The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities in late July blasted the Swiss Press Council for ignoring contemporary Jew-hatred by issuing a scandalous decision against a journalist who reported that experts said the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel is antisemitic.
Prime News, an online Swiss magazine, reported in an October 2020 article that the BDS movement is “antisemitic,” “tinged with antisemitism” and “considered by many experts to be antisemitic.” The Swiss Press Council rebuked Prime News for designating BDS as antisemitic.
The Press Council claimed the Prime News journalist violated the “obligation to tell the truth” of the Swiss press code.
The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) objected fiercely to the rebuke of Prime News, arguing that the Press Council decision cuts against overwhelming evidence from Western governments, policy-makers, antisemitism experts and lawmakers who have determined that BDS is animated by antisemitism.
The German and Austrian federal parliaments have passed resolutions defining BDS as antisemitic.
According to the SIG, the Swiss Press Council ignored the most widely accepted definition of contemporary antisemitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes attacks that seek to dismantle Israel, and scores of experts who consider BDS as antisemitic.
The SIG wrote that “particularly offensive is the Press Council’s pronouncement that it is ‘disputed’ whether rejecting Israel’s right to exist is antisemitic.”
Jonathan Kreutner, the secretary-general of SIG, told the Swiss publication 20 Minutes that the Swiss Press Council’s decision is a “scandal” and that BDS is “clearly an antisemitic... organization.” He added that the Press Council is whitewashing the antisemitism of BDS with its politically motivated decision.
The Jerusalem Post sent multiple press queries to the Swiss Press Council – all of which went unanswered.
The SIG contrasted the Swiss Press Council’s decision with the declaration of the Austrian Press Council in 2020. According to the SIG, the Austrian Press Council declared that “referring to the movement as antisemitic was permissible as a valuation of ideological sentiment, and on the other hand, this valuation was based on factual grounds in relation to the BDS movement.
“The patterns of action and methods of the BDS movement have a clearly antisemitic tinge and may, and should, be described as such,” the SIG declared.
The German parliament, or Bundestag, wrote in a 2019 resolution that the “arguments and methods of the BDS movement are antisemitic.”
The tactics of the BDS campaign “inevitably evoke associations with the Nazi slogan Kauft nicht bei Juden! (‘Don’t buy from Jews!’),” the motion stated.