The BBC's Not So Savvy Lindz? Sweden's Crimes Against its People

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I'll begin.

A few days ago, BBC Travel's contributing editor  Lindsey Galloway (@SavvyLindz on Twitter) wrote an article extolling Sweden as one of the safest countries in the world.

She introduced the article thus:

"One recent study by the Reputation Institute, a consultant and advisory firm specializing in reputation, sought to quantify the idea of the most well-thought-of countries. They measured 16 different factors ­– including being a beautiful and safe place to visit, and having friendly and welcoming residents, progressive policies and an effective government ....

To find out if the reputation matched up to the facts, we talked to residents and expats living in the top five reputable countries."

http://worldmediamonitoring.com/expert-anti-semitism-part-parcel-european-culture/

 And then wrote of Sweden:

 'Newly ranked as the most reputable country in the world ... Sweden hits all the marks of being safe, welcoming and beautiful, according to its residents. The county is also unique in Western Europe, having been spared from much of the impact of World War II and remaining neutral today. 

"Swedes seem to be happy with this independent status, while at the same time being one of the most welcoming countries for refugees in all of Europe," said Dr Ernest Adams, an American-born British citizen who lives in Sweden part time as a consultant and a senior lecturer at Uppsala University. "This is a virtue they have had for a long time – they saved almost all of Denmark's Jews during the war." [My emphasis] Most expats live in Stockholm where the business and government hubs are located. English is commonly spoken, though some expats initially feel that residents can be standoffish.

"But after being here a while, you begin to realise that people like to keep themselves to themselves and they afford that respect to others too, for better or worse," said Kat Trigarszky, current resident and author of an An English Mamma in Stockholm. "It's quite usual not to know your neighbours at all well."

Entertainment and luxury items can be quite expensive in the city (VAT is 25%, and residents regularly complain about the high price of alcohol, which averages around 130 krona a cocktail). Still, many Swedes cook at home, and save on car costs by using the country's vast and affordable public transportation network.'

 Well, evidently the "we" who did the investigating were not probing enough.

"Sweden hits all the marks of being safe".  Had "we" asked Jews whether they feel safe in Sweden "we" would surely have been disabused of that notion very quickly.

 Sweden might have given sanctuary to Nazi-occupied Denmark's Jews, but their immigration policy in recent decades has left their Jewish population imperilled by Islamic antisemites, especially in Malmo.

 Funny (peculiar) not funny (ha ha) that "we" (who after all are in the news-gathering business) had no inkling of that.  Innit.

http://www.kikarnews.com/news/europe-news/hatefest-in-malmo-terrorists-called-heroes/

"Sweden hits all the marks of being safe".  Had "we" asked journalist Ingrid Carlqvist whether women feel safe in Sweden "we" would have been disabused of that notion equally quickly.

Here's an article by Ingrid Carlqvist hot off the press.  It's about "asylum seeker violence". Does what she's describing sound like a blissfully safe country to you?  (No, nor to me either).

Hot off the press that article may be, but the charming and voluble Ms Carlqvist has been sounding the warning bell about the inexorable decline of Sweden for quite some time now: funny (peculiar) not funny (ha ha) that "we" didn't take her opinions into account.

Surely Ingrid (who for good reason dubs Sweden "Absurdistan") doesn't say things that "we" would rather not hear?

Like the following, for example, in which Ms Carlqvist talks to Lebanese-born Canadian scholar Gad Saad about the sorry state of Sweden with its suicidal policy of admitting hordes of immigrants obstinately opposed to Western cultural norms such as democracy and the equality of women ("We are fast becoming a minority in our own country ... Most of the people coming in now are Muslims from the Middle East ...")

The video's nearly an hour long, by the way, but it's very informative and need not be watched, just  listened to.  Sweden emerges as a land of castrated males (the descendants of Vikings!) who are too emasculated to save their country and too embittered to protect their women.

