From IsraelNationalNews.com, 26 July 2010, by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu:
Anti-Semites struck for the second time in two weeks Friday and attacked the synagogue in the Swedish city of Malmo, which has suffered a steady exodus of Jews because of anti-Semitism.
A written bomb threat had been taped to the synagogue Friday, when an explosion shattered three window panes but caused no injuries. Security at the synagogue was beefed up following the attack. An explosion also struck the house of worship two weeks ago, without causing injuries.
[There were] violent demonstrations in March when an Israel tennis [team] played in the Davis Cup in Sweden ...Swedish police arrested 10 rock-throwing attackers in the March violence, which succeeded in forcing the banning of spectators at the tennis match.
Anti-Semitism in Sweden was fueled last year, when a local journalist published claims that Israel soldiers harvested organs of Palestinian Authority terrorists.
The CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) media watchdog reported last Friday, “...Jews are fleeing Malmo [in Sweden] in droves as anti-Semitic attacks, perpetrated mostly by Muslim immigrants have increased substantially. Malmo’s mayor has failed to stop the attack, stating they are merely a consequence of Israeli policies in the Middle East.”
The Swedish English-language newspaper The Local reported that the number of anti-Semitic crimes reported in Sweden rose 57 percent last year.
Showing posts with label Sweden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweden. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Alluringly-packaged Swedish anti-Semitism
From THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 27, 2009, by Sarah Honig:
Sweden ...home to beautiful blonde, blue-eyed Nordic types who spare no effort to stress just how beautiful they are ...resplendent in smug moral self-satisfaction, they idolize their own idealized virtue and spare no effort to convert the rest of the world to their more august standards and unadulterated perceptions of goodness.
They are better than the rest of us, certainly better than Jews, whom they don't quite like. Just in a 2006 survey, 41 percent of Swedes admitted to harboring anti-Semitic sentiments in varying degrees. Among them, some categorized their anti-Semitism as "extreme." Moreover, it stands to reason that many of those who didn't admit to judeophobia cannot be counted as lovers of Zion.
AS IN the captivating painting 'The Prioress' by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, the seemingly sublime can indeed conceal inconceivable virulence.
So it was hardly a surprise to learn that Sweden's most popular daily, Aftonbladet, saw fit to feature a report - in its cultural supplement of all sections - which presented no hint of objective evidence to back up assertions that IDF soldiers abduct Palestinians, remove their internal organs and sell these body parts for profit.
DOES THIS clash with disarming Swedish facades of loveliness and righteousness? ...the phenomenon of alluringly packaged abomination is encapsulated in Sir Edward Burne-Jones's striking gouache The Prioress's Tale. ....this exquisite work depicts the fable of a seven-year-old boy in an unnamed Asian city, whose throat was slit by Jews for singing a Christian hymn. Miraculously, despite the fatal wound, the underage martyr continued to trill because the Virgin Mary placed a magical grain on his tongue. The actual slaughter is revealed in a background vignette.
The narrative of a child sacrificed in a trumped-up Jewish ritual was a particularly popular medieval calumny that originated circa 1144 in Norwich, England. Numerous spurious spin-offs of this malicious genre cost many Jews, in diverse corners of the world, their lives in the ensuing centuries.
Revamped in modern guise, the old-time blood-libel still thrives in Sweden. The Aftonbladet story, carried by a mass-circulation news outlet which prides itself on progressive principles (self-proclaimed though they be), is doubtlessly as great a potential catalyst to hate crimes and prejudice as any anti-Semitic blood libel of yesteryear.
SWEDES SEEM intent on dabbling in demonization.
Sweden ...home to beautiful blonde, blue-eyed Nordic types who spare no effort to stress just how beautiful they are ...resplendent in smug moral self-satisfaction, they idolize their own idealized virtue and spare no effort to convert the rest of the world to their more august standards and unadulterated perceptions of goodness.
They are better than the rest of us, certainly better than Jews, whom they don't quite like. Just in a 2006 survey, 41 percent of Swedes admitted to harboring anti-Semitic sentiments in varying degrees. Among them, some categorized their anti-Semitism as "extreme." Moreover, it stands to reason that many of those who didn't admit to judeophobia cannot be counted as lovers of Zion.
