Hamas – דיויד סטברו

Once again, hatred and incitement by “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators in Stockholm — this time while they are rightly opposing a new Israeli law

Published in Swedish in Kvartal: Bisarrt judehat – mot en skamlig israelisk lag – Kvartal

The weekly so-called pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Stockholm often include an element of street theatre. These street shows are usually extremely untasteful and they’re often defamatory. Some of the greatest hits include actors dressed as a blood-stained Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and KD party leader Ebba Busch holding a Falun sausage in an implied sexual position. There’s President Trump dressed as an SS officer, Prime Minister Kristersson dancing around with a dead baby, Netanyahu in devil horns, and characters wiping their behinds with an Israeli flag.

This weekend a new show hit the streets of Stockholm – a character who appears to be a religious Jew because of the kippah on his head holding a glass of blood beside a Palestinian woman being hanged. Those who follow Middle East politics were probably supposed to understand that the Jewish character is Israeli right-wing extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir celebrating the legislation of the new Israeli death penalty law.

There’s a lot to be said about the Israeli law, but before that’s done the obvious should be pointed out. For those who don’t follow Middle East politics, what happened on Saturday is that Swedish police blocked streets, SL cancelled buses, and taxpayer money was spent in order to allow a group of activists to act out an antisemitic blood libel hundreds of years old, in which a Jew is using the blood of a non-Jewish innocent victim.

The activists will no doubt claim that their protest is legitimate. The character they acted is not all Jews, they’ll say, it’s only Ben Gvir, or only Israeli Jews, or only Zionists. However, the red-stained glass, the grotesque nature of the Jewish characteristics, and the timing make that claim laughable. The performance took place during Passover, the holiday that European Jews have been blamed since the Middle Ages for using Christian children’s blood for making their special holiday bread. The context of their other shows is that Israel controls the world, the American president and Sweden’s government are maneuvered by the Zionists – Israel’s Prime Minister and Jeffrey Epstein (both Jews of course). They relativize the Holocaust and they mock every Israeli symbol by attaching it to blood and money. Sure, they’re not antisemitic, just anti-Zionists. If anyone is so naive as to think that there’s a difference, perhaps they can explain it to Swedish Jewish children who may have passed by in central Stockholm and wondered why they’re being accused of hanging innocent Palestinians. Again.

Still, the new Israeli legislation deserves a serious discussion, even if those who demonstrated against it in Stockholm are on the wrong side of history. Israel’s new “death penalty for terrorists” law was passed in the Israeli parliament in March. The bill stipulates that the death penalty will be imposed on a terrorist who killed a person “with the intent of denying the existence of the State of Israel.” This wording creates a distinction that effectively designates the law almost exclusively for Palestinian terrorism. However, the court will be authorized to impose a life sentence instead of the death penalty if it finds “special reasons” for doing so or if “exceptional circumstances” are present.

It’s important to point out that the Israeli opposition voted against the law, and many in Israel hope that it will be cancelled if a new government takes over after the next elections. This may be the case because the law, which was pushed through by the most extreme Israeli politicians, was also opposed by other Israeli authorities. An official in the Ministry of Justice said that establishing the death penalty in the West Bank through civilian legislation is “highly problematic”. IDF representatives said that the law contradicts international conventions to which Israel is committed, and officials from both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Council opposed it.

The objections are not only technical. Israeli parliamentarian Gilad Kariv (The Democrats, former Labor Party) said that the law contradicts the values of the State of Israel and that it is disgraceful both in its substance and in the political manner in which it was approved. He also said that the party will bring the constitutional question before the High Court of Justice. This is an important point because the law is indeed expected to be reviewed by the High Court of Justice, and there is a possibility that it will be changed, amended, or cancelled.

However, apart from the extreme right, parts of Israeli society who used to be against such legislation in the past have become more positive towards it because of the 251 Israelis who were kidnapped on October 7th. They argue that many of the people who led and participated in the massacre, including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, were prisoners who were released from Israeli jails. If they had been executed for their previous crimes, the most horrific crime in Israeli history could have been avoided. Perhaps the main point supporters of the law point to is the possibility of prisoner exchanges which in Israel’s reality have always been an incentive for Palestinian terrorists to commit more attacks. Capital punishment could, according to the law’s supporters, prevent future Israeli kidnapped civilians from being used as bargaining leverage.

Israeli security officials, including several chiefs of staff of the IDF and heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, objected to this reasoning and claimed that terrorism is not meaningfully deterred by the threat of execution because attackers who carry out suicide or high-risk operations are often not motivated by personal survival. Increasing the severity of punishment does not change behavior. Instead, capital punishment could escalate tensions, increase incentives for revenge attacks, and complicate intelligence cooperation and prisoner-management strategies.

Other objections, made by Israeli NGOs, are purely ideological. The Zulat Institute for Human Rights, for example, stated that the legislation “is fundamentally based on racial discrimination, is illegitimate, and has existed in the darkest regimes of modern history.” This is, in short, a very controversial issue in Israel, in many ways it’s another part of the bloody aftermath of October 7^th and the regional war that is still going on, and the last word hasn’t been said yet.

Back to Stockholm. Considering the complexities of the Israeli legislation isn’t high on the agenda of the Swedish activists. This is a classic situation of a clock being correct twice a day even if it stopped working. Yes, they’re entirely right in their objection to the Israeli death penalty, but they are the last people in the world to preach on this subject.

First, recently more and more Iranian flags are seen at their demonstrations. The regime in Teheran executes over 1,000 people a year. Still, in the Iranian example, Swedish activists prefer demonstrating in support of the bloodthirsty regime against the “imperialist American-Israeli attack” while conveniently ignoring the institutionalized public hangings of women, homosexuals and regime critics from cranes. Other countries which have had the death penalty for years, from the US, China, and Japan to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, are never mentioned in any demonstration. Only Jewish executions, it seems, are morally wrong as far as they’re concerned.

Second, believe it or not, the Palestinian Authority, the same Palestinians the demonstrations are all about, has a death penalty law. In the West Bank it was used in the past and death sentences are not carried out in practice in recent years, but in Gaza, Palestinians have been executed by Hamas on a large scale, both officially and unofficially. Whoever is really worried about the legal execution of Palestinians should have been demonstrating against Hamas long before demonstrating against Israel.

And the finally, for many Israelis (including the one writing this text), the new law is a source of embarrassment and deep concern. It’s like many Swedes see things like NMR, or Swedish volunteers to the SS, or Swedish imams preaching about Jews engaging in black magic. The fact that in Israel a similar phenomenon is powerful enough to legislate is terrible. Still, the ones who will fix this are democratic and liberal Israelis, not a bunch of extremist wannabe actors from Sweden who believe that Israel never had a right to exist whether it has a death penalty law or not.

Israel Between Peace and the Sword

The choices the region will face after the Iran-US-Israel War, and does international law have anything to do with them.

