Switzerland requests reimbursement of consular costs from the Swiss participants in the flotilla. The activists are protesting, but their mission has been part of Hamas’ propaganda strategy for years, widely known and repeatedly reported by the DFA.
Invoices sent by Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to the Swiss activists of flotilla for Gaza have sparked controversy. But, beyond the indignation expressed by the participants, it is above all striking the absence of awareness on the political implications of their choice. The flotillas headed towards the Strip are not neutral initiatives: for years they have represented one instrument that Hamas cleverly exploits to weaken the naval blockade and to fuel the own victim narrative on the international level. Whoever decides to join these missions cannot ignore this context nor be surprised by the consequences.
Starting from this framework, the protest against the bills of FDFA is difficult to understand. The Swiss activists stopped by the Israeli navy last October, while they were trying to violate the blockade imposed to prevent the entry of weapons into the Strip, today denounce the fact that the Confederation asked them a reimbursement for consular services provided during detention. Yet, the connection between these missions and Hamas’ communication strategy has been known for years, as they are the repeated recommendations of the FDFA not to travel to that area with initiatives of this type.
According to what was reported by RTS (certainly not neutral throughout the war), the 19 Swiss involved – participants in the Waves of Freedom and, in one case, to Thousand Madleens to Gaza – have received invoices ranging between 300 euro And 1’047 euros. These amounts reflect the necessary consular work: liaison with the Israeli authorities, prison visits, checks on detention status and assistance with returning home. The FDFA explains that these are standard services, but made more complex by the political context and the fact that activists have acted contrary to the official indications of the Confederation.
Despite this, some participants – like Sébastien Dubugnon interviewed by Swiss Television – reacted with very harsh tones, claiming that the Swiss would not have offered any concrete help and criticizing the invoice as unjustified by 300 francs received. Dubugnon he said that the consular representative could have done very little during the meetings in the prison Ketziotbut fails to mention that the mission itself was an easily predictable political provocation. Participate in an initiative regularly used by Hamas for propaganda purposes and then complaining about the costs of consular assistance inevitably generates perplexity.
The images of the arrest of the flotilla immediately made the rounds on social media and the international media, contributing – even unintentionally – to one of Hamas’ objectives: fueling the perception of an inhumane siege and pushing Western activists to challenge Israel in a symbolic way. Every stopped convoy, every naval clash and every detention becomes part of a media script that the Islamist movement systematically exploits. It is therefore naive to believe that these initiatives are simple humanitarian missions: they are, in the eyes of Hamas, pieces of a much broader strategy and studied in detail.
The FDFA confirmed that the average cost per person is around 510 eurosspecifying that the actual expenses incurred by Confederationand they were significantly superior. The reactions of the activists were harsh: there were those who spoke of “shame” and those who denounced the degrading treatments suffered during detention which they had never experienced. However, even these stories do not change the regulatory framework: the Law on the Swiss Abroad expressly provides that the costs of consular assistance must be reimbursed when the citizen acts imprudently or in violation of official recommendations.
The comparison with Türkiyewhich had organized a free charter flight for some of the detainees, was used by activists as a touchstone. But even in this case the comparison is misleading: Ankara has deep geopolitical interests in the Palestinian question and in particular with its support for Hamas and also in the image it wants to project in the Muslim world. There Swiss, on the contrary, it has no obligation to support or facilitate actions that are in fact inserted – willingly or unwillingly – into operations that Hamas uses as a political and media picklock. The story thus raises a question that goes beyond consular accounting: to what extent should a State bear the consequences of the choices of citizens who participate in missions exploited by a group like Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by numerous countries? The answer, for many observers, is simple: individual responsibility cannot be delegated to the State when it comes to consciously political actions.
