Racist Swedish dockers blockade Israeli goods at ports
Sweden’s English language newspaper, The Local, is reporting that Swedish dockers launched a blockade of Israeli ships and cargo at ports across the country on Wednesday. The blockade, which will last until June 29, was initiated by The Swedish Dock Workers Union in protest at the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara in the Mediterranean during which nine people died after Israeli commandos were attacked by Islamists seeking “martyrdom”.
The blockade is clearly anti-Semitic according to European Union guidelines (the EUMC definition) which state that it is racist to hold Israel to different standards from other democracies. Since the dockers union has not launched blockades of countries involved in the war in Afghanistan, for example, where thousands of civilians have died, it is clear that Israel is indeed being held to different standards.
Sweden has one of the worst records on anti-Semitism in Europe. When the country’s top selling Aftonbladet newspaper last year published a two-page spread alleging that Israeli soldiers routinely murdered Palestinian children to harvest their bodily organs, the country’s government not only remained silent on the matter it even went so far as to chide the country’s ambassador to Israel for distancing Sweden from the allegations.
The ambassador had put up a note to that effect on the embassy’s website but was told in no uncertain terms to take it down.
——-
To purchase my recent book on the broader subject of Europe’s problem with Israel and the Jews, click here.
June 25th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Unlike their neighbours Norway (who despise them) the Swedes were neutral in World War II. They are – how should I put it – traditionally Aryan.
June 25th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Expel all Swedes from Israel or they can all reside in Gaza. Even if it’s fewer than 10 people it would be a start.
June 25th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
3 points
1. I’ve already tried to call before the blog’s readership’s attention to the Orwellian world of Sweden, their innate ingrained antisemitism, their fake “humanitarian standards” (when serious , one of them an Englishman!!!, scholars, anthropologists, historians, sociologists documented how Sweden is a modern soft-totalitarian, consequently deeply anti-democratic, dictatorship of the XXIst century), their clever PR and un-überable hypocrisy and even hiddden racism.
2. As for boycotts, you have an option, thank G-D.
You can immediately start your own counter-boycott in Europe and the United Sates with the following products: Volvo, Saab (“lightyears” behind BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, Honda or even Alfa-Romeo), Ericsson (choose Nokia or Motorola etc.), Astra (medicine: ask for an alternative!), Hasselblad (cameras, photography, partly already defunct if not completely dead as a firm) IKEA (first class cr*p in furniture, only those without any discernable sophisticated good taste choose it because they are cheap, buy instead top-class Italian), H&M (cr*p in the dress sector, again worthless, loads of better alternatives elsewhere) and various types of North Sea fish produsts packaged or otherwise at your local supermarkets – leave them on the shelves.
3. The nasty racist idiots (“dockworkers union”) according to “Svenska Dagbladet”, Sweden’s 2nd lardest daily paper, found during surfing among conservative blogs) let through Israeli dilysis machines to Swedish hospitals on the ground that Swedish patients in hospitals should not made to suffer! You really couldn’t make this up even if you were Agatha Christie! This way the union just prooves doubly so that they are RACISTS, since Swedes’ comfort and health enjoys privilege against the Palestinians and “the” cause.
Post script & nota bene: the blog owner should not delete comments in the future which tries to excite attention to episodes about sordid British history, Jew-hatred, hypocrisy – judicial and otherwise and crimes, morover: sheer arrogance and bluster, which he personally doesn’t like and cuts to his own personal taste.
Robin Shepherd says: Gabor. Your participation is very much appreciated. It is only when things get a little too fruity that I don’t allow something through. Remember, a big part of the purpose of this site is to counter demonisation of one state — Israel. I’m extremely critical of my own country, Britain, but I have to draw some kind of line if it goes too far over the top and starts to look like demonisation of Britain. Not everyone in Britain is a raving anti-Semite. And let’s not forget for one moment that without British steadfastness in WWII the Nazis could not have been defeated and the Holocaust would have been completed. The fall of Britain would have been bad enough in its own right, but the consequent inability of the USA to use Britain as a beach-head into Europe would have been fatal. All I’m saying is that there is a bigger pircture to see. But I agree, of course, that the problem of contemporary anti-Semitism in Britain gets ever more serious by the day.