Published in Swedish Svenska Dagbladet: Israel måste alltid ha svärdet redo | David Stavrou | SvD Ledare

The Swedish discourse on the war in Iran has been dominated by the question of its legality. In recent weeks, international law scholars, academics, politicians, and columnists have explained why the American and Israeli attack is “illegal under international law.” There is much to say about this reasoning, but a reasonable question is what the point really is. In the real world, the legality of war matters very little, because international law, in general, has hardly had any real significance over the past decades.

The main reason is simply that it doesn't work. International law has been used by some of the world’s worst despots, from Gaddafi to Assad, to delay international action against their crimes, and when it was finally used for intervention—in many cases, it made the situation even worse and led to more violence and failed states.

International law has also given legitimacy to regimes such as Qatar and Somalia, which have gained seats on the UN Human Rights Council despite their total lack of such rights. Terrorist organizations have used it in their propaganda to avoid the consequences of their actions, and China’s and Russia’s veto rights in the UN Security Council ensure that aggressive dictators go unpunished.

“If the U.S. illegally invades other countries, Russia will do the same” is a common argument against the American offensive. But the truth is rather the opposite: Russia did not wait for the Americans to attack Georgia or Ukraine, and—like Turkey in Syria, Azerbaijan in Armenia, and Eritrea in Ethiopia—has ignored international law for decades. No country is waiting for Israel or the U.S. to legitimize their actions according to the “law of the jungle”.

For a country that has not been at war since 1814, the question of the legality of military interventions may seem like the most important one. Theoretically, even a superpower like the U.S. should be concerned with issues of limiting its global power. But for a country like Israel, which is constantly threatened by real enemies who want to annihilate it and kill its population, this question appears fairly academic.

There is, however, another question that from an Israeli perspective is extremely important. It is simple but crucial, and it should concern other countries as well—it is not whether the war is legal, but whether it is effective. Or more broadly: can military power by itself solve Israel’s problems with Iran and other enemies?

“When all you have is a hammer,” as the well-known saying goes, “every problem looks like a nail.” Israel undoubtedly has a powerful hammer. Could it be that the country has become accustomed to solving all its problems with it? Previously, Israel used many forms of power to strengthen its security and international standing. Diplomats engaged in creating complex alliances, its soft power included outstanding achievements in culture, art, agriculture, science, and technology, and governments were willing to participate in peace negotiations and consider compromises.

The Hamas massacre on October 7 and Iran’s persistence in combining nuclear ambitions with threats to wipe Israel off the map changed all of this. The Israeli foreign service has been marginalized; the country’s artists and scientists are boycotted around the world, and its enemies are blown to pieces rather than invited to ceremonies on the White House lawn. Considering that many of Israel’s enemies are ruthless killers, this is hardly surprising. Anyone who sees value in human life should not shed tears for people like Hassan Nasrallah, Yahya Sinwar, and Ali Khamenei. But do military operations improve reality if they are not accompanied by other measures such as diplomacy, economic development, and new creative political alliances? This is not only an Israeli question. A new world order is taking shape before our eyes, and if we are not heading toward total anarchy, the question of limiting military power and understanding what it can and cannot achieve is crucial.

One indication is the situation in Gaza. After more than two years of extensive military force and enormous destruction, the reality is that Hamas not only still exists, it is armed and controls many state functions. In Lebanon, Israel may have achieved significant military successes against Hezbollah, but the Israeli are still spending far too much time in bomb shelters, and despite everything, Hezbollah is still alive and kicking. Both militarily and politically.

Israelis are once again deprived of basic necessities—schools are closed, workplaces shut down, flights canceled, thousands have lost relatives, been forced from their homes, and suffered injuries and trauma. Not to mention that Israel is deeply divided on issues concerning its democracy, which can only be resolved when the shooting stops. Meanwhile, Israel has also, without justification, become the punching bag of the international community. All the world’s power seems to be of little use in solving this.

And then there is Iran. Now that the war has begun, it should, for the sake of both Iranians and Israelis, end with a regime change—and no regime change is possible without the use of force. The Iranian people themselves, who ultimately must liberate themselves, have asked for foreign intervention, and giving it to them is the right thing to do. But what then?

“From the moment we decided that only here, in the land of Israel, could the Jewish state arise, we accepted that more than a hundred million people from the Arab world, from the Arab nations, and from the Palestinians would be our neighbors,” said Israel’s former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin a few years before he was assassinated in 1995. “There are now only two possibilities: either a serious and determined effort is made to achieve peace—peace and security—or the sword will always rule.” In the 1990s, Rabin chose the first option, but since then, leaders across the region, including Israeli leaders, have developed a dependence on using force. Perhaps even an adiction.

When the war in Iran is over, Israel will face a choice. Previously, the country combined pragmatic diplomacy, careful alliance-building, and visionary openings toward the Arab world. In a region like the Middle East, this is risky. Israel will always need to keep a sword ready, but with security guarantees and economic support instead of anachronistic laws and self-righteous moralism from other countries, peace may once again become an option.

Oslo Accords Mediators Probed Over Epstein Ties Threaten Norway's Diplomatic Legacy

Norway's reputation as a peace-broker could be tarnished by the allegations against the country's elite.

Published in Haaretz: Oslo Accords Mediators Probed Over Epstein Ties Threaten Norway's Diplomatic Legacy – Europe

The release of court documents in the U.S on Jeffrey Epstein in February has sent political shockwaves far beyond Washington. From American power brokers to British royalty and European decision-makers, the files reference powerful figures across the globe. In Norway, the fallout has struck a blow to the country's self-image, as well as its image abroad.

Traditionally, Norway, which has one of the world's most comprehensive welfare state systems, has had a high level of trust in its public officials, and until recently the country was best-known internationally for the Nobel Peace Prize and for humanitarian and peacemaking efforts.

Now high-profile Norwegian public figures are facing criminal investigations as a result of their links to late convicted sex offender Epstein, and the country is reckoning with the fallout. The most high-profile Norwegian figures to be implicated in the files are Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who exchanged hundreds of emails with Epstein between 2011 and 2014 and stayed at his Palm Beach residence in 2013, and former Prime Minister and former Chair of the Nobel Committee Thorbjørn Jagland who has been charged with gross corruption as a result of his ties with Epstein.

But the files have also revealed that two members of Norway's diplomatic elite – married couple Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Juul – had connections with Epstein. The couple were among a small group of diplomats who facilitated the back-channel negotiations between Israeli and the Palestine Liberation Organization representatives in the early 1990s which led to the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Norwegian authorities have now opened an investigations into Juul – who resigned as Norway's ambassador to Iraq and Jordan earlier this year – on suspicion of gross corruption and Rød-Larsen on suspicion of complicity in gross corruption in relation to gifts and favors the two received from Epstein. According to the released files, they maintained extensive personal and financial ties with Epstein over several years. They visited his private island, their two children were bequeathed $10 million by Epstein in his will, and Rød Larsen was appointed executer of the will (which was later revoked).

According to lawyers for Juul, who has also served as Norway's ambassador to Israel, the U.K. and the UN, she "does not recognize" the allegations against her. For his part, Rød-Larsen has acknowledged the relationship with Epstein but denies wrongdoing. He has not held a public role for over two decades and resigned from his position as president of New York-based think tank the International Peace Institute in 2020 following revelations about his ties to Epstein.

