A legal precedent

The Jerusalem Post reports that The European Initiative, a new European pro-Israeli lobby, has filed a lawsuit in Belgium against Hamas leaders from Gaza and Damascus, demanding that they be brought to justice for war crimes.

About time too. The Belgian initiative is a welcome proactive move against terrorism and against support for intransigence, indoctrination, Islamism, fanaticism, extremism and terrorism the world over.

A similar initiative would do wonders in Sweden. Sweden has a history of antagonistic behaviour toward the Jewish state, including breach of contract and the welcoming terrorist Palestinian Arab leaders to its shores, and spends immense sums of taxpayer revenue reinforcing Palestinian Arab intransigence, which in turn promotes continued violence and bloodshed. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Swedish citizens have been the victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism in Israel, and Jewish citizens of Sweden have long been made to pay the price for successive Swedish governments that have signally failed to adopt a firm stance against Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism and extremist Left-wing anti-Zionism. This writer has been on the receiving end of rockets from Islamist terror organisation Hizbullah while in Haifa and Islamist terror organisation Hamas while in Sderot.

A call by the imam of the Grand Mosque in Stockholm to kill Jews as a result of the conflict in the Middle East was ignored by the judiciary and the government.

Repeated gross anti-Semitic allegations by extreme Left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet over unfounded claims of systematic Israeli Army organ trafficking were ignored by the judiciary and the government. Even Britain's Guardian newspaper, scarcely the Jewish state's most avid supporter, has the decency to back off from Aftonbladet-esque headlines. Not so Aftonbladet.

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s psychotic obsession with the Jewish state has been ignored by the judiciary and the government. He adopted a remarkably aggressive stance on the organ trafficking debacle and then invested the entire resources of his office and his (admittedly fast-dwindling) personal prestige in trying to push the EU to recommend the partitioning of Jerusalem – while at the same time celebrating the reunification of Berlin…

Every year, Sweden diverts vast sums of money from its state coffers, routing these funds away from Swedish schools, Swedish hospitals, Swedish jobs, Swedish infrastructure, even the well-being of Swedish children, and instead using these hard-earned resources for non-transparent, under-the-table foreign-policy strategies via a host of shady NGOs such as SIDA, Diakonia, Forum Syd, ISM, the Swedish Church and so on – all with the aim of subverting the Jewish state. It is a parallel foreign policy about which few Swedes know anything – for the simple reason that it is filed as charity and is therefore virtually invisible. The point is that this pursuit of an invisible and parallel foreign policy is ignored by the judiciary and the government because it is waged privately from the Swedish foreign ministry, albeit with VERY public funding.

Time therefore for a proactive Swedish initiative along the same lines. If you have the funding and/or the expertise to help in this matter, get in touch.

It’s time to put things right in Sweden. The vast majority of Swedes are fed up to the gills with having their already shaky finances abused, their enviable and highly deserved reputation trashed and their energy exploited by shady individuals with murky agendas whose sole merit is that they are in powerful places, whether in the media or in public office.

Rescue Sweden. Before an entire nation is hijacked. It’s been done many times before.

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]

An illiterate Foreign Minster?

Is Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt illiterate?

Or can he actually read and write, and it’s just his thought processes that are muddled?

Richard Goldstone recently published a scathing report that heavily criticised Israel for its 30-day operation in Gaza in January this year. Remarkably, however, the report failed to take make mention of the 2920 days of constant missile bombardment that emanated from civilian areas of Gaza, aimed at civilian areas of Israel.

Over 12,000 missiles in all.

None of which Richard Goldstone seems to have noted.

Now Sweden’s FM Bildt says he supports the Goldstone Report’s claims that war crimes were committed by Israel in its month-long response to eight years of missile bombardment.

A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment over Bildt’s statement, saying his remarks demonstrated a “lack of reading comprehension skills,” since any literate person could see the report was biased.

Carl Bildt, with impeccable clarity and swashbuckling literary style, commented:

“It really is so that this report has made a significant and gives a significant imprint and leaves a significant impression in the respective countries.”

Ah well. If only he’d said so before.

No chance of any misunderstanding, then.

Sweden goes to the elections next year. That’s a whole year in which Carl Bildt can bring moral, ethical and linguistic clarity to the world.

JPost, The Carl Bildt Philosophy, Lunatics running the asylum, Ideology in search of a newspaper, Swedish silence is golden - literally, Voluble Bildt suddenly quiet, A few things on which Carl Bildt is totally silent,

Sweden fishing in murky Hamas waters

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wades through some very murky waters indeed.

Before the weekend he breaks EU policy, meets with Hamas government ministers and declares “we believe the Palestinian government should be treated as a single entity”.

Immediately after the weekend he somehow manages to forget everything Hamas stands for on his visit to Yad Vashem, the monument to the monstrosity that is anti-Semitism – a disease that is alive and very much thriving to this day.

Not least among Hamas’ main backers, Iran. The very same Iran that recently hosted a conference questioning whether the Holocaust took place and organised a cartoon competition belittling the Holocaust.

Since Swedish Foreign Minister Bildt is apparently unable to read or understand English, allow me to quote a passage from the official Hamas Charter that he might find relevant,:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

If this statement reflects the cohesive policy of that “single entity” – the Palestinian government – and Bildt does not subscribe to the view that Israel should be obliterated, then he should immediately sever relations with all Palestinian ministers since they are all to be treated as one single entity – his own words.

Of course, Swedish Foreign Minister Bildt may not exactly have anything against the Hamas Charter per se. His blog displays an animosity to the Jewish state that is unparalleled in any western democracy. Perhaps the time has come for Israel to make up its mind as to just how often it is willing to be grossly insulted by its guests – however fancy their titles.

