Last month Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticized Israel’s practice of “extrajudicial executions” for Palestinians who have wielded knives and said the Palestinians perpetrate violence because they see no future under occupation. The comments have caused a furor in Israel. My translation of an article by Israeli Nana 10:
BOYCOTT OF SWEDEN? 15 MAYORS HAVE DECIDED TO CANCEL THEIR TRAVEL TO A CONFERENCE IN THE COUNTRY
Following Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström’s contentious remarks about “Israel executing Palestinians without trial”, 15 mayors who were planning to fly to Sweden have decided to change their destination. “We want to learn, not to argue about politics”.
(By Akiva Novik and Eli Levy, updated 20th January 2016)
The remarks of the Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, about Israel executing Palestinians, has caused great furor in the Israeli political establishment. Foreign Minister [actually former foreign minister Avigdor] Lieberman has suggested to boycott the “Ikea” chain, the Swedish ambassador was called in for an admonishing talk at Netanyahu’s [office], and many officials in Israel vociferously attacked her contentious words. It now appears that the calls for boycott are moving from words to actions, as 15 mayors from across the country have announced that they will boycott a conference that was meant to take place in Sweden with them forming a delegation.
The decision to cancel the flight, which was meant to land next March in Stockholm, was taken by members of the delegation last Tuesday. “We want to study, not to argue about politics,” said Shlomo Abuchbut, mayor of Maalot and member of the delegation.
This regards a seminar for heads of regions where new theories of management are learned. A preparatory session for the conference had already taken place in Israel, but this was before the diplomatic storm which erupted with the contentious words of the Foreign Minister. In light of this, it has been decided to change the travel destination of the mayors to Germany and Denmark.
I think Sweden can weather this tepid hissy fit.
If you think that boycotting a country because its chief diplomat said that killing teenagers is wrong constitute savvy PR, you’re just not intelligent enough to add anything of value to any conference anyway.
So by not inflicting their precious persons on the Swedes they are punishing them? Where’s the logic of it? Maybe they need to come to a BDS course to learn about boycotting.
I guess they’re admitting that boycotting a country is OK.
Great news.Hopefully they will be followed by all the other mayors in the Land of Creation and they will in turn call for a full boycott of Sweden and Sweden’s European partners will respond by supporting Sweden and boycott Israel including suspension and hopefully termination of Europe’s trade and tariff arrangements, diplomatic and visa arrangements , cultural links,sporting links etc
Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But then again it seems like an own goal gifted to BDS by the ever arrogant Israelis and as the saying goes – “from little acorns”.