June 25th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
I would dearly like to boycott Swedish goods, but I can’t remember when I last bought anything Swedish. Don’t drive a Volvo or Saab, don’t shop in Ikea. Sony Ericsson and Electrolux are also Swedish, but I wouldn’t plan on buying those brands anyway. What else do they make (apart from Abba CDs and I never liked them either) ?
Maybe I’ll have to stop doing my Sven-Goran Eriksson impersonation for a week. Well… verrry disappointing.
June 26th, 2010 at 12:49 am
As long as they don’t want them, let’s not send any goods from Israel into Sweden – such as medicines and vaccines from or developed by Israelis. Can’t have it both ways, can you Sweden?
June 26th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Meanwhile thousands of Uzbeks killed in Kyrgyzstan, many burned in houses with whole families, and hundreds of thousands ethnically cleansed, hardly gets a mention.
Where are the demonstrations, the EU standing as one condemning the Kyrgyzstan government? None.
So lets us all go afer Israel. Yes, the one state in the totalitarian hell-hole of the ME that is a liberal democracy, and continues to be so, even in at a time of war, is the one we need to bash.
Not one Western government would have put up with the kind of provocations by Arabs or any other group – wanton murders of children, suicide bombs, rockets etc, over decades, as Israel has, without obliterating the enemy. Can anyone imagine the USA putting up with it?
Maybe this is the answer -It is the fact that Israel makes the rest of the West look bad, that Israel gets such a bad press, just to make it equal with the rest.
June 26th, 2010 at 2:52 am
Sadly, I have just read that British dockworker s have followed suit, as did a group in San Francisco.
But they will, no doubt, be happy to unload ships from the dozens of corrupt dictatorships sending their stuff to those countries.
June 26th, 2010 at 4:50 am
i guess if the people really want to boycott jewish / israeli goods then they should, but at least do it properly, hand in the mobile phone technology, software and computer devices that have israeli technology and refuse all medical treatments that are innovations from israel, perhaps stop the solar and environmental technology and these, random one’s lifted from the boston globe.
jeans, Lipstick, the Ballpoint Pen, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, Television Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, the Flexistraw. The Atomic Bomb, the Thermonuclear Bomb, God, Genetic Engineering, the Nuclear Chain Reactor, Virtual Reality. Hollywood, the Sit-Com, the Long Playing Record, Woodstock, Sound Movies, Videotape, Color Television, Instant Photography, Holography Monotheism, Psychoanalysis, the Theory of Relativity, the Weekend Capitalism, Communism, Circumcision, Cheesecake, Cafeterias Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, the Shopping Cart and the Ready-to-Wear Clothing Industry Prozac, Valium, The Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against the deadly “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology Prozac, Valium, The Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against the deadly “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology Drip Irrigation, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager, the Walkie-talkie, Refrigerated Railroad Car, High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine, Stainless Steel, Tapered Roller Bearings. etc
i mean it really is getting silly.
June 26th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
AKUS, I heard about the Oakland (Frisco) issue, but not about the British dockworkers – didn’t read about them anywhere. But sadly they could have joined.
Further: I certainly didn’t understand how on earth do Swedes have no characteristic and forecful conservative party (the “Moderaterna” – Karl Bildt’s party in power (well, until this September?). is basically not right-wing at all – or to be precise anti-Islamist party in the legislature? In Sweden parties have too reach at least 4 per cent to enter parliament.
I really tried to massage my mind and started to believe that they (Swedes) are kind-of Martian freaks enjoying the Islamic tsunami going berserk in their own country and being hyper, über-liberals.
Well, me stupid! OF COURSE NOTHNIG OF THE SORT!
