Barry Rubin reports from Sweden:
The Region: Taking stock in Stockholm
By BARRY RUBIN
There are few better places to contemplate current European antagonism toward Israel than here in Stockholm, Sweden.
Let's start with a brief recital of factors shaping Swedish attitudes: On one hand is an explicit double standard. Israel is expected to act better than the Palestinians or Arabs, an attitude benefiting the latter groups but rooted in an implicit racism toward them.
On the other hand, Israel s enemies are romanticized as revolutionaries, creating a second double standard in which their deeds are justified as being in the service of a higher cause.
Enjoying fine living standards and believing themselves to be highly humanitarian people, Swedes salve their consciences by expressing
sympathy for a distant underdog even as they mistreat Third World immigrants at home.
After many centuries of peace, Swedish political culture assumes there can only be a conflict if both sides provoke one. In this sense, Israel is equally at fault. But, being stronger, it is held to be the main guilty party.
Swedish anti-Americanism means Israel's being a US ally counts strongly against it. And with Sweden perennially dominated by the Social Democratic party, hegemonic leftism creates sympathy for the side considered radical and rebels.
The intellectual, cultural, media-dominating class (as elsewhere) is especially predisposed to the above characteristics. Thus, anti-Israel factors are highest in the sector shaping the rest of society s views.
About five percent of the population are Muslim immigrants. This new sector s direct influence, alongside Swedish attempts to appease or sympathize with them, furthers anti-Israel sentiments.
There are just two points, which should not be underestimated, that counter these diverse factors. First, a feeling of guilt toward the Jewish people.
Sweden was neutral during World War II, protecting itself from invasion by selling Nazi Germany the iron ore it needed for weapons. While Sweden shielded its own small Jewish population, it turned over some Jewish refugees to the Third Reich.
Swedes, like other Europeans, insist their attitude toward Israel is not anti-Semitic. This may be true if one only means direct, conscious hatred of Jews. But anti-Semitism is central in terms of misunderstanding Jews in a way that makes them easily demonized as inscrutable people whose fears and motives are incomprehensible. Thus, the most extraordinary things may be said and believed about them. Again, though, Sweden understands it is possible to go too far, and that is a restraining factor. It is carefu to say that Israel has the right to exist and defend itself.
THE SECOND factor is a collection of countervailing influences. Sweden remembers past sympathy with an Israel seen as socialist and as a fellow small country. There is some awareness that its enemies are reactionary, authoritarian, and use terrorism. Non-leftist forces like Christian Democrats and Liberals are also less hostile.
Even the current government has become somewhat milder in its antagonism, partly due to new foreign minister Laila Freivalds who just visited Israel, where she nonetheless claimed that Israel s response to terrorism violated international law.
At home, she may have expressed herself more bluntly. During a recent high school lecture, a Muslim immigrant student asked Freivalds whether Israel treats the Palestinians as Nazis did the Jews. At best, Freivalds equivocated; at worst, a Jewish student in the audience claims her reply and remarks made to him afterward made it clear her answer was "yes." The foreign minister denies his account.
How she obtained her job is both ironic and revealing. Freivalds' predecessor, Anna Lind, was a 1960s-style leftist who, for example, blasted the United States for daring to suggest that Yasser Arafat might be a terrorist. Lind was murdered last September by a Muslim immigrant bitter about his family s mistreatment in Sweden.
While Sweden was at one time generous in admitting refugees and still gives them large welfare payments, it also keeps them at arms' length.
Immigrants are not readily admitted into Swedish society, suffer numerous indignities, and have trouble finding jobs. Anger is building, and while its small population of Muslims will shield Sweden from the troubles facing France, Islamist sentiments and even terrorist cells are becoming evident.
Also troubling is the extent to which Sweden is ready to compromise its high-minded principles for the sake of siding against Israel. This includes suppression of an official report concluding aid should stop to the Palestinian movement because it was misusing the funds.
The situation is also worsening for the small Jewish community, supposedly under the government s vigorous protection. One young man has been assaulted four times by Muslim immigrants who saw his Star of David necklace.
When mycolleague remarked to a Jewish student about hers, she quickly hid it under her collar.
This is where Sweden s policy and media reporting is leading on Middle East issues: distortions of reality, breaking democratic principles, and siding with extremist, anti-democratic forces. Knowing this to be true gives rise to a small voice of conscience which may be the only hope for changing the situation.
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