Just ask Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
The gold is in the form of Swedish tax revenues paid dutifully by hard-working Swedes lucky enough to still have a job.
That gold is used by the Swedish government. Not for the Swedish population but for the Palestinian Arab population. 700 million kronor per annum, and increasing year on year. As can be seen from the pictures in the following articles, the Gaza Palestinians don’t exactly seem to be in any danger of under-nourishment…
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 Swedish left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet. Accusations intended as a blood-libel against all Jews and Israelis everywhere.
Silence is so golden according to Carl Bildt that despite the millions that he takes from Swedish citizens to give to Palestinian Arabs, he deliberately chooses not to condition these payments on the Palestinians’ release of the only Jew in the otherwise ethnically cleansed Gaza Strip: the young Gilad Schalit who was kidnapped by Palestinian government party Hamas 1200 days ago and since then not allowed contacts with his family, legal representation or the Red Cross – or indeed even granted the privilege of seeing sunlight.
Carl Bildt firmly believes in silence. He maintains total silence on the issue of the Jewish hostage Gilad Schalit, while at the same time plundering Swedish state coffers to support the Palestinians in Gaza.
Carl Bildt firmly believes in silence. He insists that his ambassadors remain silent in the face of raw anti-Semitism.
Carl Bildt firmly believes in silence. That’s why there is no Foreign Ministry investigation into the link between the increasing Swedish funding of Palestinian Arabs and the corresponding increase in Palestinian Arabs disappearing from life-supporting dialysis sessions, only for them to turn up instead abroad where they purchase organs from cash-strapped donors and have them transplanted into their own bodies before returning to the West Bank.
Is the Swedish Foreign Minister thus suffering from an inability to see, as well as his documented inability to speak, hear, think and do elementary maths?
Ultimately we have to remember what the whole fuss is about: Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet published a story about organ trafficking that involved people in the US – but when it turned out that one of the people involved was a Jew, angled the entire article as a blatant anti-Semitic tirade.
In Sweden, anti-Semitism is not punishable. Nor is crass stupidity. Neither 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. The same Foreign Minister who declines to say a word about the kidnapped Jew Gilad Schalit, held by Muslim Arab human traffickers in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan gave a resounding interview in Swedish daily Sydsvenskan, summarising his nation’s and his people’s view of the situation.
Rampant Swedish media distortion and the tacit and blatant anti-Semitism expressed in various Swedish governmental and quasi-governmental organisations can be charted with the utmost clarity in a report by NGO Monitor.
The results of media distortion and constant demonising of Jews and Israelis are felt in Sweden all the time – most recently yesterday in a soccer match involving Jewish youth club IF Hakoah, in which spectators raced onto the pitch during and after the match to beat up the Hakoah players for the crime of being Jewish. One problem, however: at this particular match, none of the Hakoah players were actually Jewish. Not that it mattered in a climate of hate fuelled by large swathes of the Swedish media and government silence.
So back to the infamous article in populist left-wing tabloid Aftonbladet. The article’s author Donald Boström freely admits that he has absolutely no evidence of any of his allegations but says it is up to Jews and Israelis to prove themselves innocent. An interesting twist – Jews are guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Now where have we heard that before? Democracy doesn’t appear to be Boström’s or Aftonbladet’s strongest suit.
Much of the material in Boström’s article came from a book he published in 2001, “Inshallah” (the title is something of a giveaway, you can probably already see where this is going), which was jointly financed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry and various other government-backed organisations. Here in fact is what Boström writes in the acknowledgements section (comments in brackets are my explanations):
“Thanks to Diakonia [90% government-financed Christian aid organisation], Forum Syd [government-financed aid organisation], 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.”
It appears Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has every reason to be tight-lipped. There’s too much at stake if people start talking, writing or asking questions. Swedes might start demanding some of their tax money be spent on their welfare rather than on organ-harvesting for Palestinian Arabs.
And Israel, which sees Sweden spending huge amounts on Palestinians involved in organ trafficking and human trafficking, might start considering legal action.
That would put Sweden’s selective silence in jeopardy.
For additional perspective on the subject of selective treatment of Israel, read Professor Barry Rubin’s blog: http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-is-israel-demonized-while-real.html
With thanks to Dmitri Wasserman, Stockholm, for valuable supplementary material.
Haaretz, Barry Rubin, Vlad Tepes, Tundra Tabloids