Has anyone in Israel asked how Gideon Levy got it all so very wrong?

Letter sent to Haaretz following columnist Gideon Levy's article entitled "Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us?"

Response to Gideon Levy, Haaretz:

Has anyone in Israel asked how Gideon Levy got it all so very wrong?
By Ilya Meyer, Sweden

Gideon Levy asks “Has anyone in Israel asked why the Swedes hate us?” His article is a textbook example of how journalists sometimes get just about everything wrong.

Levy presupposes everyone’s incompetence. He explains that “(Swedish tennis player) Johansson and his angry fans saw real pictures from Gaza; (Israeli tennis player) Ram and his complacent fans never did.” It never occurred to Levy that perhaps Andy Ram and his fans actually pay their Internet subscriptions and were able to see exactly the same images from the Gaza Strip as everyone else in the world was able to see. The arrogance of assumption apparently knows no bounds.

I do not know if Levy spoke to Ram, and I do not know how much Levy understands about Sweden – the psyche, the politics, the demographic construct and the language. I did speak to Ram, I have lived in Sweden for 25 years and I am fluent in Swedish – both the nation and the language.

Like all Israelis, Andy Ram knew what was happening in Gaza. Apparently unlike Gideon Levy, Ram also knew what pre-empted Israel’s response: 2920 days of merciless missile barrages from Gaza into civilian communities in southern Israel. I’ll stick my neck out here and make an assumption: Gideon Levy does not live in Sderot. Let me stick my neck out further and hazard a guess that Levy lives in or very near Tel Aviv. Well out of the reach of the 10,000 missiles with which Gazans have pounded southern Israel. Levy quite rightly feels very strongly on behalf of the Palestinian Arab civilian casualties. Every civilian casualty anywhere signifies the utter failure of mature human beings to resolve their differences responsibly.

But Gideon Levy suggests it is most important to protect civilian Palestinian Arabs from the consequences of their own choices after they freely elect a government openly dedicated to war on Israel’s civilian population. Levy puts a higher premium on the lives of a neighbor at war with his own country, than on the lives of his own fellow-citizens. In a time of war – which is how Hamas constantly defines its relations with Israel – that is high treason.

Levy makes sweeping statements without any basis in fact. While Gideon Levy was in his apartment in Tel Aviv, far from the Islamist violence in Sderot and Malmö, I was at the tennis match in Malmö, dodging missiles and trying not to get lynched. I interviewed players, officials, police officers, civilian security staff, passersby, fans of both the Israeli and the Swedish teams. Not one single interviewee suggested that the melee in Malmö had anything to do with Israel’s actions in Gaza, opining instead that it had everything to do with a determined Swedish extremist Left-wing political drive to demonize Israel.

Here is what Malmö in Sweden is really like, in the eyes of the city's police oficers and its hard-pressed ambulance and fire rescue services.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLECtFT4aU

Levy suggests that “the Swedes hate us”. I have news for Levy and for Haaretz’s readers. They don’t. Swedes by and large admire Israel. They also occasionally criticize Israel. On occasion they also criticize Britain over her handling of Ireland, France over her treatment of former colonies, the USA over her policies in the Middle East, Australia over her sometimes staunch refusal to allow in more refugees. They very often criticize their own country, Sweden, for all sorts of issues ranging from high taxation and an increasingly burdened health-care system, to the failure of immigration, asylum and integration policies.

Having said that, the small yet vocal and violent minority of Swedes who have kidnapped the media and taken over the public discourse do not criticize Russia over its decimation of Chechnya, China over its rape of Tibet, Myanmar over the disgraceful treatment of its own citizens, Zimbabwe over its treatment of political rivals, Sudan and Congo over the genocide taking place with official sanction. This vocal and violent minority do not demand the destruction of any of these countries. That is a demand they reserve solely for Israel.

In Sweden, western democracies receive harsh criticism because it is safe to criticize them, while dictatorships rarely merit a attention. This is because, over the years, a small but highly motivated cadre of media-savvy extremist Left-wingers have stormed the Swedish media scene and taken it hostage through infiltration, indoctrination and subjugation.

Unlike Gideon Levy, I was in Malmö. I heard the 7000-strong crowd of mostly Muslim rioters waving Hamas banners while chanting “Khaiber, Khaiber ya yahud, ya’ish Muhammad saufa ya‘ud” (which roughly translates into Khaiber, Khaiber, Oh Jews, Mohammed’s army will return to finish you off) – a blood-curdling racist battle-cry recalling the Muslim slaughter of Jews about 1300 years ago in the oasis of Khaiber in the Arabian peninsula for their refusal to convert to Islam. The marchers were led by leaders and other prominent figures of the Socialist (nee Communist) Party, the Labour Party and the Green Party. And yes, Gideon Levy is right, they were Swedes.

From Sweden on the weekend of 7-8 March 2009 when the slaughter of Jews was being celebrated on the streets of Malmö:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMP0_DMaIjU

And yet no, they weren’t Swedes. Most people in this country do not go around threatening the slaughter of their fellow-citizens. “The Swedes” most emphatically do not hate Jews or Israelis. Only some Swedes do: those on the extreme Left and their staunch supporters among the recent extremist Islamist imports to this country.


While marching under a Hamas banner, Swedish Socialist Party leader Lars Ohly wears a keffiyah depicting all of Israel replaced by a single Islamic state called Palestine.

Of course, it would take a knowledgeable eye to discern these nuances. Not always easy when commenting on northern Scandinavia while sitting in a trendy café on a Tel Aviv beachfront.

Has anyone in Israel asked how Gideon Levy got it all so very wrong?

Links:
JCPA, GLORIA, WeeklyStandard, IM, IM1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, TundraTabloids, TundraTabloids

Sweden v. Israel: game, set and match

The weekend of 6-8 March 2009 is something of a turning-point in history.

It marks the date when Israel met Sweden in the Davis Cup tennis tournament in the southern Swedish city of Malmö.

Two teams played. There was one victor, but two losers.

After a hard-fought and generally very evenly matched contest on the tennis court, Israel won the series 3-2. But it really could have gone either way, both teams put up a magnificent fight.

Israel emerged the victor.

Inauguration of the 2009 Davis Cup tennis tournament in an empty arena.

But there were two losers. Firstly, the Swedish Davis Cup team, despite a great showing and spirited playing.

And secondly, what is quickly emerging as the fading democracy of Sweden – the even bigger loser.

“In my opinion, there should be no question of Sweden playing a match against Israel at all…”

Radical left-wing Malmö mayor Ilmar Reepalu

Ilmar Reepalu is mayor of Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city where Muslims make up almost 30 percent of the population. While the event was still in the planning stages, Mayor Reepalu made it clear that he did not want Jews from Israel in his city. He quoted “security concerns” – despite being told by the police that this was never going to be a problem.

Mr Reepalu then changed tack: “In my opinion, there should be no question of Sweden playing a match against Israel at all bearing in mind the situation (Israel’s 21-day operation in Gaza in response to 2920 days of Palestinian missile barrages on Israeli civilians)”. He went on to clarify his stance: “This is just not a tennis match against any old country. This is a match against the State of Israel.”

Mayor Reepalu appeared determined to set Sweden’s foreign policy in Malmö. The Swedish government in the country’s capital city, Stockholm, appeared to be completely sidelined by the brazen takeover of the nation’s foreign policy agenda.

At Malmö Town Hall the city council decided to make a very public issue of out its political stance, with radical left-wing parties winning the vote 5-4 to ban spectators from the venue as a means of persuading the Israeli team to abandon its plans to play at all.

The Israeli team turned up nonetheless. And won.

Sweden lost. It lost its chances of advancing in the Davis Cup tournament.

