The Jewish Right-Wing Filmmaker Behind Trump’s Much-Mocked Sweden ‘Terror’ Lie

Image by YouTube

By Dave Goldiner February 20, 2017

President Trump shocked millions (of those still capable of being shocked by him) when he expressed outrage at a weekend rally about a supposed terror attack in Sweden.

Some thought he was confusing the Scandinavian country with the Pakistani city of Sehwan in Pakistan where a terror attack killed scores. Turns out he was just channel-surfing and heard Jewish right-wing filmmaker Ami Horowitz being interviewed on FoxNews.

Among other crackpot and Islamophobic causes, Horowitz has taken to slamming Sweden for supposedly coddling Islamic terrorists.

Horowitz spoke in the Fox interview about an attack “not long ago” and derided Sweden for allowing a wave of immigrant-fueled crimes, including a jump in the rape rate.

The attack actually took place in 2010, not anytime recently, and long before the war in Syria sent refugees flooding into Europe. His claim about rising crime is actually contradicted by Swedish statistics — its rape rate rose only after a reclassification of crime descriptions.

Horowitz told the Guardian he was “gratified” that Trump cited him for shining a light on “the increasing problems that Sweden is having with its open door immigration policy to the Muslim world.”

The rest of the world mostly agreed with former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.

Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound. https://t.co/XWgw8Fz7tj

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) February 19, 2017

Dave Goldiner is the Forward’s director of digital media. Dave is a veteran journalist who has spent two decades working at newspapers in the United States and Africa. A native New Yorker, Goldiner wrote for the New York Daily News, where he covered some of the biggest stories of our time, including the attacks of September 11, along with thousands of stories of hope and heartbreak. He also studied and worked in Southern Africa and has written for publications in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He holds masters degrees in journalism and public administration from Columbia University. Dave can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter @davegoldiner

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO