Historically known for its neutrality, Switzerland maintained decades of politically neutral and pacifist policies towards international conflicts while seeking world peace as a motto. But even with such a pacifist approach, the country remains a target for Islamism and jihadism as it witnessed a spike in terrorist activities recently.

Switzerland has taken steps to combat these escalating threats, which appear to some as a reversal of its historically neutral stance, by targeting Islamist terrorists such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

A  Swiss parliamentary committee voted in October to ban Hamas and has proposed to ban Hezbollah for the same reason. The ban is slated to be ratified by the Swiss House of Representatives and Senate in the upcoming winter. The ban would carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years for any person joining or aiding these organizations.

“It is not accurate to say that Switzerland moved away from a position of neutrality. It still maintains formal neutrality on the issue of conflicts between state actors, although in light of the Russia-Ukraine war, there have been official moves to reconsider that norm,” said New York-based lawyer and journalist Irina Tsukerman, who spoke to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Swiss security authorities remain on a high alert this year as a result of the mounting terrorism threats by the Islamic State against European countries, according to a statement by Christian Dussey, the director of the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, in August.

The Islamist terrorist group “hadn’t done this for a long time. It’s really given a new impetus to the movement, multiplied by social networks”, said Dussey in an interview for Switzerland’s daily Tages-Anzieger.

Around 30 arrests have been made across Europe of Islamic State suspects planning attacks during the first eight months of 2024. Switzerland was not spared by the moves and influence of ISIS. In March, a 15-year-old teenager who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State stabbed a Jewish man in Zurich. The teenager called himself a “soldier” of the alleged “caliphate.”

The recent moves by Islamist groups warranted more scrutiny and even an update to the national Swiss counterterrorism strategy that was set in 2015. The updated strategy has provided more freedom for police units in handling terrorism-related issues and gives broader definitions for terrorism to combat the new threats.

Switzerland’s global influence stems from being the private banking haven of the world, with over $9.4 trillion in assets as of 2023 held in Swiss banks. Half of these assets belong to foreign accounts and entities. The code of secrecy for Swiss banks was created in 1713 when the Great Council of Geneva established a federal act requiring bankers to maintain a register of all their clients while forbidding the bankers from divulging that information to anyone other than the client.

By 1934, the Banking Act in Switzerland made it a crime to disclose a client’s information to any foreign government, thus cementing the reputation of Switzerland as a tax haven and a trusted global vault. But with three centuries of secrecy came the risk of terrorist and global crime networks exploiting the Swiss banking system through money-laundering schemes. This prompted the country to join a number of international organizations to fight these illicit activities, including the G8-affiliated Counter-Terrorism Action Group (CTAG).

However, Tsukerman believes it will be no easy task to weed out terrorism-affiliated accounts and funding.

“Clearing out Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist funding is not going to be easy,” she said. “The first step is to finalize laws banning the organizations and to establish that particular accounts are traceable to the terrorists. Likewise, shell organizations, NGOs and corporate entities, and even individual accounts linked to the network, need to be investigated.”

Nevertheless, Switzerland is looking firmer this time around to freeze all terrorist-related assets in the country to prevent funding international organizations that could be utilized for terrorism even if they carry the label of the United Nations, such as the controversial U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The Swiss National Council passed a motion on Sept. 10 to cut funding to the organization due to its alleged cooperation with Hamas and because UNRWA’s educational material contains anti-Israel items.

Switzerland vehemently condemned the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the Hezbollah attacks that started a day later. The Swiss stance against both groups targeting civilians was clear from the early stages.

Moreover, despite supporting a two-state solution as a means of a final step in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in April, Switzerland abstained during a vote that would have granted full membership for a Palestinian state in the United Nations. The Swiss government believes that it can support a Palestinian state only in case of peace in the region.

“At the present time,” the admission of Palestine would “not be conducive” to détente and peace efforts in the Middle East, said a statement for the Swiss Foreign Ministry. “Switzerland is of the opinion that it would be better to admit Palestine as a full member of the U.N. at a time when such a step will fit into the logic of an emerging peace.”

The Swiss House of Representatives reiterated the same position in June and rejected a motion by the Social Democratic Party to recognize an independent Palestinian state.

For decades, Switzerland overlooked the danger of Hamas and hadn’t felt the urge to ban the group in the past, but the situation changed dramatically following the Oct. 7 attacks, which manifested the danger of the terrorist group. Two Swiss citizens were among the 1,200 people in Israel who were slain that day.

“In the wake of the Al-Aqsa flood operations, Hamas announced its intention to globalize its operations and to start staging attacks in other countries, upgrading its level of activity to that of an international terrorist organization. Moreover, its ideology was always broad enough to theoretically apply to other countries since it does not recognize borders and envisions an Islamic caliphate,” said Tsukerman.

Switzerland has long been targeted by Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, in efforts to promote the Islamization of the country. Notably, Switzerland has been home to key figures such as Yusuf Nada, the Brotherhood’s chief financier, and Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the group’s founder, who was convicted of rape by a Swiss court in September 2023.

Over the years, the Swiss public has resisted the influence of Islamists, responding with symbolic votes to ban the full Islamic veil (burqa and niqab) in public spaces and to prohibit the building of minarets on mosques across the country earlier in 2009 to avoid loud calls to prayer.

Swiss lawmakers were forced to move from their complacent stance of the past decades to a more proactive one, given the impending threats on their country and its neighbors.

“The scale and the extensive planning of the Oct. 7 attack may have been the wake-up call for Europe; many international citizens came to harm in addition to the Israelis as a result, and the Hamas call for global action likewise had a chilling effect on decision-makers in Switzerland and elsewhere,” said Tsukerman.

Outside of the counterterrorism precautions, Switzerland signed a declaration to join the European Sky Shield initiative, which was formed as a precaution following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The system was initiated by Germany and was designed to allow European countries to buy unified air-defense systems and conduct joint exercises.

“There is a direct connection between Switzerland’s shifting stand towards [a] defensive posture with regards to Russia’s threat to Europe and an openness to tougher counterterrorism action. The reality is that Russia is one of the leading originators of modern terrorism, which started with political terror during the Czarist era,” said Tsukerman.

“Soviet Union created, trained and patronized liberation movements such as the PLO, the PKK, and others of their ilk. Islamist movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah borrowed methods of operations from their Soviet-backed predecessors,” she added.

The escalating situation in Ukraine, along with threats from Islamic State, Hamas and Hezbollah, have forced the Swiss to rethink their passive, neutral stance and move into a more positive neutrality based on reality rather than wishful thinking. No one can predict how far the Swiss will go with their counterterrorism efforts.

“As Samuel Ramani recently wrote in The Telegraph on Nov. 6, it is only a matter of time before serious Russian attacks rock Europe,” said Tsukerman.

The Swiss are finally practicing realpolitik more than at any time in their modern history, thanks to the new realities and terrorism threats that surround the peaceful central European country.