Norway's efforts to facilitate secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the early 1990s leading to the Oslo Accords helped forge its identity as a peace-brokering power, and the current association of key figures from that legacy with Epstein has prompted a discourse in the country about political oversight and elite networks.

"Norwegian diplomats are loyal people, but if they were honest, they would say that the behavior of these two individuals has been an open secret for many years," Professor Torkel Brekke, an Oslo historian who works for the Norwegian think tank Civita and also studies Norway's relations with its Jewish minority and with Israel, tells Haaretz.

Brekke added that "People probably didn't know about the most serious part of the allegations, the ones concerning trafficking [the files show that in his capacity as president of IPI Rod-Larsen wrote recommendations letters for U.S. visas for young Eastern European women at Epstein's request], but the rest of it was known to many. They just didn't want to talk about it".

According to Brekke, Rød-Larsen, in particular, is well-known for his tendency to promote himself and there were many rumors within diplomatic circles of inappropriate conduct and inappropriate associations.

Beyond the personal allegations, what has this done to the political discourse in Norway?

"In Norway the concept of trust has been elevated and is almost sacred," Brekke said. "You always hear Norwegians speaking about trust being more important than oil and that it's what makes us special as a society. So, the question many people are asking now is if this is going to destroy trust in our society. I often personally think that the concept of trust is sometimes sprinkled as a kind of gold dust and that too much trust in government is probably not a good thing. We may need trust that's a bit more critical."

According to Brekke, political implications span the spectrum. While Jagland was a Labour party prime minister and Juul and Rød-Larsen served under Labor governments, former Conservative foreign minister Børge Brende also stepped down as president and CEO of the World Economic Forum following scrutiny of past interactions with Epstein.

"The Royal Family too is a great concern," Brekke adds. "Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been in close contact with Epstein. The communication between her and Epstein is hard to explain and combined with the court case against her son. [Marius Borg Høiby, the crown princess's son from a former relationship, is currently facing multiple criminal charges, including rape, which he denies.] It's concerning to many Norwegians. Even more concerning than party politics."

When it comes to the Israeli angle, does the fact that officials involved in the Oslo Accords are now implicated affect Norway's peacemaking legacy and relations with Israel?

"First, I think that although there were several hard-working, very decent diplomats who created the Israeli-Palestinian back channel, there were, at the same time, others who tried to make it into something a lot more important than it really was. Rød-Larsen tried to make himself seem much more important than he really was. When it comes to relations with Israel, I don't think there will be much of an impact, apart from maybe giving Israelis another reason to be critical of Norway [Many Israelis' resent Norway's criticism of Israeli conduct in the Gaza war which has also led to tension between the two countries' governments].

I'd expect some Israelis will feel some kind of schadenfreude after the recent souring of relations," he said. Two weeks after October 7, 2023, Norway condemned Israel's war in Gaza, and drew anger from Israel after deciding not to recognize Hamas as a terror organization. Oslo also continued funding UNRWA – and campaigned to defend it abroad – despite allegations some staff took part in the October 7 attacks.

"However, relations with Israel will probably only improve if there is a new government that will be able to set things back on track after the way things were handled from the Norwegian side after October 7."

The argument that Norway's role in the Oslo process was more facilitative than decisive is not a new one. Many analysts contend that the end of the Cold War and political shifts within Israel and the PLO were the primary drivers, and Norway's role was mainly to provide a discreet venue.

But while the Norwegians' influence over the content of the Oslo accords was limited, Rød-Larsen was influential in his role as the facilitator of the secret channel, and in that sense he and his wife had an important role in the Oslo story.

Continues: Oslo Accords Mediators Probed Over Epstein Ties Threaten Norway's Diplomatic Legacy – Europe

Can Swedish journalists understand the chaos, suffering, and fear of war

When two Israeli soldiers visited Stockholm, their story was misunderstood, writes Israeli journalist David Stavrou.

Published in Kvartal: https://kvartal.se/erikhogstrom/artiklar/svenska-journalister-forstar-inte-de-israeliska-soldaterna/cG9zdDo2MTgxMg

Two young Israeli soldiers recently visited Stockholm together with an activist from Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization that collects and publishes testimonies from Israeli veterans and, in many cases, acts as a whistleblower by exposing alleged human rights violations and war crimes. The Swedish visit was organized in collaboration with the Christian aid organization Diakonia, which arranged interviews with the Swedish press (SVT, Dagens ETC, Dagens Arena, and Jewish Chronicle). In the interviews, the soldiers used pseudonyms, and their faces were not shown.

In some of the publications, the interviews were presented as evidence supporting the gravest accusations against Israel. For example, Dagens ETC wrote: “The serious allegations have been dismissed as Hamas propaganda by commentators like Alice Teodorescu Måwe. But everything is now confirmed by Israeli soldiers.”

In the interviews, the soldiers reportedly said things like, “we were ordered to shoot all Palestinians we considered ‘military-age men’” and “we used Palestinian men as human shields.” Other claims included that many buildings were destroyed in Gaza and that, during the first weeks of the war, there was a lack of rules of engagement. Later, the soldiers said, rules were introduced, but they were weak and not always applied. As a result, unarmed men were shot.

They also reported that journalists and healthcare workers were considered legitimate targets, even if they themselves did not participate in such incidents. The two soldiers also described a discourse that dehumanized Palestinians.

Many Israelis have strong objections to Breaking the Silence. They argue that this type of testimony contributes to hatred of Israel, causes the country to be treated unfairly, and that even if the reports are true, they should be discussed domestically rather than in a hostile international stage.

Of course, Swedish journalists do not need to concern themselves with this—but it can help to understand the context. Many Swedes would likely raise an eyebrow if Swedish organizations on the political fringe were setting the agenda for Sweden’s image abroad. In this case, the soldiers are telling an important story—the problem is that the Swedish press misunderstood it.

A key issue concerns how to distinguish between different types of armed forces. Traditionally, there is a difference between terrorists or non-state actors who use violence against civilians and state-controlled armies with formal military forces, command structures, and legal frameworks. That definition is largely irrelevant for Israelis because Hamas is a hybrid actor. Although the organization uses terrorist methods, its military branch—the al-Qassam Brigades—is structured like an army, with battalions and brigades, elite units, command chains, and modern weapons systems. During the war, this was also supported by high-tech disinformation campaigns, a financial empire of global investments, leaders living luxuriously outside the region, and alliances with some of the world’s most tyrannical regimes.

This paints the Israeli soldiers’ testimony in a very specific colour since Hamas, despite its military structure, is not bound by international law. Its militants can behead, rape, and execute civilians, burn people alive, and take children as hostages—with or without uniforms—while exploiting its other source of power – the power of sovereignty, and the civilian control the organisation holds in Gaza. Expecting Israel not to act against individuals simply because they are not in uniform in this asymmetric conflict may be understandable, but it is hardly surprising that the reality forces terrible dilemmas and tragic decisions.

