Raul Wallenberg would probably turn in his grave......

Raul Wallenberg would probably turn in his grave......

Mistress Gatta • 19 באוק׳ 2004

COMMUNIQUE: 14 September 2004

Sad Situation in Sweden
Anti-Israel bias in Sweden is deeply ingrained in the journalistic culture.

HR subscriber Robert Skole is a reporter and author who has lived for many years in Sweden, where the media is, he says, 'viciously anti-Israel.'

This week, Skole alerted HonestReporting to this cartoon, published in Sweden's largest morning daily, Dagens Nyheter. Penned by the paper's staff cartoonist, it appeared on the 'Family' page, a section of light columns and 'humor':



Man with the dog: "I don't think one should build walls between people."
The Jew: "Damn anti-Semite!!"

One had hoped such a portrayal of the stereotypical, wicked Jew would have disappeared with the Nazis, but it's alive and well in Sweden today.

Send comments on the cartoon to Dagens Nyheter's ombudsman: ombudsman@dn.se


PATTERN OF BIAS

Robert Skole reports that this cartoon is far from unique:

Day after day, week after week, year after year, the Swedish media run a constant stream of news stories, editorials, photographs, letters and cartoons attacking the State of Israel. In the Swedish media, Israel is portrayed as the aggressor, an occupying force that violates human rights and international law, and should get out of 'Palestine.'

One example is the headline 'The Crucifixion of Arafat,' applied to an editorial that appeared in Aftonbladet, the most widely circulated newspaper in Sweden, on the eve of Easter 2002, while Operation Defensive Shield was underway.

Some more recent examples:

● The Swedish Journalists' Union's weekly publication, Journalisten, is regularly filled with anti-Israel invective. A search of its online archives shows 37 Israel stories since 10/98, almost all highly critical of Israel. Jan Guillou (at left) − whose writing lionizes Arab dictators and butchers − was elected president of the Association of Journalists by its 5,200 members.

(Guillou co-authored a book about Iraq in the 1970s, praising Saddam Hussein's prisons as 'better than Swedish apartments,' and predicting that Jews who fled from Iraq to Israel would soon choose to return. A few days after the 9/11 attack, Guillou wrote in Aftonbladet that the New York death toll 'was about one-third of those innocent people killed when Israel attacked Lebanon in early 1980s.' And the day after 9/11, an international book show in Sweden held a moment of silence for the American victims. Guillou, then president of the Association of Journalists, walked out in protest that there was never a moment of silence for Muslims killed by Americans and Israelis.)

● The Sept. 7, 2004 issue of Journalisten included a long, sympathetic interview with Robert Fisk, the Beirut-based Mideast correspondent whose anti-Israel vitriol is unmatched (see here and here). Fisk makes himself out to be fearlessly 'independent,' not afraid of criticizing Israel, 'unlike many others.' Journalisten's fawning interviewer never asked the key question: How long would Fisk stay alive if he wrote the truth about the Arab dictators and terrorists he dwells among?

● Last week, the first-ever $33,000 Anna Lindh Stipendium in memory of the Swedish Foreign Minister murdered last year, was given to Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist who identifies so closely with the Palestinians that she's lived for years in Palestinian-controlled Ramallah (site of the infamous lynching). Hass received the usual obsequious Swedish media coverage granted to Israelis who criticize Israeli policies, and was praised for 'her uncompromising reporting... contributing to the understanding of the Palestinians' situation under Israeli occupation. By informing the Israeli public on daily life in Palestine, she contributes to creating conditions for meaningful dialogue.'

● HonestReporting readers will recall the episode when Israel's ambassador to Sweden pushed over a Stockholm 'art' installation glorifying a Palestinian suicide bomber (at right). The event was covered almost without exception in Sweden as a 'violation of free speech' and 'arrogant invasion' of Swedish culture. A commentator in one important newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, wrote that the ambassador's actions were inspired by the 'God of Vengeance of the Old Testament.'

* * *

Robert Skole asks: Why is Sweden ― known for its Nobel Prizes and solemn proclamations of peace and neutrality ― so viciously anti-Israel? His answer:

1) As in the rest of Europe, it's fashionable in Sweden for the political left to despise Israel and glorify Arafat, Hamas and the Palestinian 'freedom fighters,' and 2) the old, moth-eaten communists and the new radical left dominate the Swedish media and public debate on international affairs.

Some publications do try to be honest ― like Svenska Dagbladet, a morning daily, and magazines like the Jewish Chronicle. But with a Jewish community of about 15,000, compared with the 300,000-400,000 Muslims in Sweden (total population 9 million), the voices of fairness toward Israel are, Skole says, 'whispers against a hurricane.'

On February 10, 2004, under the headline 'Jews in Sweden are afraid to be known as Jews,' Ha'aretz reported that

Daniel Schechner, a 21-year-old law student from Stockholm, makes sure to conceal even the slightest hint of his Jewishness when he goes out in public... He uses his non-Jewish last name, which he asks the reporter not to print. He does not dream of walking down the street while wearing a skullcap, and when he went to Israel, he told people that he went to another country... Schechner says that when he and his friends speak about "Jewish" subjects like synagogue or kashruth, they use code words...
And that's the sad situation in Sweden.

UPDATE: See the response of Dagens Nyheter's ombudsman to this communique on BackSpin.

Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.

HonestReporting

Robert Skole covered Swedish business and industry for 25 years, reporting for McGraw-Hill publications. His first novel has recently been published: "Jumpin' Jimminy - A World War II Baseball Saga: American Flyboys and Japanese Submariners Battle it Out in a Swedish World Series."







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