Some 350 people demonstrated in Bern on Saturday against the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there. The rally was peaceful. 

Protestors carried banners through the centre of the Swiss capital calling for the respect of international law rather than the law of the strongest. 

In a press release at the end of the demonstration, organizers called on the Federal Council (the Swiss cabinet) to officially recognise Palestine as a state; they also demanded an end to Swiss-Israeli military cooperation and imported products from occupied territories. 

The rally was organised by several Palestinian associations and the Swiss-Palestinian society. 

President Donald Trump announced at the beginning of December that the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, contrary to international conventions. 

The international community does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over the whole of the city. Israel considers the city as its eternal and indivisible capital. Palestinians, however, want the capital of their independent state to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel annexed after the 1967 Middle East war. 

At the end of 2017, a majority of UN member states including Switzerland called on the US government in a resolution to withdraw the decision. 

+ Read more about the Swiss position on Jerusalem