Hannah Rosenthal Soon Winging Her Way to Reepalu

Agenda first, Jews last? photo: Wiki

Under the title "U.S. Sends Anti-Israel Advisor to Anti-Semitic Sweden", Soeren Kern of the Gateway Institute writes that the controversial Rosenfeld will be meeting soon with Malmö's Social Democrat mayor, Ilmar Reepalu. 
Rosenthal, who comes to her White House anti-Semitism advisor post via the George Soros-funded JStreet pressure group, has been criticized for anti-Israel stances including links to BDS groups. Rosenthal also failed to take a firm stance against Lithuania for its revisionist spinning of its WWII Nazi collaborators as equally abused victims. Apropos to our topic, Rosenthal has spoken out against purported "Islamophobia" while  ignoring the Muslim role in the rising tide of anti-Semitic hate crime in Europe. Kern writes:

--"Rosenthal now wants to travel to Sweden to find out what Reepalu is doing to combat intolerance in Malmö. Since both share similar perspectives on the root cause of anti-Jewish hate crime in Europe, namely Jewish support for Israel, Rosenthal and Reepalu can be expected to downplay the severity of anti-Semitism in Sweden and focus their attention on Islamophobia instead."


Looks like Rosenthal's meeting with Reepalu will only serve as a handy campaign photo-op for Obama as he looks to solidify the liberal Jewish vote, while doing nothing to aid Malmö's Jewish community. This is a real shame since Reepalu's Social Democrat party merely has shrugged off Reepalu's latest anti-Semitic volley of accusations instead of demanding that he step down.  In the meantime, Kern reports that 30 Jewish families have left Malmö due to increasing hate crime.


By Chanah Shapira 

Muslin Immigrants Spike Anti-Semitic Poll Results

The Kurdish-Swedish Super-Economy blog has an interesting post as a follow-up to Pauling Neuding's recent round of articles on anti-Semitism. Neuding was tarred with a racist label for pointing out the Muslim identity of perpetrators of anti-Semitic hate crime. Super-Economy looks at stats on rates of anti-Semitism in Sweden with figures for immigrants and sees that one and one, do indeed make two. Here's the post:

The "Mystery" of rising Antisemitism in Malmö

Anti-Semitism has risen in Malmö, including attacks on the tiny Jewish community, and reports that some are leaving the city.

Jewish-Swedish Paulina Neuding writes about this in the Jerusalem Post, attributing the phenomenon to the rise of the Muslim population share. The Swedish left is outraged, and is denouncing Neuding as a racist. But whats racist about it?

In 2005 the Social Democratic government conducted a comprehensive survey of Antisemitism in Sweden. They use an index to measure Antisemitism, asking questions such as “Jews have too much influence in the world today”. They found that the prevalence of Antisemitic views was indeed far higher among Muslims:

“antisemitiska uppfattningar och ambivalenta attityder till judar är jämförelsevis mer utbredda bland muslimer än bland kristna och icke- religiösa. Bland vuxna hyser 39 procent av dem som betecknar sig som muslimer en systematisk antisemitisk inställning jämfört med 5 procent totalt [3 procent bland etniska svenskar].”

["Anti-Semitic views and ambivalent attitudes toward Jews are relatively more prevalent among Muslims than among Christians and non-religious. Among adults harboring 39 percent of those who describe themselves as Muslims, a systematic anti-Semitic attitude, compared with 5 percent in total [3 percent among ethnic Swedes]. " note: translation via Google, Chanah]

For example, 7 percent of Swedish adults agree with the conspiracy theory that Jews were behind 9/11, compared 36 percent of Swedish Muslims. Only about 17 percent of Muslims immigrants in Sweden scored "low" on the Antisemitism index, whereas two thirds of native Swedes scored low. This is the same conclusion in all surveys of European Antisemitism I have seen: it is substantially higher among Muslim immigrants. An example is this study co-authored by a Yale university scholar. On average, Muslims are 8 times more likely to have Antisemitic views.


Full story here.

Politically Correct Blood Libel

Tundra Tabloids recently reported that a Swedish website is now hosting a Chechen website which was promoting the blood libel myth in time for the Passover holiday.

Apparently it started as a joke in very poor taste on an Israeli basketball player's Facebook page and was picked up as "Gospel" (or would that be Koran?) on a Chechen website. Not funny, not nice. And these things multiply on humourless jihadi networks...

Full story here.

Malmö's "Damn Jew" Problem

This is another good piece from Paulina Neuding which appears in Tablet. While giving a current picture of life for Jews in Sweden, Neuding points to the thought processes which guide Sweden's ruling elites. It's not a far jump from wrongheadedness to ignoring reality when it contradicts operative theory. While even the Local ran a story prematurely predicting Mayor Reepalu's demise, in the end his Social Democrat party made sympathetic noises to the Jewish community leadership, but ultimately backed him up. Here's why:

Sweden’s ‘Damn Jew’ Problem

Wearing a yarmulke is no longer safe in the city of Malmö. The mayor blames the Jews, while other Swedish politicians point to ‘social inequality.’