The Israeli soldiers confirm that Israel, despite the genocidal nature of the Hamas attack against it, at least tried to maintain some form of legal framework. They say civilians were evacuated, leaflets were dropped as warnings, orders were given not to shoot women and children, and no-go zones were established in order to limit Israel's massive firepower. Using human shields is obviously illegal and should be punished. But the claim that journalists and healthcare workers are always protected in a reality where Hamas has been shown to use both journalistic and medical infrastructure for attacks on Israeli civilians is detached from reality.

Israel claims that intercepted communications show Hamas used ambulances to transport fighters, weapons, and equipment. Hamas also hid weapons and command centers in hospitals, schools, mosques, and private homes. The IDF has released images that allegedly confirm this. Furthermore, at least three civilian hostages—Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv—were reportedly held in a family home in Gaza where the son was a journalist and the father a doctor. There are also allegations that so-called freelance journalists were embedded in Hamas units on October 7 and documented the massacre for propaganda purposes.

The fact that Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip with an iron grip for years means that almost everything in Gaza effectively became part of the effort to destroy Israel. When the soldiers say they were told “everything is a military target,” this is viewed as condemning evidence against Israel—but in reality, it is not far from the truth.

International law recognizes these complex circumstances. While it may seem unfair to those unaccustomed to war, under the Geneva Conventions civilian structures—including hospitals—can lose their protection if they are used for military purposes. Even unarmed combatants and civilians participating in hostilities can, under certain circumstances, be considered legitimate targets. This is not what Israel claims—it is how international law works.

The reality described by the Israeli soldiers is horrific. Some of it, such as the use of human shields, also appears illegal. It can and should be discussed. It can and should be used for journalistic purposes and, hopefully, ultimately, for reconciliation when the heartbreaking testimonies from both sides become part of a healing process. That said, nothing in what the soldiers said in Sweden confirms allegations of genocide or deliberate starvation of civilians. Using these stories to imply that these horrific accusations are true is an abuse of the witnesses and their experiences.

Finally, there is one more aspect to consider. Being scared, wanting revenge, and not adhering to strict moral ideals under fire is natural in armed conflict. So too are remorse and shame. The Israeli soldiers who came to Stockholm were brave enough to share this with the world. But a reasonable question to pose to Diakonia, which organized the visit, is: Where is the Palestinian Breaking the Silence? Where are the remorseful Hamas fighters? Where are the Islamic Jihad militants ashamed of massacring Israeli civilians and now revealing their actions as “deeply immoral and devastating to our neighbors,” as one of the Israeli activists put it? Are these ignored by Diakonia—or do they simply not exist?

Medelhavsmuseet's Selective History

When it comes to the past, Medelhavsmuseet (The Swedish Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities) largely ignores Israel, but when it comes to the present the museum presents only different shades of the same narrative, one that excludes a balanced, mainstream Israeli perspective. This in itself is not necessarily a problem. However, since public funds are being used and this is all payed for by tax-payers money, why not invest in presenting all sides of the story? Are Israelis so dehumanized that their pain, loss, and sacrifice are not considered worthy of being told?

Published in Swedish in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/K8Bn37/medelhavsmuseets-selektiva-historia

The lecture hall at Medelhavsmuseet was full on September 4th. The evening seminar which took place there was called "Repair, Return and Reconstruction for Palestine’s Decolonized Future", and in case the message wasn’t clear enough from the name, during most of the evening there was a photograph of Gaza and a slogan in Arabic and English projected on the screen behind the panel members. The slogan read: “Glory to Gaza”.

The seminar itself wasn’t exactly intellectually challenging and the message was pretty straight forward. When Israel was mentioned by all speakers it was associated with very specific words. Genocide, occupation, oppression, destruction, starvation, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment and settler-colonialism were some of the favourites. There was also a consensus about the Palestinian reaction to the Israeli aggression. Here the popular words were: education, culture, conservation, de-colonization, renovation and restoration. Listening to the panel members it sounded like Palestinian resistance is all about Mahmoud Darwish poems, architecture podcasts and a struggle for free press.

In an hour and a half of debate there was nothing about Palestinian terror or violence, there were no suicide bombings or rockets, Hamas wasn’t mentioned and October 7th was just the date when the current Israeli offensive started. Since all panel members were engaged in architecture and restoration and apparently very well acquainted with Gaza, it was interesting that the immense military underground tunnel infrastructure, a remarkable architectural achievement in itself, was not mentioned. There was also no mention of another kind of physical destruction – the one of Israeli communities. No destroyed and abandoned kibbutzim, no apartments demolished by Qassam rockets and no homes burned to the ground with entire families still inside. There were no hostages, no executions and no organized rape and sexual violence. The whole event felt like a motivational inspirational gathering for activists, where all the speakers clearly presented a Palestinian narrative, and many in the audience were members of the so-called "pro-Palestinian" movement. Some wore kaffiyehs, a couple of them even had red triangles (a Hamas symbol) on them.

In itself, all this is completely legitimate. In a democracy, people are free to organize whatever seminar they wish. What is, however, somewhat troubling is that Medelhavsmuseet is part of a government agency (Statens museer för världskultur) funded by taxpayers, with tens of millions of Swedish Crowns each year. When Rani Kasapi, Head of Content and Learning at Världskulturmuseerna, opened the seminar, she also mentioned that other institutions were also involved in organizing it: the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee. All of these are also fully or partially funded by Swedish taxpayers, raising the question – why should funds that could be spent on education and culture for the benefit of all be used for a one-sided, highly political event based on foreign policy propaganda?

Perhaps, the idea was to have another event to balance the message and show another side and a different narrative. And indeed, on October 7th, a very symbolic and politically charged date, another event was planned by the museum. This time the title was: What’s Happening in Israel Now? (Vad händer i Israel nu?). In a perfect world, this could have been the the missing piece, the event that shows that the situation is more complex than just propaganda. But the world isn’t perfect. According to publications, the event had only one speaker – Göran Rosenberg. The same Rosenberg who only a few months earlier described Israel as a "morally dead project" and questioned its future existents in its current form. It’s as if the museum invited an anti-vaxer to lecture about the importance of vaccinations. Was it really so hard to find another voice to describe the situation in Israel? One who at least believes in its future?
Medelhavsmuseet has hosted more events about the region in the last couple of years — for example, there was a book talk with Cecilia Uddén, one of Swedish media’s most critical voices when it comes to Israel. There was also a UI event featuring several Israeli left-wing activists. But the bigger picture is that, aside from rare exceptions, Medelhavsmuseet largely presents different shades of the same narrative, one that excludes a balanced, mainstream Israeli perspective. This in itself is not necessarily a problem. However, if public funds are being used, why not invest in presenting all sides of the story? Are Israelis so dehumanized that their pain, loss, and sacrifice are not considered worthy of being told?

