Hate Crimes: Just One Part of Malmö’s Problems

It was recently reported by the BRÅ (Brottsförebyggande rådet, the Crime Prevention Council), that the numbers of hate crimes against Jews have decreased in Malmö. This is encouraging news for those who choose to believe that Malmö is going towards a brighter future based on these new statistics.  The reality, however, speaks for itself.

After a film crew from the US decided to cancel their plans to shoot a movie in Malmö last week, it seems like the authorities in Malmö are becoming increasingly desperate to improve the bad image of Sweden’s third largest, yet most infamous city.
Shortly after the decision was made to halt the plans for making the movie, a representative for the Scandinavian movie making industry was interviewed explaining exactly how many millions of kronor Malmö would lose by not getting the investments generated by the American movie production. It is clear that the situation and the city’s reputation, which Mayor Reepalu (Social Democrat) has created for Malmö, have started to become destructive, not only for the Jews living there, but also for the rest of the population.

Malmö’s reputation was tainted internationally in 2009 after it seemed the mayor managed to speak ill about Jews in every sentence he blurted out.  As if that weren’t bad enough, the city also faced several bombings as well as a deranged individual who  randomly shot down people with foreign looks.  So, since 2009, Malmö has become internationally infamous, and much of this can be accredited to the current mayor of the city, Ilmar Reepalu; during his term he has managed to make Malmö a place which is now internationally feared and avoided.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that the BRÅ, just days after the cancellation of the movie project, decided to reveal that numbers of hate crimes against Jews have decreased. One hence wonders to what lengths the Swedish authorities are willing to go in order to better Malmö’s image. It also makes one question the relevance of these numbers.

What is known is that Malmö faced a new bomb attack just a few days ago, not in Rosengård but in upscale Limhamn on the other side of the city. Lawlessness and crime are still running high, apparently in all parts of the city, and it is becoming increasingly evident that hate crimes against Jews are just one part of Malmö’s problems.

Reepalu has fallen into a habit popular among his Social Democrat political cronies and their allies who control media outlets such as Aftonbladet and the TT wire service—just to name a few.  They act as if inconvenient truths can be swept under the rug—in this case by false accusations against the SWC and a few manipulated statistics flung out in the media—even while actual events contradict their “creative interpretation” of reality. However, as seen in the movie producers’ cancellation, people are not being fooled, and Malmö is keeping its bad reputation.

Will Sydsvenskan Now Start Israel-bashing??

Last week Israeli security managed to stop some 100 European pro-Palestinian activists aiming at staging a “fly-in” or “flightilla” to Ben Gurion, Israel’s main airport. The goal of the activists was to create a major demonstration inside the airport. In the Swedish newspaper Sydvenskan, the article covering the event suspiciously managed to miss the whole point of the deportation of the activists.

The pro-Palestinian activists—imitating the tactics of the Ship to Gaza movement—tried to draw attention to the Palestinian agenda, and decided to fly from various destinations in Europe to Israel. Some activists were detained before leaving Europe while others were detained upon their arrival in Israel, and quickly deported. The Israeli airport is an ideal target for Palestinian terrorists but having a pro-Palestinian demonstration here is clearly problematic.

The Swedish article in Sydsvenskan, published on June 9^th covering the story reads:

Headline: “Israel doesn't let in flight passengers” –Note that the phrasing indicates to the Swedish readers that these are normal leisure travelers.  

Intro: “Israel has denied entrance to some hundred passengers who have arrived at Ben-Gurion airport. The reason is that they are suspected of being pro-Palestinian activists.” There wasn’t much “suspicion”, since these passengers were identified easily when on entry they stated their destination as “Palestine”.

Text: “The visitors are mostly from Europe and have been planning to make joint visits to Palestinian areas….”.  Note that the writer uses the words “visitors” instead of activists and completely fails to mention the intentions of these activists to stage a major demonstration and disrupt operations inside the Israeli airport upon arrival.

The trend of spinning articles in an anti-Israeli way is something we have found to be “business as usual” for Swedish newspapers such as the notoriously left-wing Aftonbladet. Finding such bad reporting in a liberal newspaper such as Sydsvenskan as well is really disappointing. One can hope that Sydsvenskan won’t continue on this path of bad reporting, but will instead take a stand against lame and purposely confusing anti-Israel reporting.  

