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The New Blood Libel from Sweden Should Come as No Surprise

Alex Grobman, Ph.D. - 9/3/2009

For many Americans, the Nordic countries are a mystery. How many can locate these countries on a map or name their major cities? The international media hardly pays them any attention. The combined population of the five countries in this study—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland—is 25 million. Outside of the region, few people understand their languages.

Jews, however, remember with deep gratitude the rescue of more than 7,000 Jewish-Danish citizens during World War II. They also recall the frequently violent Muslim uproar when a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad on September 30, 2005. That Danish citizens became the target of Muslim wrath in a country generally viewed as a citadel of democracy was especially disconcerting.

What is generally not known, however, is that "behind the humanitarian mask," that has been assiduously nurtured by the Nordic and Scandinavian countries, are a group of society elites, leftist journalists, clergy, employees of non-governmental agencies (NGOs), and politicians, particularly in Sweden and Norway, who have been regularly demonizing Israel and Jews, using classic themes of antisemitism, which have morphed into anti-Israel motifs.

In this pioneering study edited by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a visionary thinker who serves as chairman of the steering committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), the duplicity, arrogance, and double standards toward Israel and the Jews are exposed.

To be fair, these nations have also championed a number of initiatives that have benefited Israel. In 2000, the Social Democrat prime minister of Sweden inaugurated Holocaust education with a conference in Stockholm. Norway took the lead in providing restitution to the survivors when the practice began again at the end of the 20th century.

Yet the reappearance of Nordic antisemitism, which remains so profoundly ingrained in European culture, suggests that the influence of the Holocaust among European democracies was a fleeting phenomenon.

Gerstenfeld found three varieties of antisemitism manifest in these Nordic nations: ethnic antisemitism, religious antisemitism, and "anti-Israelism." All have themes in common: "demonization, exclusion, and expulsion and/or destruction of Jews."

These stages are reflected in statements by prominent leaders equating Israelis to Nazis. Norwegian and Danish trade unions were among the first such organizations in the West to call for a boycott of Israeli goods; Norwegian newspapers published caricatures of Jews similar to those found in Nazi newspapers; and there has been government sponsorship of Scandinavian and Finnish NGOs that provide funds to Palestinian NGOs to support demonization of Israel.

Small wonder that, in the summer of 2006, the synagogue in Malmö, Sweden, had to move its services for security reasons.

By lifting the veil of hypocrisy and deceit surrounding the antisemitism that is rampant in the Nordic countries, Gerstenfeld has provided a great service. It should be seen as a warning of could await us in North America if we do not heed the signs.