Equally informative is this long and depressing video regarding "The project of annihilating Sweden ... the left and right have colluded in this national suicide" and what mass Muslim immigration portends for other Western countries setting foot on the same crazy path:

The above video contends that there is "no hope" for Sweden; it is too late to prevent this once envied and pleasant country's demise.

This video talks of  a backlash against "refugees.  It's made by Al Jazeera and I haven't watched much ot it, so what "we" would make of it I can't guess:

As for the plight of women under Islam,  Tanya Groth from Denmark harangues the hypocrisy of the politically correct Swedes (subtitles in English).

Here's the very articulate Tanya Groth again, speaking recently (in English) in Malmo (she lays into J Street, incidentally) 
(Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)

Anne Marie Waters of Sharia Watch gets it:

When will the Swedish "feminists" and the powerful Western women (including Hillary Clinton) shown submissively hijabbed in Daniel Pipes' oldie-but-goodie post here get it too?

Will Shurat Sink Sweden's Ship To Gaza?

Marianne's farewell from a Gothenburg quay

It seems the fishing vessel Marianne of Gothenburg, leading this year's flotilla to Gaza stunt, may be heading for a scuppering.

According to a press release just issued in Tel Aviv:

'The Israeli civil rights group, Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, has sent a warning letter demanding that the Swedish bank Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) cease in providing financial services to Free Gaza and Ships to Gaza, which are helping to arrange a flotilla to breach Israel's lawful naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

In particular, SEB holds a maritime lien on the Marianne of Gothenburg, the lead ship in the planned Gaza flotilla. The bank issued a mortgage to the owner of the boat, Charles Bertel Andreasson, a veteran anti-Israel provocateur who has engaged in illegal efforts against the Jewish State in the past.

In a letter to SEB's president and group chief executive, Annika Falkengren, Shurat HaDin's president, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, made clear that the flotilla ship might be destroyed or confiscated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and that the Stockholm-based bank is at serious risk of losing its collateral: the boat.

"Additionally, SEB may itself face legal sanction if it continues to provide financial services to Mr. Andreasson and his associates because they provide material support to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization," Ms. Darshan-Leitner said in the letter.

In the coming days, the Marianne of Gothenburg and other ships have announced they plan to attempt to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza and enter into a battle on the seas with the IDF.

This is not [Andreasson's] first attempt to do so," Ms. Darshan-Leitner said in the letter. "On May 31, 2010, a naval flotilla sponsored by persons affiliated with [him] violated Israel’s coastal blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The ensuing confrontation with the IDF resulted in the deaths of nine armed terrorists and serious injury to several Israeli soldiers."

"Violation of a lawful naval blockade subjects the violating vessel to forcible seizure. It may be lawfully attacked and potentially damaged or destroyed," Ms. Darshan-Leitner said, citing the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994, para. 67.

And "Israel’s naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is lawful," she said, referencing Sir George Palmer, Report of the Secretary General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident (September 2011).

"Please be therefore advised of the significant potential for SEB to lose its collateral in consequence of the mortgagor’s intended unlawful activity," she said.

In addition, Ms. Darshan-Leitner said in the letter, "as a bank also operating in the United States, SEB is subject to American criminal law." U.S. law prohibits U.S. entities from providing support to those who engage in hostile acts against friendly foreign nations.

"Any activity that assists or facilitates this hostile naval expedition, including the provision of financial services to it, could constitute a violation of United States criminal law," she said.

More broadly, she said, "numerous banking and financial institutions that provided financial services and wire transfers to front-charities affiliated with terrorist organizations have been successfully sued by terror victims and their families for aiding and abetting Palestinian terrorism."

And she pointed out in the letter that Swedish law prohibits Swedish citizens from undertaking hostile acts against one foreign power on behalf of another. "Since Sweden has recognized `the State of Palestine' as a foreign power, persons subject to the Swedish crown may not engage in hostile acts on behalf of the de facto government of a portion of this `state' in its conflict with Israel," she said in the letter.