In the meantime we will continue to keep our eyes open for unjustified Israel bashing in Sweden.

Reepalu Blames Jews Again

Following on the heels of the surprised reaction of a Swedish film board to an American film company’s change in plans, Malmö mayor Ilmar Reepalu is once again lashing out at the Jews, and claiming that this was a personal vendetta.

As we reported, on Tuesday, news broke that a Hollywood film production company had cancelled plans to shoot a movie in southern Sweden. The company’s decision was based on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s warning to Jews to use “extreme caution” when travelling  in the area. The cancellation notice pointed out that as the film had Jewish content, it was inappropriate to use a location which was unsafe for Jews.

The SWC has not rescinded the travel warning, as conditions have not improved since it was issued. So, now Reepalu is slamming the SWC for trying to silence him “again”.

Sydsvenskan reported in its Culture & Entertainment section on the politics Jewish protest:

“Malmö's Mayor Ilmar [Social Democrat] Reepalu believes that the Simon Wiesenthal Center is looking for him personally, not the city of Malmö.”

Reepalu also claims that SWC is spreading  “a false image of Malmö”. He also claims that when the SWC came to Malmö six months ago, he had already implemented half of the changes they suggested, and now the rest is done. In our coverage of the meeting between Reepalu and the SWC, we noted that the meeting ended very abruptly, indicating that relations weren’t exactly cordial. Nonetheless, the SWC did meet with a number of minorities, including Muslims and Roma (Gypsies) in the city, and developed an overall plan to promote integration and tackle the issue of rampant discrimination in Malmö.

Sydsvenskan also reports that Reepalu is taking all this personally as a response to his very public and negative criticism of Israel which he made regarding Operation Cast Lead, staged in response to years of Gaza missile attacks on Israel’s civilian population. Says Reepalu:

- “I get a right nasty feeling that the Simon Wiesenthal Center is not really looking for what is happening in Malmö but they want to hang the people who dare to criticize the state of Israel. Are they once again saying I should be silenced?”

The article also says that Reepalu claims “that it is futile to try to act against Simon
Wiesenthal Center. But he does not believe that Simon Wiesenthal Center
warning will scare away more film companies from Malmo.”

Once again, it is the fault of the all-powerful Jews for doing this to the mayor. But, claims Reepalu, “I will never compromise my morals.”

Whether Reepalu has either morals or scruples, is a question open to debate. What clearly does have is a strong sense of his own importance, and an easy ability to blame someone else for his failings in the classic language of anti-Semites.

By Chanah Shapira

Swedish Filmmaker: Aren’t We Immune to Backlash?

Naively, Mikael Svensson at the Öresund Film Commission was unpleasantly surprised to find out that the situation of Jews in southern Sweden, and the government’s failure to do anything about it would affect his industry. An American film company scrapped its movie project and notified the Film Commission via email regarding  its decision to find an alternative location.

According to the report, “A Hollywood film company was planning to set a movie with a Jewish theme in Skåne in southern Sweden but changed its mind due to concerns over anti-Semitism in Malmö.”

In 2010 a  travel warning advising “extreme caution” for Jews travelling to southern Sweden was issued by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The warning was cited in the email as the basis for scrapping the project:

”Only problem I see with this project... is the huge problem that this being a Jewish story and that the Simon Wiesenthal center in the USA called the south of Sweden a VERY unsafe place for the Jewish community.”

Svensson at the Öresund Film Commission said, "I have followed the debate, but never thought that it could spread to the film industry and this type of decision.”

Hello! Svensson! The world is increasingly global, it was only a matter of time…

Sweden cannot expect Jews to happily accept for lackadaisical attitude towards real threats to the local Jewish community.  Svensson’s naiveté is not encouraging sign for those who are hoping for a change in policy.  

