תגית: Sweden

Swedish Teachers Use Schools for Spreading Political Propagand

Swedish school curriculum and school laws require factual accuracy, objectivity, and scientific basis from all teachers. Nevertheless, more than once or twice, Swedish teachers who are also political activists use tax-funded schools for spreding their political propaganda.

Published in Swedish in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/vg1455/larare-utnyttjar-skolan-for-propaganda

It was an ordinary Friday in January at an ordinary high school in Stockholm. At the end of a religious studies lesson, which was dedicated to self-study in preparation for a test, the teacher asked the students to direct their attention to a film.

The film showed a speech lasting about 20 minutes. Although it was supposed to be a lesson about Judaism, the film strangely wasn't about Jewish theology, Jewish traditions, Jewish texts, Jewish holidays, or Jewish history. Instead, it showed a radical political speech given in France in May 2024. It was about 'Israel's genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes in Gaza' and Zionism as a murderous ideology that specializes in killing women and infants. The speaker also claimed that the USA, the UK, and France are 'fascists, neo-Nazis, and Israel’s best friends' and that 'there is no freedom of speech in Europe.'

The speaker, a self-declared 'anti-Zionist Jew' from the UK, referred to Hamas terrorists as 'real freedom fighters.' About Israelis, he said, 'they are not only not Jewish, they are also not human,' adding that 'a nation like Israel has no right to exist.'

Of course, the speaker did not mention the genocidal-like Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, nothing about the women, children, and elderly taken hostage, nothing about the lack of democracy and human rights in the Palestinian autonomous areas, or about Islamist terrorism and antisemitism, which have been characteristics of the Palestinian national movement since the 1930s.

Given all this, it is clear that the film did not belong in a religious studies lesson. However, according to a student who was there, the film was shown without context, without discussion, without questions, and without any explanation (except for the claim that it showed 'not all Jews are Zionists').

Moreover, the teacher's deep involvement in the issue and the teacher's personal views became clear as the students watched the video. It included sections with standing ovations from the audience. Belive it or not, one of the people seen cheering in the film was the Swedish teacher, making it clear where the teacher stands politically. When asked about it, the teacher confirmed this.

The incident appears to be yet another case of political activism in a Swedish school, which harms individual students and involves the misuse of the taxpayer-funded school system to spread extreme ideologies. In this case, the teacher is also a union representative and one of the organizers of a discussion evening about Gaza, held in Stockholm last May. As one of 'the union’s internationally responsible officers,' the teacher gave the other teachers an introduction and explained the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The teacher, who has also expressed extremely radical views in other contexts, is clearly not suitable to present a balanced view of the conflict. Yet, the teacher was allowed to do so for other teachers. This may be one of the reasons for other cases where extremist political views have been part of teaching in Stockholm's schools.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Swedish schools have seen many such cases. Last May, SvD published an article about preschool teachers who imposed their political activism on 4- and 5-year-olds. At one preschool in Stockholm, for example, the children made jewelry with paint and beads in the colors of the Palestinian flag and handprints, which they placed on white sheets of paper with the heading 'Support Palestine.' According to a post on social media, the preschool was also involved in collecting money for Palestinian groups. In Jönköping, a couple of preschool teachers had children draw watermelons to 'show love and solidarity with Palestine.'

Older students in 39 Swedish schools were given their share of political propaganda from another direction. According to another article in SvD, these schools are 'partner schools' of Amnesty, an organization deeply involved in political activism focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and far from impartial. These schools use the 'Amnesty model' for teacher training, themed days, reading materials, and lectures. They even participate in global campaigns. Amnesty is known as an organization that disproportionately criticizes Israel, supports boycott campaigns against Israel, almost completely ignores attacks on Israeli civilians, uses information from Hamas propaganda, and some of its overseas partners have connections to terrorist organizations and Islamist movements.

A student at a high school in Stockholm shared that since the lessons on the Israel-Palestine conflict started, they feel 'I have to go to school to defend Israel. It's not that the teacher is lying, but it is very one-sided. For example, we had two lessons on the Palestinian Nakba and only half a slide about the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.' When students were given texts on the subject, they received study questions like: 'What support is there to describe Israel as an apartheid state?' 'It’s uncomfortable,' says the student, who is concerned about their classmates. 'I feel like I need to present the other side. The others in the class don’t know the full picture.'

A mother of another student shared that her son had lost motivation for his social studies because of how the war was presented. The teacher continuously referred to all of Israel as occupied land and presented Hamas as one of what seemed to be two reasonable alternatives: a terrorist organization or an anti-colonial liberation movement.

Sometimes, Swedish teachers have not spoken about the topic at all but failed to protect students from politically motivated attacks. A few weeks after the war began, classmates of a Jewish boy in a primary school in southern Sweden asked him who he supported in the war. The 10-year-old boy replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him while saying, 'We hate Israel.' The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted them.

The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family attending a high school in western Sweden shared another disturbing story. She says a girl stood up in class and screamed, 'Slaughter, rape, and torture all Jews' at her son. The teacher did not react, did not stop the girl, or report her to the principal. The other students were also silent

Returning back to the Stockholm case from January, the school refused to disclose what sanction, if any, was taken against the teacher who used a high school classroom to spread extreme propaganda against Israel. The school’s principal says that the school does not comment on potential actions regarding individual staff matters. But it was confirmed that the teacher is still teaching at the school.Thus other teachers, students and parents will have to keep guessing – they know that the teacher exploited authority, a power position, taxpayer money and school infrastructure to advocate for political views that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the teaching. They also know that school curriculum and school laws require all teachers to be factual, objective, and based on scientific foundations. Still, we'll all have to stay in the dark when it comes to the implications of not doing so.

It is important to emphasize that the problem here is not discussing sensitive topics or censoring anyone. Different opinions are welcome, discussions in schools are important, and teachers, like everyone else, have the right to their political beliefs. The problem is the abuse of Swedish schools for pure political propaganda at the expence of the students and Swedish society.

One of the students who took part in the lesson in January has a Jewish background. She is now being taught by another teacher in religious studies. Since the school in this case reacted by separating the teacher from the student, even though it is clear that the problem lies with the teacher and not with the student, one must ask: would propaganda in teaching go unchallenged or without consequences if it concerned something other than Israel and Jews?

