ThoseIsrael-Hamas conflict
Alfonso Gomez: “What is happening today in Gaza exceeds any understanding”
The city of Geneva, by the voice of its mayor, invites the Federal Council to take strong measures to put an end to what it describes as ethnic cleaning and genocide.
Alfonso Gomez, mother of Geneva.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
- The ICRC is the host of Honor of August 1 Genevan to recall the importance of assistance to civilian victims.
- The mayor of Geneva qualifies the situation in Gaza as a genocide.
- The city authorities ask that Switzerland recognize the state of Palestine and decrees a military embargo against Israel and total on products from the occupied territories.
- The mayor also pleads for the immediate and without conditions of the hostages.
The mayor of Geneva, the green Alfonso Gomez, placed national holiday under the seal of international humanitarian law.
Last week, the administrative council challenged the Federal Council on the situation in Gaza. Interview.
Ce August 1the honor host is the ICRC. For what?
In the moments that we live, it seemed essential to me to recall the values of mutual aid founding the federal pact and international humanitarian law, born in Geneva. It is more than ever necessary to emphasize the coexistence of peoples and help with civilian victims of conflicts.
The massacre of October 7. Then 70% of the destroyed Gaza buildings, nearly 60,000 people killed, famine as a war weapon … Administrator delegate to the ICRC between 1989 and 2004did you think you saw in your lifetime such a collapse of international and humanitarian rules?
It was unimaginable! A state of signing of the Geneva conventions, whose role is to protect civilians, does exactly the opposite, ethnic cleaning and genocidal policy, with the objective of expelling the entire population in criminal conditions! We want to park 2 million people in 40 km2help is used to assassinate people ready to risk their lives for a little rice, it’s absolutely appalling.
Is it a genocide?
Yes. I know the symbolic value and the historical weight of the term. I took it for a long time to use it, maybe too much, but what is happening today goes beyond all understanding.
The Federal Council called for an immediate ceasefire. However, it is not enough according to the administrative council …
We expect Switzerland, like the whole international community, that it recognizes the current ethnic cleaning. We must act as with Russia. An embargo is needed on the purchase and sale of weapons in Israel and a total embargo on products and services from occupied territories.
These are means of pressure to allow humanitarian aid to arrive quickly and independently. About 100 trucks have already passed the border, but it would take ten times more, while guaranteeing the distribution, which cannot be improvised and not militarized. International organizations must be allowed access to victims.
Switzerland refuses to consider an embargo and recognize the Palestinian state.
Yes, but we still see a bent that the Administrative Council salutes. Switzerland, which has so far lacked courage, joined 27 countries to request an immediate stop of the war. But words are not enough in the face of absolute urgency on the ground.
Switzerland must start the process of recognition of the Palestinian State which will launch a dynamic of dialogue on an equality basis. The urgency is also that the daily abuses of the settlers, protected by the army, cease and that the criminals are prosecuted. I am very worried. A Palestinian replica could occur in the West Bank, with consequences comparable to what happened in Gaza.
Recognizing the Palestinian state, is it playing Hamas and therefore recognizing a terrorist state?
No. A democratic state constituted and protected by the international community must on the contrary be the guarantee of stability and peace. The Palestinians are neither terrorists nor crazy. They are desperate and some use methods that we have firmly condemned. On October 9, 2023, I was one of the first elected officials to condemn the terrorist attack on Hamas on television by calling it as a war crime. Hamas must release the hostages immediately and without conditions.
Would everything stop if he did it?
I don’t know. He must simply make them. This is inhuman and keeping them does not advance the Palestinian cause. That said, it was not the military operations that contributed to the release of hostages, but the negotiations.
Israel invokes his right to security and defend himself.
But this right, which no one calls into question, does not mean carrying out an extermination war. Who can believe that killing 15,000 children is done in the name of the security of Israel or to release the hostages?
In Geneva as elsewhere, a rise in anti -Semitism is deplored. On the other hand, some criticize the main Jewish organizations for not distance from the crimes of the Israeli government, which nevertheless claims to represent the Jews, or even of anti -Zionism and anti -Semitism.
On October 9, 2023 already, I said it was intolerable to import the conflict here and I repeat that anti -Semitic remarks do not have their place with us! In addition, I do not ask Jewish organizations to decide on Israel. I have always been very shocked that the Muslim community is asked, at each Islamist terrorist attack, to position yourself. By what right?
Everyone must position themselves according to their conscience, not their origins or beliefs! For the rest, there is no question of questioning the existence of Israel, settled by the international community in 1948. But when Zionism embodied in the occupation and colonization of the territories beyond the green line, then I oppose it because it violates international law.
So anti -Zionism is not necessarily anti -Semitism, contrary to what the cicad claims?
Indeed. In this debate, she comes out a bit from her role.
But anti -Semitism can also disguise itself behind anti -Zionism.
Obviously, and we will continue to work with the cicad against anti -Semitism.
War has been raging for three and a half years in Ukraine. What inspires you?
The same as for Gaza, because international law is flouted: Russia has violated a border, there is an occupation of a territory, a non-accessibility to prisoners and the bombing of civilian populations which must stop.
Putin no longer sees Switzerland as a neutral actor capable of welcoming negotiations. Did she have right to follow European sanctions?
Of course! Because there is no neutrality while respecting the law, which is the elementary basis on which Switzerland can invite the parties to the dialogue.
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