"If SEB knowingly provides financial services to Mr. Andreasson in support of his effort to violate Swedish law, SEB may face criminal and civil liability in consequence of that assistance," she said.'

(Hat tip: Y.M., J.H.)

While we're on the subject of Sweden, check out this punch-packing politically incorrect video below.

"Sweden belongs to the immigrants and not the native population".  That's just one of the whacko quotes from politicians in "Absurdistan" noted by this young, funny, and articulate Swedish vlogger, who arrived in Sweden from Bosnia when he was five, and deplores the lack of integration of most immigrants, the encouragement of cultural diversity and the denigration of indigenous Swedes and Swedish culture by leftist politicians including female ones.

"Sweden is what Tumblr would look like if it was a country" he notes.

Sweden has the largest number of rapes per capita than any other European nation, but nobody is allowed to suggest that this is due to immigrants from misogynistic cultures because to do so is racist.

The plight of Swedish Jewry owing to Islamic hate crime is considered from 4:59

Could it be that Sweden, neutral during the Second World War, is over-compensating for its failure materially to fight the Nazis by its present self-destroying attitude?

For a recent article by unblinkered politically incorrect Swedes on their culturally imperilled country as the rape capital of Europe and the ("pro-feminist") Left's despicable attitude see here

"Right Now, The Main Threat Is From The Islamists .... I Think Sweden is Slowly Waking Up"

The quoted words in the header are those of Swedish Jewish community leader Lena Posner-Körösi, against the background of increased fears for the safety of her country's Jews following the recent violence in Paris and Copenhagen.

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u3faty5frs)

Meanwhile, writes veteran international Jewish leader and Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler:

'Successive Israeli governments have failed miserably to meet the challenge of global anti-Semitism, not providing the leadership demanded of a Jewish state in these turbulent times and leaving Diaspora Jews to their own devices.

The global anti-Semitic tsunami, an unprecedented surge of feral hostility compounded by the Internet, emanates from a combination of factors: rabid Muslim anti-Semitism and violence, demonical anti-Israelism of the Left, and traditional cultural and radical Jew-hatred of the Right. It has impacted on Jewish communities everywhere but ironically is most acute in Europe, the continent drenched with Jewish blood during the Holocaust....

In the United States, the Goldene Medina, despite the strong public and congressional support for Israel, many Jews are stunned by the anti-Israeli hysteria generated by the Left and some liberal media and shocked by the toxic levels of anti-Semitism displayed on many college campuses.....

.Overall, Diaspora Jews are under enormous stress, confused and frequently divided as how to respond to the upsurge of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic onslaughts.

The global Jewish bodies purporting to combat these vicious trends all have limitations and have proven unable to provide the necessary direction on a global basis....

It is now crucial to create an umbrella organization to serve as an ongoing forum to exchange views, provide direction, and determine and coordinate global strategies against anti-Semitism....

But this project should not merely be perceived as a support for Diaspora Jewry. Israel itself has a major vested interest in creating such a global consultative body. We are currently being overwhelmed in the war of ideas and it is incumbent upon us to identify the anti-Semitic elements in the campaigns that seek to demonize us.

As severe as it is, anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism in Europe and most countries is more rampant at the grass-roots level than is currently reflected in government policies. Should we fail to reverse the tide, governments pressured by their Muslim communities and other constituents increasingly radicalized against Israel will inevitably lead to a further downgrading of relations with Israel...."

Read Isi Leibler's entire article here

(Incidentally, I've moved my "blog archive" from towards the bottom to towards the top of my sidebar. 

I've done this because I occasionally write more than one blogpost per day, and sometimes the earlier post of the day tends to get overlooked in favour of the later one.

 So please take a look at the "menu"!

Thanks!)