How the Gaza War Broke Israel's Taboo on Contact With the Far-right Sweden Democrats

Israel's government has boycotted the Sweden Democrats since the party's founding by neo-Nazis in 1988. The political repercussions of the Gaza war have led to a new Israeli directive calling for exploratory talks, but the Swedish Jewish community still refuses all contact with the far-right party

Published in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-02-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-the-gaza-war-broke-israels-taboo-on-contact-with-the-far-right-sweden-democrats/00000195-4266-d852-a5df-efefdcb90000

STOCKHOLM – Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar's instruction for Israeli diplomats to launch discreet talks with the far-right Sweden Democrats has made waves in the Swedish media. It marks a drastic change for Israel's foreign policy, which was previously characterized by a long-standing boycott against far-right parties associated with antisemitism, Holocaust revisionism and neo-Nazi activists.

Sa'ar has ordered these exploratory talks with far-right parties in France, Spain and Sweden, Axios' Barak Ravid reported Monday. The Sweden Democrats' foreign policy spokesman, Aron Emilsson, who heads the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, told the daily Expressen that Israel's decision was "extremely positive."

"We've been working for a long time to improve relations," he said, adding that "the ties are also important in security matters, particularly regarding Iran."

The Sweden Democrats have been boycotted by the Israeli government since the party's inception in 1988, but two unofficial visits by the party's leaders to Israel in 2023 and early 2024, as well as a series of unpublicized talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and the Foreign Ministry triggered a policy change.

Ziv Nevo Kulman, Israel's ambassador in Stockholm, told the daily Dagens Nyheter in 2021 that his country had no ties with the Sweden Democrats and had no intention of establishing any. "This is a moral position about far-right parties with roots in Nazism," he said, two months into his term.

He told Haaretz last May: "We are aware of the positive statements by the Sweden Democrats about Israel. But at the same time, the party continues to adhere to extremist positions regarding a ban on brit milah [Jewish ritual circumcision] and the importing of kosher meat, and it has yet to seriously grapple with its neo-Nazi past and with the antisemitism among its members." He said the party's alleged support for Israel was "questionable."

Despite this earlier skepticism, the Israeli Embassy said Tuesday: "As part of a broader review of parties in Europe with which we have not previously had contact, the embassy has held talks with the Sweden Democrats. The initial contacts have largely focused on how the party handles its history and its stance on issues affecting Jewish life in Sweden."

Ziv Nevo Kulman, Photo: Israel's Embassy to Sweden

According to sources familiar with Israeli-Swedish relations, this change of tack was not only the work of Israel. Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Sweden's center-left has been increasingly hostile toward Israel, and these parties' ties with Jerusalem have significantly weakened. Israel has become a wedge issue between Sweden's center-right coalition and the centrist and left-wing opposition.

According to the sources, the opposition's approach is pushing Israel into the arms of the Swedish populist right. As a result, the Sweden Democrats are increasingly seen as a legitimate party in both Israel and the Jewish world, a major win for the party.

For Sweden's Jewish community, the Sweden Democrats are still considered off-limits, at least officially. The party is not in touch with the community and is not welcome at community events.

In a letter to Israel's foreign minister a year ago, the European Jewish Congress and the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities expressed concerns about a meeting between Israeli ministers and Sweden Democrats visiting Jerusalem. The president of the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, and the chairman of the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, Aron Verständig, wrote that they were "gravely concerned" and referred to the party's "neo-Nazi roots."

Muzicant and Verständig added that the Sweden Democrats' "ideology is still inherently xenophobic even though its representatives claim to be our allies, making an exception for the Jews as a national minority, albeit claiming that Jews cannot be Swedes." They said the party regularly submitted bills to ban "non-medical circumcision," as opponents call it, and the importing of kosher meat.

When asked Tuesday about Israel's apparent policy shift, Verständig told Haaretz that he was notified a few days ago that Israel's Foreign Ministry had instructed the Stockholm embassy to forge contacts with the Sweden Democrats.

"However, we don't have contacts with the Sweden Democrats," Verständig said. "The issue of the Sweden Democrats is one that we discuss regularly, but we haven't changed our position and we still don't have ties with the party."roots

The Sweden Democrats party was founded in 1988 by members of Swedish neo-Nazi and far-right movements. A key figure in the organization was Gustav Ekström, a member of Germany's Waffen-SS, the SS' military arm, during World War II and an activist in the NSAP, the Swedish Nazi party that disbanded in 1950. Other founders were members of white supremacist parties, neofascist and neo-Nazi movements, the Swedish skinhead movement and criminal organizations.

But the neo-Nazi past wasn't the only reason for the Israeli boycott. In recent years party members have spread conspiracy theories and racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic propaganda. In 2021 the Swedish daily Aftonbladet revealed that Jörgen Fogelklou, the party's leader in Sweden's second-largest city, Gothenburg, spread antisemitic and racist statements on social media such as "It is clear that Jews are the root of all evil in the world."

A few years ago, another local party leader in southern Sweden, Jonas Lingvärn, took part in performances by rock bands supporting white supremacy and used the slogan "Skinhead 88" – 88 is shorthand for HH, meaning "Heil Hitler."

The party first entered Sweden's parliament in 2010, and in the 2022 elections it won more than 20 percent of the vote, making it the country's second largest party. Until just a few years ago, the Sweden Democrats were boycotted by parties across the political spectrum.

But after a shift in approach by two center-right parties, the Sweden Democrats became an integral part of the right-wing bloc after elections, without which a center-right government could not be formed. In parliament, the party heads the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Justice Committee and the Industry and Commerce Committee.

In Kulturhuset's Defence

Some places, the ones where we send our young children, the places where we treat our pain, and those where we invest our shared resources, should be free from polarizing content. Schools, hospitals, and clinics, and yes, if it’s public and taxpayer-funded – even Kulturhuset – have no place for Quran burnings, no place for NMR marches, and absolutely no place for polarizing political propaganda. Not even if 15-year-olds created it.

An article from Kvartal (January 22) tells of an incident in the Stockholm suburb of Husby last spring. High school students from a local school exhibited paintings they created in the foyer of Kulturhuset, which is owned by the City of Stockholm and shares premises with Husby’s public culture school. The paintings were the result of lessons on post-colonial theories and art at the students' school. A few hours after they were displayed, the paintings were taken down. Kulturhuset stated that the paintings were “strongly anti-Israeli” and “bloody, political, and violent.”