AS IN the captivating painting 'The Prioress' by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, the seemingly sublime can indeed conceal inconceivable virulence.
So it was hardly a surprise to learn that Sweden's most popular daily, Aftonbladet, saw fit to feature a report - in its cultural supplement of all sections - which presented no hint of objective evidence to back up assertions that IDF soldiers abduct Palestinians, remove their internal organs and sell these body parts for profit.
DOES THIS clash with disarming Swedish facades of loveliness and righteousness? ...the phenomenon of alluringly packaged abomination is encapsulated in Sir Edward Burne-Jones's striking gouache The Prioress's Tale. ....this exquisite work depicts the fable of a seven-year-old boy in an unnamed Asian city, whose throat was slit by Jews for singing a Christian hymn. Miraculously, despite the fatal wound, the underage martyr continued to trill because the Virgin Mary placed a magical grain on his tongue. The actual slaughter is revealed in a background vignette.
The narrative of a child sacrificed in a trumped-up Jewish ritual was a particularly popular medieval calumny that originated circa 1144 in Norwich, England. Numerous spurious spin-offs of this malicious genre cost many Jews, in diverse corners of the world, their lives in the ensuing centuries.
Revamped in modern guise, the old-time blood-libel still thrives in Sweden. The Aftonbladet story, carried by a mass-circulation news outlet which prides itself on progressive principles (self-proclaimed though they be), is doubtlessly as great a potential catalyst to hate crimes and prejudice as any anti-Semitic blood libel of yesteryear.
SWEDES SEEM intent on dabbling in demonization.
- They refused residence to Jews as late as 1774 and only accorded them rights in 1870.
- Until 1961 a Jew couldn't serve in Sweden's government.
- Sweden did give asylum to 8,000 Danish and 900 Norwegian Jewish refugees from Nazi occupation. However, only 3,000 German Jews were sheltered pre-World War II. Demonstrating Swedish students and antagonistic public opinion severed that lifeline.
- Under socialist rule (1932-2006) Sweden relished anti-Semitic motifs, though post-Holocaust these transmuted into anti-Israel themes.
Sweden had good reason to cover up its Jew-revulsion. Its World War II nonaligned status was essentially bogus. Having expediently abstained from fighting Nazi Germany - though Swedish neutrality isn't constitutionally mandated - Stockholm in effect abetted the Third Reich. Nazi manufacturers received generous Swedish credit and Wehrmacht reinforcements enjoyed safe passage through Sweden into Norway. Hitler couldn't have maintained his war machine without unstinting supplies of Swedish iron and steel. At the very least, Sweden prolonged the war, while the Holocaust death-industry operated unabated.
In this counterfeit neutrality's name, Sweden later avowed that it must side with the downtrodden Third World. Expectedly and conveniently, minuscule Israel was classed as a great imperialistic ogre. This wasn't just rhetoric. One of Yasser Arafat's first glory-garnering European junkets was to beautiful Sweden. Stockholm began squandering huge sums on NGOs promoting causes inimical to Israel, including assorted Palestinian front organizations. Sweden partly financed the 2001 book in which the original organ-snatching defamation appeared.
- Swedish clerics and literati vociferously campaign for anti-Israel boycotts and for abrogating EU trade agreements with Israel.
- Sweden's outspoken, uncompromising hostility to Israel remains a foregone conclusion in all international forums.
The Muslim influx merely made an already bad situation incalculably worse. Muslims, some of whom overtly agitate for Islamizing infidel Scandinavia, today account for some 500,000 of Sweden's 9 million population. While Muslims parade in all fashion of exotic garb in Sweden's central cities, their anti-Jewish harassment is so open, and so unchallenged, that Jews refrain from so much as donning skullcaps outdoors.
AS ELSEWHERE in Europe, the most fundamentalist Muslims are cosseted by ostensibly the most liberal circles. Green activists, communist leftovers and strident anarchists all consider Muslims to be victims of Western/Israeli repression. Such viewpoints saturate public discourse. Sweden's political upheaval of 2006 hadn't much affected its media predispositions.
Sounds familiar to us Israelis?
Having become a core constituency of the Left, the Muslim genie cannot be shoved back into the bottle. Hence last March's anti-Israel riots during the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Malmo - a city already one-quarter Muslim.