Sweden also lost its reputation as a democracy – like the Palestinians who seem uncertain as to whether their government is in Gaza City or Ramallah, Swedes no longer know whether their government’s foreign policy is set in Stockholm or Malmö.

And Sweden lost financially: with spectators banned by a city mayor keener to play foreign-policy demagogue than local civic leader, Malmö lost revenue from ticket sales, hotel and restaurant turnover, bus and taxi earnings.

And then had to foot the bill for mounting a multi-million kronor security operation the likes of which had never been seen in this country. One thousand police officers drafted in to maintain law and order, upwards of one hundred police vehicles involved.

Police cordon around a pair of wrecked police vehicles

Did they succeed? The police security cordon was impenetrable. I witnessed several attempts in the hours before and during the tennis games to breach security, and none succeeded. Game, set and match to the police, then.

The aftermath: one of many police vehicles being towed away after the Malmö riots

Rioters in Malmö attempted to set fire to police vehicles, with the officers inside

But at what cost? The photographs and film images show a fraction of the damage caused by the largely Muslim rioters aided and abetted by radical left-wing saboteurs.

Rioters on the rampage in Malmö

The rioters were first warmed up with firebrand speeches by the likes of Swedish Socialist (nee Communist) MP Lars Ohly sporting a keffiyeh showing a map WITHOUT the state of Israel and talking about the Jewish nation’s “crimes against humanity”. He was referring to Israel’s 21-day response after suffering an onslaught of 10,000 missiles from Gaza. The results were predictable. Violent riots, attempts to set police vehicles alight – with the officers sitting inside them – the use of granite paving-stones to try and smash the police vehicles and their occupants. The financial cost is going to suck the city of Malmö dry for years to come.




Swedish Socialist (nee Communist) MP Lars Ohly draped in a keffiyeh warming up the crowd prior to the riots



A clearer view of the Swedish MP's keffiyah showing the non-existence of Israel

Malmö city mayor Ilmar Reepalu seems unaware of the worldwide recession. From somewhere in his already depleted coffers he is now going to have to foot the bill for the repairs – after first losing out on the revenue from a tennis tournament which went ahead anyway despite his sabotage attempts.

And to round it all off, Malmö has now ended up on the international list of pariahs – a city in which no self-respecting organisation is ever going to hold a major event for risk of running aground on the whims of its mayor’s agenda of the day.

So many achievements in a few short days for the Mayor Who Would Be King.

Articles in English on the subject:
Wiesenthal, WSJ, Newsmill, JPost, JPost,

Articles from this website on the subject:
IM, 2, 3, 4, 5,

Sweden wins match but loses credibility

Sweden’s economy is in the doldrums. It’s a fate Sweden shares with many other nations in what is turning into the worst financial crisis in decades.

However, two industries are doing very well indeed:

1. Hate dissemination. The extreme left, the extreme right and the more violent Islamist movements are allied to what the Swedes, with comical euphemism, refer to as “autonomous groups” – a synonym for anarchists, violent saboteurs of civilised society. It’s an unholy alliance that is raking in the profits in Sweden. The political profits.

2. Transport. A handful of Jews from Israel arrived in Sweden to play tennis in the Davis Cup tournament, and a thousand police officers and several scores of police vehicles had to be transported down to the southern Swedish city of Malmö to protect the Jews. Why? Because this handful of Jewish tennis players also attracted about 6000 violent demonstrators from all over Sweden and northern Europe, particularly nearby Denmark, all of whom required transport to Malmö.

So what were the demonstrations in Malmö about on Saturday 7 March? Well, they certainly weren’t about human rights abuses in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Syria, the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, Fatah’s West Bank, Lebanon, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Russia, Burma.