"One Hundred Per Cent Of Middle Eastern Background": Notes from a noisome north

Both the Danish capital, Copenhagen, and the southern Swedish city of Malmö, are situated in an area that's the most populous in Scandinavia.  Both cities have significant Muslim populations.  The following video shows a seemingly adulatory crowd surrounding the hearse containing the body of the man said to have carried out the recent murders of a participant at a free speech seminar in Copenhagen and of a security guard at a synagogue:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhDqGcfFAeQ)

 The video below is far longer, but worth watching all the way through.  Carrying English subtitles (which adequately convey the core of what is being said even though they hardly suggest fluency on the part of the translator) it takes a searching look at Jew-hatred in Sweden, focusing on Malmö.

What's described is a litany of harassment, vilification, intimidation, and physical threats.

The general consensus of the Jewish population is summed up by one of the interviewees, who says: "You feel insecure and would prefer not to stay".

We meet the local rabbi, who voices his concerns, a woman who tells of the risk Jews take if they appear on the streets wearing identifying symbols, a man who tests the public mood by walking around the hotspots wearing a Magen David and a kippah, an Israeli Jew who was told by a Swedish Muslim "One day we'll slaughter you all" and is consequently very fearful when out and about,  a young Jew who pulls no punches in explaining that his online tormenters, spewing heavy-duty antisemitism at him, are not neo-Nazis but "one hundred per cent of Middle Eastern background".

Then, at roughly two-thirds of the way through the video, are the schoolteachers (one male, two female) who tell of the antisemitism, insults, and bullying they have faced from pupils, including taunting references to Auschwitz and, in the case of the male, the vow "We will kill all Jews – you also eventually".

We learn that the perpetrators of the antisemitism are rarely if ever prosecuted, let alone punished.
Right at the end of the video two municipal officials, both women, are interviewed regarding civic responses to the problem; the M word is not uttered, although the interviewer hints at it, and watch the younger of the two women avoid placing the blame on the principal culprits, preferring to emphasise antisemitism on the part of the far right.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cFYmhQMks8)
 Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

"Try Bringing This Issue Up & You Are Immediately Branded An Evil Racist"

Writes (inter alia) Anna Berg, a Swedish Jew who made aliyah last year:  

"There’s no secret that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Sweden. But there’s an unwritten rule, a ban, on talking about where most of this new anti-Semitism is coming from. Yes, Neo-Nazis are part of the problem, but it’s not a coincidence that the city of Malmö has the largest Muslim population in the country, and is also the worst place for a Jew to live....

Try bringing this issue up and you are immediately branded an evil racist. You see, in Sweden, it’s only politically correct to condemn Nazis or right-wing parties like Sverigedemokraterna (now Sweden’s third largest party), no one else. This denial, this stubborn refusal to discuss what’s happening, is political correctness at its worst – nothing good will come out of it – only more anti-Semitism going unnoticed.

Even organisations like SKMA, who officially are supposed to fight anti-Semitism, are caught up in this orthodox religion. They refuse to write anything about Israel (“we don’t get involved in affairs of the Middle East”) and how anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is basically the same, and by doing this they are stabbing the people they are supposed to protect in the back. Unfortunately we see the same disgraceful and counter-productive behaviour by some well-known Jewish leaders and personalities, who refuse to tell it the way it is. No names mentioned, you know who you are."

And of course this problem is not confined to Sweden, as Jews in Britain and in Australia can attest.  I myself have caused a stir in certain quarters with this recent post ("No names mentioned, you know who you are.")

I am, it seems, an anti-Muslim "bigot" who is (Ah! How little one knows oneself!) enabling the old canard that "Zionism is Racism".  (Islam is a race? Go figure.)

I could say much more, touching several bases, but I have done so privately and will not test readers' patience here.

However, let me quote what I consider to be the most sensible statement ever made on this issue of Jewish communal attitudes towards so-called "Islamophobia"; I have quoted from this eminently wise and fair-minded statement before, but today I am taking the liberty of doing so in full.

Dated 2010, these words of an outstanding Jewish leader of world stature have lost none of their punch, nor any of their relevance:

'It is surely high time for Diaspora leaders to stop living in denial and get their act together. Instead of competing with each other in oozing political correctness, they should display some backbone and call a spade a spade.