A new friend of mine from the Sweden Democrat (SD) party on the net told me that there is NO free (in the Western sense) ballot in Sweden!!! One has to ask “vocally” in front of everyone else which political party you are going to vote and it gets registrated! Naturally, everybody (almost) is putting in their pants, cause SD supporters are regularly attacked in the streets (often with baseball bats etc.), fired from their jobs (numerous examples!) and other various terror-tactics for those daring to vote for the “wrong” party!You could not make this up, guys! Really as I’m typing these lines I’m laughing my a** off at the whole story. This IS the reason ipso facto why people are AFRAID to vote freely in their “democracy”. This country is a freakish banana republic of the first order, guys!
Please someone start a Europewide petition to kick this Dictatorstan out of civilized Europe. Their standards better match somehwere in sub-Sahara places like Mali or something. (Pardon Mali!) I’m freaking out how they could get in the first palce! You couldn’t make this up!Guys, it’s breathtaking…
June 26th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Please take a look at these two brilliant caricatures!
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/More/ActivePage.aspx/Cart
This one, and the one before just click on”Previous” – it’s even better!
June 26th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
I knew a Swedish lawyer at Uni doing postgrad work. (He has since become a judge). He came out with the most ignorant drivel about Israel, and when I corrected him on several points (which were easily verifiable with five minutes’ research) he said it was Zionist propaganda. There was no conversation to be had, he had made up his mind on the basis of lies, which he had never bothered to check. This is a judge, a highly educated person. With all the other evidence cited here, Sweden appears to be in the grip of a mass psychosis, the target of which is the Jews.
June 27th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Adam, this must be because they have simply no other choice. I emphasize, NO OTHER CHOICE – for the last 40 or rather 50 years or so. Of course, to be fair, they have a site “newsmill” which is not that bad and provides a wide variety of views, the slight majority tending to the liberals and conservatives, but on a national scale hardly anyone reads it. In general, the anti-Israel blogs outnumber the pro-Israeli ones by 9:1 on the net I was told.
However horrible large sections of the British media and however much justified criticism they incur – in part from great bloggers like Robin Shepherd, at least the British DO have alternatives thankfully.
A slight correction: in my comment at #9 I wanted to refer to secret ballots and not free ballots per se.
Please if you have time, read this semi-satirical, but very thought-provoking piece from a very competent blogger “Sultan Knish”:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9571
June 28th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Must view
Dr. Richard L. Rubinstein, Yale fellow, “Distinguished Professor of the Year”, and Harvard Phd, states that president Obama’s intention is to “correct the historical mistake of the creation of the state of Israel.” Dr. Rubenstein states that president Obama due to his family heritage is extremely pro Muslim – to the point of “wanting to see the destruction of Israel.”
http://sheikyermami.com/2010/06/27/israel-“samson-option”-choice-in-absence-of-choice/#more-54421
June 28th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Adam
Sweden may be in for a rude awakening. It is not possible for an individual or state to permanently live under a delusion. Sooner or later reality will invade.
June 28th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Dear sir,
As a person fairly critical about my own country`s (Norway) stand on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and also a person who enjoys reading a lot of your postings on your website, this is somehow over the top.
I do not expect you to be responsible for other peoples comments to your articles either, but since you are defending Britain in one comment, I feel you should moderate some of the rants going on about Sweden to. These fundamentalist and ignorant yelling about Sweden being a totalitarian state is definitely not helpful in promoting this site as something to be taken seriously.
As for the Swedish governments refusal to put statements about its country`s newspapers opinions by diplomats is something that should be encouraged. Just like the Danes refused to back off on the cartoons. It is called free press, and is exactly the sort of democracy we want to defend in our own countries, and it is why we defend the Israeli democracy against surrounding totalitarian states.