Looking a bit deeper, it’s obvious that Medelhavsmusset doesn’t ignore the Israeli perspective only when it comes to the current conflict. For some reason, it ignores Israel’s existence all together (apart from occasionally mentioning it as a colonial bully destructing the fascinating, authentic and noble people of the orient). Israel as a modern state and the ancient Jewish entities in the Eastern Mediterranean like the Kingdoms of Jehuda and The Northern Kingdom of Israel are a treasure of history, archaeology and ancient culture. They’re the origin story of Christianity and Western civilization and a fascinating story of cultural, social and linguistic revival. Still, in the last twenty years of exhibitions, it seems like Medelhavsmuseet hasn’t had a single exhibition presenting Israeli or Jewish culture and history. I spoke with two historians who have studied this in detail. One of them said that “ancient Jewish history is almost completely erased from the museum’s portrayal of the ancient Mediterranean region”. The other said that for historical reasons, the museum focuses on Egypt and Cyprus, which is fine, but even when those cultures had strong connections to Jews in the region, those connections are usually not mentioned, and even on the rare occasions that they are the name Israel never is.

And they're right. Medelhavsmuseet has presented many exhibitions about Egypt, Greece, Rome, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey – and even non-Mediterranean countries such as Iraq. In fact, the only recent exhibition that touched on Israel was “Nakba,” which according to the Jewish Central Council was highly one-sided and sparked debate over whether the museum was pursuing a political agenda. The museum responded that “it is not a historical exhibition, but a small audio exhibition with stories”. When representatives from the Jewish Central Council met with the superintendent of Statens museer för världskultur regarding this, their concerns were not taken seriously.

There’s no doubt that the story of the Nakba should be told. It’s an important part of the region’s history. But if this was only a “small audio exhibition with stories”, where is the next audio exhibition with the other stories from the same war – for example, those about Holocaust survivors who were killed in the battle field after being freed from Auschwitz, or those about massacres of Jews that took place during the same time, or the ones about the Jordanians expelling the Jews from Jerusalem’s old town or the Egyptians illegally occupying Gaza?

During the debate with the Jewish Central Council, the museum mentioned one exhibition – Egypt’s Jews (Egyptens judar), perhaps as one with a more “Jewish narrative”. But the truth is that even when the exhibition explains how Egyptian Jews were attacked, harassed, arrested and expelled in the 1950s and 60s, it’s clear that the message is that this is a direct result of Zionism. The exhibition explains how for 3,000 years Jews were “totally integrated in the surrounding society” (helt integrerade i det omgivande samhället) and only when the UN decided to “divide Palestine” and the 1948 war broke out, Egyptians started “anti-Zionists riots” and resisted “foreign influence”. These texts are a wonderful example of verbal acrobatics. There’s no Egyptian antisemitism, no Muslim Brotherhood (the mother movement of Hamas) promoting genocidal racism against Jews, just an unfortunate mixing up (ihopblandning) of “Jews” and “Zionists”. This makes sense since one of the exhibition’s production partners was Magda Haroun, Head of the Jewish Community Council in Egypt and a vocal opponent of Israel who claims that Zionism is a racist movement. Interestingly, the exhibition which mentions the wars between Israel and Egypt, doesn’t discuss Egyptian President Saadat’s historic recognition of Israel and the resulting Israel-Egypt peace agreement. One can only assume that the reason is that if the museum tells its visitors about Egypt recognizing Israel, this may lead to a demand that Medelhavsmuseet does the same.

Zero tolerance” is no longer enough after Bondi Beach. Political action is required – and it is urgent

Published in Swedish in Kvartal: https://kvartal.se/erikhogstrom/artiklar/hur-paverkar-politiken-terrordad-mot-judar/cG9zdDozNzA5NA

Reactions to the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach have largely focused on the hateful rhetoric believed to have contributed to the violent extremism that claimed 15 lives – the deadliest attack on Jews since October 7. That focus is understandable after two years of global demonstrations under slogans such as “globalize the intifada.”

At the same time, the attack is rooted in more than a toxic debate climate. It also involves a geopolitical and security dimension that has primarily been raised by Israeli officials.

According to Israeli intelligence assessments, links had already existed for several months between Australian pro-Palestinian activists and groups such as the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Against this backdrop, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Australia’s prime minister of betraying the country’s Jews. After the attack, Netanyahu stated that he had already warned in August that recognizing Palestine would, in his words, “pour fuel on the antisemitic fire, reward Hamas terrorists, and encourage threats against Australia’s Jews.”

This raises a number of questions. Does Australia really need Israeli intelligence to identify threats against its Jewish population? And more importantly: is Netanyahu truly the right person to lecture others about being unprepared for Islamist terrorism, when his own government bears responsibility for Israel’s worst catastrophe in decades?

But Netanyahu is not the central issue. What matters is that the warnings proved correct. A massacre of Jews took place in Australia, carried out by men who had ISIS flags in their car. Australian authorities knew that one of the perpetrators had ties to ISIS and that his father, the other perpetrator, legally owned at least six weapons. Despite this, no warning flags were raised, and the Jewish event lacked police protection when the attack occurred.

Islamists operate freely in Sweden

Against this background, Europe should ask itself a clear question. If Australia’s policies over the past two years resemble those pursued in many European countries, could what happened at Bondi Beach happen here?

Both domestic and foreign policy must be scrutinized. Domestically, this concerns insufficient resources to protect Jewish sites, an inability to counter conspiracy theories, and complacency toward Islamist actors. These challenges affect all European countries, including Sweden. Swedish journalists have recently exposed how Islamists operate freely in Sweden, how Iranian actors direct terrorist activity via Swedish organized crime, and what links Swedish activists have to terrorist movements such as the PFLP.

“Jews in countries that do not take Islamist terrorism seriously end up paying the price, regardless of whether government passivity stems from fear, incompetence, or indifference.”

Sweden is not alone. According to a recent Europol report, jihadist terrorism remains a central security challenge for the EU, with groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State exploiting the conflict in Gaza. Added to this is Hamas, which, according to Israel’s Mossad and European intelligence services, has planned attacks against Jews in Europe since 2023. The causal link is clear: Jews in countries that do not take Islamist terrorism seriously pay the price.

Why foreign policy matters

How, then, does foreign policy factor in? Can recognition of Palestine or harsh criticism of Israel encourage terrorism? Countries such as Spain, Norway, and Ireland pursue a clear line against Israel. Like Australia, they have recently recognized Palestine; they voice strong opposition to Israel in international forums and serve as comfortable host countries for movements that not only oppose Israeli policy but view the state itself as an illegitimate colonial project.

Australia’s prime minister firmly rejected Netanyahu’s claim that the country’s foreign policy had any connection to the attack. He may be right – such accusations require evidence. But that does not mean foreign policy is irrelevant to the climate surrounding antisemitic hate crimes.

First, governments – unlike individuals – must understand the unique situation Jews face. Demonstrations are marked by hatred, aggression, Nazi comparisons, terrorist symbols, and boycotts. Of course, protests are legitimate in a democracy, and no one seriously claims that all participants are violent antisemites. But at the political level, it is unclear whether countries such as Norway fully grasp what their Jewish populations are forced to endure. The situation is worsened by the fact that no other conflict in the world is covered as intensely – and, according to many, as one-sidedly – in Norwegian media. This has an enormous impact on Norway’s small Jewish community.