We are currently witnessing the greatest revival of global anti-Semitism since the Middle Ages. This permeates all classes of society, and, ranging from academics to illiterates and European leaders who retain office despite making unabashed neo-Nazi remarks about Jews to mobs at anti-Israeli demonstrations carrying placards “gas the Jews.”

It encompasses the entire political spectrum, but is spearheaded by liberals and Muslims. Muslim radicals relate to Israel in a manner reminiscent of the Church’s medieval attitude toward the Jews. They promote popular TV programs depicting the blood of Muslim children being used for baking matzot, and have revived The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a best-seller. They certainly compare favorably with the worst Nazi Jew baiting, with imams quoting genocidal religious texts to the faithful, inciting them to murder Jews, “the descendants of apes and pigs.”

It is macabre to observe the alliance between liberals and jihadists who represent the antithesis of everything the Left purports to represent. The extremist Islamists are the most reactionary elements in the world. They reject fundamental human rights, proscribe freedom of expression and religion, promote the degradation of women and, to this day, implement barbaric laws including stoning of adulterers and homosexuals and the amputation of limbs for petty crimes. More than 50 Muslim countries deny Judaism or Christianity equal standing with Islam.

What makes this situation even more bizarre is that over the past months, there has been a concerted campaign claiming that Islamophobia represents the greatest threat to human rights in the world! In the US the controversy over the mosque at Ground Zero, where 3,000 Americans were murdered in the name of Islam, has been twisted into an attempt to deny Muslims equal rights as distinct from not violating the sensitivities of the bereaved families. Not a single mainstream conservative politician has ever denied the right of Muslims to build mosques throughout the US.

This is taking place at a time when the Muslims have the audacity to promote legislation at the UN and elsewhere which would make any criticism of Islam a criminal offense. The response of the Obama administration has been to reiterate the ludicrous mantra introduced by president George W. Bush describing Islam as “the religion of peace” and blatantly deny the reality that present-day terrorism is essentially a Muslim phenomenon, even though that does not mean all Muslims are terrorists.

Taking political correctness to the ultimate extreme, US counter-terrorism director John Brennan described jihad as “a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam intended to purify oneself or one’s community,” and urged that those indulging in terrorist acts never be described in “religious terms” despite the fact that all recent terrorist acts in the US were perpetrated by Muslim extremists. Administration officials initially described perpetrators as demented people rather than Islamic terrorists. This even applied to the Fort Hood killer, who had been influenced by an American-born Yemeni imam and was shrieking “Allahu akbar” while massacring unarmed American servicemen.

Alas, Jews who exaggerate the presence of Islamophobia become leading proponents of the campaign to sanitize and understate Islamic extremism. This is especially bizarre, given that Jews, especially in Europe, but also increasingly in the US, are facing far greater threats of violence than Muslims. It is also synagogues, rather than mosques, which are continuously being desecrated and vandalized, in many cases by Islamists.

In that context, the relative tranquility which Muslims experience in Western societies is a great tribute to tolerance – a tolerance unlikely to have been extended to Jews in similar circumstances. Imagine the response if Israel had a track record like some of the Arab states, or if Jews in Western countries were blowing up their neighbors.

While genuine interfaith relations are to be commended, many Jews persist in engaging in “dialogue” with Muslim organizations that refuse to dissociate themselves from hard-line Islamic attitudes. Some of the leading Saudi groups promoting international interfaith conferences are directly engaged in the promotion of anti-Semitism, yet Jews participating in these bogus meetings naively babble on about love and coexistence and ignore realities. By doing so, Jews undermine the few moderate Muslims courageous enough to speak up.

All religions incorporate texts and concepts which encourage violence and aggression, but it is the interpretation by religious leaders that determines actual behavior. Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism today are overwhelmingly supportive of peace, and seek coexistence while condemning extremists.

In contrast, only a few Islamic moderates have the courage to criticize extremism within their own circles. Those brave enough to do so are marginalized, condemned by their kinsmen, and their lives are frequently endangered. The overwhelming majority remains silent or defends the Islamic excesses of Islamic regimes.

