Reactions from Sweden to Attempted Lynch of Israeli Sailors on Gaza Flotilla Ship

Dagens Nyheter reports that Mona Sahlin, the highly-favored Social Democrat candidate for Swedish Prime Minister in the upcoming elections, has called for a strong backlash against Israel, both politically and economically. She also added that the Israeli blockade—which allows the Israeli Navy to seize weapons cargos bound for Gaza—should be removed as the Gaza residents ”live in a large open-air prison”.

As we have shown, the humanitarian ”crisis” has been fabricated by Hamas and its allies including the leftist media, while the threat of attacks against Israeli civilians from Gaza’s imported missiles is a real and present danger. The real threat to the Gaza population come from the Hamas terror regime which liquidates its opponents in Mafia execution style. Of course if Sahlin is concerned about the blockade she should also ask the Egyptians to stop building their 30-meter deep fence, aimed at stopping the smuggling traffic on their similarly blockaded border with Gaza.

Current Prime Minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt, characterized the Ship to Gaza effort as ”humanitarian” and ”supporting" people who are in an extremely difficult situation. He further added that ”the answer to violence is not more violence”. For those who have seen the video footage which clearly shows the Israeli soldiers being brutally attacked, it is hard to imagine how the Israelis would have gotten out without use of force. This naive and banal statement may be useful in Sweden where many people like these platitudes, but if the Israelis had failed to use force against swarms of ”activists” wielding knives, pipes, guns and broken bottles, they would have been lynched.

 

Reinfeldt further warns that using this force (legitimate self-defense) will lead to extremism. Perhaps this is why when Malmö residents ”moderately” riot and regularly burn cars in Rosengård’s underground garages, Sahlin’s fellow Social Democrat Mayor Reepalu does as little as possible to interfere with this ”middle of the road” violence.

Dagens Nyheter also reports that the Green party’s Peter Eriksson is worried about fellow Green Mehmet Kaplan, and claims that Ship to Gaza’s attempt to break Israel’s defensive naval blockade was both legitimate and non-violent. Claiming that activist organizations have a right to aid terror regimes in importing weapons, and that mobs bashing stabbing, shooting, and flinging overboard Israeli navy personnel who boarded using crowd control equipment is nothing short of outrageous. Given that the Israelis waited for 40 minutes to use live fire against the angry mob of mostly Turkish IHH ”activists” it’s hard to characterize their actions as anything other than cautious.

A number of Swedish politicos and news outlets have also complained that Israel acted ”illegally” because the ships were boarded in international waters. Hebrew University international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel has commented regarding the legality of the Israeli navy action. He explains that a state, in a time of conflict a country;
-”can impose an embargo, and while it cannot carry out embargo activities in the territorial waters of a third party, it can carry out embargo activities in international waters.

Within this framework it is legal to detain a civilian vessel trying to break an embargo and if in the course of detaining the vessel, force is used against the forces carrying out the detention, then that force has every right to act in self defense.”

Again, another case of the Swedish media and politicians passing judgments with their gut ”humanitarian” impulses and without an understanding of the legal framework in which Israel is working. Again, it is important to note—as we have previously—that the Palestinians signed treaty agreements giving Israel control over the waters off Gaza.

But the cherry on the cake goes to Hans Linde of the Left party who termed the Israeli action as criminal and demanded retaliatory action on the part of the Swedish government. Linde wrote in a prepared statement:
-"[Israel] crushes peaceful and popular solidarity with the worst violence. Israel writes itself into the history books with blood as one of today’s worst rogues; they cannot be called anything other than "f---ing killer".

Once again, the Swedish ”humanitarians” have mananged to find that terrorists are peaceful, and Israel—which regularly trucks tons of aid into Gaza, and will continue to do so, including all lawful cargo from the flotilla—as the killer. Never mind that Gaza’s markets are full of goods, and that Hamas opponents are quickly liquidated without trial. Forget any treaty agreements giving Israel the right to patrol the coasts and keep missiles from arriving by sea. It’s also irrelevant that the injured activists will get the best medical care available in the Middle East, while Hamas--which frequently fires missile towards the hospitals where they are being treated—is shown as the victim.After all this is Sweden—where it’s all upside down.