Reactions were swift. The school's principal defended the students' right to express their opinions, and the art teachers felt that the decision was a form of censorship. Lars Nittve, former director of Stockholm’s Modern Art Museum and London’s Tate Modern, wondered how “scary” drawings and paintings could be, and Makode Linde criticized concerns over art that distanced itself from the “ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine.”

Some of the paintings that provoked reactions were published in the media: a Palestinian flag over a map of Israel, and images depicting slavery and colonialism in Africa. One painting was not mentioned. This painting depicts one image of three men standing over a fourth man who is lying down, and another of two faceless soldiers leaning on a Palestinian flag. It’s unclear whether the flag is covering anything, but it is obvious who the soldiers are – they have armbands, similar to the ones Nazi soldiers wore with swastikas. On the armbands, there is an Israeli flag.

According to the Kvartal article, there is no documented evidence from Kulturhuset that anyone was upset by the exhibition.

However, it wasn’t hard to find such a person. “I came to Kulturhuset and saw that paintings were being hung on the wall. When I looked at them, my heart ached, I felt cold, and I started trembling with shock over seeing the hatred,” said a person with Jewish background who was at Kulturhuset when the paintings were hung up and chose to remain anonymous because he is worried about his safety.

For those who are not familiar with Middle Eastern politics, it might seem strange, but a map of Israel covered by a Palestinian map is as loaded and shocking as a map of Poland covered by a Nazi flag or a map of Ukraine covered by with a Russian flag. It symbolizes ethnic cleansing for Israelis. Paintings depicting Israeli soldiers as murderers support the narrative that Israel is the aggressor and the Palestinians are the victims, while ignoring the October 7 massacre, Israeli hostages, and rocket attacks on Israel. The context of post-colonialism challenges Israel's legitimacy as a state and its right to exist.

It doesn’t matter if these claims are true or whether such opinions should be allowed to be expressed. This is not about censorship or freedom of speech. Yes, students should be encouraged to think critically and creatively. Yes, we must encourage an open public debate. But the issue here is a different one – the relationship between publicly funded institutions and controversial political content.

Kulturhuset manager, Malin Dahlberg, pointed out that there is a responsibility to create a safe and comfortable environment in public spaces. According to her, removing only the most problematic paintings would be insulting to those who created them, which is why all the paintings were taken down. Leaving them up could also expose the students to a media storm that no 15-year-old could handle.

Dahlberg is right.

Sweden is a polarized country where people have strong opinions and personal connections to the conflict in Gaza. People are bombarded with extreme views on social media. Some believe it is an Israeli genocide, while others see it as an Islamist holy war of extermination against Israel. Many have relatives affected by the violence. Many are angry and scared.

These people have something in common. They all need healthcare, education, and welfare. We must be able to offer safe spaces for this. There are many places for political activism – squares for demonstrations, galleries for political art, youth movements for youth activism, organizations for humanitarian work, and media for political debates.

Some places, the ones where we send our young children, the places where we treat our pain, and those where we invest our shared resources, should be free from polarizing content. Schools, hospitals, and clinics, and yes, if it’s public and taxpayer-funded – even Kulturhuset – have no place for Quran burnings, no place for NMR marches, and absolutely no place for polarizing political propaganda. Not even if 15-year-olds created it.

Standing Together and the BDS: The Swedish Version

Equal rights in a one state solution may appeal to Swedish sensetivities. But in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is a recipe for bloodshed.

Published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/qP8yvL/bds-rorelsens-fred-skulle-sluta-i-katastrof

Israeli politics can be confusing for those who are used to a system which rewards accountability. One example is that even though Hamas' brutal attack in October 2023 was the biggest tragedy in Israel's history and part of a momentous failure of Israel's leadership, the government is still in place and seems to be stable enough to survive the crises. It's even confident enough to continue its controversial judicial overhaul which many claim is a direct assault against Israel's democracy. When it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians, Netanyahu's government is using the catastrophe as a pretext for going further to the right, perhaps even as an excuse for a future annexation of the West Bank which would be a tragedy for both Palestinians and Israelis who support peace, democracy and freedom.

This is why Standing Together, a grassroot movement of both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis who join hands in working for peace, equality, and social justice is so important. These are exactly the kind of people who can provide hope for Israel's declining peace movement. They can also be excellent partners for actors in the global community who are concerned about developments in the region and want to support positive change. And indeed, two of the movement's leaders are coming to Sweden. When I spoke to one of them, Alon-Lee Green, one of the movement's national coordinators, he told me that the visit's purpose is "to gather support for the fight to end the war, to end the occupation and to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace".

But it seems not everybody wants to listen. Instead of encouraging Israel's brave opposition, some activists are horrified by the mere thought of Israeli peace fighters. One commentator on social media wrote: " I think it's important that as a movement we keep track of which groups we choose to collaborate with. Standing Together is boycotted". As a self-appointed moral compass, the activist then quotes a text by The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel claiming that Standing Together is "serving a key role in Israel’s international propaganda strategy". One of the commentators who thanked the writer even added: "we don't recognize Isnotreal!".

Since October 7th the BDS campaign has been gaining support in Sweden. Professors, researchers and students call on their university to cut all ties with Israel, Amnesty cooperates with BDS-Sweden and lists of companies "profiting from the genocide" are all over social media leading to demonstrations and smear campaigns. All this shows what at least part of Sweden's left is all about. The BDS movement claims that Standing Together is serving "Israel’s 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid". Nothing could be clearer – the BDS movement isn't against specific Israeli policies, it isn't against a specific government or a specific war. BDS activists' real problem is the very existence of Israel. When they talk about 75 years of settler colonialism, they're not talking about the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, they're talking about the 1948 UN decision to found a Jewish state, and an Arab state, in Palestine. The people who don't want to listen to Israeli peace fighters are doing it simply because they are against peace between Israelis and Arabs. According to them Israelis are the original colonialist sin and they should just disappear.

