The “peaceful” Sweden is replenishing with Israeli weapons
Last week, Jenny Ohlsson, Sweden’s International Minister for Development Aid, paid a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
While in Hebron, she posed for a photo shoot with Palestinian children, claiming that they had asked her the “most difficult question” she had been asked throughout the week.
“Why are not all countries and people treated equally in global affairs when it comes to attention and support?” asked the children, she said in a tweet.
“I answered that it is a fair question and promised to combat that tendency. Always,” said Ohlsson. She added that she would “raise their concerns when I can. Voilà! ”
The answer to the question is not difficult: Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis and others are treated differently by Sweden than, for example, Ukrainians, because Sweden, like the rest of Europe, is a vassal of the United States. They do more or less as they are told.
There is also a strong dose of racism in their foreign policy: white lives are only more valuable to them.
Ohlsson’s promise to raise the children’s “concerns” is also an escape and an attempt to cover up Sweden’s direct involvement in the Israeli apartheid regime’s occupation, persecution, colonization and killing of Palestinians.
This participation includes Sweden’s thriving purchase of Israeli weapons and the latest decision to offer a home to a notorious Israeli weapons manufacturer.
While Ohlsson was in Palestine, Israeli occupying forces killed 16-year-old Sanad Abu Atiya during a raid on Jenin.
According to an eyewitnessSanad was fatally shot as he tried to help Yazid al-Saadi, a 22-year-old man who had just been shot in the back of the head by Israeli attackers.
This recent killing of a Palestinian child elicited no comments, let alone outrage or condemnation, from Ohlsson, or any other European official, as far as this writer could determine.
Unfortunately, the silent approval of Israeli crimes is the norm.
Sweden rewards massacre in Gaza
In May, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip for 11 days, killing more than 250 Palestinians, including nearly 70 children.
Several generations of more than a dozen families were wiped out in Israeli attacks such as the al-Wihda street massacre on May 16, 2021.
The special Israeli bombing of residential buildings in Gaza City killed more than 40 Palestinians in their homes, almost half of them children.
Although the so-called international community – the United States and its Euro-Atlantic customers – continued to support Israel in targeting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, there was a global outflow solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel, as it usually does, announced that it would do so refuse to cooperate with an independent war crimes investigation commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council.
Not content to do anything when Israel once again slaughtered defenseless civilians in a besieged, occupied territory, some countries made sure to reward Israel and perhaps encourage future massacres.
Within months have UK and the Netherlands signed both agreements with Israel to increase military cooperation.
Even Sweden, which markets itself as a champion of human rights and peace – even claims to have a “feminist foreign policy”- came in on the file.
Shortly after the latest massacre in Gaza, the Nordic nation bragging that it warmed its ties with the apartheid state.
But Swedish ministers did not trumpet a special development.
In June 2021 – not even two months after the massacre in Gaza – Sweden allowed Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers, to open a Swedish branch.
“Sweden is an important market for Elbit Systems and a cornerstone for further expansion in Europe,” said Haim Delmar, Chairman of Elbit Systems Sweden.
The arms deals quickly followed. In January, the Swedish navy signed one $ 27 million contract with Elbit for “battle command systems”.
Last month, the Swedish army wrote on another $ 27 million contract with the Israeli company, this time to buy 120 mm tank shells.
“I think this selection of Sweden underscores the growing recognition from Western armies of the unique quality of our product portfolio,” said Elbit’s Yehuda Vered.
Palestinians in Gaza can testify to that terribly destructive effects of Elbit’s “products” – which are routinely tested on them.
It is remarkable that Sweden is offering Elbit Systems a new base just as direct protest protests in the UK are forcing the Israeli company to close facilities there.
Ironically, the Swedish government’s pension fund since 2010 blocked investments and Elbit Systems since it manufactures equipment used by Israel to “violate international law.”
Prosperous arms trade
Although Sweden markets itself as a force for peace, Sweden is the world’s 13th largest arms exporter, according to latest data from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
According to SIPRI, countries in North America and Europe actually accounted for 87 percent of world arms exports in 2017-21.
During that period, Israel was the world’s tenth largest arms exporter. From its new base in Sweden, Elbit will perhaps be able to increase that market share even more.
Sweden’s seemingly left-wing Social Democratic government has been press for the harshest possible sanctions against Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.
It has also sent huge quantities of weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia.
Russia “will be held responsible for its brutal and violating aggression against Ukraine,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde.
At the same time, Stockholm ensures that Israel is rewarded for its brutal, decades-long and violative aggression in Palestine under international law.