Second, does the tax-funded public sphere remain neutral, or does it contribute to an unsafe environment for Jews? What do teachers say? What do libraries display? How do healthcare professionals behave? This is a matter of public safety, not freedom of speech. In February, a video went viral showing two nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney boasting about refusing care to – or even killing – Israeli patients. In Ireland, an official report found that school textbooks contain serious distortions of the Holocaust and Jewish history, which Jews in the country say fuel antisemitism. In Spain, Jewish organizations similarly warn that some teachers use classrooms for anti-Israel activism.

“Zero tolerance” is no longer enough

We can continue debating the limits of protest, but we must also scrutinize institutions. The state must protect freedom of expression, but it must also guarantee safety. That requires schools, hospitals, and libraries free from political propaganda and symbolic acts intended to influence public opinion.

Finally, it is a fact that jihadist terrorists in Europe are often exposed with the help of Israeli intelligence. Can Jews in Spain and Ireland truly trust that their governments will cooperate with the Mossad to save lives, when those same governments cannot even tolerate Israel’s participation in Eurovision?

After Bondi Beach, Europe’s governments must decide where they place their resources and political capital. If they are serious about protecting their Jewish populations, “zero tolerance” and symbolic gestures of solidarity are no longer sufficient. Political action is required – and it's required urgently.

No Löfven, Hamas isn't Israel's Fault

Published in Swedish in Kvartal: https://kvartal.se/erikhogstrom/artiklar/nej-lofven-hamas-ar-inte-israels-fel/cG9zdDoyMjc1NA

A popular proverb says that a half-truth is a whole lie. The latest episode of SVT’s Utrikesbyrån about Hamas was a good example of that. That does not mean it wasn’t interesting. It was. Nor is there any doubt that the three participants — former Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, political scientist Marco Nilsson and Middle East analyst Bitte Hammargren — knew what they were talking about. But when it came to the analysis of Hamas, we were given only a half-truth.

The questions the presenter Rebecca Randhawa asked were: what is left of Hamas, will they lay down their arms, and who will govern Gaza. The first and the third questions are almost impossible to answer. Even Israeli intelligence does not know what remains of Hamas’s military capability, and Gaza’s future governance depends on a complicated geopolitical process. The second question, however, can be answered based on a deep understanding of what Hamas is, the choices it has made in the past, and what its ideological and political DNA is.

According to Löfven, Hamas’s power is the result of a paradox. Despite being one of Israel’s greatest enemies, its power originated with Israel’s political leadership. “Such an organization receives support (from Qatar, for example) simply because Israel wants to avoid the Palestinian Authority (PA) gaining any power.” Hammargren agreed and said that Hamas was a political asset for Israel. “Netanyahu’s line was that by letting Hamas grow in Gaza we don’t have to hear about a Palestinian statehood,” she said. This is a common analysis and it is partly true. Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders do indeed oppose a two-state solution. Because of this, his strategy was to weaken the PA, and many argue that one of the ways he did this was by allowing Hamas to grow. But this is only half the truth.

The other half, and the real reason Hamas rose to power and was able to retain it, is much simpler. The source of Hamas’s power is support from large parts of the Palestinian people. Even now, after two years of destruction and death that are a direct consequence of Hamas’s decision to massacre Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, Hamas is still supported by many Palestinians. The international support from Qatar and Iran that Löfven and Hammargren mentioned is also not hard to understand. Iran’s regime has a long-term goal of eliminating “the Zionist entity,” and Qatar built its international position on supporting its ideological Muslim Brotherhood allies. Sure, Netanyahu miscalculated Hamas’s capacity and misread its intentions, but it was not he who made Hamas’s ideology popular, and it was not he who turned Qatar and Iran into dangerous regional destabilizing powers.

But where is Hamas heading? Utrikesbyrån’s two-and-a-half-minute clip tried to provide background. According to the clip, “Hamas removed the demand that Israel be destroyed, but still does not recognize the state of Israel.” This is not even a half-truth. Hamas is absolutely committed to the destruction of Israel. Yes, it created a new charter for foreign audiences, because the old document contained antisemitic propaganda that was not particularly popular on university campuses and in some Western circles. But even the new charter demands “all of Palestine” from the river to the sea, it does not accept the Oslo Accords or the two-state solution, and it still endorses “armed resistance,” which has been a decisive part of Hamas’s nature long before October 7. That includes blowing up buses and restaurants full of civilians as well as kidnapping, torturing and murdering Jews of all ages, genders and backgrounds. One interesting thing Utrikesbyrån did not mention is that Hamas activists have on several occasions been arrested in Europe for planning attacks on “Jewish targets.” Worth mentioning if anyone took the “new charter” seriously.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the violence, Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006 in both the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians are not blind or politically incapable — they knew exactly what they were voting for. According to Utrikesbyrån’s experts, Netanyahu could have fought Hamas by strengthening the PA. It’s an interesting theory. Only problem is that it’s not true. Not during the years when Hamas was building its reign of terror, anyway. The reasons are that Netanyahu was not Israel’s prime minister at that time. Between 1999 and 2009 the prime ministers of Israel were Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. The first was an outspoken advocate for a two-state solution, the second ended the occupation of Gaza, and the third was probably the one who offered the PA the most generous territorial compromise. Hamas was not impressed. It continued to build the fundamentalist, jihadist, genocidal faction within the Palestinian nationalist movement. Hamas did not need Netanyahu for this. It was fully capable of doing it on its own, while many Israelis were still considering peace and reconciliation.

Utrikesbyrån downplayed all of this. In the program there were no blown-up buses, no tunnels, rockets, high-tech international propaganda campaigns or brutal executions of Palestinian “collaborators.” October 7 was only mentioned in passing, as another point on the timeline. No hostages, no burned neighborhoods, no executed families. This is not a complaint that they “forgot October 7,” but a critique of incomplete analysis. How can one answer the question about Hamas’s intentions without taking into account that the organization recruited thousands of people who were willing not only to kill but also to commit gang rapes and sexualized torture in the name of Allah?

Netanyahu can and should be criticized for many things, but not for this. Sure, he did not destroy Hamas before October 7, and through his incompetence and corruption he may have contributed to the opposite. Israelis should hold him accountable for that. But this is far from the cause of the catastrophe. Hamas began building its advanced military capability long before Netanyahu, it remains standing, and many Palestinians still support it. Let us imagine that Netanyahu had decided to wipe out Hamas back in 2014. Now that we know that not even the destruction of Gaza did the job, would Stefan Löfven have supported an Israeli offensive on that scale? Would the Obama administration have allowed it? Would the UN have accepted it? Of course not. Everyone can complain about Netanyahu and everyone can criticize Hamas, but in the end — whose responsibility is it to eliminate Hamas, and who will support such an effort?