Robin Shepherd says: Actually the Danish government came out very strongly against free speech in that case, despite some weasel words at the start of the affair. And the line by the Swedish govt was nonesense: Nobody was saying that the bigots at Aftonbladet should have been silenced, or sent to jail! But the idea that Swedish politicians are unable to comment on a subject raised by the Swedish press was so threadbare as to invite laughter. Come on. All that Carl Bildt (Sweden’s Foreign Minister) had to do was say: “I’m very much against anti-Semitic blood libels and I’m ashamed when Swedish newspapers or indeed any Swedes push them into the public domain.” But he couldn’t even do that. Go figure…
June 28th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
While I deplore the dockworkers action, I think referring to Sweden’s alleged ‘aryan’ past is a bit weak: Sweden harboured tens of thousands of Scandinavian Jews. And it can hardly be described as a racist state to its ethnic minorities.
Better arguments guys!
June 28th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
‘The nasty racist idiots (”dockworkers union”) according to “Svenska Dagbladet”, Sweden’s 2nd lardest daily paper, found during surfing among conservative blogs) let through Israeli dilysis mach’
That is extraordinary hypocrisy: it surely violates the EU directive, and is prosecutable for that reason.
Can you find a link for this, Robin, to pass on to a legal expert?
June 28th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Just because portions of the govt and population are ninnies doesn’t mean we have to become like them and propose boycotts of swedish goods. Its ridiculous for people opposed to boycotts to then turn around and propose them. I for one plan to continue shopping at Ikea just as I continue to happily purchase Israeli goods and if anybody doesn’t like it they can get stuffed.
June 28th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Dear zkharya, your historical knowledge is, at minimum, incomplete.
Dear Mr. Karlsen,
1. Sweden in the 30s asked Germany to put the “J” sign into passports, just like Switzerland. That’s one.
2. It’s very-very far from “tens of thousands”, this is clearly incorrect. We’re talknig about less than 10.000 people. My friend, an extremely knowledgeable pro-Israeli phylosemitic historian, supporter of party SD, told me that Sweden until 1943 didn’t let the Jewish boats through the Öresund from Gilleleje (tiny fishing port) reaching Sweden for cynical calculative reasons. AFTER ’43 it DID, after sniffing that the winds started blowing in the other direction… Yes, Sweden let in a small number of Jews from Norway in 1942 who were able to avoid detection from Swedes.
Nobody questions heroic help from *individual* actions of Swedes. The state is a differnt matter altogether.
Raoul Walenberg was working totally alone and abandoned by the state and the country did almost next to nothing for trying to locate him afetr the war. Although, for fairness, they have had great fears of the Russians for decades. All the while they were viscerally atni-American at the same time, the media-academic circles foaming at the mouth against the US. Further, we hould evoke the pro-Cuban, pro-Fidel Castro, anti-US-Vietnam war PM of Olof Palme and many others.
3. Stian Karlsen,zkharya
Here is the evidence of the hypocrisy of the dockworkers union and the link connecting to Svenska Dagbladet concerning their selective interpretations (dialysis machines etc.)in the middle of the text
Voilá:
swedenisrael.blogspot.com/2010/06/swedish-dockworkers-conduct-boycott-of.html
4. Not too fast zkharya.
Any country, but any which propagates itself as the self-professed “moral conscience of the world” and “humanitarian superpower” like Sweden (and nota bene, Norway detto) sitting in judgement on virtually anybody and everybody on the planet at their piedestal justifiedly attracts scrutiny about their war-time past and lays itself open to be put under the microscope and called on their every single infraction if such are found. Bringing up these two states pasts, however uncomfortable and unsavory for them is eminently just in light of their decades old campaign to attack Israel. It’s not about “aryan” anything, it’s about double standards and moral hypocrisy. For example my country acted considerable worse than these two states during the war, however it doesn’t huff and puff. Finally please read Manfred Gershtenfeld’s thick book (“Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel, and the Jews” – online the whole book is readable for free!) chronicling the phenomenon of Scandinavian (mostly Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandish, Denmark and Finland relatively get a pass) tolerance of anti-semitism. It’s stuffed with well-documented facts.