On the other hand, when a lunatic American pastor threatens to burn a Koran, President Barack Obama personally intervenes and warns of global violence and mayhem. This the first time that an American president has called on the nation not to “endanger our troops” in order to placate extremists threatening violence in response to the acts of a solitary American eccentric.

Of course, burning a Koran or any religious book is a barbaric act. But in these times anything likely to offend Muslims, including cartoons or criticism, is condemned out of fear of violent Islamic responses. This contrasts with an absence of Islamic respect for other religions. When some years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts contributed an outrageously insensitive, blasphemous image of a crucifix in urine to a New York exhibition titled “Piss Christ,” outraged Christians did not threaten to go on killing sprees.

An example of the insane levels generated by fear of Muslim violence is reflected in the case of Molly Norris, a Seattle weekly newspaper cartoonist who was forced to adopt a new identity at the urging of the FBI because she had become a prime target for assassination after having drawn a satirical cartoon of the Muslim prophet in her local newspaper. This resulted in a fatwa being issued against her, stating that “bombings and acts of arson were appropriate responses to acts of blasphemy.”

Yet Obama, champion of the First Amendment for Muslims, remained silent about Morris’s ordeal.

There is indeed a desperate need to encourage moderate Muslims. But appeasing the extremists and groveling to Muslim bullies merely emboldens them. There is not a single instance in history in which appeasing religious fanatics of any faith has brought about progress. If we allow ourselves to be intimidated or fail to confront Islamist jihadists, they will succeed in destroying the very tenets of our civilization.

This is an area in which Jews, who have the most to lose, must surely stand up and be counted.'

In Malmö, A Walk On The Wild Side

Non-Jew Patrick Reilly decided  to test the antisemitic reputation of Sweden's third city, Malmö, for himself.  Donning a kippah, he took a stroll through a bustling neighbourhood.

It was an unsettling experience:

"....The idea was to go about my normal day and also visit places which a potential tourist may go to, albeit with one major difference – the kippah clipped to the back of my head....

Well, it didn't take long before I got the feeling that I was on display as I walked towards Möllevången. Möllan, as it is referred to by locals, is the bohemian quarter of Malmö with a bustling fruit and veg market manned largely by immigrants by day and pubs serving cheap beer by night.

I've walked down this street countless times in my normal garb, without causing as much as a backwards glance. Now, it was as if I had two heads judging by the number of stares arrowed in my direction.

As I passed a well-known bar I spotted some lunchtime coffee drinkers looking open mouthed in my direction. Navigating the fruit and vegetable stalls it was obvious that I was being stared at by shoppers and stall workers.

When it came time to make a purchase something strange happened. The stall worker started to giggle and beckoned his boss to come over and witness this transaction. Both were friendly to the point where it was almost too much.

Stares I'd expected but good-natured laughter I certainly hadn't. This was strange.

For safety reasons I asked a friend to shadow me from a discrete distance just in case things got ugly. Whilst in Möllan we went to one of the local coffee shops sandwiched between the falafel and ethnic food stores.

As we waited for our drinks I was spotted by two men in the corner of the small coffee shop. I could feel their eyes burning into the back of my borrowed shiny white kippah but –  again – nothing was said or done that could be construed as anti-Semitism, or at least not of a sort that would make me fear for my safety.

Nevertheless, I was nervous and those feelings only intensified as we sat outside in the public square to drink our coffees.

On several occasions people stopped and looked back at me with a mixture of disbelief and menace. Another woman promptly broke into a fit of giggles like it was the funniest thing she had seen in ages. Then a group of men with large dogs lingered, for what seemed like an eternity, just in front of me.

Perhaps it was because they spoke fast in a language I didn't understand or it was the close proximity of the dogs which made me feel scared. Whether the threat was real or imagined the fear was genuine and that stemmed from what I was wearing on my head.

