Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism in Sweden

An Interview with Zvi Mazel

“Sweden claims to be a superdemocracy, an example of enlightenment and openness. People with such pretensions should be a little more knowledgeable about Israel, another democracy after all. And yet the average Swedish citizen does not know more than what the country’s shallow media tells him. This is often anti-Israeli, and the public is influenced by it.”

Zvi Mazel was the Israeli ambassador to Sweden from December 2002 to April 2004. “Before, I had been for five years ambassador to Egypt, where massive hatred of Israel was promoted on a daily basis. We were regularly accused of all that was wrong everywhere in the world. I did not expect to find a somewhat similar atmosphere in a democratic country such as Sweden.”

During his stay in Stockholm, Mazel developed a critical view of Sweden. Among large parts of the society’s elite he encountered a discriminatory attitude and hostility to Israel as well as pseudo-morality and arrogance. Sweden’s apparent tolerance for rabid anti-Semitism has reinforced his opinion of the country’s ruling classes.

Often Hostile Media

“The unabated Swedish attack on Israel, which already began to gather force in the 1980s, reached its summit during the Second Intifada. It promoted and implanted a spirit of anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism that found major expression in the Swedish media.

“Most media managed to present Israel on every occasion as the evil party in the Middle East. For a long time it was hard to find, if at all, even one single editorial in favor of Israel. In this hostile climate, extreme right-wing anti-Semitism by neo-Nazi groups could also flourish. Even more so, fertile ground was laid for the Islamic anti-Semitism that was supported by extreme left-wing organizations.

“The Swedish media have hardly any investigative function. In that regard their performance, compared to the Israeli media, is poor. Issues, including domestic ones, rapidly arise and disappear. Their frequent hostility to Israel can partly be explained by the disproportionately large number of journalists who belong or are supporters of the Green and Left parties or the Social Democrats.”

Cowards like Others

Mazel observes: “Nowadays among the Swedish dailies, the biggest, Aftonbladet, is the most anti-Israeli. Its editor in chief, Helle Klein, is a descendant of a well-known rabbi but she can find nothing good in Israel and her paper attacks us regularly. During the worst Arab terrorist acts of the intifada, the paper still said Israel was an oppressive colonialist state that behaved entirely unjustly.

“Dagens Nyheter, the more intellectual daily, is also consistently anti-Israeli. It published the worst anti-Semitic article I ever read in a Swedish paper. It was titled ‘It Is Permitted to Hate Jews.’ The author, Jan Samuelson, who presented himself as an Islam expert, wrote that as long as Israel occupies territories, the Muslim hatred against all Jews is justified. This view entails that any Muslim is entitled to hate a newborn Jewish child anywhere in the world. He did not refer to the genocidal hatred of Jews that existed among Muslims long before the Six Day War.

“Svenska Dagbladet, the other quality newspaper, is also critical of Israel but not as much as the other two. A fourth daily, Expressen, rather a  tabloid paper, is usually more balanced. Yet during my stay in Sweden they let an imam of the Stockholm Great Mosque publish a weekly column on Friday. Its text was very different from the violent sermons of the imams in the same mosque.

“To be fair it must be pointed out that the Swedish media are not alone in being cowards. If the European media had more courage, they would constantly expose Muslim violence all over the world. The perpetrators draw motivation directly from Muslim culture. The ongoing mass murders in Iraq demonstrate how widespread violence can be in contemporary Muslim societies. If the European press were really as enlightened as it pretends to be, its editorials would continuously castigate this culture of violence.”  

The Social Democrats

Mazel mentions that the Social Democratic Party ruled the country from 1932 until 2006 except for two short interludes. “Since Olof Palme became the Social Democratic leader in 1969 the party has been following an anti-Israeli line, which continues till today. Israel has very few friends in the Social Democratic Party, which still remains Sweden’s largest with 130 out of 349 seats in parliament.

“However, the former Social Democratic Prime Minister Göran Persson gained much positive publicity when he organized a major international conference on Holocaust education—the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in January 2000.

“In anticipation of this conference, which was very successful, he had set up a research institute called Living History whose task was and still is to investigate the various aspects of the Holocaust, and which published a book on the Shoah. This excellent work has been translated into many languages and became a textbook for high schools. One of the results of the conference was the formation of a task force of teachers from various countries that would be sent to Yad Vashem for training in Holocaust education.

“In the following years Persson however strayed from the centrality of the Holocaust in various other directions. We had major discussions with Swedish diplomats to keep the 2004 conference on Preventing Genocide from becoming highly politicized, focused on contemporary issues, and anti-Israeli. Also Persson’s speech at that conference was rather ambivalent.

“Despite Persson’s personal attitude he has to carry part of the blame for his party’s discriminatory stance toward Israel. For decades the Social Democrats helped create the country’s anti-Israeli atmosphere. He also has to take responsibility for the behavior of the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency (SIDA), which blames Israel for all the many wrongs in Palestinian society.

“Another leading socialist the late foreign minister Anna Lindh usually made the most vicious attacks on Israel. Her hatred of Israel can only be described as almost pathological. Under her leadership Sweden published the greatest number of one-sided condemnations of Israel of any EU country. Lindh was stabbed to death in 2003 by a mentally disturbed Swede of Serbian origin.

