Keep Calmy!

Former Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey dropped her humanitarian bombshell on Switzerland. On RTS radio, September 23. With stern, unflinching words, she blasted the Confederation’s refusal to recognize the State of Palestine. By staying silent, she added, Switzerland makes itself complicit in what is happening in Gaza. As the guardian of international humanitarian law—the Geneva Conventions, no less—Switzerland should, in her view, be manning the barricades.

She also dusted off her old favorite: the Geneva Initiative, of which she was the tireless cheerleader. With a hint of nostalgia, she seemed to suggest those were the days—when Switzerland still worked for peace.

Two clarifications deserve to be etched into the record.

First: back in February 2005, I followed Calmy-Rey and the Swiss delegation into the occupied Palestinian territories, camera in hand. On the ground, I put several questions to the minister. She didn’t answer a single one. One aide even ordered me to stop. Later that evening, at the hotel, she mumbled a few vague, humanitarin, legalistic platitudes—the usual political proverbs. Never once did I have the impression I was facing a firebrand of the Geneva Conventions.
(For the full story of that trip, see my article Si Calmy! on Faccia da Reporter, June 3, 2018, video included.)

Second: the much-touted Geneva Initiative was, frankly, a flop. It was signed by ex-ministers from the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government with about as much clout as a pair of twos, plus a handful of civil society figures. For a while, it kept some young people employed on both sides. But it never stirred real interest among Israelis or Palestinians. Quite the opposite: it deepened the trench of mistrust between populations and their political classes—especially on the Palestinian side. In the territories, the initiative was widely seen as an elitist exercise, carried out behind people’s backs, with murky aims, particularly concerning the borders of some hypothetical future state. Hamas, I remember all too well, milked that discontent for all it was worth.

Let’s be clear: Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis should take no comfort here. This is not a defense of him—it’s an indictment.

Because if Calmy-Rey had chosen to speak without the humanitarian rhetoric on the radio, she could have said this instead: that Switzerland’s duty is to admit and treat the seriously wounded from Gaza—especially children—and to provide schooling, even temporary, for some young people left without education because of war.

That’s precisely what Faccia politely asked Minister Cassis, and another Swiss political figure, to do. Letters unanswered. Dead silence.

Such an engagement, beyond being concrete action, would also be a powerful boost to Switzerland’s image.

The rest is just bla bla.

(gianluca grossi)

13:32

Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported on September 25, 2025, that the Confederation plans to take in 20 injured Palestinian children from Gaza along with their families. More details HERE.