This was hardly helped when my friend told me that another group of men had been staring solidly at me for 30 minutes from a cafe across the street.

It was time to leave Möllan but I wanted to buy some flatbread before then. Once again the young man in the ethnic food store broke into laughter when I handed him the ten kronor for the fresh bread. A (faux) Jew in this part of town certainly had a curiosity factor.

Next I walked up the big shopping street, Södra Förstadsgatan, to the main square at Gustav Adolfs Torg. More stares followed, particularly from a woman as I ate lunch, but I did feel safer in this part of town.

After a while I began to forget I was wearing the kippah until a burly man walked aggressively in my direction and mouthed "fucking Jew" to his friend. It was a reminder that making your Jewish identity in Malmö obvious carries its own risk. Frankly, it was a relief to take it off.

I've lived in Malmö for almost two years and in that time there have been numerous shootings and violent crimes. As an Irish person abroad I've never felt remotely threatened but wearing the kippah for a few hours was enough to instill feelings of fear. Even when I didn't feel afraid I was made to feel different and unwelcome.

The statistics show that my fear is well-placed. Sixty anti-Semitic hate crimes were registered in Malmö in 2012 – almost three times the number in previous years. None of these resulted in a conviction....'

Read the entire article here
Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

The Fool's Paradise Of Swedish Multiculturalism

Australia has been dubbed "The Sweden of the South," and from Peter Wertheim, executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry comes a robust statement deploring the attack on the Jewish community centre in Malmö, Sweden last Friday: 

"It is bad enough that the Jewish Community Centre in Malmö was attacked with an explosive device and bricks through its reinforced entrance just after Yom Kippur.  What is worse is that in Sweden, a country that prides itself on its progressive human rights record, the authorities lack the courage to confront the pervasive Jew-hatred that produced this attack in the first place and to bring the perpetrators of past attacks to justice.  Worse still is the apparent public and media indifference.

Seventy years after Europe was devastated by the Nazis, antisemitism is once more commonplace and tacitly accepted on that continent.  European civilisation has failed to cast off its long and disgraceful history of anti-Jewish prejudice and persecution.  The mark of Cain remains etched indelibly on its forehead, and for this it will one day again pay a terrible price."

Here's a reminder of the plight of Jews in Malmö:

 And here's another:

Since those videos were made three years ago hate crimes against Jews in Sweden's third largest city have continued apace, as this interview that took place earlier this year indicates:

 Let's hope the "Sweden of the South" heeds the lessons inherent in the real Sweden's mistakes.

Jew-Hatred, Swedish-Style (video)

In this video, newly released by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr Shimon Samuels discuss the terrible antisemitism that characterises Sweden's third-largest city, Malmö, despite representations to the mayor and the police chief ...

Incidentally, for essential reading on the subject of Jews in Sweden and related developments this blog  aimed at English-speakers is invaluable and should certainly be better known.

Northern Plights - Swedish Antisemitism and the Swedish Left

Some years ago, an Australian Jewish academic of my acquaintance, employed at a university somewhere in what is frequently dubbed "Eurabia", returned to his homeland for a visit.  During an interview with a reporter from the local Jewish newspaper he mentioned his conviction, based on the European experience, that unrestricted Muslim immigration into Australia would not bode well for Australia's Jews.  Imagine his surprise when he returned to his university and found that a small group of Aussie Jews, taking umbrage at his "Islamophobia", had contacted both the head of his department and the university's vice-chancellor in an apparent effort to get him sacked.  I guess that's the totalitarian hard left for you!

I'll be blogging in the very near future about the current situation in Australia, but today I want to focus on the plight of Swedish Jewry, about which perhaps not enough is known outside Scandinavia.  I base most of my information on a briefing paper authored by Mikael Tossaveinen, issued by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University, and on the excellent blog Sweden Israel and the Jews, from which I took the accompanying photograph.  The blog http://www.swedenisrael.blogspot.com/ is essential reading for anyone wishing to gain an insight into just how viciously hostile towards Israel, and ambivalent towards Jews,  the Swedish left - government ministers, politicians, clergy, trades unionists, academics, journalists - has become.

