Swedish MP’s Shocked by Palestinian Incitement

YERUSHALAYIM
The Swedish parliament building. (Riksdagshuset)
The Swedish parliament building. (Riksdagshuset)

After a briefing on Palestinian incitement by an Israeli watchdog organization, a group of Swedish MP’s said they were ready to challenge Foreign Minister Wallström to a debate, The Times of Israel reported on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Itamar Marcus, founder of Palestinian Media Watch, showed the Swedish parliamentarians examples of official Palestinian Authority media messages that glorify the killing of Jews, such as officials’ publicly calling for the killing of Jews, and the naming of schools and recreational facilities after terrorists.

“This evidence is shocking. We are going to call Foreign Minister Margot Wallström to a public debate in the plenum to answer questions about what we have seen,” MP Mikael Oscarsson said.

Oscarsson criticised Wallström for being one-sided in her call for an inquiry into alleged Israeli extrajudicial killings while ignoring Palestinian violence and incitement.

“If she had demanded a parallel investigation [of the Palestinian Authority], then of course we can investigate what Israel has done. But what really needs to be done is an investigation of the Palestinian Authority, where Swedish aid is going to, specifically in relation to the Authority’s advocating violence in school books and naming sports events after suicide bombers,” he said.

The MP’s were a small group–only eight attended the briefing; it was nevertheless noteworthy in view of the prevailing anti-Israel sentiment in the country. In fact, such is the hostility to Israel that organizers of the event assured those who did not feel comfortable being photographed at the event that they could abstain from group pictures.

At the meeting, organized in part by the World Zionist Organization, the Christian Democrats’ party’s Oscarsson said he would lead a group of lawmakers in calling on Wallström for a mandatory parliamentary debate in response to her statement.

“What Wallström said is absolutely not what the entire Swedish people think. There is a significant group of people who want this information about the Palestinian Authority’s incitements to violence to be investigated,” he said.

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