And the Left-dominated media is a self-perpetuating thought-molder. Any murmur of dissent is castigated as bigotry, racism and fascism. To be sure, there are other mind-sets in Sweden, though defenders of democracy are liable to be denounced.
Significantly, Sweden's premier and foreign minister - who aren't consistently noninterventionist - refused to condemn Aftonbladet's fabrications. Although official Sweden helped fund the initial slander, they pointedly dissociated themselves even from the displeasure sounded by their own ambassador to Israel, because "the Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press."
That freedom, however, guarantees the right to publish, but also not to publish. Not every incendiary text that's submitted must see print. Editors not only have autonomy to accept material, but also the duty to reject what is blatantly false and inciteful. To do otherwise is to amplify the lies of latter-day blood libelers - precisely what Aftonbladet has done. It didn't serve liberty; it unthinkably injured it.
Swedes may kid themselves that their placid and pleasant society is the most successful the world has ever known. But beneath the slick veneer of Sweden's multicultural wonder lurks seething polarization that threatens to eventually unleash on Sweden what its radicals wish on Israel. Superficially Sweden is every bit as fetching as Burne-Jones's imaginative visual interpretation. As in the captivating painting, the seemingly sublime can indeed conceal inconceivable virulence.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Israeli lawyer sues 'Aftonbladet' in NY Court
From THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 26, 2009, by E.B. Solomont JPost Correspondent in NY:
Israeli lawyer Guy Ophir has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet over an article it published in which IDF soldiers were accused of harvesting organs from Palestinians.
The $7.5 million suit, which names the paper and writer Donald Bostrom, was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, according to Ophir, who said the article's allegations were anti-Semitic and amounted to "racist blood libel" against Jews and Israeli soldiers.
"It's something Goebbels would have written," Ophir told The Jerusalem Post. He said he filed the suit in New York because the newspaper had representatives there; the paper is also distributed in New York, and the article made reference to a Jew from New Jersey arrested earlier this month on organ trafficking charges. "The lawsuit, it comes from anger," Ophir said, adding that he would donate any money from damages to charity, including the IDF.
Calling the article "very dangerous," Ophir said the article was "totally libelous." As a retired IDF soldier who served in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ophir said the article's claims were medically impossible. "Those things that are stated in the article never happened," he said...
Israeli lawyer Guy Ophir has filed a lawsuit against the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet over an article it published in which IDF soldiers were accused of harvesting organs from Palestinians.
The $7.5 million suit, which names the paper and writer Donald Bostrom, was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, according to Ophir, who said the article's allegations were anti-Semitic and amounted to "racist blood libel" against Jews and Israeli soldiers.
"It's something Goebbels would have written," Ophir told The Jerusalem Post. He said he filed the suit in New York because the newspaper had representatives there; the paper is also distributed in New York, and the article made reference to a Jew from New Jersey arrested earlier this month on organ trafficking charges. "The lawsuit, it comes from anger," Ophir said, adding that he would donate any money from damages to charity, including the IDF.
Calling the article "very dangerous," Ophir said the article was "totally libelous." As a retired IDF soldier who served in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ophir said the article's claims were medically impossible. "Those things that are stated in the article never happened," he said...
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
On Swedish anti-Semitism ...silence
From THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 23, 2009, by ILYA MEYER*:
Silence is golden according to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the government official who insists his country's ambassador to Israel must refrain from expressing an opinion on virulent anti-Semitic accusations in the Swedish left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet. Accusations intended as a blood-libel against all Jews and Israelis everywhere.
The article's author Donald Boström freely admits that he has no evidence of any of his allegations but says it is up to Jews and Israelis to prove themselves innocent. An interesting if not entirely original twist - Jews are guilty until they prove themselves innocent. The basic tenets of democracy do not appear to be familiar to either Boström or Aftonbladet.
Much of the material in Boström's article came from a book he published in 2001 Inshallah which was jointly financed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry and various other government-backed organizations.
Here is what Boström writes in the acknowledgements section (comments in brackets are my explanations): "Thanks to Diakonia [90% government-financed Christian aid organization], Forum Syd [government-financed aid organization], Graphics Industry Union, Stockholm Graphic Workers' Union [part of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, co-owner of Aftonbladet], the Swedish Christian Study Center, the Brotherhood Movement [Christian branch of the Social Democratic Party], the Swedish Palestinian Solidarity Movement [partly government-financed], Trade union TCO and the Swedish Foreign Ministry for their financial donations."