“The Social Democrats’ anti-Israeli campaign expressed itself not only in the frequent one-sided official condemnations of Israel’s activities against Palestinian terror. It also allowed party activists at various levels to attack Israel and accuse it of oppressing the Palestinians while the Palestinians benefited from the Social Democrats’ understanding for their terrorist acts.”

The Rise of Swedish Neo-Nazis

“I wonder why Persson had initiated the research into the Holocaust. His main reason seems to have been his worry about the rise of neo-Nazi groups. During World War II there were strong Nazi sympathies in Sweden. Hundreds of Swedes volunteered for the Nazi army in Germany.

“After the war these sympathies did not vanish but were less out in the open. Since the 1960s, Swedish pro-Nazi movements have been on the rise and increasingly problematic. Persson was looking for a way to counter their activities. Someone suggested to him to focus on the Holocaust and arrange a major international conference. He also was advised that this would give him international stature.

“Despite all Persson’s efforts the neo-Nazis continued with their gatherings and activities. Rumors are that their number is increasing.   There are laws against Nazi incitement and if done openly one can be brought to court. Yet from time to time neo-Nazis demonstrate in the streets of Stockholm and Malmö. On Holocaust Memorial Day in 2003, neo-Nazis demonstrated close to the Stockholm synagogue where the remembrance ceremony was held. The police did not prevent that.

 “At the beginning of 2006, the Swedish pro-Palestinian organizations held their annual meeting and discussed how to develop their strategy toward Israel. Also Lindh’s successor as foreign minister Laila Freivalds spoke at this hate gathering, and was criticized by the press for one day.

“In the Left Party with 22 seats and the Green Party with 19 seats there is a universal anti-Israeli attitude. When there is a debate on the Middle East they express an abysmal hatred, which one also finds in their papers. One Green parliamentarian came to Israel together with people from the International Solidarity Movement. He threw stones at the security fence together with Palestinians and was finally evicted from Israel. Initially the Swedish media criticized Israel but later they were more understanding.”

The New Government

In the 2006 parliamentary elections the Left was defeated by a coalition of the four parties of the Center and Right: the Moderates, Liberals, Christian Democrats, and the Center Party. Mazel remarks: “The first three support Israel. The Center Party is more reserved. Together they have 178 seats in Parliament. 

“A new government was thereupon formed under Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt, chairman of the Moderate Party. This led to a significant change in the atmosphere concerning Israel. While these parties were in opposition, they more than once came to Israel’s defense during the hostile campaign against it by the Social Democratic government.

“The new government has stopped making extreme anti-Israeli statements. Simultanously public anti-Semitic attacks have declined substantially.

“Beneath the surface, however, anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism continue to thrive, waiting for a new occasion to erupt. This encompasses all the anti-Israeli bodies such as the Swedish Lutheran church, its charitable organization Diakonia, and Brotherhood, which is the Christian wing of the Social Democratic Party.

 “The extreme left-wing organizations cooperate with the ISM organization, which continues to send youth from Sweden and other countries to the territories. They act against the Israel Defense Forces, which protect those constructing the security fence. In 2006 a number of Swedes were wounded in a confrontation with the army near Hebron.”

Irregularities at SIDA

“SIDA also continues its anti-Israeli activities. There have been criticisms that the agency works according to leftist principles instead of true needs. In autumn 2007 Sweden’s public auditors stated that they had found irregularities in various SIDA projects abroad.

“SIDA is one of the greatest contributors of aid to the Palestinians, which by now has reached many hundreds of millions of euros. This is disproportionately large compared to the aid Sweden gives to the African states, which are desperately in need of help in areas such as agriculture, food, community development, and health services.

“Earlier SIDA was often criticized for transferring money to the Palestinian Authority without any valid supervision regarding its efficient use or waste, or even its diversion to terrorist activities.”

NGOs

“Many NGOs collaborate with the extreme Left and march with the pro-Palestinians. They would regularly organize demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy. They would even throw excrement at the building. In Sweden that is apparently permissible. The police let them advance almost to the wall of the embassy. This is the common police attitude.

“In March 2004, I attended a gala evening of the Keren Hayesod that opened the fundraising season. It was held in Nalen Hall, one of the nicer ones in Stockholm. Suddenly the security officer of the Israeli embassy entered. Hundreds of protesters, Muslims and extreme leftists, were demonstrating outside and trying to break into the hall and the police did not seem able to block them.

“I told him that I could not leave the audience alone, most of which were non-Jewish friends of Israel. It also seemed to me that the police would not let matters get totally out of hand. Later the public was made to leave through a side door. The following year the owners of the hall refused to rent it again to Keren Hayesod. The violence had intimidated them.”  

The Lutheran Church

“For about a decade the Lutheran church has no longer been the state church. Its former head, Archbishop Hammar, is a well-known Israel-hater. In January 2003 he gathered seventy Swedish intellectuals to sign a petition to boycott Israeli goods, particularly those that come from the territories. They also wanted to suspend the EU’s association agreement with Israel. Even Anna Lindh was not ready to go that far and did not want to boycott Israel.

