What you say is fair comment. However, there are sins of commission and sins of omission. I am not accusing all Swedes of being viciously anti-semitic by commission; but even you admit a certain segment is. At the same time, too many Swedes are passive in the face of anti-semitism and, therefore, I say, they are guilty of anti-semitic acts by omission.

The real culprit here, though, is the political regime. Sweden is a democratic nation and, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the voting public put them there.

When I talk of making an example of Sweden I mean it as a diplomatic exercise. An example of what I’m talking about is how the U.S. reacted to Canada for it’s diplomatic stance vis. 9/11 and the Iraq war. Substantial pressure was brought to bear on Canada, via trade and border issues, to not so gently remind the Canadian Government what side their bread was buttered on. Partly, as a result, if you don’t know, the sitting prime minister was summarily turfed out by his own party and the new prime minister is very busy trying to mend fences. It will be a long slog to turn around a carefully cultivated anti-Americanism by the previous regime but, to date, the new PM has made it clear to his caucus that anti-American comments by them would no longer be tolerated. He has also made speeches agreeing that there was ample evidence for Iraq possessing WMD for Bush to act on and, further, that the UN needs to be replaced by a more relevant body. This is a sea-change in attitude in just a few short months. All of this happened because the U.S. took Canada (the regime) by the scruff and shook the hell out of it.

As for ignoring Sweden because it is too small to matter: nothing that happens on the international stage goes unnoticed. If the U.S. took a stance that any nation flirting with terrorist organisations would face trade reprisals they would be brought to heel in short order.

It’s simply not.

While I read the article, and all the facts are true (as far as I can tell), it does paint the picture way too dark. I believe I can speak with a certain amount of authority here.

As the article says, it’s mainly the left that finds fashion in anti-semitism. I think this goes way back to the 60s and 70s, when any organisation seen as “revolutionary” was held as the good guys. The PLO simply got bunched up together with Viet Cong for these people.

You must also realize that most of the media elite today is extremely left wing, most of them belonged to far left student organisations in the 60s and 70s. Jan Guillou for example was, I believe, a member of Clart鮠We are talking left of the Communist party here.

I believe these people support revolutionary movements first, and PLO is seen as one. That means opposition to anything Israel, and the anti-semitism just follows.

These people basically control the Swedish media, and sets the tone of it. Sweden is a small country, so it’s very hard for a dissenting view to be heard. The biggest medias will simply scream “racism” whenever someone tries to disagree. Most people simply get their facts from the media.

As I wrote in a previous (dead?) thread, Seymore Hersh, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore and Robert Fisk is presented in Swedish media as “independent experts”, and their views are presented unopposed to the general public.

And the Swedish Television made a hit piece a few days before the last election that caused a significant drop for the conservative parties. (A Swedish “Rathergate”).

As for the forreign policy, it’s basically the same thing. I wont go into a long discussion of the swedish electoral system, but the people influential over Swedish forreign policy also has their roots from the 60s student organisations, they just went the political careeer rather than medial.

They have been more or less anti-US since then, and that also makes them anti-Israel to some degree.

I’ve heard the Dagens Nyheter (DN) is supposed to be over the top anti-semitic, but I dont read it myself, and I dont think that many people do. It’s one of those “paper of records” that noone actually seems to read.

The Swedish people as such isn’t anti-semitic. At least, I couldn’t describe it that way in any shape or form. I cant remember when I last heard anything of that kind. Swedes in general are a lot more concerned with the islamic influence than they are with semitism. Even the young neo-nazis seems to have shifted their hatespeech from jews to muslims, it’s probably seen as more fertile ground.

Swedes might have anti-Israel opinions, due to the media, but that’s really not the same thing.

Swedes also can come up with jokes and sometimes slurs for every group concievable, but make no particularly distinction in that regard between jews, muslims, norwegians or people from Stockholm. (If anything, norwegians and people from Stockholm gets the tougher deal in that regard.) But it’s easy for an outsider to pic a few chosen ones and run a story with it.

I can take one example of typically Swedish behavior. On a business trip to the States, me and a colleague went to the same hotel restaurant for breakfast every morning. We were a bit perplexed when they said they didn’t serve pork, and couldn’t understand why. It took us the whole week before we made the connection that it was a jewish hotel, and that that was the reason. We simply hadn’t noticed the name of the place. Swedes rarely do notice things like that, nor do they particularly care. It was after all a nice place to eat breakfast.

My belief is that any anti-semitism in Sweden today comes from two sources, the “cultural elite” (media, and other cultural establishments) with it’s roots in the 60s student movement, and the islamic community, to varying degree. Any other anti-semitism I think can be traced back to those sources, or are negligable.

I cant speak with the same authority of other european countries, but wouldn’t be surprised if the same is true in some of those countries.

As for the US teaching Sweden a lesson, I simply cant see the point of it. Sweden is simply too small to matter, who would care if the US decided to enforce sanctions?

Even if it would ruin Sweden (which I doubt it would) noone would care, Sweden is too small.

If anything, the US would create a martyr state, a “victim of US imperialism”, without getting any leverage out of it towards other states.

The worst the US can do to Sweden is simply to ignore it, nothing upsets the left here more than that. They think Sweden is really important on the world stage, and really gets upset when noone seems to notice them.

The first thing I noticed upon returning is that there has only been four posts on this matter other than mine. Where are all the little chatterboxes that regularly comment on your site? I can only conclude that these matters are of little interest to them. Why is this? I hope it is the lesser sin of indifference.

The link “Stockholm Syndrome” refers to talks about the sad situation in Sweden. It is a lot more than sad. Sweden is a viciouslyly anti-semitic nation. Their foreign policy needs to be grabbed by the scruff and have the shit shaken out of it.

I have long believed that anti-semitism is what causes Europe to turn a blind-eye to the atrocities of middle-east terrorists and, even, commiserate with their anger. This can only fuel the hope of terrorists about eventual victory.

U.S. foreign policy should include making an example of an overtly anti-semitic nation so as to put other nations, who care to dabble in such outrageousness, on notice. Are there any vital interests that the U.S. has with Sweden? Not many I would think. This would make them an ideal candidate.

A unified front of free nations supporting Israel is the first step in convincing terrorist supporting nations of their folly.

I didn’t believe the story had much credence at the time but understood it as an attempt to derail the Swift Vet Story by CBS, relayed by disgruntled sources at the FBI. And now there is even more circumstantial evidence that CBS would do exactly such a thing, from the ABC note. Apparently, in RatherGate CBS instructed their own expertss not to analyze anything too closely:

ABC’s Brian Ross interviewed the two experts who CBS hired to validate the National Guard documents and reports they ignored concerns they raised prior to the CBS News broadcast. “I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply,” Emily Will told Ross. “I did not authenticate anything and I don’t want it to be misunderstood that I did,” Linda James told Ross. Ross reports 2 experts told ABC News today that even the most advanced typewriter available in 1972 could not have produced the documents.

Amazing.

I have read your link to “Stockholm syndrome” twice. I am simply stunned. I will comment further later tonight when I have digested what I have read.

Rumblestrip

There are just too many other easy ways to pass on the info in a country like this without resorting to a front group. Moreover, using a political group as your front group in this situation is just way silly.

Granted, this doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. But these are some of the reasons I’m quite skeptical.

I too have my dobts about the story of Israeli spying.

I heard today that Sharon may try a buy out program in the settlements and they may need aid from the US to make that happen. I doubt if they would want to jeopardize help from the only friend they seem to have.