Swedish party with Nazi roots ‘wants to be friends of Israel, Jews’

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has long had a policy of blacklisting political parties with Nazi or openly antisemitic roots, from the Austrian Freedom Party to the National Front in France and beyond. The Sweden Democrats always fell under that category, counting Nazis and neo-Nazis among its founding members but the boycott had little impact since they were far from positions of power in Stockholm.

Last year, however, the Sweden Democrats became the second-largest party in parliament, supporting the governing coalition –  and they want to befriend Israel.

“Israel is the only true democracy in the region, and we like that,” Sweden Democrats lawmaker Richard Jomshof, chairman of the parliament’s Justice Committee, said on a visit to the Knesset on Wednesday. “We are pro-Israel, we would like to cooperate with Israel and we want to be friends.”

Member of the European Parliament Charlie Weimers, who has been an outspoken supporter of Israel in Brussels in recent years, said “We’re here to be friends. No matter what the Foreign Ministry thinks of us, we will remain friends of Israel and the Jewish People. We share Judeo-Christian values.”

Weimers was also proud to point out that a recent study by the European Coalition for Israel determined Sweden Democrats had the most pro-Israel voting record of the Swedish parties in the European Parliament and was the eighth-most pro-Israel overall.

Weimers and Jomshof were in Jerusalem with a delegation from their party on Wednesday, on a visit shrouded in mystery.

The Israel advocacy organization that helped organize their trip would only divulge its name and those of the Knesset members who met with the Sweden Democrats members off the record. Two of those MKs, both of Likud, backed out at the last minute, both citing scheduling issues to The Jerusalem Post. A source involved in organizing the trip, however, said that at least one changed his mind after being told of the Foreign Ministry’s policy.

In the end, Weimers and Jomshof met with a Likud MK and a National Unity MK, again, whose names were kept secret, and they also had dinner with former Likud MK and President of the Likud camp Michael Kleiner.

This level of secrecy is unusual, raising questions about the MKs’ confidence in whether the Swedish party has rejected its old ways. However, the lawmakers declined to answer those questions.

Have the Sweden Democrats shaken off their Nazi roots?

Likud MKs have welcomed members of European parties blacklisted by the Foreign Ministry, generally citing those parties’ pro-Israel votes and shared conservative values, and pointing to how they, like Sweden Democrats, expelled open antisemites and changed their constitutions to reject antisemitism, Nazism, white nationalism or similar ideologies.

“The party was founded in 1988 by neo-Nazis in 1988, but 15 years ago young Swedes expelled the neo-Nazis and took over the party,” one of the Israelis who invited the Sweden Democrats said, asking to remain anonymous. “The party is pro-Israel. The Swedish government cut 40% of its aid to the Palestinians thanks to the Swedish Democrats’ work.”

The source pointed to Weimers’ stances in favor of Israel, including calling to defund Palestinian textbooks that incite terrorism and antisemitism, as well as his support for protesters against the regime in Iran, which led to him being sanctioned by the Islamic Republic. Sweden Democrats also called to move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem.

“We are here to make friends and we have received a lot of goodwill from those MKs that wanted to meet us,” Weimers said in the Knesset. “They know that we fight for Israel in Sweden and in Brussels.”

“We want to be judged by who we are today, a pro-Israel party,” Jomshof said. “A lot of parties have a difficult background, but we are a different party today.”

“A lot of good people came to the party, and there were bad ones, as well, but the good ones won,” he argued.

Weimers said that the Foreign Ministry’s policy is out of date. Weimers was a former member of the Christian Democrats and Jomshof was a member of the Moderate Party, and both said Swedish Democrats is mostly made up of people like them. They described themselves as conservatives and liberals, in the sense of valuing individual rights, who moved parties because of their opposition to Swedish immigration policies that opened the country to mass migration of Muslims.

“I saw developments in Sweden in which the Muslim Brotherhood was funded by taxpayer money and those who questioned it, questioned the migration policy that changed our social fabric to the core, were mainly Sweden Democrats,” Weimers said.

Jomshof admitted that “the Jewish minority in Sweden is divided about us.”

Members of the Sweden Democrats support bills to ban ritual circumcision and ban the importing of kosher meat. Shechita, kosher slaughter, has long been illegal in the country.

Weimers and Jomshof said that these are views shared across the political spectrum in their country. Jomshof argued that circumcision is a problem because it is imposed on people under 18, while Weimers, a practicing Christian, said he understood the Jewish perspective and opposed a ban. Weimers compared this to “debates on the influence of religion in Israeli society,” and said that these are not issues currently on the political agenda in Sweden.

At the same time, the lawmakers argued that, by working to limit Muslim migration to Sweden, they are fighting against the biggest threat to the Jewish communities in their country.

“Due to mass migration from the Muslim world, especially in the last 20 years, a lot of changes are happening in Sweden, for example, antisemitism is rising fast. The Jewish minority is fleeing cities like Malmo mainly due to the Muslim population. We address those issues… Without addressing the root cause, you will not solve the problem,” Jomshof said.

Among the ways Sweden Democrats hope to address what they’ve identified as the root cause of antisemitism in their country is to ban radical Islamist imams and foreign funding of mosques. Jomshof said that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran send “evil men,” imams who preach antisemitism.

“For me, it’s flabbergasting that the Swedish government is funding these kinds of organizations despite all the revelations about extremism. We have to follow France in regard to what they refer to as Islamist separatism. In the long run, that will make it possible for Jews to continue living in Sweden,” Weimers said.

Jewish communities in Europe, including some in Sweden, tend to oppose far-right parties out of a concern that a crackdown on Muslim populations will start a wave of general xenophobia that will evolve into antisemitism.

Jomshof responded to this argument that “as an atheist, I judge religion the same way as I judge political ideologies. You can be a communist or a Nazi in Sweden, but they are bad. Liberalism and conservatism are not bad. When I judge religion, Christianity and Judaism are more or less ok, but Islam and Islamization is not and I should be able to say that… If you want to believe in Allah go ahead but I must be able to criticize it.”

”For me,” Weimers said, “what matters is the political consequences of the religion. If there are none, it is none of my business as a politician. But if there are demands for discriminatory measures against women, then I have a problem with it… We see far-reaching societal consequences of immigration policy in Sweden of last four decades.”

Asked what his message is for voters who support Israel but also want to be able to live a Jewish life in Sweden, Weimers said: “As a Swedish Jew we’re fighting for you and your right to a safe and prosperous and happy life in Sweden, period. From what I can see there is no debate in Sweden [about circumcision and kosher meat] and I don’t see the Sweden Democrats being a driver for that change either.”

Plus, he said, “While we are ostracized for [the] bad people in the early days of the party, yet we see no reaction when Social Democrats yell ‘crush Zionism’ in the streets of Malmo.”

Asked about the Sweden Democrats’ visit, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “Our policy is unchanged. We don’t meet them.”