Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Swedish Far-Right Party Moves To Recognize Jerusalem As Israel’s Capital

(JTA) – The Sweden Democrats, a right-wing populist party, submitted a draft motion urging their government to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognize the city as Israel’s capital.

Bjorn Soder, a former leader and current lawmaker for the Sweden Democrats, submitted the draft motion to the Riksdag, or parliament, on Thursday. It would be read as a nonbinding resolution.

“The Riksdag stands behind what is stated in the motion to formally acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announces this to the government,” the draft resolution reads. “The Riksdag stands behind what is stated in the motion and supports moving Sweden’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and announcing this to the government.”

Sweden’s Sept. 9 election left the center-left bloc, whose policy on Israel was one of the most hostile in the European Union, with just one seat more than the center-right Alliance, with the Sweden Democrats as the third biggest group.

Subsequently, the Social Democrat former prime minister Stefan Lofven ended his term amid attempts to set up a governing coalition.

Whereas it has maintained a favorable attitude toward the Jewish state, the party has a long and problematic view of Jewish people. Ahead of the elections, regional politicians from Sweden Democrats were caught making anti-Semitic statements online, including using a picture of Anne Frank to mock Holocaust victims.

Martin Sihlén, representing the Sweden Democrats in Örkelljunga, in Sweden’s south, wrote on Facebook that “Hitler wasn’t so bad” and he “did not lie about Jews.” He also wrote that “international Jewry is thirsting for destroying Europe. It was ultimately not Germany who started the Second World War, it was the Jews.”

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.