Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Swedish Flipflop — Prime Minister Admits Israel Stabbings Are Terror

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven withdrew his statement that the recent string of stabbing attacks in Israel do not qualify as terror.

Lofven clarified to say he views the stabbings as terror attacks, but meant they are not organized by terrorist organizations, according to Haaretz.

Asked on Sunday by TT, a Swedish wire service, whether the stabbings counted as terror, Lofven said, “No, it is not classified as such.” Hours later, he called TT to say, “I meant that it was unclear if the knife attacks are organized by a group classified as a terrorist organization. Nonetheless, the attacks themselves do constitute terror.”

The incident comes days after Swedish Foreign Minister Margo Wallstrom accused Israel of unjustly executing Palestinians without trial. Wallstrom told a meeting of the Swedish parliament Friday that while she condemns the knife attacks, Israel’s response has been disproportionate.

“And in the same way the response cannot be, and I say this in other situations as well, where the response becomes so that there are extrajudicial executions, or that it becomes disproportionate so the numbers of dead on the other side is greater than the original death toll by several factors,” Wallstrom said, according to Haaretz.

Following Israeli condemnation of her remarks, Wallstrom’s spokesman said she was discussing international law and did not intend to accuse Israel of extrajudicial killing.

A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.