Do these attitudes belong only to a handful of extremists or are they spreading to Sweden's left as a whole. A good indication is the debate about the so-called two-state solution. Those who still support it, even though it seems almost impossible to achieve, are promoting a solution which includes a compromise between two legitimate national movements. Lately, however, the idea of a one-state solution is becoming popular. Swedish academics are writing texts about one state based on "one citizen-one vote", in the Swedish Left Party congress last May many party members promoted changing the party's position to supporting a one-state solution and further to the left, Fi (the Swedish Feminist Initiative) and the new "Solidarity" party, already took the step. Fi even claims that "Zionism is an imperialist and racist ideology". Anyone who witnessed a pro-Palestinian demonstration during the last few months knows this isn't a minority. The most popular slogan doesn't leave room for doubt – "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free", Not "Palestinians will be free". Palestine means a state – one state, not two, from the river to the sea.

In Sweden's radical left there are those who take it even further. There's a at least one youth movement (RKU) which supports the October 7th "historic offensive in which the Palestinian resistance broke open the prison bars". Another "solidarity movement" (Samidoun) supports the PFLP, an organization which took part in the massacre. In addition, there are plenty left wing-oriented publications which continue to support the narrative which sees Hamas as an anti-imperialist decolonization force. All these movements support a one state solution. Just like Hamas and the most radical Jewish extremists.

One state with an equal vote and equal rights may sound appealing to Swedish sensibilities. Indeed, why not have nothing to kill or die for and no religion too? The only problem is that in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one state is a receipt for a blood bath. Most Palestinians who support a one state solution mean a Palestinian state. Most Jews who support it mean a Jewish one. The result of such an experiment will either be apartheid or some version of ethnic cleansing or genocide. The only question will be who's killing who.

When I talked to Standing Together's National Coordinator he said that the movement doesn't support a specific model of solution. "We support an Israeli-Palestinian peace", he said, "one that will enable everyone to live in freedom, equality and independence". When it comes to the boycott movement Green says that Standing Together is the largest Israeli movement fighting for peace and against occupation. "We've been protesting all over Israel for 15 months, we arrange aid for Gaza, our activists are fighting settlers who attacked humanitarian aid convoys and we demand an end to the killing", he says, "if anybody wants to argue with us about words that we say or don't say, they can write an essay and perhaps we can discuss it in some lecture in the world of academia. But in the world of politics and actions, the one that we focus on, the BDS statement about us has no influence where we live. It wasn't even translated to Arabic".

The BDS movement leaves no room for Standing Together. It only accepts Israelis who think that their country shouldn't exist. But the men and women of Standing Together are different. They love Israel and they're fighting to make it better. They realize that both Jews and Arabs are there to stay and they promote pragmatic compromises rather than holly wars and abstract ideologies. This is why the Olof Palme Center, the Robert Weil fund and Kulturhuset made the right choice when they invited them to Sweden. Naturally, those who are against Standing Together have the right to protest, but we shouldn’t call them peace activist, we should call them what they really are – dogmatic chaos agents who, if they get what they want, will lead both Israelis and Palestinians to a catastrophic disaster.

This Swedish Academic Center Was Named After a Jew. Now, His Name Is Gone

'Part of a dangerous trend of taking antisemitism out of the Holocaust': A surprise decision to remove the name of Jewish historian Hugo Valentin from the Holocaust research center at Uppsala University has sparked backlash in Sweden's Jewish community
Published in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2025-02-03/ty-article-magazine/.premium/this-was-the-only-academic-center-in-sweden-named-after-a-jew-now-his-name-is-gone/00000194-c6af-d533-a3b6-cfafbd030000

STOCKHOLM – Years before the Nazis rose to power, Hugo Valentin, a prominent member of Stockholm's Jewish community, recognized the dangers of Nazi ideology. A historian and scholar, he warned against the "wild psychosis of hatred" as far back as 1930, and even before the outbreak of World War II, he cautioned against the "total eradication of German Jewry." When the Third Reich began implementing the Final Solution, he was among the first to inform the Swedish public that the Jews of Europe were being annihilated. Already in 1942, he wrote in a Swedish daily newspaper that 700,000 Polish Jews had been murdered, and he continued to report about the mass killings of Jews around Europe over the next few years for the Swedish Jewish Chronicle.

Until his death in 1963, Valentin was considered a leading authority on antisemitism. He connected ancient, medieval, and modern antisemitism and argued that "it is not the Jews who are hated, but an imaginary image of them." A pioneer of Swedish-Jewish studies, Valetin was also a vocal supporter of Zionism and of the young state of Israel. In 2009, nearly half a century after his death, Uppsala University – Sweden's oldest institute of higher education and one of its most prestigious – merged its Center for Multiethnic Studies with the Program for Holocaust and Genocide studies. Since Valentin had been a distinguished scholar of the history of the local Jewish community and antisemitism, as well as Nazism and genocide, it seemed only natural to name the center after him.

And so, the Hugo Valentin Center was established – the only academic center in Sweden named after a Jew. Late last year, the university announced that a decision had been taken to change its name: As of January 1 this year, it would be called the Uppsala Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Hugo Valentin apparently got cancelled.

"The removal of Valentin's name is part of a dangerous trend of taking antisemitism out of the Holocaust," said Aron Verständig, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden. Speaking with Haaretz, he described the deceased historian as "the foremost writer of Jewish history in Sweden and one of the first to write about the Holocaust."

Pontus Rudberg, an associate professor of history at Uppsala University who was previously affiliated with the center, was also concerned. "It's disgraceful," he said. "It supports the trend that removes Jewish perspectives and Jewish history from Holocaust and genocide studies. It's also disgraceful because you don't remove the name of the person your institution is named after unless he's done something wrong."

Rudberg said he was surprised by the decision-making process. "I was asked by the director of the center for my opinion in a vague way during an informal meeting a week or two before the decision was made," he told Haaretz. "I said I was against it, but I didn't realize it was an actual process, and I found out about the decision, which was made with no informed and open debate, only when it was published just before the Christmas holidays."

In a protest letter addressed to Anders Hagfeldt, vice chancellor of the university, Professor Emeritus Harald Runblom, another Uppsala historian, wrote that "erasing a name in this context is like tearing down a statue, and it raises legitimate questions. Has he become persona non grata? Is there political opportunism behind this?"

