Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Video: Swedish left-wing parliamentarians speak at pro-Palestinian rally where Arabs chant "slaughter the Jews"

(The Local) Israel's ambassador to Sweden has strongly criticised videos circulating of a pro-Palestinian rally in Malmö in which protestors appear to praise recent attacks in Israel.

Footage from the demonstration on Sunday, which is circulating on social media in Sweden, includes chants in Arabic which are understood to translate to "slaughter the Jews" and "stab soldiers".

Isaac Bachman, who has been Israel's Ambassador to Sweden since 2012, posted on Facebook on Monday that the messages coming from the southern Swedish city of Malmö were "very disturbing".

"These are extremely troubling instances of a grotesque but nevertheless very real – and murderous – incitement which must be dealt with by the full force of the law!" he wrote.

Meanwhile others were split on whether or not Swedish politicians Hillevi Larsson (from Prime Minister Stefan Löfven's Social Democrat party) and Daniel Sestrajcic (from the Left Party), should have spoken at the rally. [...]

The Palestinian Culture Society (Palestinska kulturföreningen), which arranged the demonstration, told Swedish tabloid Expressen on Tuesday that the event had been organised to "help Palestine" and said that it had been "individuals" who had talked about knives and not anyone representing the group.

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