Aid for Palestinian Arabs, none for Swedes

Think about this:

Within 24 hours of the catastrophe in SE Asia, Israeli aid was on its way. This has been reported and praised throughout the world – but the story has scarcely made it into the mainstream Swedish media.

Lottie Knutson, spokeswoman for Swedish travel agency Fritidsresor, has done a fantastic job in the media, providing constant information and reassurance from just a few hours after the disaster struck.

Her reward: according to media reports she was warned by Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds just seconds before going on air on national TV to “Watch out! Watch your step very carefully indeed!”

All the Swedish telecom companies cancelled phone call charges to and from the stricken area, including otherwise expensive mobile phone charges, so people could get in touch with family and friends.

The Swedish Foreign Office asked all Swedish survivors to sign a contract whereby they agreed to repay the full cost of a loan for their repatriation back to Sweden. Plus ten percent interest on the loan. This after the survivors had lost all their belongings, and in many cases family members, in the disaster.

Yes, you read the above right.

After a huge public outcry, the Foreign Office withdrew its demand for interest, and for the loan itself.

With Sweden having the largest number of tourists in the stricken area, it was always going to be difficult if not impossible for the country to handle its needs single-handedly. The US and Australia both had resources in the area, but Sweden declined to request their help. One wonders how many more Swedes suffered additionally because of this steadfast refusal to request US and Australian assistance. Is there perhaps something in the suggestion that Sweden, virulently opposed to the war against Saddam, was prepared to go to any lengths rather than request the assistance of two countries that were part of the coalition against Saddam? Following a public outcry, Sweden requested US and Australian help.

All the Swedish insurance companies immediately joined forces and announced they would bring everyone back home without any need to worry about insurance policies – every company would also take care of policyholders with other companies; the only concern was to bring everyone back home as soon as possible, including those without any travel insurance. This was their highly appreciated contribution to the relief effort.

Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds, on the other hand, went to the theatre and didn’t turn up at her office until 31 hours after the disaster struck.

Private Swedish companies Volvo and Ericsson placed their corporate jet at the disposal of the Swedish aid effort, packing the aircraft with medical staff and medical supplies and dispatching it to the area within hours of the catastrophe.

The Swedish government, which sent its own government plane to fetch a Swedish cabinet minister from a football match in Portugal last year, now kept this craft firmly on the tarmac as the disaster unfolded. The Swedish authorities also declined to send their Hercules aircraft to SE Asia because they aren’t considered comfortable or fast enough for such a long flight. They were the only aircraft available at a time when every survivor removed from the area freed additional space and resources for other more needy survivors.

At one of the aid centres in Thailand where the Thais had done fantastic work in grouping survivors of the various nations together and giving them every assistance possible, surviving Swedes asked if there were no Swedish authorities available to help them, as there were representatives of Finnish, Italian, Israeli, British, German and other victims. The answer was that there indeed were Swedish representatives on site, they were waiting in an air-conditioned building at the edge of the site; it was rather too warm for them outside. When some of the survivors finally made it there later that afternoon, after first seeing to the needs of their injured friends and family members, they found they had arrived a little too late – it was after 5 pm and thus the end of the work-day for the Swedish staff. This according to the survivors themselves.

The Swedish authorities are the only authorities in the world withholding the identities of those presumed missing. The reason? To protect their homes and property back home in Sweden. However, if they did announce the names of all those missing, as all the other countries have done, this would immensely speed up the identification process. Sweden’s private security companies have all said they will guard such properties free of charge until the homeowners return from SE Asia. But the Swedish government is unmoved.

One wonders just how much longer such a government can last. Because it certainly isn’t functioning on behalf of its citizens.

15-year-old Swedish girl dying in Gaza

15-year-old Swede Miriam Nowajha will soon slip into a coma. Miriam, who together with her four siblings aged 6-16 was kidnapped and has been incarcerated in Gaza since June, suffers from Type 1 diabetes and is about to die.

Miriam has no more facilities for testing her blood-sugar level. Without knowing her blood-sugar level, she does not dare take insulin in case the dosage is wrong. Without her constant medication, Miriam is incapable of making rational decisions, even those affecting her health and life.

Without insulin, the 15-year-old will slip into a coma within 48 hours. She will then die in a slow but irreversible process. She has not been eating since the 6th of December.

Her mother Elisabeth Krantz has appealed to Swedish Prime Minister Mr Göran Persson, to Foreign Minister Ms Laila Freivalds, and to the Swedish Foreign Office. She has appealed to the Swedish Consulate General in Israel, which is the local Swedish authority best able to obtain the children’s release. Thus far without result.

The Swedish media have interviewed Elisabeth Krantz on a number of occasions. She has explained on the air and in the papers that her estranged husband, the children’s father, has announced his intention to marry off the two eldest girls, Sara and Miriam aged 16 and 15, to their first cousins, his own brother’s sons. Elisabeth has explained that the children – who were taken to Gaza back in June at the height of the summer when clothing requirements were minimal – do not even have shoes.

Elisabeth Krantz is appealing to media and politicians the world over to help save her children. Miriam’s situation is critical. In another couple of days’ time, it may be too late.

There is one means of getting the children released immediately: freeze Swedish aid to the PA, which is doing nothing to secure the children’s release. PM Persson stated in Parliament that it “would be a most unfortunate development if we were to confuse aid with any one legal case”.

Miriam is not a legal case, she is a 15-year-old Swede who will die far from home. She will die while Sweden continues to make huge financial contributions to the Palestinian Authority – which has still not released Miriam or her four siblings. Linking aid to the lives of Miriam, Sara, Zakarias, Amina and Adam is not an “unfortunate development” – failure to do so is tantamount to criminal negligence. Financial aid can be restored within a few seconds, without any side-effects. Miriam has one life. It cannot be restored, and it is ebbing away while these words are being read.