You may recall that about a year ago a leftwing Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet, shamefully published an article which alleged that the IDF was killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs; the article, whose title translated into English was "They plunder the organs of our sons", was essentially the medieval blood libel wrapped in a modern cloak.  Its author, an extreme radical and anti-Zionist propagandist, was duplicitously described by the paper as a "journalist".   In that same year, there was a dramatic increase - up 57% on 2008 - of antisemitic incidents in Sweden, although it's well-known that many incidents go unreported, so that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

It's also well-known - despite the attempts, some of them farcical, of the mainly oh-so-politically-correct Swedish press to disguise the fact - that most antisemitic incidents are overwhelmingly the work of members of the large Muslim community that has grown in Sweden over the past generation, especially in the southern city of Malmo (total population perhaps as high as 300,000), where a fifth of inhabitants are Muslim.  In 2007, for Sweden's National Day, 6 June, marked each year as an official holiday, it was decided by officialdom - in a nod to Muslim numbers - to hold  celebrations at the mosque.  Hence this photo of ethnic Swedes in their national costume performing traditional Swedish folk dances in a bemusedly incongruous setting. 
Hence, too, the frequent use of Arabic rather than Swedish music that has come to mark the day.

As in certain other European cities, the Jews of Malmo, whose community was founded in the late nineteenth-century, feel intimidated by this large - and aggressive - Muslim presence.  With good reason, for physical threats and sometimes actual violence lie in wait for those sufficiently courageous - or foolhardy, depending on your viewpoint -  to appear in public wearing kippot or other symbols of Jewishness.  The local Chabad rabbi, easily identifiable, has been victimised innumerable times - there was even an attempt to run him over. 

During Operation Cast Lead, the tiny Jewish community, less than 800-strong (its numbers have since fallen further owing to emigration), held a "peace rally" in Malmo's main public square.  Despite that description of the event they were surrounded by a surging hate-filled mob of Muslims and ethnic Swedish leftists.  This mob clashed with police and hurled bottles and firecrackers at the Jews, who were eventually, for their safety, shunted into an alley by police.  Not long afterwards, two Israeli tennis players in Malmo for the Davis Cup were forced into playing their match in private - with no spectators - as a mob of the same elements, similarly armed with missiles, attempted to storm police barricades and invade the court.  One of them, Andy Ram, described the experience to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as "distressing and disgusting ... the first time I have come across such a demonstration and felt the hatred towards Israelis".

The attitude of Malmo's Social Democratic mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, to the plight of his city's Jews has been exceedingly obnoxious - and instructive, reflecting as it does the attitude of so much of the political left (and not only in Sweden) towards Jews and Israel.  Reluctant to implicate the Muslim community, he has attempted to shift the blame to right-wingers, and has also dismissively stated with regard to the flight of Jews out of Malmo owing to the intolerable situation there that if the city's Jews choose to settle in Israel, that's not Malmo's concern.  A reporter, whose paper had run a series of articles on the threats, "Hitler" taunts, and harassment experienced by Malmo's Jews from members of the Muslim community, asked Reepalu for a statement.  Far from condemning the Muslim behaviour in unequivocal terms and expressing sympathy for the Jews, Reepalu declared "We accept neither Zionism nor antisemitism", describing them both as unacceptable supremacist ideologies, and observed that the Jews had brought their troubles on themselves by supporting Israel and that it was incumbent upon them to prevent antisemitism by distancing themselves from Israel.  Subsequently, he claimed to have been misrepresented by the reporter - but the reporter had wisely taped his words - so he claimed to have been set up by the "Israeli lobby" instead.

Predictably, therefore - yet of course no less outrageously for that - when, very recently, following a bomb threat, the Malmo synagogue (a beautiful Moorish structure dating to 1903) was attacked by an explosive device that blew out windows, Reepalu refused to comment.