A worrying pattern emerges of governmental, church and trade union involvement in officially-sanctioned demonization of Israel.
This is no one-off phenomenon. Rampant Swedish media distortion and the tacit and blatant anti-Semitism expressed in various Swedish governmental and quasi-governmental organizations can be charted with the utmost clarity in an NGO Monitor report [June 29, 2009] "A Clouded EU Presidency: Swedish Funding for NGO Rejectionism."
THE RESULTS of media distortion and constant demonizing of Jews and Israelis are felt in Sweden all the time - most recently Saturday in a soccer match involving Jewish youth club IF Hakoah, in which spectators raced onto the pitch during and after the match to assault the Hakoah players for the crime of being Jewish.
One problem, however: at this particular match, none of the Hakoah players happened to be Jewish. Not that it mattered in a climate of hate cloaked in government silence.
Other aspects of Swedish silence that are equally worrying if one steps back and examines the broader canvas. Sweden is one of the world's largest per capita donors to Palestinian Arab welfare. This funding comes in the form of tax revenues paid dutifully by hard-working Swedes lucky enough to still have a job, to the tune of about of 700 million kronor per annum and increasing yearly.
And despite the millions that he takes from Swedish citizens to give to Palestinians, Bildt deliberately chooses not to condition these payments on the Palestinians' release of the only Jew in the Gaza Strip: the young Gilad Schalit who was captured by Hamas 1200 days ago and has since not been allowed contact with his family, legal representation or visits by the Red Cross - itself a gross violation of his human rights.
Bildt has every reason to be tight-lipped. Talking would put Sweden's decades-old policy of selective silence in jeopardy. There's too much at stake if people start asking questions. Swedes might start demanding that some of their tax money be spent on their own welfare rather than on Palestinians.
IN SWEDEN, anti-Semitism is not punishable. Neither is crass stupidity. Nor, for that matter, is gross incompetence in public office. But an ambassador who expresses her honest dismay over anti-Semitism while at the same time upholding Sweden's proud tradition of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, is censured by the Swedish foreign minister.
Israel's Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan gave a resounding interview summarizing his nation's and his people's view of Sweden's often uneasy relations with Israel.
Carl Bildt had no comment.
*The writer served as chairman of the Board of Information of the Gothenburg Jewish Community, was vice chairman of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Society, West Sweden Branch, and is a former board member of the Interfaith Dialogue Group, West Sweden Division.
Silence is golden according to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the government official who insists his country's ambassador to Israel must refrain from expressing an opinion on virulent anti-Semitic accusations in the Swedish left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet. Accusations intended as a blood-libel against all Jews and Israelis everywhere.
The article's author Donald Boström freely admits that he has no evidence of any of his allegations but says it is up to Jews and Israelis to prove themselves innocent. An interesting if not entirely original twist - Jews are guilty until they prove themselves innocent. The basic tenets of democracy do not appear to be familiar to either Boström or Aftonbladet.
Much of the material in Boström's article came from a book he published in 2001 Inshallah which was jointly financed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry and various other government-backed organizations.
Here is what Boström writes in the acknowledgements section (comments in brackets are my explanations): "Thanks to Diakonia [90% government-financed Christian aid organization], Forum Syd [government-financed aid organization], Graphics Industry Union, Stockholm Graphic Workers' Union [part of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, co-owner of Aftonbladet], the Swedish Christian Study Center, the Brotherhood Movement [Christian branch of the Social Democratic Party], the Swedish Palestinian Solidarity Movement [partly government-financed], Trade union TCO and the Swedish Foreign Ministry for their financial donations."
A worrying pattern emerges of governmental, church and trade union involvement in officially-sanctioned demonization of Israel.
This is no one-off phenomenon. Rampant Swedish media distortion and the tacit and blatant anti-Semitism expressed in various Swedish governmental and quasi-governmental organizations can be charted with the utmost clarity in an NGO Monitor report [June 29, 2009] "A Clouded EU Presidency: Swedish Funding for NGO Rejectionism."
