Israelis reacted with contempt to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day statement issued by the Swedish foreign minister on Wednesday, with comments on social media mocking Margot Wallström for her “gall” and “hypocrisy.”
One member of the Twittersphere — who posted a link to the statement (titled “The battle against anti-Semitism and racism must always be fought”) – was Israel-based international human rights lawyer and Middle East analyst Arsen Ostrovsky.
“You have no right, none @margotwallstrom, to speak on the #Holocaust, when you justify terror vs #Israel!” Ostrovsky wrote.
Speaking to The Algemeiner shortly after expressing his outrage, Ostrovsky expanded on his abbreviated criticism.
“It is a travesty of justice and gross offense to the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, that Margot Wallström, who has excused, justified and condoned terror against Israelis, has the chutzpah to now invoke Holocaust Remembrance Day to talk about fighting anti-Semitism,” he said.
Ostrovsky was referring to a series of recent remarks on the part of the Swedish FM blaming Israeli policy for the surge in Palestinian terrorism. Earlier this month during a parliamentary debate, for example, Wallström said an investigation was necessary to determine if Israel has been committing “extrajudicial killings” of Palestinians during the recent wave of violence. This caused the Israeli Foreign Ministry to announce that Wallström and other Swedish officials would not be welcome in Israel.
Equally striking, was Wallström’s response to the November 13 Paris attacks, which left 130 innocent people dead at the hands of ISIS followers. As Swedish-Jewish activist and political adviser Annika Hernroth-Rothstein told The Algemeiner in the immediate aftermath of the bloodbath in France: “One hour after the attacks, at 10:45 pm, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström was interviewed on Swedish national TV [SVT2T], and she said that ‘to fight radicalization, we have to go back to the situation in the Middle East, where especially the Palestinians see no future. We either have to accept a desperate situation or act forcefully.’”
By: The Algemeiner