Another letter addressed to the vice chancellor, signed by 93 international scholars, warned that erasing Valentin's name could set in motion "a broader trend of distancing Holocaust and genocide studies from Jewish history" and described the move as "an affront to Hugo Valentin's legacy and a diminution of his remarkable contributions." Among those signed on this letter were the distinguished Holocaust historians Christopher Browning and Jan Grabowski.

Weighing in on the controversy, journalist Nathan Shachar recently penned an op-ed in Dagens Nyheter, a leading Swedish daily, titled "Uppsala University embarrasses itself – does not dare to be linked to Sweden's most famous Zionist." "In the difficult reality since October 7, the center wants to tone down its Jewish affiliation for populist reasons of convenience and avoid being associated with the most famous of Swedish Zionists," he wrote.

Rudberg offered a somewhat different explanation for Valentin's erasure. "It's ignorance, rather than bad intentions," he said, "The people who made the decision don't know much about Valentin. They think he was mostly involved in Jewish history and antisemitism studies. They don't understand he was also a pioneer in Holocaust and Genocide studies."

Still, the decision seems to be in line with the current zeitgeist on campus. In November, a group of 131 university members published a letter in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet demanding that the university cuts all ties with Israeli universities "complicit in the genocide."

The letter was the latest in a series of calls at Uppsala to boycott Israel, and although the university's leaders have refused to bow to such demands from student groups, the fact that many professors and researchers support such sanctions against Israel has many Jews on campus feeling uneasy. Since October 7, the Uppsala campus has emerged as a hotbed of the Swedish pro-Palestinian protest movement. On a number of occasions during the past year, students disrupted university activities and the administration made the decision to summon police over what it perceived as threatening disruptions to campus life.

Several Jewish students, who agreed to speak with Haaretz on condition of anonymity, said they felt protests against Israel have crossed the line into antisemitism. They said that posters sighted at demonstrations and encampments on campus over the past year have supported violent resistance and denied Israel's right to exist.

Asked for comment, Elsa Bådagård from Uppsala University's office for Humanities and Social Sciences, issued the following statement: "Uppsala Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is a center within the Faculty of Arts, and the decision regarding its name has been made by the faculty board upon request from the board of the Hugo Valentin Center in December 2024.

The different reactions to the name change have been received and noted by the Faculty of Arts. However, since the request originated with the center, the faculty will not overturn its collegial decision on the basis of these opinions. Furthermore, the proposition to change the name has the support of the current employees at the center."

Bådagård insisted that the reason for the name change was that the board wanted it to reflect the primary field of research of the center, which is Holocaust and Genocide Studies. "It was not part of any political agenda, and the name change will not lead to any change regarding the focus of the various activities at the Center," she said, adding that "this is a purely organizational decision, and should not be read as a wish for the Faculty of Arts to distance itself from Hugo Valentin and his work."

The Far-right Activist Who Sparked an Imaginary Pogrom in Stockholm

The question of whether the attack on Israelis in Amsterdam last month was an isolated incident or the beginning of a trend is critical to Israel's relationship with the rest of the world and the future of Europe's Jews. And according to several Israeli media outlets, two days after the incident in Amsterdam, a similar incident occurred in another European capital.

Published in Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-12-12/ty-article-opinion/.premium/the-far-right-activist-who-sparked-an-imaginary-pogrom-in-stockholm/00000193-b770-dd53-a3f3-f77b2ee60000

The online news site Mako reported that Jews were attacked "in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, during a ceremony commemorating the Kristallnacht pogrom." It said anti-Israel demonstrators yelled derogatory names at the ceremony's participants, snatched their Israeli flags, tore them up and threw them into the river.

The report was accompanied by a video titled "the difficult footage from Sweden." It shows police officers chasing a woman and arresting her. Channel 14 News added analysis and superlatives. "Antisemitism is having a feast day," it reported. "Pro-Palestinians brutally attacked Jews who gathered to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht in Stockholm." The same news item, with some variations, appeared in other media outlets and was widely circulated on social media.

Meanwhile, in the real world, what happened in Stockholm is indeed troubling, but for different reasons. First, no ceremony commemorating Kristallnacht took place there. Second, no Jews were attacked. Third, this false information was disseminated by people who counted on the media to spread the lie, thereby providing them with free political propaganda. And they were right. The Swedish media refused to buy the goods, but the Israeli media sure did (I might add, for the benefit of Mako's investigative reporters, that Stockholm doesn't have a river).

What actually happened in Stockholm that night was revealed by Swedish investigative reporter Jonathan Leman in Expo magazine (which defines itself as fighting "racist ideas, myths and conspiracy theories"). On the evening of November 9, a pro-Palestinian march took place in central Stockholm. Such demonstrations have been happening in Sweden for more than a year now. The marchers chant slogans that some people (myself included) see as antisemitic, and they are filled with hatred for Israel. But usually, they are completely nonviolent.

This demonstration was the same, aside from one difference – the protest march was joined by a guest riding a bike, who was widely filmed by videographers broadcasting from the scene. One of them is known to work with media outlets identified with the Sweden Democrats, a populist right-wing party that has a neo-Nazi past.

The demonstrators immediately realized that the bike rider wasn't one of theirs. She was an older woman who spoke with the videographers and attracted attention because she had an Israeli flag attached to her bike (as well as the Finnish flag and Iran's flag from before the Islamic Revolution). She also had a loudspeaker through which she played Hebrew songs like "Am Yisrael Chai" and a megaphone via which she proclaimed that "Hamas murdered all the homosexuals in Gaza" and "Hamas planned to annihilate all the Jews."

At first glance, she appeared to be a courageous warrior who supports Israel. And that is indeed how she was depicted in reports from the videographers who were there. But this isn't true. As Expo discovered, the woman is actually a far-right activist. On social media, she spreads a mixture of antisemitism, Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, an Islamic takeover of Europe and the destructive power of Sweden's Jews, who "want to destroy the Nordic peoples" and constitute "a metastasizing cancer."

So why was she demonstrating against the Palestinians and seemingly supporting Israel? Anyone who tries to impose order on this eccentric activist's political theories will discover that her support for Israel stems from her hatred of Jews and Muslims in Europe. Despite her ideological hatred of Zionism, she wants the Nordic states to be free of Muslims and Jews, so she supports their expulsion. This isn't love of Zion, but radical racism and antisemitism.

