This is the text of a speech I recorded, which was given at a rally outside the Swedish House of Parliament in Stockholm on Sunday 5th November.
The rally was organised by Tobias Petersson of Perspective on Israel (PPI). Tobias has previously written on a wide range of subjects relating to Sweden’s discriminatory treatment of the Jewish state, including in The Jerusalem Post.
Thank you for inviting me to speak, I am really honoured to be addressing this Perspective on Israel audience today from Gothenburg in Sweden.
Sweden is the country that gave the world Strindberg, Alfred Nobel, beloved children’s author Astrid Lindgren, IKEA, Volvo and much, much more.
But Sweden is a whole lot more more besides.
For instance, Sweden is probably the only Western, nominally democratic, country that is currently engaged in multiple wars. All financed by an extremist government that freely uses Swedish tax revenues to further its political agenda at home and abroad.
The Swedish government’s first war is against Israel. The day after it took office in autumn 2014, the government announced its recognition of something called “Palestine”, with absolutely no strings attached. No demands for a stop to the Palestinian Authority’s intrinsic anti-Semitism, its genocidal violence against Jews, its indoctrination of vulnerable young Arab children, its abuse of sporting, educational and cultural contexts to vilify the Jewish state of Israel. Sweden could have stopped all this by conditioning its financial and diplomatic aid on an end to such activities. Instead, the Swedish government actively chose not to impose any conditions on the use of Swedish tax revenues by the Palestinian Authority.
The Swedish government’s second war is against all measures that have any chance of bringing about coexistence or peace for Israel. Sweden actively supports efforts to encourage Palestinian Arab intransigence, including massive funding of educational and cultural activities that condemn new generations of Arab children to an upbringing steeped in hatred and racism. The Freedom Theatre is just one way in which Sweden ensures that future generations of Arab children remain firmly stuck in the moral morass of anti-Semitism, hatred, violence and rejection of peaceful coexistence.
The Swedish government’s third war is against its own Jewish citizens and their indelible links to their families in Israel. This can be seen perhaps most clearly in the actions of former Swedish housing minister, the Islamist Mehmet Kaplan, who announced his first policy decision back in autumn 2014 as – I quote – the “liberation of Jerusalem”. The Jewish city of Jerusalem – ALL of Jerusalem, was to be liberated from Jews, by Muslims. This as the official foreign policy of the Swedish government. On its first day in government.
What can we do about all this? Answer: we can build up enough steam in the court of public opinion to bring down the Swedish government by taking it to court. The European Court of Human Rights. On account of its repeated efforts to sabotage peace, condemn future generations of Muslims and Jews to continued violence, and embezzle tax revenues in order to pursue these policies.
It is a moral imperative that Sweden’s war against Israel – fought with Swedish tax revenues, in diplomatic missions, on theatre stages, in public schools – be stopped. Because that war is inextricably linked with its other two wars – against peace and against its own citizens.
Probably the best way of getting this legal process off the ground is by prefacing it with a public hearing into Foreign Minister Margot Wallström and her single-minded obsession with vilifying Israel. Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism in Sweden is spiralling out of control, including public calls in some mosques to – I quote – “kill the Jews wherever they are found”. This kind of rabid anti-Semitism from a sizeable Islamist minority has been routinely ignored as just “the jargon of that culture” – while identical anti-Semitism uttered by a tiny neo-Nazi idiotic minority has attracted loud government condemnation. The discrepancy in responses is remarkable. Yet despite Sweden’s ongoing domestic social implosion, the only consistent government policy does not even relate to domestic issues but to a foreign one – namely criticism of Israel.
The motor behind this support for Islamist anti-Semitism both domestically in Sweden and overseas against Israel, is Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström. She drives the Swedish government obsession with demonising the Jewish state of Israel – because it is a state for Jews. She was instrumental in recognising a “Palestinian” state without demanding any concessions on the part of this new-found “state” – such as a stop to indoctrination, violence and anti-Semitism. And she has been instrumental in driving a consistently anti-Israel agenda in various UN and other international forums, including side-lining Jewish history in documented historical and religious sites such as Hebron and Jerusalem, instead recognising these as exclusively “Palestinian” heritage sites.
Sweden’s active support for anti-Israel activity is not merely limited to the diplomatic arena – Sweden actively funds anti-Israel terrorism. For instance in the form of continued support for UNRWA, from whose premises terrorist attacks are routinely carried out against Israeli civilians. In 2016 alone, Sweden gave more than 60 million US dollars to UNRWA. UNRWA schools have been used as staging-grounds for Hamas attack tunnels into Israeli territory. As recently as Monday 30th October 2017, a terrorist tunnel was blown up inside Israel by the army. Yet Sweden continues its funding of UNRWA.
Margot Wallström has gone on record as blaming the Islamist Paris terror attacks on – I quote again – “Palestinian despair”. Nobody else in the world makes such a ridiculous claim – not even the Palestinian terrorist organisations themselves. In a rare 2016 debate in parliament the Swedish government claimed that discussing Sweden’s contribution to Palestinian Authority racism and violence only served to – I quote again – “pour oil on the fire, further polarising the issue”. In other words, concealing Sweden’s funding of Palestinian Authority terrorism is desirable government policy, whereas openly discussing Swedish government funding of terrorism is apparently what promotes the terrorism that Sweden is funding … this is logic-defying in its absurdity.
Margot Wallström routinely refers to Israeli police responses to armed terrorist attacks as – quote – “extrajudicial killings”. However, she never refers to British, French or Belgian police responses to armed terrorist attacks as “extrajudicial killings”. This antagonistic wording is only reserved for the Jewish state’s measures to protect itself. Negatively singling out Jews in this way is more commonly defined by the term “anti-Semitism” – which is the official UN definition. Margot Wallström thus contravenes the UN’s own norms.
Sweden provides direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to the tune of 100 million dollars annually, in addition to several hundred million dollars through a variety of other channels such as the SIDA overseas aid agency, various UN bodies and so on. The PA’s annual salary and lifetime pension budget for convicted terrorists and mass-murderers is 350 million dollars. One such mass-murderer is Sbarro pizzeria bomber Ahlam Tamimi. She aided the bomber in his mission, which killed 15 civilians including eight children. Tamimi has expressed disappointment that her mission did not kill more children – and after her release from Israeli prison she was rewarded with her own show on state-run Palestinian Authority TV. Sweden funds the Palestinian Authority.
All this speaks of an unnatural obsession against the Jewish state. A public hearing in Stockholm to put Margot Wallström in the dock would be a useful start to what must come after – removal of the extremist Swedish government from power by legal means.
For the sake of taxpaying Swedes, for the sake of current and future generations of Palestinian Arab children who deserve to be lifted out of the hatred that Swedish tax revenues finance, and for the sake of current and future generations of Israelis both young and old who pay the price with their blood for the hatred, racism and violence that the Swedish government funds on a massive scale.
This is not a call for murmurs of assent, it is a call for action.
There are lives at stake here. Lives that can be saved if Margot Wallström and her extremist Swedish government can be forced to publicly account for their dealings. Not least their massive abuse of public funds to promote anti-Israel terrorism.
Thank you for listening.