Vem äger sanningen med stort ”S”?

Uppenbarligen inte Sveriges utrikesminister Carl Bildt.

Han skriver på sin blogg om sin oro över att israeliska spaningsplan överflyger Libanon – men nämner inte med ett ord anledningen till detta: att Hizbollah och Libanon i flagrant brott mot en resolution i FNs Säkerhetsråd fortsätter att med Irans hjälp beväpna Hizbollah i Libanons södra del. Ändå bloggar Bildt om det som han ser – eller vägrar att inse – från helikoptern som flyger i Libanons luftrum och som ger honom en utmärkt överblick över situationen. Om han bara inte blundade.

Uppenbarligen ser inte de stora medierna sanningen heller. Vare sig i Sverige eller ute i världen. FNs eget Mellanösternsändebud Robert Serry säger klart och tydligt att det inte finns någon humanitär kris i Gazaremsan. Underförstått att all hysteri kring Gazabornas påstått trängda situation är mediemanipulerad, upphaussad av politiskt motiverade aktivister med en bestämd strategisk dagordning. Han ignoreras av de stora medierna världen över – budskapet passar lika illa med den önskade bilden som Bildts ”blunda och tala” politik.

Under tiden byggs islamismens högborgar lite varstans – även i Storbritannien. Samtidigt som Bildt inte rapporterar om vad han ser, och Robert Serry ignoreras för att han rapporterar om vad han ser, växer styrkan hos islamistiska terroristorganisationer inte bara i Mellanöstern utan även utomlands. Journalisten Martin Bright rapporterar om att Storbritannien har utvecklats till ett avgörande centrum för Hamas – som har stämplats som terrororganisation av såväl FN som EU och Kvartetten. Det är skrämmande läsning.

Här i Sverige ses inget av detta. Flamman har en intervju med Anna Wester, informationsansvarig för Palestinagrupperna i Sverige, där hon bland annat vill ”kalla tillbaka den svenska militärattachén och att vapenexporten till Israel upphör om de rödgröna vinner valet”. Hon uttryckte inga åsikter om nödvändigheten av att på motsvarande sätt upphöra med kontakter med Libanon, Syrien och Iran för den fortsatta beväpningen av Hizbollah. Ej heller uttryckte hon någon åsikt om det folkrättsriktiga i att kidnappa en israelisk tonåring från Israel och hålla honom inspärrad i Gaza utan tillgång till vare sig advokat (han är inte anklagad för något förutom att vara jude), läkare, Röda korset (som han heller inte krävt att få träffa honom), föräldrar eller andra än Hamasterrorister.

Flamman går faktiskt ett steg vidare: i god Aftonbladet-anda skriver man på ett insinuant sätt att det nog kanske måhända har skett massvåldtäkter på kvinnor i Gaza (underförstått av israeler) eftersom massvåldtäkter sker i andra oroshärdar i världen. Den selektiva tystnaden och den ännu selektivare frispråkigheten säger måhända mer om de röd-gröna än om till exempel Hamas, som ju fortsätter att idka människohandel som man alltid gjort – också det ett brott mot de mänskliga rättigheterna. Samtidigt som inte ens Hamas påstår att det har skett massvåldtäkter av kvinnor i Gazaremsan. Nog har Flamman sitt alldeles eget lilla smutsiga krig att föra mot den judiska staten.

I övrigt fortsätter den tilltagande och alltmer öppna röd-grön-bruna antisemitismen i Sveriges tredje största stad, Malmö. Vissa svenska skribenter har varit föredömligt tidiga med att rikta rampljuset mot denna avart i civilisation som antisemitism faktiskt är – namn som Per Gudmundson, Gulan Avci, Mathias Sundin och Dilsa Demirbag-Sten är prominenta bland andra.

Det konstiga är att otaliga bloggare skrev redan för ett år sedan om det fullständigt olämpliga i att kommunistledaren Lars Ohly stolt bar på ett plagg där hela Israel hade ersatts av ett arabiskt Palestina, medan hela resten av den svenska medievärlden valde att tiga om det. År 2010, dock, som är valår, har detta plötsligt blivit hett stoff.

Bättre sent än aldrig, förstås. Men varför så sent?

För en vacker dag kommer det att bli alldeles för sent. Offren har redan utsetts – och inte bara här i Sverige.

Ömsom tystnad, ömsom oväsen. Till den senare kategorin tillhör Mellanösterns ständige ståuppare, Libyens Kadaffi, som manar till jihad mot bland andra Schweiz. Schweiz!
 
Medan Libyen piskar upp en jihadi stämning mot Europa, tar Iran målmedvetet de steg som krävs för att genomföra planen på den globala jihadens intåg på världsscenen på ett sätt som aldrig tidigare skådats. Läs vad Reuters skriver om Irans planer på att tvinga omvärlden på knä. Man syftar inte på Israel eller USA, utan hela omvärlden, första anhalt Europa.
 