The bike rider's appearance at the demonstration had the potential to cause an outbreak of rioting. But that didn't happen. Granted, there was some anger, but the organizers worked to calm it. At the end of the demonstration, one demonstrator grabbed the woman's Israeli flag, threw it off a bridge and was arrested on the spot. The headline the right-wing media gave this incident was "On the day we remember Kristallnacht, a Palestinian activist stole an Israeli flag and threw it into the water." What happened next is fascinating. People posting on numerous X, Instagram and Facebook accounts in several countries began adding details, limited only by their imaginations.

A ceremony that never took place was invented, groups of Jews who were attacked were created ex nihilo, one flag became many flags, and on some accounts, it was no longer flags that thrown into the freezing water of the Baltic Sea, but Jews. Anger boiled over, and there were thousands of shares and comments in groups with hundreds of thousands of members. When all this reached the Israeli media, the makeover was complete – the inventions became news. Even their rejection of the original videographer's false information didn't change anything.

Two conclusions can be drawn from the incident in Stockholm. First, the support Israel's government has found in Europe's far right is a broken reed. Beneath the hatred of Arabs and the nationalist fervor that the government likes so much lies a thick layer of antisemitism that cannot be mistaken. Second, the battle that honest politicians on all sides must join is the battle against the agents of chaos who create a world in which instead of truth and lies, there are only narratives.

The worship of likes and internet traffic, media outlets that dispense with checking facts and operators of trolls and bots aren't a threat to the opposition or the governing coalition. Rather, they are threat to the very existence of a free society.

The question of whether last month's attack on Israelis in Amsterdam was an isolated incident or the beginning of a trend remains critical. Yet anyone who reports on imaginary pogroms is not only undermining the media's credibility, but also creating a situation in which nobody will believe in or deal with the real ones.

October 7th and the new Jewish Year

October 7th becomes a new Memorial Day in the Jewish calendar as we are reminded where we come from, where we're headed and to whom we're destines to give account.

Published in Swedish daily Expressen: https://www.expressen.se/kultur/judiska-barn-sags-ansvariga-for-folkmord/

Last week, Jews all over the world welcomed a new Jewish year. According to Jewish tradition, the Jewish New Year isn't just a celebration. It's a memorial day – the day when God remembers his creations and grants them new life for the coming year. Or perhaps the day when we remind ourselves where we come from, where we are going, and to whom we are destined to give account.

This isn't unique. The Jewish calendar is all about memory – on Pesach, we remember the exodus from slavery in Egypt. On Tisha Be'Av, we remember the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. These are events that happened thousands of years ago, and yet they are recounted in detail, with almost holy precision, so that the lessons are never forgotten. "In every generation, one must see oneself as if one had personally experienced the exodus from Egypt," says the text Jews have read on the same date for over a thousand years. And that's exactly what we do.

But this year, Israeli Jews faced different challenges on the New Year. Just after 7 p.m., two Hamas terrorists began shooting and stabbing civilians on a light rail train in Jaffa. After killing four people, they got off the train and killed three more. One of the victims was Inbar Segev Vigder, who was carrying her 9-month-old baby. Inbar is dead. The baby survived. Half an hour later, the Islamic Republic of Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. This was followed by missiles and rockets launched by Lebanese Hezbollah. All of this happened within 24 hours.

And now, just a few days later, the Jewish calendar has a new catastrophe commemorate. The brutality, horror, and despair that were supposed to be over after the Holocaust, the pogroms, and exiles due to the birth of the Jewish state have returned. Now, after the terrorists from Gaza succeeded in dragging the whole region into a new spiral of violence, we have a new memorial day – October 7th, a day that has become almost biblical in nature sue to the existential drama and the enormous human cost. It has already become a cliché – the day when the most Jews were murdered since the Holocaust.

At this point, some may bring up the issue of context. These are only Israel’s victims. Where are the stories of the Palestinians and the Lebanese who are dying in their thousands?

Yes, everything has context. Even Hitler. And Christian the II. And Genghis Khan. And everyone has their own context. For the Palestinians, October 7th is seen within the context of the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 occupation of the West Bank. For the Israelis, it’s about the Holocaust and violent attacks throughout history – the exploding buses, the hijacked planes, the massacres, the wars and the bombings. But human beings are not neutral creatures. They see their story before others and mourn their own first. The loss of life is not abstract. I am a Jew and I am a Zionist – I’m not a representative of Sweden’s Jews, but I’m sure I’m not alone in seeing Israel as an important part of my identity and its story, its people, and its safety come first for me.

But October 7th is not about context. It’s not about revenge, and it’s not about a future peace either. Like other days in the Jewish calendar, it’s about remembering. It’s about remembering those who were on the front line – the young, beautiful people who were slaughtered at a rave in the desert, the women who were raped and mutilated, the elderly who were brutally dragged from their homes to suffocate in underground tunnels in Gaza, the civilians who were shot to death while embracing each other, and the children who were murdered alongside their siblings and parents before they even had a chance to live.

October 7th is about remembering them, but it’s also about remembering ourselves – where we were, how we were affected, and what we learned about our place in the world, in an ever-widening circle that even reached Sweden. It’s about the Jewish children who were blamed for genocide and were too scared to go to school, the demonstrations filled with antisemitic slogans, the endless boycotts, walkouts, open letters, and slander on social media, explaining that Hamas has the right to resist. It’s about remembering the mass psychosis that made grown men and women boo a 20-year-old girl who came to sing in Sweden, shout at Holocaust survivors attending a ceremony in a synagogue, burn the Israeli flag in Malmö, and shoot at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.

We have to remember all of this to recall where we came from, where we are headed, and before whom we are destined to give account. Whoever that may be, it is certainly not those who explain to us that we are allowed to be Jews but not Zionists, or that we can be Swedish Jews only if we denounce Israel. This is our first October 7th memorial day, and we’re not really ready for it to become one of our regular memorial days yet. Today, while 101 Israelis are still held hostage in Gaza, while the violence continues, and while we are still counting our dead, for many Jews, this is just another day in the longest month in history – today is the 365th of October.

Swedish Israel-Palestine Debate Won't Effect the War in Gaza

However, it can improve life for Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and Palestinian activists here in Sweden.