It is obvious that Stefan Löfven in no way supports Hamas. In Utrikesbyrån he spoke very clearly about the necessity of a political process with a reformed Palestinian Authority moving toward a two-state solution. But putting the blame for the situation on the Israeli government while ignoring Hamas’s inherently genocidal nature is a classic half-truth. It leads people to believe in conspiracy theories about secret Israeli involvement in the massacre of its own citizens, and more importantly — it shifts the focus to the wrong side. To reach a lasting ceasefire it would be wiser to focus on the “de‑Hamasification” of Gaza and support moderate forces on both sides that can help their communities recover from this two-year trauma and build a future together.

Sailing with Fanatics

As Swedish Member of Parliament Lorena Delgado Varas and activist Greta Thunberg make their way to Gaza as part of the so-called Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), many Swedes assume that their intentions are good. However, the reality behind the movement they are actively supporting is as far as can be imagined from humanitarian, non-violent, peaceful activism.

Published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet:
https://www.svd.se/a/lw6anA/lorena-delgado-varas-och-greta-thunberg-seglar-i-daligt-sallskap

The images of destruction and suffering from Gaza, combined with statements published by the flotilla's organizers, have created an image of brave and kind-hearted activists, willing to pay a heavy personal price to deliver humanitarian aid and draw the world’s attention to Gaza. On its website, GSF describes itself as “a coalition of everyday people – organizers, humanitarians, doctors, artists, clergy, lawyers, and seafarers – who believe in human dignity and the power of nonviolence.” They also emphasize that their loyalty lies with “justice, freedom, and the sanctity of human life.”

But the reality behind GSF is far removed from the idealistic image presented to the public.

Less than three months ago, a meeting took place at Hamas’ headquarters in Algeria. Participants included representatives of the Global Sumud Flotilla and leaders of the movements that murdered, raped, tortured, and burned hundreds of Israeli civilians on October 7th – and many more before that. Among those present were Youssef Hamdan, Hamas' representative in Algeria, and Nader al-Qaisi, a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). This was no secret meeting. Despite the continued portrayal of the flotilla by Swedish media as a peace initiative with humanitarian aims, publicly available material reveals concrete links between GSF and some of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. All it takes to uncover these connections is a basic knowledge of Arabic and a quick search through social media.

In one photo published by Nabil Chennoufi, a spokesperson for GSF who frequently shares extremist violent propaganda on social media, two members of the flotilla’s steering committee – Wael Nawar and Hayfa Mansouri – can be seen smiling and wearing keffiyehs with Hamas symbols, alongside leaders of the terrorist organization in Algeria. The caption says the meeting focused on the flotilla’s progress, its positive impact, and its connection to the "Palestinian resistance." In a second photo, a third steering committee member, Marouan Ben Guettaia, is seen meeting with Hamas leader Hamdan.

It’s important to stress that Greta Thunberg is not merely a regular passenger on one of the flotilla’s boats. GSF’s own website showed her as a member of the steering committee, alongside the aforementioned individuals. For some reason, her name and picture suddenly disappeared last Thursday.

Another committee member is Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, who has openly expressed his admiration for the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. On social media, Ávila shared how he was inspired as a young man after meeting Nasrallah and described him as “an important anti-colonial figure who defeated Zionist and imperialist armies multiple times.” Earlier this year, Ávila attended Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut – a massive demonstration attended by tens of thousands of people chanting “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Ávila was impressed, writing: “Today I saw thousands of new freedom fighters.”

As a reminder, it’s worth noting that Hezbollah is a militant Shia Muslim organization allied with Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Shia militias in Iraq. It is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and is responsible for numerous terror attacks and kidnappings around the world – financed by Iran’s Islamist regime and the narcotics trade.

But it seems Ávila is not loyal to only one terrorist organization. In a photo, he is seen posing next to convicted PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled, with a green heart emoji and a Palestinian flag. The caption reads: “Today I met one of the people I admire most in the entire world.” Khaled’s notoriety, it should be remembered, is not based on “human dignity and the power of nonviolent action,” but on her involvement in the hijackings of TWA Flight 840 and El Al Flight 219 in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Another member of the GSF steering committee is Muhammad Nadir Al-Nuri Kamaruzaman, head of the GSF Southeast Asia coalition. He is also the founder of the Malaysian organization MyAqsa Defenders and CEO of the NGO Cinta Gaza Malaysia. Both organizations have expressed support for Hamas and have been linked to financing Hamas-run infrastructure in Gaza. Among other things, Cinta Gaza has published an e-book glorifying Yahya Ayyash, known as Hamas’s top bombmaker and responsible for numerous mass-casualty attacks in Israel during the 1990s. MyAqsa Defenders has also hosted a livestream event with Muslim Imran, whose name has appeared on Hamas channels as an official Hamas spokesperson.

Despite this information being openly and proudly published by those involved, neither Greta Thunberg nor Lorena Delgado Varas have been publicly questioned in Sweden for their participation in what clearly appears to be a well-organized, international operation with strong ties to terrorist groups. Sure – as citizens of a democratic country, they have every right to take part in whatever Mediterranean adventures they choose. But when those journeys are part of a network led by individuals with proven links to organizations responsible for massacres of civilians, there is a responsibility to investigate, question, and report.

It seems that behind the flowery rhetoric about human rights, humanitarian aid, and nonviolence hides a movement whose leadership praises antisemitic, religiously fanatical, chauvinistic, and ultranationalist violent actors. By participating in this initiative, Thunberg and Delgado Varas help legitimize forces that threaten democracy, gender equality, freedom of expression, and the very idea of a peaceful civil society. Despite their public image as champions of justice and solidarity, the facts suggest something quite different — in reality, Thunberg and Delgado Varas are supporting right-wing extremists.

I'm Israeli. Am I allowed on your streets?

Glorifying Terror at Way Out West. A Fancy Architecture Firm Rejects Israeli Colleagues. And a Mob Threatens to Attack Israelis in Central Stockholm.
Published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/VzExKW/jag-ar-israel-kan-jag-leva-har

It’s a spiral — it starts with a feeling of discomfort and eventually leads to avoiding certain environments. If, for example, you're a Jewish music lover and the Way Out West festival is a must on your events calendar, maybe this year you skipped it because of one of the festival’s main acts – Kneecap. The festival describes them as “controversial Belfast rappers creating music for the powerless and the voiceless.” It doesn’t specify who those voiceless people are, but a clue might be that one of the Irish rappers, during a performance, shouted “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” while wearing a Hezbollah flag. The oppressed and supposedly powerless turn out to be fascist, chauvinist, racist, antisemitic, and well-funded terrorist organizations.

When the Swedish Jewish Central Council asked Way Out West to cancel the band, the festival chose to play the freedom-of-speech card – something they likely wouldn’t have done if it had been a band supporting far-right rather than far-left populists. But the real issue is that Kneecap gave the festival exactly what it seemed to want – an image of uncompromising, righteous rebels standing up to censorship and oppression. Music industry professionals know very well they have everything to gain and nothing to lose when B-list celebrities scream “Fuck Israel” while they whisper to each other that the Jews are once again whining about antisemitism and supporting genocide.