THE RESULTS of media distortion and constant demonizing of Jews and Israelis are felt in Sweden all the time - most recently Saturday in a soccer match involving Jewish youth club IF Hakoah, in which spectators raced onto the pitch during and after the match to assault the Hakoah players for the crime of being Jewish.
One problem, however: at this particular match, none of the Hakoah players happened to be Jewish. Not that it mattered in a climate of hate cloaked in government silence.
Other aspects of Swedish silence that are equally worrying if one steps back and examines the broader canvas. Sweden is one of the world's largest per capita donors to Palestinian Arab welfare. This funding comes in the form of tax revenues paid dutifully by hard-working Swedes lucky enough to still have a job, to the tune of about of 700 million kronor per annum and increasing yearly.
And despite the millions that he takes from Swedish citizens to give to Palestinians, Bildt deliberately chooses not to condition these payments on the Palestinians' release of the only Jew in the Gaza Strip: the young Gilad Schalit who was captured by Hamas 1200 days ago and has since not been allowed contact with his family, legal representation or visits by the Red Cross - itself a gross violation of his human rights.
Bildt has every reason to be tight-lipped. Talking would put Sweden's decades-old policy of selective silence in jeopardy. There's too much at stake if people start asking questions. Swedes might start demanding that some of their tax money be spent on their own welfare rather than on Palestinians.
IN SWEDEN, anti-Semitism is not punishable. Neither is crass stupidity. Nor, for that matter, is gross incompetence in public office. But an ambassador who expresses her honest dismay over anti-Semitism while at the same time upholding Sweden's proud tradition of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, is censured by the Swedish foreign minister.
Israel's Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan gave a resounding interview summarizing his nation's and his people's view of Sweden's often uneasy relations with Israel.
Carl Bildt had no comment.
*The writer served as chairman of the Board of Information of the Gothenburg Jewish Community, was vice chairman of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Society, West Sweden Branch, and is a former board member of the Interfaith Dialogue Group, West Sweden Division.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Swedish newspaper admits no proof; Govt refuses to condemn libellous report
From The Australian, August 24, 2009, by Agence France-Presse:
A SWEDISH newspaper admitted overnight it did not have proof for an earlier story alleging Israeli soldiers had trafficked the organs of Palestinians...
...Aftonbladet chief editor Jan Helin wrote that the first article on the case published last Monday "lacked'' proof of any organ theft. "...[I] gave the green light to the publication of an article because it asks a number of pertinent questions.''
The tabloid followed up its original story ...with an interview with the family of an alleged victim....They asked his 32-year-old brother Bilal if they had any proof that his organs had been stolen. "No, I don't have any,'' he said. "But ...We have heard many stories like this one.''
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt ...was also interviewed by Aftonbladet. ...Asked if the newspaper should apologise for the article, Bildt said: "Aftonbladet is responsible for the content it publishes, not the Government.'' ...
...Israel yesterday pressed Stockholm to condemn the original report.
"We are not asking the Swedish Government for an apology, we are asking for their condemnation,'' a senior official quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as telling ministers during the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Also from Ynet News, 23/8/09:
... the Swedish Foreign Ministry [said] that Swedish Ambassador to Israel Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier's condemnation of the report does not represent the Swedish government's stance...
A SWEDISH newspaper admitted overnight it did not have proof for an earlier story alleging Israeli soldiers had trafficked the organs of Palestinians...
...Aftonbladet chief editor Jan Helin wrote that the first article on the case published last Monday "lacked'' proof of any organ theft. "...[I] gave the green light to the publication of an article because it asks a number of pertinent questions.''
The tabloid followed up its original story ...with an interview with the family of an alleged victim....They asked his 32-year-old brother Bilal if they had any proof that his organs had been stolen. "No, I don't have any,'' he said. "But ...We have heard many stories like this one.''
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt ...was also interviewed by Aftonbladet. ...Asked if the newspaper should apologise for the article, Bildt said: "Aftonbladet is responsible for the content it publishes, not the Government.'' ...
...Israel yesterday pressed Stockholm to condemn the original report.
"We are not asking the Swedish Government for an apology, we are asking for their condemnation,'' a senior official quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as telling ministers during the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Also from Ynet News, 23/8/09:
... the Swedish Foreign Ministry [said] that Swedish Ambassador to Israel Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier's condemnation of the report does not represent the Swedish government's stance...
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