by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] The Swedish Security Police (SäPo) has recorded a rise in anti-Semitic sentiments in the country. This is largely due to the strengthening of the Muslim community in the country, in which radical elements are gaining strength, covering up their criminal activities with a “war for faith.”
Jihadists hate both the state of Israel and all Jews equally. However, many native Swedes also express a negative attitude towards Israel, which is often transferred to all Jews in general.
They are repulsed by the harsh methods with which the Israelis are “bringing order” to the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the main tribune for these outraged Swedes has become the well-known eco-activist Greta Thunberg.
SHARP INCREASE IN CRIME
The year 2025 marks two and a half centuries of Jewish presence in Sweden. In 1775, people of Jewish faith were first allowed to settle here without converting to Christianity.
Today, there are about 20,000 Jews living in the country, some of whom are direct descendants of those who fled the Holocaust. However, Sweden has become less of a safe haven in recent years: a Muslim community is growing here. Many of the Muslims who have settled here come from feudal societies where an innate hatred of Jews is commonplace.
In 2023, Infostat conducted a survey of the local Jewish community, which showed that more and more of its members were worried about their future. About half of the respondents said they were discussing the possibility of moving from Sweden to a safer country.
Most of those surveyed expressed the opinion that openly demonstrating Jewish identity is fraught with serious troubles. Moreover, the most dangerous city is named as Malmö, where especially many migrants settled who arrived in Sweden, as well as in other EU countries, in 2015.
Many Jews complain that it has become especially difficult and dangerous for them since the resumption of full-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip the year before last. In the period from October 7 to December 31, 2023 alone, 110 anti-Semitic hate crimes were registered in the country. In the same period of the previous year, 2022, their number was only 24.
Nowadays, representatives of the Jewish community sometimes admit that they are haunted by fear for their lives and even the temptation to change their last name.
"Many of our people are very anxious and wonder: Can I continue to live in Sweden? Can I feel safe here?" asks Aron Verstendig, chairman of the Jewish Central Council of Sweden, rhetorically.
SEARCH FOR ANTI-SEMITES
SäPo recently announced that the level of terrorist threat in the country has decreased, but the level of anti-Semitism has increased. Swedish "security officials" state that aggressive Islamists and right-wing extremist groups "are using the tense situation in the world to spread anti-Semitic propaganda."
SäPo does not rule out that certain “foreign powers” may also be involved in “using organized crime to commit acts of violence against Jews and attacks on Israeli targets in Sweden.”
What kind of violence are we talking about? Early last year, unknown assailants threw a grenade at the Israeli embassy building, which flew over the fence, landed next to the building, but fortunately did not explode. Later, in May and October 2024, the embassy building was shot at. Mossad said it believed Iran, acting through Swedish crime groups, was behind these incidents.
The government assures that it understands the fears of Jews, is concerned about the atmosphere of intolerance that has developed around the Jewish community, and does not want to put up with this state of affairs.
"I have spoken to parents who are thinking about changing their children's surnames. It is incredibly terrible how anti-Semitism affects the lives of people in Sweden today and how difficult it is to live an open Jewish life," laments Culture Minister Parisa Liljestrand.
The government is now launching a 10-year national strategy to combat anti-Semitism and ensure the survival of the Jewish minority, which includes pressure on police to solve more hate crimes against Jews.
The Swedish Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) has also been tasked with examining how anti-Semitic crimes are handled in the country's courts and understanding the reasons why so few such cases result in convictions.
SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE
It should be noted, however, that anti-Semitic sentiments in Sweden are not limited to immigrants from the Third World. They are also widespread to a large extent among native Swedes, who are often inclined to hold all Jews collectively responsible for the civilian casualties in Gaza.
Thus, on June 7, a fifty-thousand-strong demonstration against the war in Gaza took place in the center of Stockholm. “This is only the beginning,” the organizers of the march promised.
One of them, Nova Veregif, told the press : "It is clear that there is an overwhelming need among people to respond to what is happening in Gaza. Many more people came to the demonstration than we had hoped for."
Experts compare this action in scale with the demonstration against the war in Iraq that took place in Stockholm in 2003, but this time there were even more participants than then.
In this regard, a good indicator of the mood that has taken hold in Swedish society is the well-known Greta Thunberg. It is customary to laugh at her, but this person has considerable influence and expresses the mood of a significant part of the Swedes, especially the local youth, who mainly adhere to liberal views.
Thunberg has long been a supporter of the Palestinians. In November 2023, she demanded that Israel cease fire in Gaza. “The world needs to speak out and call for an immediate ceasefire, justice and freedom for the Palestinians and all civilians affected,” Thunberg wrote on social media. The post was accompanied by photos of pro-Palestinian posters.
After that, the Israeli army command accused her of supporting terrorism. The Israeli Ministry of Education announced that it would remove any mention of her from the curriculum. More than 100 Israeli activists signed a collective letter accusing Thunberg of a “superficial and dismissive attitude” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Many Israelis and their sympathizers insulted the girl in every possible way and wished her the worst. She was accused of anti-Semitism - because in the notorious photo in the background there was... a toy octopus.
They say that the enemies of the Jews like to caricature them as a giant octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the planet, and the activist deliberately placed the toy in the photo, confirming her commitment to anti-Semitic stereotypes.
She later changed the photo. “I became aware that the animal image shown in my previous post could be interpreted as a symbol of anti-Semitism, which I was completely unaware of,” Thunberg added, not without irony. And this only added fuel to the fire.
It is unlikely that such a person knew nothing about symbols, the German newspaper Die Welt exposed Greta.
The campaign to defame her spilled out of Israel and into Europe. The EU press began publishing articles with headlines like “Greta Thunberg shocked Germany with her anti-Semitism.”
To be fair, it should be noted that Thunberg did not break and continued to stick to her guns. The apotheosis was the recent incident on June 9, when Israeli special forces intercepted the yacht on which she was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. Greta was deported from Israel and returned to her homeland.
Upon her return, she began to talk about the cruelty of the Israeli state in torturing Palestinians.
| She says such things because she resolutely covered her eyes and ears, refusing to watch the compilation of Hamas films of their activities of 10/7/2023 and the days after, lest she her resolution be weakened by true facts. |