Mona Sahlin, leader of the Social Democratic Party, spoke a while ago at Stockholm’s Great Synagogue about the importance of working towards a two state solution in the Middle East and combating antisemitism in Europe. Despite this ,organizations affiliated with her party have on numerous occasions held conferences where extremist views have been propagated. Mona Sahlin has said nothing about the views harbored by some of the guests at a recent meeting of the Palme Center , just as she kept silent when the Christian Social Democrats last year invited the antisemitic writer and activist Gilad Atzmon. What do all Social Democrats who dislike the links with extremism and doctrines of hate have to say about this?

On the 11th of June I attended a conference that claimed to have a “sustainable peace in site”(sic). It was organized by the Olof Palme International Center, a lobbying and foreign aid organization associated with the Social Democratic Party and the labour movement in Sweden. It is a good thing that Social Democrats are having discussions on the conflict in the Middle East. However, it is deeply worrying that to a conference that is said to promote peace, speakers such as Azzam Tamimi from the Institute of Islamic Political Thought, and Ghada Karmi from the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies at Exeter University, are invited. Both of these speakers deny the existence of a Jewish people and Israel’s right to exist. For a genuine debate on peace and dialogue there are many reasonable representatives one could have invited. Instead, the Palme center deliberately chooses extremists with messages of intolerance.

What then are Azzam Tamimi’s views? Well, he for example sees Israel as a “cancer” that has to be “eradicated”, he believes that suicide bombing “is the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity ”(BBC 02/11/04 transcript), he justifies violence against women, and he considers Muslims who oppose radical Islamism as traitors (Al-Quds Al-Arabi 29/08/05).

How could a person holding such views contribute to “dialogue” at a so called “peace conference”? And how come the audience applaud his extremist statements? One might have thought that the Social Democrats were ignorant of Tamimi’s views. But these were brought to public attention in 2005 in Dagens Nyheter, the largest Swedish daily, when Tamimi last visited Sweden (DN 12/11/05). Then he was invited by the Social Democratic Youth Organization and the Christian Social Democrats.

Tamimi also made it clear that he does not regard the Jews as a people, an opinion also shared by the introductory speaker, the writer Ghada Karmi. Her book “Married to Another Man” is full of arguments and ideas that can hardly be considered criticism of Israeli politics, but rather constitute a denial of the state of Israel’s right to exist and contain a mélange of prejudices and conspiracy theories.

Ghada Karmi believes that the Jews are neither a people nor a nation, but that they may “at best” constitute different “sects”(p.69). She does not mind using racist terminology in her attempts to disqualify the Jews from being a people: “Ariel Sharon, for example, could easily have been taken for an aryan." (p.70). To deny Jews the right to express their own identity, to deny them the right to define themselves as a people and on the basis of this, to deny them the right to political self-determination is one of the most common arguments in favor of dissolving the state of Israel. It is reminiscent of Turkish attempts to deny the existence of the Kurdish people.

Karmi wrote that “The power of the Israel lobby in the US is legendary” in an article on Guardian’s Comment is free (25/10/07). She elaborates further on this topic in her book under the chapter “Who controls America?” where she describes the US as an Israeli puppet. “All media – film, TV, newspapers and magazines have supported Israel”, she writes. The only possible reason for this support, Karmi argues, is that Jews control newspapers, Hollywood and TV channels. She looks for Jews among owners, editors and writers. This kind of thinking is common in antisemitic propaganda. These are old mythological ideas about Jewish power and manipulation. The assumption is that people who are active in the media sector and who happen to be Jewish act as representatives of a Jewish collective and actively promote “Jewish” or “Israeli” interests. Furthermore, Jews are portrayed as disloyal citizens who serve other powers than those of their own country.

We have seen similar ideas take root in the American presidential campaign, where malicious rumors have been spread about Barack Obama. It has been insinuated or stated that he is secretly a Muslim, whereby “Muslim” is supposed to be understood as someone untrustworthy and disloyal to the USA.

Israel is likened to a foreign organ that the body rejects, “just as the human body rejects a foreign organ graft”(p.4). Furthermore, Karmi describes the Jews as a “suspicious, neurotic and self-absorbed community” and depict Jewish political self-determination as something unnatural, alien and wrong. A Jewish state, she claims, “would have been a huge problem for whoever had to host it”(p.120). These aspects of Karmi’s propaganda have also been elucidated by Alexandra Simonon.

Instead of a Jewish and a Palestinian state, Karmi proposes a so called “one state solution”. However, a one state solution where the rights of Jews would be recognized and respected has never been a realistic alternative. Ghada Karmi is herself an example of what proponents of this idea have to offer: hostility, contempt and a denial of Jewish identity and history. Ghada Karmi believes that Palestinian freedom cannot come about through a peace agreement with Israel, the only solution, in her view, is that the Jewish state no longer exists. In spite of this, the Palme center characterizes Karmi's views as expressions of “optimism” and of an “openness for new alternatives”. As has been pointed out on Engage (25/10/07 and 24/05/08), Karmi also supports the idea of a boycott against Israeli scholars and sees opposing ideas as a “"gross interference in British democratic life".

In her book, Karmi mocks Holocaust education, and complains that films and books have been made on the topic. “A type of philosemitism, often as Extreme as the antisemitism that preceded it, took over in a number of Euopean countries.” (p.113). In Karmi's world, the fact that young Europeans are taught about the Nazi genocide against the Jews is as extreme as virulent antisemitism.

At the conference Lena Hjelm-Wallén, chair of the board of the Palme International Center, was on good terms with Karmi and recommended her book, which also was for sale. Ironically, Hjelm-Wallén was Deputy Prime Minister in the former Social Democratic government, which signed the declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in 2000. In this declaration the importance to teach about the Holocaust was stressed and promises were made to fight prejudice and hatred. Now Hjelm-Wallén recommends Karmi’s book which denies the existence of the Jewish people, spreads conspiracy theories and portrays Holocaust education as Zionist propaganda. Hjelm-Wallén is also a former Chair of the Living History Forum, a government agency which has been commissioned with the task of promoting knowledge of the Holocaust and to combat all forms of racism.

Faraj Abu-Iseifan, project manager for the conference, admits that there are extremist views among some people the Palme International Center works with, but he claims, “We are very clear about that we have a different set of values” (Aftonbladet 05/06/08). Bearing this in mind, it is surprising that not a single question was raised that challenged Karmi’s views, and that an independent moderator was invited to lead the session with Tamimi only after the Palme International Center had received sharp criticism in the media.

It is also worth noting that after the conference The Palme center made an attempt to whitewash Azzam Tamimis extremism and legitimize inviting him. In spite of the fact that Tamimi at the meeting in Stockholm clearly stated that he thinks Israel is a “cancer” and that he supports suicide bombings, the Palme center in a report from the conference falsely claimed that Tamimi no longer held such views.

Critical examination and debate on Israeli policies is tremendously important. But what we have been witnessing here is something quite different and very troubling. These tendencies have been sharply criticized by some members who are worried about the development of the party (Expressen 23/06/08). However, the party’s leadership and majority remain silent. Where are the Swedish Social Democrats heading? And what do all those Social Democrats say; who cherish the party’s anti-totalitarian past and strongly dislike the flirtation with intolerance and hate? Their voices are badly needed.

Jonathan Leman
Freelance writer