 
Läs andras åsikter om antisemitism, jihadism, islamism och om hur röd + grön alltid blir brun:
Fred i Mellanöstern
ME Aktualia mm
Dagen
SvD
SvD
SvD
SvD
Sydsvenskan
UNT
Expressen
Aftonbladet
KvP
Corren
NSK
Sapere Aude
Karin Rebel
SwedenIsrael
MXp
I Gilboas Svala Skugga
Israel i Sverige
 
 
 

Attack Bildt but not Sweden

The following is the English version of an article published in Israeli weekly Makor Rishon by Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, Chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA).

The recent Swedish proposal to the European Union to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state was a severe hostile act against Israel. The proposal was watered down by other member countries. The attitude of Sweden which, for another few weeks, holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, may tempt Israel to hit back at the country’s government.

For several reasons, however, this strategy would be wrong. The anti-Israel campaign is led by one person, the Swedish Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who is the dominant figure in this government. Rather than targeting the entire government or country, Israel should focus on its major adversary in the current coalition.

Bildt’s hostile record toward Israel can be easily proved. On a Swedish radio program in April he said: “It is possible to make peace without Hamas the same way it is possible to make peace without Netanyahu on the Israeli side.” An Israeli Foreign Ministry official reacted diplomatically: “He clearly does not understand the difference between the leader of an Israeli political party and a group that is engaging in the terror that threatens Europe as much as Israel.”(1)

Bildt’s anti-Israeli sentiment came to the fore again in the Aftonbladet organ affair. In August this anti-Israeli daily published an article which accused Israel of killing Palestinians in order to acquire organs for transplant. Bildt refused to condemn it, saying that there is freedom of the press in Sweden and that the government therefore cannot condemn the press. When, however, a few weeks later, Aftonbladet published an article by a member of the right wing Sweden Democrats party, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt condemned it. Suddenly, when Israel was not concerned, it was permissible to criticize the same paper.

Ilya Meyer, a writer who has held senior positions in the Swedish Jewish community, has a blog which reports regularly – in both English and Swedish – on Sweden’s misbehavior toward Israel. He notes that the Swedish state finances almost the entire $6 million budget of an extreme pro-Palestinian group in the country, Palestinagrupperna. This body has links to various terrorist organizations. In an annual report Palestinagrupperna claimed that Bildt had told them that he agrees with them on every point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.(2)

There are many friends of Israel in the four parties currently in the Swedish government – the Moderates, the Christian Democrats, the Liberals and the Center Party. However, the present coalition is severely trailing the opposition in the most recent polls.(3) New parliamentary elections will take place in September 2010.

The opposition consisting of the Social Democrats, Sweden’s largest party, the Green Party and the Left Party is far more hostile to Israel than the present government, with the main exception of Bildt.

During the Gaza Campaign Mona Sahlin, the leader of the Social Democrats, participated in an anti-Israel rally in Stockholm(4) at which Hizballah and Hamas flags were flown and an Israeli flag was burned.(5) Jan Eliasson, the former foreign minister,(6) and Wanja Lundby Wedin, chair of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation,(7) also took part in that event.

Many senior party members participated in such demonstrations. In Norrköping, an ex-parliamentarian and former party secretary of the Social Democrats, Lars Stjernkvist, spoke with a Hizballah flag and swastikas in the background.(8) In Malmö, the Social Democrat parliamentarian, Luciano Astudillo, spoke as someone next to him held up a picture of Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah.(9)

Sahlin’s attitude toward Israel may develop in directions similar to those of Sweden’s best known prime minister, the Social Democrat Olof Palme. He was the first Western-European prime minister to label Israel as a Nazi state.

In the past few years Israel has missed the opportunity to confront the current government on many anti-Israel matters, including its indirect subsidies to anti-Israel hate bodies, mainly leftovers from the Social Democrat government.

This is especially unfortunate since the Swedish Minister of International Development Cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson, is currently revising the country’s foreign aid policies. She aims to move funding away from corrupt and dictatorial regimes to democracies and to projects that foster economic and political goals that are in line with those of Sweden. Pointing out how Palestinian organizations which receive major Swedish aid are abusing this could have had some actual influence on the country’s foreign aid policy.

If the current coalition, led by the Moderates, remains in power, one can raise these issues anew and try to solve them over a four year period. If the Social Democrats win the elections, ongoing confrontations with Sweden will be almost unavoidable. This is the more so as, for the first time, the Left and Green parties will probably join the government. There are many possibilities for Israeli retaliation against hostile Swedish acts, but it would be counterproductive to disclose them today.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is Chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He has published fifteen books among which :


Behind the Humanitarian Mask, the Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews. (2008)


(1) Gil Hoffman, “Swedish FM Likens Netanyahu to Hamas,” Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2007.

