Hello Stefan,
Thank
you for your e-mail to Foreign Minister Margot Wallström. I work at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister's Office and has been asked to
respond. Ministry and Ministers receives every year large volumes of
letters and e-mails, making the answer might be. I'm sorry you had to
wait for a response.
First of all, I regret that your
family suffered during World War II. The heinous acts carried out
against Jews must never be repeated.
The foreign minister
do not feel bad about Jews or Israel, it is a wrong idea. Margot
Wallström has since she first made a visit to Israel, worked against
anti-Semitism and some of her oldest and closest friends are Jews. The
government pursues an open, free and inclusive society where all people
can feel welcome and safe. The government takes clear distance from
anti-Semitism and will continue to tirelessly fight its manifestations
and grounds, as well as other forms of xenophobia and intolerance.
Something such as Foreign Minister, together with Interior Minister
Anders Ygeman underscored earlier this year in the following debate
article,
http://www.regeringen.se/debattartiklar/2016/01/kampen-mot-antisemitism-och-rasism-ar-standigt-aktuell/.
Anti-Semitism
is in direct contradiction to the fundamental values on which our
democracy is based and therefore is basically a threat to the democratic
society in which all people have equal value.
Thank you for your dedication.
Sincerely,
Michael Nordenberg
Desk Officer
MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
————————————————————————————
Hello Michael,
Thanks for your reply.
I assume that the Foreign Minister is behind your answer.
Adolf
Hitler's mother was regularly treated by a Jewish doctor, Dr Eduard
Bloch. A doctor who Adolf Hitler regarded as a highly skilled and
trusted physician. He was what Hitler described as an ”Edeljude”, in
other words a ”noble Jew”. Hitler helped this doctor move from Austria
to the United States during the war. Dr Eduard Bloch was even protected
by the Gestapo until he left the country.
Can we thus conclude that Adolf Hitler was not an anti-Semite? But this is of course an absurd notion!
What you do is what you are responsible for - at least in the Jewish world.
To
build your arguments on which friends you have, as evidence of your way
of thinking or acting, is really not very mature - and if this is the
level that the Foreign Minister and the State Department have as a base
for their decisions, then our country, Sweden, is in even more danger
than I first thought when I initially wrote to you, Mrs Minister.
Anti-Semitism
is changing over time. Using racial theories is not politically correct
today, nor are the religious arguments Martin Luther used meaningful in
this day and age - well, that's not entirely correct as replacement
theological thoughts of course are no small part of the Christian world.
In
Swedish society today however, it is entirely politically correct to
use the same old stale anti-Semitic stereotypes but nowadays in disguise
as criticism of the state of Israel. This tiny democracy in a sea of
dictatorships - dictatorships that have nothing in common with each
other except the ambition that we Jews will again be exposed to a
Holocaust during the destruction of the country we have built. This is a
tragedy since Israel could function as an injection of development in
the entire region in a number of areas, from medicine, nursing,
irrigation, freedom of religion, protection of minority rights; for
example, gay people’s self-evident right to a life on the same terms as
heterosexual people, and so on.
I was in Tel-Aviv during the Pride
festival last summer and watched as 150,000 participants from around
the world marched through the city and fill its streets, squares and
beaches with life and joy - all in harmony with us heterosexuals,
permanent residents as well as tourists, without contradictions, without
violence, without hate.
But to describe the state of Israel in
the above terms is just not done in Sweden, especially since there is a
greater value in blowing up a single religious person's attempt to
murder a homosexual in Jerusalem, during the same period. The fact that
this person was and is severely mentally ill and has been treated for
long periods in psychiatric care and is also convicted of attempted
murder in a psychotic state is, of course, ignored.
What on earth makes this newsworthy in Sweden?
Well,
it is an attempt to discredit and reinforce the perception of Israel as
a country where extremism is the basis for coexistence between people -
not a country where people coexist and all have equal value. It is
precisely this type of selective writing of what is to be lifted
politically, that our foreign minister is so good at. Generalisations
and reinforcement of an Israel that is based on the classic anti-Jewish
stereotypes.
Or it can also be described: straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
The
Foreign Ministry does not have the ability or the will to realise the
modern antisemitic expressions and see its consequences, scares me. The
Foreign Minister's view of Israel is absurd and completely wrong. If she
were really as positive as you claim, it would be nice if she could
actually show it.
The consequences of her actions result in -
apart from the improbability that she actually managed to unite the
whole land of Israel, both Jews and Arabs, from the extreme left to the
extreme right, with her absurd statement on extrajudicial killings,
while she simultaneously celebrates the Swedish police who shot the
terrorist killer in Trollhättan - the hateful tone and the threats
against Jews intensifies.
There are always people who are willing to convert the spoken words into action and it is these actions we must guard against.
It is with mixed feelings I have greeted and thanked the young Swedish
policemen and women armed with submachine guns, that on many occasions
during the past years have guarded Jewish institutions in Sweden.
I
lecture as often as I can about the Holocaust and its consequences, and
about my love for the state of Israel. I am ready at any moment to come
to you in order to develop my thinking in these areas, thus
highlighting a different perspective on the situation than the Foreign
Ministry supports.
Best regards
Stefan Lindmark
This was originally posted on this blog on March 12, 2016
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