The demonstrations were against the enormity of allowing a handful of Jews onto Swedish soil to play tennis. Because the police, in particularly unsportsmanlike fashion, erected barricades and refused to let the demonstrators tear the Jewish tennis players limb from limb, the mob turned its attention on the hapless officers. Sitting inside their vehicles, the police were subjected to what could only have been a truly terrifying rampage as fireworks, granite cobblestones, even bicycles, were hurled at them and the rioters started tearing the vehicles apart.

http://sydsvenskan.se/malmo/article417781/Polis-drog-vapen-under-kravallerna.html
A police officer under attack draws his weapon.
You don't need to understand Swedish - the images speak clearly.

I spoke before and after the tennis match with police officers, civilian security guards, passersby, fans of both the Swedish and the Israeli teams, and representatives of the Israeli team. Everyone expressed their disapproval of the demonstrators’ goals, their methods and the damage they caused to Sweden’s and in particular Malmö’s reputation.

I met a number of very pleasant police officers from my home town of Gothenburg, about a 3-hour drive away. They all said the police were thoroughly prepared and that nothing would disrupt the match. They were right – because they themselves bore the brunt of the attack by the rioters.

http://playrapport.se/#/video/1471511
From Swedish TV news, Rapport March 7, 2009
You don't need to understand Swedish - the images speak clearly.

All the police and functionaries I spoke with noted that Sweden’s reputation, economy and sports industry and the city of Malmö’s future as a host of international events have taken a severe beating – just like the city itself.

The Israeli team members expressed their astonishment over the situation. One player said that they travel the world playing tennis, including the Middle East, but that nowhere have they ever encountered the sort of hatred and naked anti-Semitism that they witnessed in Sweden.

Another player said that one might have an opinion on the policies of countries such as China, Russia, Dubai, Turkey, countries about which there is some controversy regarding human-rights issues and political freedom, but that one leaves politics behind when the time comes to play tennis.

Another team member who understands Arabic pointed out that the protests did not appear to be political in nature but instead racist. He did not understand how Sweden, previously a renowned beacon of freedom and democracy, could accept being taken hostage by what looked like race riots.

Violence against the police. The police were apparently under instruction to do nothing to “provoke” even more violence while under attack. It appears that the only major action taken by the police was to drive a few police vans forward a few metres, sirens blaring, and to use the mounted police to single out the worst offenders. According to information the police took about a hundred rioters into temporary custody, releasing them at a remote location away from the centre of the city.

Click on this link to watch a video of what unfolded and to read another first-hand account of what happened.

That was yesterday. Tomorrow perhaps it will not be the police who are targeted, perhaps it will be the civilians who will feel the full weight of the rioters’ rage.

Hopefully if that happens the police will respond more robustly.

After the match I chatted with a few Swedish tennis fans, young enthusiasts in their early 20s. One of them was immensely upset over Sweden’s loss. Not quite sure if I’d misunderstood what he said, I pointed out that Sweden had in fact won the doubles match. “Yeah well, we won the match but we lost everything else,” he said, pointing to what looked like a war zone beyond the crowd control barricades, the hundreds of police in riot gear, the dozens of civilian security personnel and the scores of police vehicles. “We’re supposed to call this winning?” he asked. “Sweden lost big-time. Tennis lost its reputation. And as for this damned city, I’m never setting my foot here again.”

A functionary standing nearby nodded without saying a word. The battle-weary police nearby looked like all they wanted to do was to go back home to their families in faraway towns and cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg and points further afield. A few of them undoubtedly came locally, from Malmö. I felt most sorry for them – it’s never pleasant hearing your home-town being trashed in public.

Malmö, March 2009. The losers’ city while the Swedish Davis Cup players enjoyed a keenly-contested victory.

But it is difficult to talk about victory on a day like this. How could Sweden lose in such a spectacular way? The answers are to be found in the left-wing politicians who fired up the 6000-strong demonstrators, turning them into rioters.

Swedish politicians Lars Ohly and Per Gahrton are the flip side of an increasingly fragile Swedish democracy. Populists who know how to use words to inflame a crowd on the day the country’s Davis Cup team won but the nation lost.

Big-time.

