Swiss Choutspa
by Yossef Lapid, translation Jean Lasar
Too bad that Jean-Pascal Delamuraz didn't keep the low profile that generally characterizes the Swiss presidents, whose names are unknown even in their own country. He would have spared himself and his country the anger and the mockery caused by his words regarding the claim to create a compensation fund for Jews whose possessions were seized by Swiss banks after the Shoah. He rejected the Jewish institutions' demand to immediately create a compensation fund of a total 250 million dollars and not to wait five years until the end of the work of the commission that was set up to investigate the role played by Swiss banks in the robbing of abandoned Jewish property.
The President Delamuraz charged that the compensation claim is "a blackmail" whose origin lies with financial circles in Washington and London that want to hurt the Swiss banks' position on the international financial market. "The creation of the fund would have been perceived as an admission of guilt. The sum that was mentioned is nothing but a kind of ransom and a blackmail attempt".
Goebbels would have been proud of such a pupil. We're back in the good old days where Jews pull strings in Washington and London, to blackmail money out of honest Christians that made their fortune producing cheese with holes and cuckoo clocks.
David Levy, the Foreign Minister, should normally summon the Swiss ambassador to Israel and tell him unequivocally what the public in Israel thinks of the shameful statement of his President.