(2) Ilya Meyer, “The Swedish Foreign Minister’s Crusade against Israel,” 9 December 2009. www.ilyameyer.com.


(3) Opposition poll lead “very worrying”: Reinfeldt, The Local 14 december 2009.

(4) Per Gudmundson, “Mona Sahlin, hakkorsen och Hamasflaggorna,” Gudmundson, 15 January 2009 http://gudmundson.blogspot.com. [Swedish]

(5) “Israelska flaggan brändes,” Dagens Nyheter, 10 January 2009. [Swedish]

(6) Per Gudmundson, “Rödflaggat,” Gudmundson, 13 January 2009, http://gudmundson.blogspot.com. [Swedish]

(7) Per Gudmundson, “Swedish Leading Social Democrats in Rally with Hezbollah Flags,” Gudmundson, 10 January 2009, http://gudmundson.blogspot.com. [Swedish]

(8) Erik Svansbo, “Folkbladet uppmärksammar ‘bloggkupp,’” Svansbo, 14 January 2009, http://blogg.svansbo.se. [Swedish]

(9) Per Gudmundson, “Rödflaggat,” Gudmundson, 13 January 2009, http://gudmundson.blogspot.com. [Swedish]

Why Carl Bildt is driving the Israelis up the wall

“September 19, 2010, that’s the target. Send the best political campaign professionals in the world into Sweden’s national elections. Make Reinfeldt and Bildt pay a price.”

That’s the suggestion of political consultant Michael Fenenbock in an op-ed in Israel’s largest daily, Yedioth Ahronoth. The reason is that the EU has once again proclaimed that Jerusalem should be the capital city of a future Palestinian state, something for which rotating EU president “Reinfeldt and his Rasputin-like partner Carl Bildt” ought to be punished.

“We have the means, the experience and skill to cause these guys political pain in Sweden,” writes Fenenbock, who has previously run campaigns for Ted Kennedy and others in the US.

That’s somewhat ironic. For decades now an anti-Semitic-tainted extreme Left has been mouthing off about a “pro-Israel Lobby” that is alleged to control the world’s political destiny. When finally someone turns up who claims to represent just such a lobby, it also turns out that he intends to bring down the non-socialist government. That’s going to lead to some really hard-to-reconcile internal conflicts in many quarters.

The fact, however, is that there is a tense relationship between Sweden and Israel right now. That’s on the political plane. As regards trade and cultural exchanges, on the other hand, the atmosphere has never been better.

Carl Bildt’s rather arrogant style (he recently claimed that Israel is trying to influence the EU through a policy of “divide and rule”) underscores some Israelis’ impression that Bildt did not merely convey the demands expected during his country’s EU presidency, but rather that he has taken on the task with a dedication bordering on fervour. As though he truly burns with enthusiasm to put Israel in its place.

This past autumn’s headline-making story in which this country’s biggest daily paper spread stories about Israeli organ harvesting, stories deeply rooted in anti-Jewish mythology, without being admonished by the Swedish government, has scarcely done anything to mend bridges.

In Israel, the EU’s and Sweden’s incessant demands are perceived as highly one-sided. And not without some justification.

Last week the Israeli media presented leaked details about what was probably the previous Israeli government’s proposal to the Palestinians: then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is reported to have made an offer for a future Palestinian state on 99.3% of the pre-1967 territory. As well as the partitioning of Jerusalem. The Palestinians declined. Yet again. So who exactly is being unreasonable?

The current Israeli government emerged as a response to the previous centre coalition, which received nothing in reply to its far-reaching concessions. If today we are hearing a sharp tone of voice from Prime Minister Netanyahu and others, it is not solely a cause of the situation we see today – it is in equal measure a response to Palestinian intransigence.

That a Swedish non-socialist government would be hostile to Israel is unthinkable. So how exactly are we to interpret Carl Bildt?

It’s that same old problem: trying to extract responsibility from the only party that has ever been shown to be capable of behaving responsibly, while never demanding responsibility from the one party that really should be shouldering it. Instead of perhaps using our immense financial aid to the Palestinians to persuade them in the appropriate direction.

The question is whether it would work. From the Israeli viewpoint, it is more convenient to bicker with Sweden, and to joke about rigging our election process, than it is to pursue an uncertain centrist policy that would require some extremely hazardous concessions. That makes Carl Bildt the Likud government’s excuse to shift its focus. And that may not have been the intention.

Per Gudmundson

per.gudmundson@svd.se

Translated into English by Ilya Meyer with kind permission from Per Gudmundson and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD)

The original article in Swedish can be viewed here on the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) website.

Michael Fenenbock's article in English in Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth can be viewed here.