For almost a year, so-called pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Sweden have raised opposing reactions. According to some, they're a powerful sign of international solidarity. Others criticized them saying that they support terrorism and spread antisemitic propaganda. The common reply to this claim uses the term "smutskasta"(literally – throw dirt), meaning that calling the demonstrators antisemitic is a smear campaign design to de-legitimize them.

This started early on. A popular slogan of the global pro-Palestinien demonstrations is "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free". Despite it's appealing and harmless sound, some claim that it's antisemitic since it implies that the Jewish state of Israel, which is currently between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea, will be violently annihilated. The answer was made by, amongst others, Shora Esmailian in Aftonbladet (November 2023) who said that this accusation is either ignorant or "a smear campaign against people and their quest for freedom and now also survival ".

Those who were persuaded that "From the River to the Sea" is a call for peace and harmony, may have been surprised when Sydsvenskan's Inas Hamdan and Jonas Nyren revealed what some of the demonstrators were shouting in Arabic. It turned out that it wasn't exactly calls for a cease fire and human rights. Instead, it was support for recognized terrorists and commitment to a violent struggle against any kind of compromise.

This time too, the comeback was accusing the accusers. " Sydsvenskan is now trying to discredit the organizers by insinuating their support for terrorism and speaking with double messages", Salahuddin Barakat, a famous Malmö immam, wrote claiming this is a result of islamofobia. Other Swedish pro-Palestinians went even further. In April Samidoun, an international "Palestinian prisoner solidarity network" which is active in Sweden and supports Hamas, claimed that authorities are aiming to " silence the movement promoting the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance, especially the armed resistance". According to Samidoun, supporting armed resistance, which is a synonym for the massacre of Jews, is a natural right and preventing it is, once again, a silencing technique. 

A pro-Palestinian demonstration in Malmö, May 2024

There are many more examples. A group of over 70 Swedish writers accused Swedish media of portraying Israel as a democracy fighting terrorist, while portraying Swedish protesters as "troublemakers or, in the worst case, anti-Semites" (Journalisten, August 2024). Another group, this time of 50 Lund academics, pointed the blame at Swedish politicians who instead of praising pro-Palestinian demonstrators as champions of democracy, call them "undemocratic, uncivilized and destructive", which is a "step in the development towards fascism" (Sydsvenskan, April 2024).

It's important to point out that this Swedish debate doesn’t really matter when it comes to the actual war in Gaza. The days when Swedish politicians, NGOs and diplomats could affect Middle-East affairs are over. In fact, they never really existed. Swedish demonstrators won't stop the war, bring Israeli leaders to the ICC or open the gates for humanitarian help in Rafah. But that doesn't mean they don't have an effect. They do. But it's not on foreign affairs – it's domestic.

This debate is a manifestation of everything wrong with Swedish discourse today – it's polarizing, it's full of fake news and conspiracy theories and lacks depth and complexity. and it's clear who the victims are. Demonstrations, boycotts, walk-outs, open letters and manifestations are affecting the sense of belonging and security of Jewish students and teachers in Swedish schools, they're effecting the debate climate on social media and work relations in the Swedish culture world, public sector and academia. This isn't a made-up problem; many Swedish Jews and Israelis are experiencing alienation from large parts of Swedish society.

But does the entire Swedish pro-Palestinian movement agree to dismiss criticism as "smutskastning", or will at least some of the thousands of demonstrators agree to enter a serious dialogue on this? Now, almost a year after the war started, it's time to reach some sort of understanding about what's considered antisemitic, undemocratic, uncivilized, and destructive. This will do absolutely nothing for the people of Israel and Gaza, but it may contribute a lot to Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists here in Sweden.

Just to get the debate started, here are three initial thoughts to be considered.

First, the idea that Israel is a colonizer state which shouldn't really exist and should be wiped of the map is antisemitic. One can quote Edward Said and Franz Fanon and make comparisons to Algeria or South-Africa, but it won't change the fact that Jews are natives to the land between the river and the sea and have been so since biblical times, many centuries before the Palestinians even existed. Despite post-colonial theories, the land of Israel is part of Jewish identity, history and culture and therefore the idea that "I don't have a problem with Jews, I only have a problem with Israel" is a fantasy based on a false idea about Jews (just like most other forms of antisemitism).

Second, the fact that there are some ultra-orthodox and some Marxist anti-Zionist Jews, doesn't mean that Zionism is an extremist or unauthentic manifestation of Judaism. In other words, Noam Chomsky represents Jews today in the same way that NMR represents Sweden. It's true that 150 years ago, the Zionist movement was a minority within European Jewry since most Jews though they could continue living in Europe. But then came Auschwitz. After that, Zionism became more or less a consensus. There are many kinds of Zionism – religious, secular, socialist, revisionist and populist, but the base is clear – Jews, like any other people, have a right to self-definition in a state of their own. Claiming you "don't have a problem with Jews, but you won't allow Zionist on your streets" is claiming that every people in the world have rights that jews don't have. If that's not antisemitism, what is?

And finally, Hamas is the new version of the genocidal wing of the Palestinian national movement which historically had a close ties with Nazi Germany. These days it's a modern movement, combining a conservative, fascist, chauvinist, fundamentalist, anti-democratic, homophobic and xenophobic ideology with Jihadism, high-tech disinformation campaigns, a financial empire of global investments, modern weapon systems and powerful alliances with the world's most tyrannical regimes. Many parts of the pro-Palestinian movements in Sweden support Hamas actively and spread its propaganda, while for Jews in this country, Hamas are today's Nazis. This would be a good thing to remember next time people with megaphones in a "peaceful demonstration" shout "Hela världen står med Hamas. Allahu Akbar".

Pro-Palestinian protesters, Stockholm, December, 2023

If there are people who march in "solidarity with Palestine" who don't support these ideas and are willing to make themselves heard and renounce their extremist partners, they may find surprising allies. These may include Jews and Israelis who are willing to denounce Netanyahu's government, to oppose the occupation of the West-Bank, investigate allegations of war crimes and support a peaceful two-state solution. All that is needed is a show of good will: oppose Israel's policy but not it's right to exist, oppose Israel's violent racist nationalist parties, but not the entire national movement of the Jewish people, keep Swedish tax-financed public sector out of the conflict and, for god's sake, don't impose the conflict on Jewish school children, university students and work colleagues. Sadly, the war in the Middle-East will continue whatever we do here, but if we can agree on this, at least we can end its Swedish extension.