By Chanah Shapira

Gaza Flotilla and the Blackouts: Two Kinds

Photo credit: Honest Reporting

The Aftonbladet propaganda machine has cranked out another anti-Israel slam in one of its articles  written by Olof Svensson.  This one is about the Gaza electric power situation and not surprisingly, it is confusingly full of misinformation:

-“The idea was that the money would be paid back as the power plant began generating electricity - and money. But because it is destroyed, the Palestinians are asked to avoid paying back the loan, something Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development Cooperation, thinks is reasonable. Part of the loan has already been paid back because the Palestinians purchased power equipment from Swedish companies.”

 The post refers to the Gaza Power Plant (GPP), or more correctly, the Gaza North Substation which was bombed by the Israeli Air Force in June 2006. So, first of all, it’s old news even though Aftonbladet chose to publish the article in June 2011.  Israel later repaired the power station even while its technicians were under sniper fire, yet this is, of course, something which Olof Svensson fails to acknowledge.

While this plant is often described as Gaza’s only power plant, it is important to note that 70% of Gaza’s electricity is supplied by Israel, and also Egypt supplies additional electricity. Israel supplies the electricity to Gaza continually, even during hostilities. Significantly, a 2007 UN report noted that Israeli electricity costs less than the Gaza-produced electricity, because the Gaza plant uses diesel to generate electricity. (That’s pretty interesting since you would think the Palestinians’ OPEC supporters could give them a discount on the diesel.)

-“The plant has actually been used at lower utilization rates than anticipated, partly because of the high cost of power from the plant when it is run on gasoil [diesel] relative to the cost of power from IEC [Israel Electric Corporation]. In June 2006, for example, the cost of fuel for generating electricity from GPP (including capacity charge) was US$0.213/kWh… whereas the cost of power supplied by IEC was about US$0.08/kWh.”

The UN report also noted that “About half of the current annual payment of about US$30 million is for generating capacity that cannot be used because of the prevailing transmission constraints.” So, besides poor planning, what are donors paying out for? And how is the surplus cash used?

Claims of power outages in Gaza have generally been propaganda exercises—the photo at the top from Honest Reporting shows Palestinians “in the dark” with candles, while at the left edge of the photo, sunlight streams in the window around the curtains. Other photos available on the internet show candle-lit street protests, but with lights on in shops.  The fact that major media outlets carry these obvious fakes is pretty outrageous.

But an actual blackout was reported by the Elder of Zion (EoZ) blog at the end of April; the post was titled “Hamas instructs its media not to report on Syria” and cited  “Firas Press and other Arabic news sources”  which claim Hamas initiated a media blackout on the uprising in Syria:

“Reliable sources close to media officials in Hamas [state] that they have issued strict instructions to all departments, editors of all news sites, forums, and radio TV that belongs to them not to cover or publish any news about events taking place in Syria and massacres there against unarmed citizens.”

Why is this significant to our story? The situation is desperate in Syria.  As EoZ quotes from a Now Lebanon tweeter reporting on the situation in Syria:

“Electricity is only available for three hours per day at the most. There is water available in Daraa al-Mahatta. Telecommunications are cut in the entire province of Daraa without exception. Electricity, water, food, and communications are still cut in Daraa al-Balad. Trash is lying around uncollected and the snipers are still deployed in the mosque minarets and on buildings’ rooftops. The [Syrian]army and security forces have not withdrawn from Daraa.”

That’s a blackout Aftonbladet should have covered. But, given the dictatorial sympathies of the biased government-supported media in Sweden and the leftist enthusiasm for the second Flotilla, we can soon expect to see even more misleading and false stories about Israel in the Swedish media.



Video: Israel reconstructs Gaza infrastructure including electric power 70% of which is generated in Israel and which was continually supplied.

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=58&ar=gaza-electricity-V&ak=null

by Chanah Shapira

Swedish Ship To Gaza—“No Basis In Reality”

Two days ago Per Gudmundsson wrote an interesting op-ed in Svenska Dagbladet (Svd)  where he correctly stated that the Swedish Ship to Gaza movement isn’t based in reality.

It was recently revealed by the Turkish Ship to Gaza organization, IHH, that the envoy which was planning to set sail from Turkey to the Gaza Strip this summer might be cancelled. According to the IHH, the cancellations are due to ongoing problems  of the “Arab Spring”, with the predominating issue being the slaughter of thousands of civilians in neighboring Syria. Due to the ongoing massacres currently taking place in Syria, Turkey has received a large stream of refugees and this has with no doubt affected the Turks and their “humanitarian priorities”.  

