Posted on 09/23/2006 12:13:24 PM PDT by WesternCulture
The Alliance election victory may lead Sweden into a period of improved relations with Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post: "Nobody will admit it formally, but a few government officials in Jerusalem are dancing a jig over the defeat Sunday of Sweden's Social Democratic government."
Inge-Britt Lundin, a Liberal Party politician who was chairman of the Sweden-Israel Friendship Association for twenty years, is equally pleased:
"There are a lot of strong personalities in the Alliance, particularly in the Liberal and Moderate parties, who look favourably on Israel. Fredrik Federley from the Centre Party is also very positive, as are quite a few Christian Democrats."
Two incidents earlier this year seemed to indicate that the Social Democrats' stance towards Israel had hardened. In April Göran Persson criticised Israel for its "warlike history" when Israeli involvement in an international airforce exercise led to Sweden pulling out. Just one month later Sweden broke with EU protocol when it issued a visa to a member of Hamas.
Green Party member of parliament Mehmet Kaplan supported both decisions. "We should have left the airforce exercise earlier when we knew that Israel would be involved. As for the other case, I saw it as a question of issuing a visa to an elected MP rather than a member of Hamas."
However Kaplan does not believe that the new government will bring about any major changes. "I think that there might have been a change had the Liberals retained the number of votes they had at the last election. But the fact that they have lost a lot of support will mean things remain relatively unchanged."
According to Lundin, "Göran Persson used to be quite friendly towards Israel but his attitude has changed over the last year. When Anna Lindh was around the Social Democrats had a sot of double act, where he spoke for one side and she for the other."
The Jerusalem Post notes for example that in 2002 Lindh refused to accept the conclusions of a UN report clearing Israel of charges surrounding a massacre at the Jenin refugee camp.
Regarding the Social Democrats, Lundin feels that much will depend on who is made new party leader in March of next year. "Carin Jämtin is not at all fond of Israel. Per Nuder on the other hand has always been quite positive and I have never had any difficulty with Mona Sahlin."
An unnamed senior Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post that "there is definitely an opportunity now to turn a new page. The Social Democrats went that extra mile in their criticism of Israel."
Paul O'Mahony
Reading the article makes you think that you have to turn over an awful lot of rocks before you find a Swedish politician who isn't antisemitic.
This won't do much, because on top of the fact that Sweden is already poisoned by centuries of Lutheran Jew-hatred (Luther called for the extermination of the Jews when they rejected him), the Swedes have been brainwashed by a media dominated by Communists and radical Socialists who have painted the Jews as blood thirsty villains; propaganda that would have not been out of place with Joseph Goebbels. While they call it "anti-Zionism", the goal of the Swedish left (indeed of the entire European left) is the same -- the extinction of Israel.
The media is still in the hands of the left. They will STILL be spewing their bigotry. And they have a sizeable but growing radical Islamic presence; one that has almost taken over Malmo. Even the "right" in Sweden will want to appease them.
Therefore, Israel's relations with Sweden will not change for the better. Sweden's Jews should get out while they can.
"Swedes have been brainwashed by a media dominated by Communists and radical Socialists who have painted the Jews as blood thirsty villains; propaganda that would have not been out of place with Joseph Goebbels."
1. "Communists and radical Socialists who have painted the Jews as blood thirsty villains"
- True
2 "propaganda that would have not been out of place with Joseph Goebbels"
- Perhaps not, but Goebbels took it much, much further.
It's all true that The Social Democratic Party - especially during the days of Olof Palme - used to be very harsch against Israel. Nowadays though, swedish-israeli relations have been "normalized".
The prime reason for Olof Palme's hatred of certain parts of the Israelian establishment was the Lehi assassination of Folke Bernadotte, a swede who saved the lives of thousands of jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte
This Luther quote appears on various anti-Luther pages, “Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly. You have been, about fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God.” This quote was used by a Roman Catholic I was dialoging with who was trying to prove Luther’s hatred of the Jews. A surface reading of this quote suggests that Luther viewed the Jews as an awful people, and to think otherwise indicts the goodness of God.
The quote is a poor consolidation of a much longer passage from also an older version of Luther’s Table Talk. The passage is actually a description of Luther arguing with two rabbis’, who allegedly converted to Christianity after being unable to respond to Luther’s argumentation. Here is the quote, with the words used highlighted:
”Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly; for ye have been in misery and fearful exile, a far longer time than ye were in the land of Canaan. Ye had not the Temple of Solomon more than three hundred years, while ye have been hunted up and down above fifteen hundred. At Babylon ye had more eminence than at Jerusalem, for Daniel was a greater and more powerful prince at Babylon than either David or Solomon at Jerusalem. The Babylonian captivity was unto you only a fatherly rod, but this last punishment was your utter extermination. You have been, above fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God, without government, without laws, without prophets, without temple. This argument ye cannot solve; it strikes you to the ground like a thunderclap; ye can show no other reason for your condition than your sins. The two rabbis, struck to the heart, silenced, and convinced, forsook their errors, became converts, and the day following, in the presence of the whole university at Wittenberg, were baptized Christians. The Jews hope that we shall join them, because we teach and learn the Hebrew language, but their hope is futile. `Tis they must accept of our religion, and of the crucified Christ, and overcome all their objections, especially that of the alteration of the Sabbath, which sorely annoys them, but `twas ordered by the apostles, in honor of the Lord's resurrection.”[170] You can find more at the following link
http://www.ntrmin.org/Luther%20and%20the%20Jews%20(Web).htm#a3
For Comparison here is how the Roman Catholics dealt with the Jews around the same time
“In 1553 all copies of the Talmud found in Rome were burned in public. Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) ordered measures to be taken against the Jews, and twenty-four men and one woman were burned at the stake. On July 12, 1555, he issued a bull that renewed all the oppressive medieval legislation against the Jews, excluding them from professions, limiting their financial and commercial activities, forbidding them to own real estate, and humiliating them by obliging them to wear yellow hats.”[11]
Here is its in Luther's "The Jews and their Lies"
Words that no doubt inspired the Nazis 400 years later.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html
Interesting.
Most ordinary europeans would hardly claim Sweden (which was once the sole defender of lutheran faith and in this faith laid military siege to most of Germany for 15 years in the 17th century) to be much of a jew-hating nation.
From what I've understood, antisemitism is a far greater probem in countries like Russia, Poland and The Ukraine - especially among uneducated people in the vast rural areas of these countries.
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