Swedish Authorities Detonate Suspected Explosive Device Found Near Israeli Embassy

Swedish daily news site Expressen reported that the object found and detonated by police was a hand grenade. Israel's ambassador to Sweden thanked police for its swift response

Published in "Haarertz" (with Jonathan Lis): https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2024-01-31/ty-article/.premium/swedish-authorities-detonate-suspected-explosive-device-found-near-israeli-embassy/0000018d-60c1-d897-a3ef-e3f9292e0000

Swedish police detonated on Wednesday a suspicious object found near the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, believed to be an explosive charge.

The Swedish daily news site Expressen reported that it was a hand grenade.

Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, said this was an "attempted attack" against the embassy and its employees, and thanked Swedish authorities "for their swift response." He added that they "will not be intimidated by terror."

Shortly after the attack, a police car and an officer with a weapon drawn were seen outside the Hillel Jewish school in the center of Stockholm.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz commended the Swedish authorities in a post on X for their "vigilance and quick handling of the attempt to attack the embassy in Stockholm." "Our excellent diplomats around the world are subject to danger and threats from supporters of Islamic terrorism. I told this to all my colleagues – Islamic terrorism must be eradicated everywhere. In Gaza and Europe. Defend your countries," he added.

"This is very serious. An attempted attack on an embassy is an attack both on those who work there and on Sweden," Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a social media post, adding police and Sweden's Security Police were investigating "who is or who are responsible".

Kristersson said surveillance of the embassy and of Jewish institutions in Sweden had been tightened.

Aron Verstandig, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities in Sweden, told Haaretz that he takes the incident very seriously. "I condemn this criminal act," he said.

Petra Kahn Nord, representative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in the Nordic countries, says she sees the attempted attack as very serious. "It is very good that the Swedish authorities acted quickly and decisively," she said. "Now I hope that whoever is behind this will be found and prosecuted soon."

Earlier this month, Israel's Mossad spy agency and Shin Bet security service said that three European countries arrested suspects allegedly involved in plans by Hamas to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.

The planned targets included the Israeli Embassy in Sweden, the agencies said. While other European embassies were open and functioning normally in the weeks following the outbreak of the war, the embassy in Stockholm was completely closed, very strict restrictions were imposed on the movement and work of Israeli diplomats in the country, and consular services were not provided to Israelis living in Sweden except in very urgent cases.

'Gravely Concerned': Jewish Leaders Send Letter to Israeli FM Decrying Ministers' Meeting With Far-right Swedish Party

In a letter to Israel's foreign minister, leaders of the European Jewish Congress and the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities warned against allying with the Sweden Democrats who, according to the letter, 'claim to be our allies' while advocating that 'Jews cannot be Swedes.' The party has roots in neo-Nazi and antisemitic ideologies

Published in "Haaretz": https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2024-02-14/ty-article/.premium/gravely-concerned-jewish-leaders-decry-ministers-meeting-with-far-right-swedish-party/0000018d-a35c-d42f-adcd-ebfcbac60000

STOCKHOLM – In a letter to Israel's foreign minister sent Monday by the presidents of the European Jewish Congress and the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, the two leaders expressed concern over a recent meeting between Israeli ministers and a delegation from the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which violated Israeli policy.

EJC President Ariel Muzicant and Jewish community leader Aron Verstandig wrote that they were "gravely concerned by the implications and long-term consequences of this meeting" which also ran "counter to the Israeli foreign policy vis-à-vis the Sweden Democrats as being non-welcome, with reference to their Neo-Nazi roots."

On January 29, a delegation of senior members from the Sweden Democrats arrived in Israel and met with Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli and Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar. The group included the party's leader, Jimmie Akesson, chairman of the Swedish parliament's foreign affairs committee, Aron Emilsson, head of the party's parliamentary group, Linda Lindberg, and the head of the party's group in the European Parliament, Charlie Weimers.

The Sweden Democrats, currently the second-largest party in the Swedish parliament, has roots in neo-Nazi and antisemitic ideologies. It is one of several European parties with which Israel has refrained from establishing official ties. For that reason the recent visit to Israel was not an official one and was not arranged by Israel's Foreign Ministry.

Last year, two members of the Sweden Democrats visited Israel and met with Knesset member Amit Halevi from Netanyahu's Likud party and with former Knesset member Michael Kleiner, who serves as the president of Likud's court. There were no meetings with government ministers.

"With right wing populism and extremism on the rise throughout Europe, Jewish communities easily become exploited in narratives targeting other minorities," Verstandig and Muzicant wrote to Foreign Minister Israel Katz, "these populist parties and movements are often keen to establish alliances with Jewish communities and Israel, acting on the presumption that Jews and Jewish institutions, often being targeted by extremists of Middle Eastern and/or Muslim descent, would (and should) be interested in uniting over the notion of a 'common enemy.'"

In their letter Verstandig and Muzicant also explained that "the [Sweden Democrats] party's ideology is still inherently xenophobic even though its representatives claim to be our allies, making an exception for the Jews as a national minority, albeit claiming that Jews cannot be Swedes." They added that the party regularly submit bills in the Swedish Parliament to ban circumcision and the import of kosher meat.

In this context, the January meeting with Chikli, whose role includes fostering connection between world Jewry and Israel as well as combating antisemitism, is particularly notable. In May, Chikli also caused diplomatic embarrassment for Israel when he delivered a keynote speech at the controversial evangelical Canada Christian College. The school's president, Dr. Charles McVety, is an activist and leader of Canada's Christian far right.

Sweden Democrats leader Akesson took to X after the meeting, writing, "It is clear that our parties and our nations share common values." In response, Chikli tweeted: "We deeply appreciate your support and your passion for our mutual fight for the future of Western civilization."

Asked by Haaretz what he expects as a reply to his letter, Verstandig said he hoped Katz would confirm that the policy of not allying with extremist parties still applies.

A Foreign Ministry source replied to Haaretz's query on the subject, saying there is no change in the ministry's policy toward the Sweden Democrats. The source did not say whether the ministers would face disciplinary action over the meeting.