While Swedish Radio’s foreign correspondent to the Middle East, Cecilia Udden reported in May that the material shortcomings aren’t a problem in Gaza, the Swedish Ship to Gaza movement still claims that Israel currently is the largest humanitarian problem in the region. This, even though the Israeli government currently is the only country in the region which allows for democratic freedoms similar to what exists in Sweden.

As Gudmundsson argued, the Ship to Gaza movement could not care less about the Arab Spring violence and deaths or the dictators in the Middle East who now are executing innocent civilians. Nor do they care that the border with Egypt to the Gaza strip is open. Instead the prefer to obsess over the arms smuggling blockade between Israel and the Gaza strip showing that human rights clearly is not the base of their agenda.   

The positive news are that the Israelis might not have to worry about another ship of Jihadi warriors sent from Turkey. The bad news are that they still have to waste time redirecting a boat of simple-minded Swedes who claim to be fighting for human rights, while in reality this is far away from their true agenda.

Karlskrona Handball and Hatred Still Have IHF Go-Ahead

IHF: "Sweden and sports fits well"
SWC: Danger to Jews

This innocuous-looking announcement dated June 1^st is now up on the International Handball Federation (IHF) website: 

-“IHF and TV rights holder UFA Sports offer handball fans all over the world a special online service during the Men’s World Championship in Sweden: In cooperation with the application specialist Motain, IHF and UFA Sports bring all highlights and news of the XXII Men’s World Championship on your iPhone, iPod and iPad.”

The question is: Will sports fans see the anti-Israel riots too on their i-toys?

While promising,

-“great matches staged in a fantastic atmosphere, accompanied by exciting fans cheering up their home team, by fairness demonstrated towards all participating nations and by the sheer joy to experience fine handball," the reality will not match the hype for the Israel-Sweden match.

Last week we reported that there are clear threats of a repeat of the 2009 Davis Cup riots which took place during an Israel-Sweden match played without spectators in Malmö. The announcement means that the IHF and its sponsor organization are plowing ahead and not cancelling the match—despite the not likely but expected hate fest that will accompany the June 12^th scheduled match. The haters on both the far-right and far-left will have a chance to show their anger at the pre-game anti-Israel “Day of Rage” protest.

It appears that cancelling what are probably lucrative sponsor contracts is not an option for the IHF, despite warnings from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the IHF, the European Handball Federation, and the nine corporate sponsors. The letter from the SWC made these points (our emphases):

This announcement means that the IHF and its sponsor organization are plowing ahead and not cancelling the match—despite the not likely but expected hate fest that will accompany the June 12^th scheduled match. The haters on both the far-right and far-left will have a chance to show their anger at the pre-game anti-Israel “Day of Rage” protest.

It appears that cancelling what are probably lucrative sponsor contracts is not an option for the IHF, despite warnings from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the IHF, the European Handball Federation, and the nine corporate sponsors. The letter from the SWC made these points (our emphases):

·         "Neo-Nazis and Radical Islamists Call for 12 June Day of Rage at Sweden-Israel Match in Karlskrona - Centre Urges Corporate Sponsors Intervention and Maintains Travel Advisory"

·         "Palestine Solidarity Group Chairman, Per Gahrton -who reportedly took credit for that Malmo travesty - according to current flyers, will, on 12 June, address the stadium one hour before the European Men's Handball Qualification between Sweden and Israel in Karlskrona."

·         "Karlskrona, whose UNESCO Heritage port was, ironically, developed by its first Jewish community in 1785 - is today Sweden's neo-Nazi capital."

·         "12 June promises to turn the city into a mecca for far right and left extremists, together with radical Islamists, in a "day of rage" hatefest, endangering Jews, moderate Muslims and the Swedish general public."

·         "we expect you and your European regional Federation to keep hate out of handball by, sadly, keeping the 2011 Handball Championship out of Sweden."

·         For further information contact Dr. Shimon Samuels on 0033(0)609770158

We will continue to keep you posted—we hope that the IHF/EHF and its corporate backers will see some sense and “pull the plug” on what promises to be an unsporting event.

By Chanah Shapira