“Among the signatories was Carl Tham, the Swedish ambassador to Germany. A diplomat is an official of his country, whose policy he has to represent.  The Jewish community protested against the boycott effort and a media debate resulted. Lindh later said she had told the ambassador her opinion. When asked what she had said she refused to tell. The ambassador stayed in his post.

“The Lutheran church also has a theological institute in Jerusalem that is led by a pro-Palestinian director. When a delegation of all parliamentary parties came to Israel earlier in 2006, I was invited to address them. It turned out the director had arranged matters so that, besides me, they would only meet with Palestinians and extreme-Left Israeli organizations. They visited Ramallah but not Tel Aviv.       

“The church has been sending Swedish youth to the Palestinian Authority with the aim of accompanying Palestinians to school or work so as to ‘document infringements of international law.’ These youngsters do not document the Palestinian Authority’s infringements of international law or the crimes against humanity by Hamas in Gaza.

“The activists of the Christian branch of the Social Democratic Party continue to strengthen their links with the Palestinians and Israeli left-wing organizations. Their representatives visit the Palestinian territories regularly and their impressions are published in their newspaper, which is characterized by defamation of Israel.

“In autumn 2007 the daily Göteborgs-Posten published four articles by journalists who had visited Israel and the territories under the sponsorship of the Swedish church. They harshly attacked Israel, portraying it as a colonial state and its inhabitants as a race of rulers operating an apartheid system.

“A study by a researcher at Lund University notes that from 1937, well before World War II, Swedish Lutheran pastors would not perform marriages between Germans of Aryan blood and anyone with a Jewish grandparent. This racist position was adopted on the advice of the Swedish Foreign Ministry.”[i]

Wrecking a Work of Art

Often people do many things in their life but become famous only for one minor act. On 16 January 2004, Mazel became internationally known by disconnecting the electricity of what was supposedly a work of art. Exhibited in a Stockholm museum, it glorified Palestinian suicide bombings. The artist was an Israeli living in Sweden who belonged to an extreme-Left party.

Mazel comments: “This exhibit was the culmination of dozens of anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish events in Sweden. When you do not protest, the situation gets worse and worse. It had to be stopped even if in an unconventional way for a diplomat. Afterward I got a phone call from Prime Minister Sharon that expressed the support of the Israeli cabinet.

“The reactions in the Swedish press did not surprise me: the great majority of the editorials condemned my act. Some support came from letters to the editor. What is important to note is the readers’ reactions: in the informal Internet polls by the three leading papers they were more or less balanced for and against my act. In two of the dailies I even had a slight majority.

“Before my intervention at the museum it was almost taboo in the Swedish press to speak about anti-Semitism even though it is widespread. In the last two years it has become a subject for the newspapers. There is, though, great fear of mentioning that it has a substantial Muslim component.”

Calling to Kill Jews Is Permitted

“In the 1980s a Swedish Muslim, Ahmed Rami, opened Radio Islam where he virulently attacked Jews, Israel, and its supporters. It took years of complaints until the authorities closed his station. Thereafter he opened a website that continues to incite against the Jews in Sweden and in Israel.

“The influence of the Muslim community has grown. Mosques exist or are being built in the major cities. Hamas activists from the Muslim Brotherhood circles are at work in Sweden and their publications can also be found in mosques. 

“From friends I used to receive Hamas anti-Semitic material, which is regularly distributed in Stockholm’s Great Mosque. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi, an Egyptian Muslim hate-preacher based in Qatar and  considered the main theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood, spoke there in 2004. His speech was tantamount to calling for the murder of Israelis. I had complained to the Swedish government even before he came, asking why they let such a well-known hatemonger speak there. I did not even get a reply.

“On this matter the Swedish media initially remained silent. After extracts of Qardawi’s talks were published, I wrote to many people in Sweden and distributed his texts. It took some time until one of the leading members of the Liberal Party’s young guard wrote an article against the hate preacher. That finally led to some discussion in the Swedish press.”

Widespread Anti-Semitism

“The situation with respect to anti-Semitism in Sweden got even worse at the beginning of 2006. Göran Lambertz, the chancellor of justice—the government’s counselor on legal matters—discontinued an investigation of the Grand Mosque of Sweden. Cassettes sold there had a highly anti-Semitic content, calling for jihad and the killing of Jews. The chancellor said these were part of the everyday occurrences in the conflict in the Middle East.

“If one chooses the right context one can now call for the mass murder of Jews without any consequences. That is Swedish democracy, which also considers itself entitled to teach Israel morality.

“A major survey in 2005 revealed the widespread anti-Semitism in Sweden. Out of a sample of three thousand Swedes aged sixteen to seventy-five, 41 percent declared themselves anti-Semites, 5 percent strongly so. Twenty-five percent did not consider a Jewish prime minister in Sweden acceptable, 26 percent believed Israel dealt with the Palestinians similarly to how the Nazis dealt with the Jews, and 26 percent thought the Israelis operated according to the biblical concept of an eye for eye.”