5. Sweden’s (and Norway’s) connections to press-freedom is questionable in my view. Both states finance local press organs according to their “needs”. The European Union repeatedly asked Sweden to terminate this practice for years. Nothing changed.
It turns out that there’s no secret ballot in Sweden or secret at least according to common accepted standards interpreted as such anywhere in democracies. There are not a few skeletons in Sweden’s (and concerning the state-finance of papers by Norwegian authorities here in this case under the rubric of “culture” doesn’t help Norway either).
6. Aftonbladet
swedenisrael.blogspot.com/2010/06/aftonbladets-helle-klein-lives-to-hate.html
The whole issue was obviously a diversion and sham based on political calculatinos for PM Reinfeldt and FM Bildt. State prosecutor (himself far-leftist) Göran Lamberts publicly stated that there is no stipulation in the Swedish consctitution that in any way obstructs the Prime Minister or other high functioning official to express at least “disappointment” or disagreement as long as this disapproval does not come with pressure.
It’s quite interesting meanwhile that Robert Gibbs, the current spokesman of the Obama administration publicly trashed numerous times, rather distastefully in my opinion, certain papers like the New York Post and others in the flagship of the civilized free world, but for how long?, the United States.
My apologies if I made grammatical errors in my text.
June 29th, 2010 at 1:05 am
Stian Karlsen, it is worth noting that the Swedish government had no problem condemning the cartoons. Only with lies against Israel did “free speech” suddenly become very important.
That’s hypocrisy.
June 29th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I must admit, Gabor, I did not know any of that. Thank you.
June 30th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Adam,
For fainerness and accuracy, the gov’t that condemned the Mohammed cartoons years ago and apologized to Yemen was a different government. I am not aware that the current gov’t condemned the newer Vilks cartoons, however. But they, faithful to their cowardly habits, stayed silent. Coward losers bent on destroying their own country, the whole lot of them!
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Perhaps I missed something but I thought Volvo and Saab, having passed through American hands (Ford?) are now Chinese. Correct me if I am wrong.
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:32 pm
It’s also salutary to remember that Bruno Kreisky, a former Austrian Chancellor, chose to live in Sweden, as a Jewish refugee, rather than Norway, where a fellow socialist Willy Brandt fought during the war as a member of the Norwegian resistance – with a price in his head. Whilst Sweden collaborated with the Nazis.
October 13th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
MIK Says:
October 12th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
“I don’t know if Robin would agree but my view has always been that the upper crust British have never forgiven the Jews for chasing them out of Palestine.”
MIK I should remind you that it was the Labour government of Clem Attlee that administered the mandate after the war. They tried to retain the mandate long after it should have been negotiated away.
It was also the Labour government that abstained at the vote in the UN to establish the state of Israel. Socialists have always seen the Jews as capitaiists and therefore to be despised. Never forget that Hitler was a socialist whose views on the Jews were indistinguishable from those of Stalin. It is no surprise to me that the socialists in the BBC are anti-Jewish and it is no surprise that it is the Labour party and their fellow travellers who are at the forefront of anti-Jewish propaganda in Britain. Ken Livingstone and George Galloway are overtly pro-Muslim and anti-Jewish. Their socialist credentials are not in doubt.
Robin Shepherd says: I think it’s important not to make a good point too well, as it were. Hitler was a socialist of sorts, but one can’t quite say that his views on the Jews were “indistinguishable from those of Stalin”. Stalin did not advocate or implement genocide against the Jews. Though the “Doctors Plot” affair at the end of his life did suggest that a mass purge against the Jews might have been being planned had he lived longer. We will never know…
November 17th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Your artical is great! After read it, I think a lot. The content is very exciting and I can almost understand. Please keep going on and continue to add excellent posts. That’s big help for me. You are tops.Great! You have done a terrific job communicating your message. I totally agree with your opinion. Thanks!