However, I respectfully disagree with the State Department's opposition to sanctions against the Swiss government and the Swiss banks. The agony of the Holocaust continues to this day, as heirs to the victims and survivors are unable to reclaim their rightful assets. For more than fifty years, they have patiently tried to work within the system to get the monies and material possessions that are rightfully theirs. They need restitution now . And it appears that the only way to accomplish that it to take extreme action.
Sanctions are extreme actions.
I do not want to impose them. But I will do so if a settlement is not quickly reached, knowing we are on the right side of the moral plumb line, and knowing, too, that we have no choice but to be extreme in our quest for justice. This issue is of great importance to me, and I have examined it from a variety of perspectives. Previously, I have been a banker, and have served as a United States ambassador to the United Nations. But perhaps most importantly, I am a citizen of the United States, with a deep and abiding commitment to justice for all people of the world.