Swedish articles:
Syd, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Ab, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, SvD, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, DN, 2, 3, GP, Expressen, Dala, NWT, VF, Barometern, BLT, DT,

English articles:
Haaretz, Ynet, 2, 3, IHT, AP, YahooNews, METimes, JPost, 2, AFP, Eurosport, Reuters, NYdailynews

Bloggers, some in English, others in Swedish:
Adania, FiM, MXp, I Mitt Sverige, TedEkeroth, IM, IM, IM

Swedish paradise lost

A pro-Israel rally in the southern Swedish city of Malmö descended into violent chaos as an illegal counter-demonstration went on the offensive.

What was remarkable was that the illegal counter-demonstration was allowed by the police to come so close to the pro-Israel rally that the attackers were able to slice through the power supply cable to the PA system. They also got close enough to throw rockets, stones, eggs and glass bottles, eventually forcing the rally to abandon its programme at the insistence of the police.

In Malmö, Sweden, in 2009, Jews are running for their lives via back-streets while an insufficiently prepared and/or insufficiently interested police force allow violent attackers to swarm over the Jews’ meeting-place.

Among the rally participants were survivors of the Holocaust. One cannot even begin to imagine the images flying through their minds as they fled under a hail of missiles with the screams of the mob ringing in their ears. “Death to the Jews! Death to the Israelis” intermingled with the increasingly frenzied barks of police dogs, reawakening terrifying recollections from a not too distant past.

This is Sweden, the year is 2009. A Sweden where the mob rules and where people in police uniform bark orders.

The people responsible for this crushing defeat of democracy are not primarily the police, although there may be some reason for questioning their preparedness; the people who are responsible the media, who for years have pursued a virulently anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic campaign via the newspapers, radio and TV.

The power base of the mob has shown its power. Now it is up to Parliament to show its power, to demonstrate whether it will return Sweden to the course of democracy.

Or whether it will sit idly by as the country slides towards a situation that was last seen in Europe 70 years ago.

Tuesday January 27 is Sweden’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the murder of six million Jews by other racist anti-democrats not so very long ago. It is to be hoped that Tuesday will not also be hijacked by an anti-democratic, racist mob, while uniformed police protect the “basic human rights” of the violent protesters – the explanation actually given by a police officer as the Jews were removed from their venue and the area was handed over to the jubilant pro-Palestinian and pro-Hizbollah protesters.

Today in Sweden a terrible echo from seventy years ago was heard loud and clear.

Is Israel losing pride in itself as a Jewish nation?

Pro-Israel advocacy has been dealt a severe body-blow – by Israel. The reason is that Israeli authorities themselves do not have pride in Israel as a Jewish nation, albeit one with many recognized minorities.

JPost reports (081014 “Officials to discuss Acre Arabs’ fate”) that in the wake of the Arab-instigated race riots in Akko on Yom Kippur, the city’s Arab residents are slated to receive compensation for damaged property, with the city footing the bill for renovation of their apartments.

The Arab race riots resulted in dozens of Jewish-owned shops and cars being smashed. It’s what used to be called a pogrom, back in the days when words meant something and truth was valued higher than political correctness.

Akko City Hall advertises no plans to compensate Jewish residents from public coffers. The very concept of “selection” in the world’s only Jewish nation suggests that Israel has not learned from history. It is unrealistic to expect the international community to internalise a lesson that Israel itself does not appear to have learned. Israel’s legitimacy – and that of the international hasbara community – has been severely damaged by officials who teach that no action, no matter how shocking, will ever be punished if the perpetrator is an Arab and the victim merely a Jew.

It is shocking that “Allah u Akhbar” should be hurled in the face of Jews on Yom Kippur in the world’s only Jewish state. It underscores the latent racism that often bubbles under the surface in the Arab mindset.

What is even more shocking is that no effort is spared to protect the perpetrators, while leaving the Jewish victims to fend for themselves. In the world’s only Jewish state.

Israeli self-effacement is severely hampering pro-Israel advocacy abroad.