It’s true—Jews aren’t the only residents of Malmö with safety concerns. Malmö’s high rates of crime have earned the city the moniker “Sweden’s Chicago.” In 2011 and early 2012, several people were killed in the city in what are believed to be gang shootings. When a teenage boy was shot dead on New Year’s Eve, more than a thousand people took to the streets to protest against the violence under the slogan “Enough, damn it.”
High crime rates, especially among certain immigrant communities, have caused deep anxiety for the people of Malmö—and yet politicians and pundits are reluctant to discuss the issue, partly out of a genuine fear of stirring up racism and Islamophobia. When I met with Ask in 2009, for example, I asked her whether crime among immigrants in Sweden caused her to worry. She would not hear of it. “What we in fact can see, however, is that many victims of crime are immigrants,” she told me. “And that worries me.”

Full article here.

Neuding: Europe Must Change Policy and Perceptions

Neuding: Seeing things as they are

As we have written here recently, violent hate crimes in France are a reflection of both failed immigration policies and a failure to defend citizens against criminal and terror elements. In a blog post published today, Paulina Neuding of Neo extracts conclusions from both the Islamically-motivated Toulouse attacks and her interview with Malmö Mayor Ilmar Reepalu in which he paradoxically accused Malmö's threatened Jewish community of spreading anti-Muslim hatred. 

Neuding points out the European fallacy of simplistically equating the contentions of Muslim and Jewish groups, misplaced desire to be "even-handed" even where no equivalency exists. Accordingly, Swedish authorities, whether on the municipal level (Reepalu)or the international level (Bildt) are unwilling to change their policy approach to immigration, integration, and control of dangerous elements. Neuding has a hard look at possible scenarios and solutions in her article, ominously titled "Dark Continent":

"...we are, unfortunately, increasingly well acquainted with this imported anti-Semitism, which is proving to be extremely difficult for European societies to confront. No one wants to blame or stigmatize another minority for anti-Semitic hate crimes, but Europe’s Jews are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult situation.

"Europeans often choose to avoid the problem by viewing it as a conflict between two groups, with responsibility falling equally on both sides. When I asked Malmö’s mayor, Ilmar Reepalu, about the threats against Malmö’s Jews, he claimed that the city’s Jewish community was being “infiltrated” by the Sweden Democrats – an anti-immigration party with roots in the Swedish neo-Nazi movement – with the implication that Malmö’s Jews were on an equal footing with the anti-Semites persecuting them.

"Reepalu had to retract his claim as soon as the interview was published. Yet he acted on the popular notion that anti-Semitic attacks by Arab youths in Europe are part of a cycle of reciprocal violence that yields a kind of moral equivalence."

Full article here.

By Chanah Shapira

Bildt on Iran

Sometimes the title of an article is a red flag warning that the author has tunnel vision, and you are not going to get the whole picture. It's probably also a sign that what you don't get could be pretty significant. Last week Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (Moderate Party) co-authored a New York times op-ed with Finnish FM Erkki Tuomioja. The title was "The Only Option on Iran".  Actually, if you have only one choice, it's not really an "option".  What Bildt posits is that doing nothing about the Iranian nuclear weapons program, is a better "option" than preventing Iran from advancing along its ambition to be a nuclear power, which is in fact the other option.

The FMs write:

-"We are deeply concerned about all the loose talk regarding a possible military attack on Iran because of the growing uncertainty over parts of its nuclear program.

"Not only would such an attack be a clear violation of the charter of the United Nations. It could have severely negative repercussions across the region and be counterproductive to the very objectives it would seek to achieve.

"It is difficult to see a single action more likely to drive Iran into taking the final decision to acquire nuclear weapons than an attack on the country. And once such a decision was made, it would only be a matter of time before a nuclear-armed Iran became a reality."

The key whitewashing and wishing are set out in this introduction. While it is certain that the Iranians are openly enriching uranium and building and test-firing long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, this is fluffed over by the authors as "uncertainty over parts of its nuclear program".

Bildt and his Finnish colleague conveniently leave out any mention of Israel in the article. Yet continued calls by Iran's leaders to wipe out Israel constitute incitement to genocide which is a clear violation of the U.N. charter, and demands condemnation. Failing to point out the regime's stated raison d'etre of its nuclear ambitions is a dishonest omission.

Thirdly, claiming that an atack on Iran would be the cause of Iran actually producing weapons, and insistence on the pursuit of diplomacy is wishful and dangerous thinking. For Israel and the Western world, actively containing the Iranian nuclear weapons program is an existential necessity and a means to maintain stability in the Middle East. The Saudis, fearing Iran's ambitions have called on the West to "cut off the head of the snake".

Wake up Bildt. The locals know better what needs to be done.


By Chanah Shapira

Reepalu Refuses to "Normalize" Relations with Malmö's Jews



Anyone who has followed the series of anti-Semitic insults which Malmö's Mayor Ilmar Reepalu (Social Democrat) flings out from time to time will not be surprised at his response to the Jewish community.  Following his standard pattern, Reepalu has again added insult to injury by telling the Swedish national wire service TT that he has given up on relations with the Jewish community.
According to an article posted on Swedish website Scanomark:

-"Ilmar Reepalu on his part told the Swedish news network, TT that he has never been anti-Semitic. But that he will not try to do something to normalize relations with Jews.
'No, what can I do? They will not listen.'"

Listen to what? More insults? More accusations? Actually, the Jewish community has heard plenty from Reepalu, but what they'd like to hear is an apology and a plan of action for better security.

While the Social Dems' leader Stefan Löfven  has invited the Jewish community leadership to meet with the party in early April, this is still a far cry from publicly asking Reepalu to step down.


By Chanah Shapira