Free Republic

A secret deal between Switzerland and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1970 has recently come to light. The Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung reports that then-Foreign Minister Pierre Graber offered to support Palestinians diplomatically in exchange for assurances the PLO would not carry out terror attacks against Swiss targets. [...] The meeting between the Swiss government and the PLO was arranged by long-time Israel hater Jean Ziegler, who was a member of the Swiss parliament at the time. Within diplomatic channels, he has encouraged the International Criminal Court in the Hague to charge Israel with war crimes and referred...

The United Nations' Human Rights Council has elected onto a panel of special advisors a left-wing Swiss sociologist with a record of sympathizing with the Castro and Mugabe regimes and criticizing the United States and Israel. And in another move that drew fire, the U.N.'s top rights body also appointed an American academic strongly critical of Israel to a post dealing with Israel's conduct in the territories claimed by the Palestinians. During its less than two years in existence, the Human Rights Council has itself been criticized -- by Western governments and two U.N. secretary-generals among others -- for focusing...