Church of Sweden suppresses truth about Palestinian barbarity

Suppression of the truth about Palestinian barbarity undermines the Church of Sweden's credibility.

Israel’s opponents are not the Palestinians, but the core of brutal Palestinian terrorists who rule with the active aid of the Arab world and blinkered supporters in countries like Sweden.

When it was revealed a fortnight ago that a handful of American soldiers had behaved in a disgraceful way towards some of their Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad rulers of Gaza reacted by vandalising a local cemetery containing the graves of Allied soldiers who died during the First World War. 87 years after their death, not even the dead are protected from Palestinian bestiality.

The same callous disregard for human feeling was evinced earlier last week when six Israeli soldiers were blown apart in their armoured vehicle in the Gaza Strip. One might argue that this is war, the soldiers died fighting. But the Hamas and Islamic Jihad rulers of Gaza swooped on the scattered remains of the dead Israeli soldiers, collected the limbs and other assorted body parts and organised an auction – knowing full well that the Jewish faith requires the burial of the entire body. It is hard to imagine such macabre contempt for the most elementary tenets of human dignity, but it’s an attitude that frames the daily actions and attitudes of Gaza’s Palestinian rulers.

The Church of Sweden has lent its full weight and immense financial resources to the newly-started HOPP campaign. HOPP is the Swedish acronym for “End the Occupation of Palestine”, it is also rather cleverly the Swedish word for “hope”. The HOPP campaign aims at bringing financial and trade sanctions to bear on Israel – collective punishment against all Israel to induce the Jewish state to sanction the ultimate goal – the formation of a Palestinian state. The link between punishment and goal is rather diffuse to everyone except perhaps the anti-Semites with which the Church of Sweden claims it has nothing in common.

But this very same Church of Sweden is remarkably silent on the subject of Palestinian bartering over dead Jewish soldiers’ body parts. The Church of Sweden’s Information Bureau writes that there are “many friends of Israel – both Christians and Jews – who criticise the State of Israel for its unjust behaviour towards the Palestinians, without in any way being opponents of Israel”. However, criticism of the Palestinians for their unjust behaviour towards bereaved Jewish civilians who want to bury their dead does not seem to be equally high on the list of priorities of these very same “friends of Israel”.

The Church of Sweden’s Information Bureau claims that “Israel is a democratic state for Jews but not for other citizens of Israel”. This may come as something of a surprise to the country’s 1.2 million-strong Israeli Arab population, whose adults are entitled to vote however they want – including for political parties whose agenda favours the disappearance of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Arab entity. While on the subject of democracy and human values, the Church of Sweden’s Information Bureau may also want to explain why Saudi Arabia’s visa laws banned the entry of Jews into the kingdom. An exhaustive search of the Church of Sweden’s website reveals no strongly-worded protests by the Church – in its much-vaunted capacity as self-declared “friend of Israel” – against these anti-democratic – racist – regulations.

The same search of the website reveals no strongly-worded protests against Libya for its refusal to allow Israeli chess players to participate in the World Chess Tournament in that country, even though Israel is ranked second in the world. Apparently the Church of Sweden – which so enthusiastically embraces the boycott of Israel in its HOPP campaign – does not apply the same yardstick when it comes to judging democracy in Arab dictatorships. But the Church of Sweden is of course in good company, because the IOC – the International Olympic Committee – is equally tight-lipped in its response to the racist policies of Libya, suggesting instead that Israel’s matches be played in Malta. That, unless the world is mistaken, is how apartheid came into being – the segregation of an entire nation of people from the rest of humanity. Not even the world of sport is permitted to unite the peoples of the world as long as the automatic anti-Israel majority has its say.

But back to Gaza, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the price per kilogram of butchered Jewish body parts. If this is not the sort of Palestinian leadership that the Church of Sweden and the HOPP committee want envisage, then it is time for an unequivocal condemnation of Palestinian barbarity. Expressed in the same uncompromising vocabulary that is used to condemn Israel for claimed – and occasionally even actual – wrongdoing. And signed by the very same people. A massive public campaign to condemn Palestinian brutality and bestiality, the result of years of officially sponsored Palestinian indoctrination. Criticism of Palestinians that is given the same sort of media prominence as criticism of Israel would go a long way to erasing suspicions that the HOPP campaign and its main powerhouse, the Church of Sweden , is only interested in the destruction of the Jewish state, no matter what measures are used against its living – and dead – citizens.

School quiz is political propaganda

I am writing with regard to your quiz no. 9 (May 2003, Basic), which my 13-year old son enjoyed doing this morning.

I would like to congratulate you on putting together a well-expressed and highly topical quiz that trains the spotlight on current events in an interesting and easy to understand way, yet without talking down to youngsters.

I do, however, take serious issue with one of the questions in this quiz:
The first question asks: “Yassir Arafat is the President of Palestine. Now the country also has a Prime Minister. What is his name?”

While it is highly laudable to draw attention to such a topical event of great current interest and potentially far-reaching importance, I strongly object to what is at best perhaps an unintentional error, at worst an invidious departure from fact designed to indoctrinate impressionable young children: there is no country called Palestine.



The facts of the matter are that Arabs of former Jordanian and Egyptian colonies – people who never previously expressed a wish for independence while under Arab occupation – now express a wish to create an independent state on lands currently administrated by Israel, lands that were secured from the aforementioned two Arab countries by Israel following a series of wars aggressed against Israel by these and other Arab states. Before that, Palestine was a geographical area (not a politically defined entity) administrated by Britain, and before that by Turkey. This historical Palestine included all of what is today Israel, as well as parts of the Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, all of Jordan and Egypt.

It is an unequivocal fact that local Arabs on the West Bank and in Gaza identify themselves as Palestinian Arabs. Equally so, it is an unequivocal fact that the region as a whole stands to reap immense benefits from a solution to the conflict that would grant the Palestinian Arabs the right to determine their own future once they stop perpetrating suicide-bombing massacres and armed ambushes against Israeli civilians. There is a wide gap, however, between this highly desirable theoretical state of affairs, on the one hand, and the presentation of “Palestine” as an already existing fact, on the other – this simply smacks of the indoctrination of impressionable schoolchildren.


Until the current state of conflict is resolved, might I suggest the use in future of the internationally accepted definition for the area under advisement? It is referred to by all the foremost authorities, including the UN, as “the Palestinian Territories” or “the Palestinian Authority Area”. I feel sure you would not wish to put yourselves forward as a greater authority on the subject than even the UN – the very body under whose auspices the conflict erupted in the first place.