Way Out West is just one example. In October, Swedish Jews will likely also avoid Kulturhuset, which has chosen to use taxpayers’ money to fund a public discussion moderated by Shora Esmailian. The event marks two years to the October massacre of Israelis and Kulturhuset couldn't come up with a more suitable candidate than Esmailian. The same Esmailian who was moved by images of Hamas fighters invading Israel to massacre, rape, and kidnap hundreds of civilians, and who later explained that “the reason hostages were taken was because it’s the Palestinians’ only way to negotiate for freedom”.

Many Swedish Jews who have nothing to do with Israel’s war in Gaza feel deeply uncomfortable attending events where support for Hamas is tolerated. For their own sake, they stay away. Sure, they’re not being kicked out – not yet – but when it comes to Israelis, there’s a more proactive attitude.

Boycott is now the latest trend and a cheap way to craft a virtuous image.

A group of Israeli architects and designers who had scheduled meetings with Swedish colleagues ahead of their visit to Sweden received the following reply from an architect at White, one of Scandinavia’s leading architecture firms:
“I’m relatively sure that neither you nor your fellow travelers support what the Israeli government is doing, so this might seem strange, but as long as the State of Israel continues its war tactics, we will have to pause tours and collaborations. See it as a form of pressure.”

It’s a revealing message. The sender assumes the group members oppose Netanyahu’s government and its Gaza policy — which many Israelis do. But it doesn’t matter. All Israelis are automatically canceled. If the Swedish architect truly cared about Palestinian victims and wanted to work toward ending the war, he would support more dialogue with Israelis, not less. But these symbolic gestures are solely about appearing virtuous and morally superior. It’s not even about buying into the absurd narrative that Israel is a colonialist project — because White has previously collaborated with Israeli colleagues. But now, boycotting is the trendy new stance and an easy way to signal virtue.

Who cares that millions of Israelis have fought for their lives and political freedoms over the past two years? Who cares that thousands of deadly rockets from six countries have rained down on them? Who cares that academic boycotts, trade blockades, and cultural isolation only strengthen the extremist forces on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, while hurting the moderate, pragmatic voices trying to build bridges?

The spiral ends with a mob out on the streets, hunting for Israelis.
“We don’t accept war criminals walking freely in our streets,” read a post calling people to gather outside a hotel in Stockholm where an Israeli tourist — spotted in the city center — was staying. Rumors began circulating on social media — “an IDF soldier in Stockholm!” — and the digital intifada took off.
“Israeli passports should not be accepted at the border!” read one comment.
“The problem is they usually have two passports — one from their real country and one from Israhell,” said another.
Finally, came the demand for blood:
“Let’s go there. Who’s coming with me? We should take the law into our own hands,” one user wrote on X, continuing: “Violence must be used.”

Is the goal to organize a lynching or to pose as humanitarian superheroes? It doesn’t really matter.

It’s easy to threaten tourists.

But what about me? I’m Swedish, but also an Israeli-Jewish Zionist. I write for Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper critical of the Gaza war. Still, like many of my colleagues, I’ve served in the IDF. That said, I thought I was fully integrated into Sweden and that my presence here was just as unconditional as anyone else’s. Is that no longer true? Like most Israelis, I’m not afraid of self-righteous bullies shouting “no Zionists on our streets” – so this is just a rhetorical question – I’m neither a tourist, an architect, nor a Way Out West fan. But I am a Swedish-Israeli who loves his country of origin – Am I allowed to walk your streets?

Are Israelis Supposed to Just Pack Their Bags and Leave?

In an article in SvD this week, Göran Rosenberg shared his concerns about the Jewish world. Many, myself included, share some of his worries — for example, concern over Israel’s extremist settler movement and the situation in Gaza. But several of his claims are dangerous and misleading.

Published in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/yEBLgr/david-stavrou-goran-rosenbergs-satt-att-tala-om-israel-ar-farligt

"The Israel project is morally dead," writes Rosenberg. The project, not the country. That’s an extremely important nuance. If Israel is a project, then it can either succeed or fail, in which case, like any other failed project, it loses its right to exist. But Israel is not a project; it is a country. A country with a political right and left, babies and pensioners, gangsters and hipsters, programmers and midwives, people sitting in traffic jams and people demonstrating against the government. That is the entire point of Zionism — Jews have the right to be like any other people and have an unconditional right to self-determination. Israel should not be the only country in the world whose existence is conditional, and the right to self-determination of its people can't be dependent on their ability to meet Rosenberg’s moral standards.

What are Israelis supposed to do now that "the project has failed"? Pack their bags and leave? Vanish into thin air? Go up in smoke? That’s exactly the propaganda Hamas spreads through Western protest movements — if Israeli Jews are so morally bankrupt, then it’s not about regime change or electing a new government, as it is with Russians or Iranians. Instead, the Jews must disappear. Or die.

It's no coincidence that Israel's worst enemies — those who want to wipe it off the face of the earth — refuse to acknowledge it as a state among states. The Iranian regime calls Israel 'the Zionist regime' or 'the occupying regime of Jerusalem'. Hamas speaks of 'the Zionist entity' or 'the occupation', and the Houthis in Yemen refer to 'the Zionist enemy'. Always an abstract creature — an entity, a project — never a state. Even Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were allowed to be states. But not Israel.

Rosenberg writes that Israel’s “genocide in Gaza” is now putting Jews in other countries into an “existential crisis” and that voices like his are being silenced. Besides the fact that he regularly writes in one of Sweden's main daily newspapers and is far from being silenced, there's a much more important falsehood in his claim. In fact, in a broader context, the opposite of what he writes is true — Israel, with all its sins, is the answer, not the problem (and the problem can be explained in one word – Auschwitz). Historically, there have been Jewish non-Zionist movements, but the reason most of them disappeared has nothing to do with silencing voices. It has to do with the fact that Zionism understood antisemitism better and offered a concrete answer based on international law. The other solutions vanished in the Holocaust. What alternative does Rosenberg propose? Another socialist utopia? Or should we return to the pogroms on European streets?

Then there’s the conflict with the Palestinians. Rosenberg is right that Israel has oppressed the Palestinians for decades and made every conceivable mistake. But the Palestinians have too. They are not the eternal victims Rosenberg sees them as, and their violence is not a natural "expression against oppression". The violence started long before Israel was founded — before the occupation, before the oppression — and much of it is imported. Just as Israel receives American support, the Palestinians received support from the Nazis in the 1940s, from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, and more recently from dictators and jihadists in Qatar, Iran, and Yemen — countries that have no territorial conflict with Israel, but still support fascist, chauvinistic, and corrupt Palestinian movements.

We can all enjoy philosophical discussions about the Jewish intellectual world, but the bigger problem right now is those who persistently blame Jews and Israelis for all the world’s problems. Some even build nuclear weapons to "wipe out the Zionist entity". It’s true that polarization within the Jewish world and anti-democratic tendencies in Israel are serious, but most Jews are more concerned about genocide-prone regimes that are after Jewish blood. Even if Rosenberg finds it uncomfortable or unpleasant, Israelis still have the right to face these challenges and build themselves a future.