In Sweden: Israel Has Friends After All

In retaliation for Israel's actions against the Gaza Flotilla last month, Sweden's dockworkers' union staged a week-long protest. While that made the news, another response--favorable to Israel--did not. A student union with over 2,500 menbers, and supports Sweden's leading Moderate Party, showed its support for Israel by offering to load and unload Israeli cargo themselves. The students criticized the longshoremen, declaring in a press release: "It is Hamas's fault that people are suffering in Gaza, not Israel's."

Gustaf Dymov, 24, who chairs the contrarian student union, stressed in a phone interview that the offer to scab on the boycotting dockworkers was almost entirely for show—but then, so was the "boycott" itself, since very little cargo actually passes between Israel and Sweden by sea.
Mr. Dymov says that's what outrages him the most: "It's very obvious [the dockworkers] did this not out of a will to support the Palestinians but to show hatred toward Israel."

So Mr. Dymov and his compatriots decided to show the love: "We view this as a conflict between Israel, a democratic and free country that deserves our support; and Hamas, a terror organization that has an explicit aim to destroy and kill other people," he tells us.

It's a pity that the Moderate Party was quick to disassociate itself from the students--but not surprising--

with Swedish Foreign Minister and Moderate Party elder statesman Carl Bildt having called for an investigation into Israel, and telling the Swedish press that Israel's Palestinian policy is "catastrophic" and "leads to one problem after another."

The word "moderate" doesn't count for much these days.

Technorati Tag: Gaza Flotilla and Sweden.