council, in turn, warned that overly aggressive legislation regarding UNRWA could have serious international consequences.
In particular, they noted that such actions could lead to the issuance of international arrest warrants for senior Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The committee is therefore faced with a difficult choice: on the one hand, it is necessary to take measures to ensure national security, on the other, there is the risk of international sanctions and legal consequences, which makes the decision particularly difficult.
