Returning to the Swedish duck pond

One more time I have to reflect over a statement made by a Swede on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Helle Klein is the head political editor for Aftonbladet, an independent Social Democratic daily newspaper in Sweden. Yesterday she changed the history, by revealing a great scoop. She was explaining the word "Naqba" by saying (free translation from Swedish):

"the large deportation of 700,000 Palestinians during the formation of the state of Israel"

No historian has ever claimed this. Not even the Palestinian ones. Even the most radical Middle East historians admit that between 80 and 90% of the Palestinian Arabs who fled the new-born Israel did it on their own initiative or encouraged by their Palestinian and Arab leaders. Truth is that most of the Palestinians were not deported by Israel but instead encouraged to stay and become citizens.

It is neither true that they fled upon the formation of the Israeli state. They fled as a consequence of the war that immediately broke out when the surrounding Arab countries decided to wipe Israel of the map. During the following 19 years, the surrounding Arab countries occupied what could have become a Palestinian state.

It is also worth mentioning that no Jews were allowed to flee from the Arab side. All civil Jews were put up for execution on the spot, in Jerusalem and what is now known as the West Bank. The Arab open declaration was to commit a genocide on the Jews and to eradicate the state of Israel. The other Arab countries expelled about 850,000 Jews and deprived them on all their belongings.

I know that I claimed in an earlier post that "resolving" history is not the solution to this conflict, but when someone uses this kind of severe lies, as Helle Klein, then I need to speak up. I neither deny that the Israelis truly were responsible for many horrible things during that process. I am just stunned by the poor and highly non-objective journalism which borders to propaganda. I wonder if she is deliberately lying or if she is plain ignorant, or maybe just stupid. No wonder so many people are ignorant and biased, when this is what they are fed with by the main Swedish news sources.

Helle Klein finishes the lead article by saying (free translation from Swedish):

"EU could push Israel more strongly, but in contrast to the attitude that is held by the democratically elected Hamas government, the Israeli extreme-right government is treated with silk gloves"

Clearly Helle Klein prefers a terrorising "government" that has grabbed power in a society with no other alternative than an already corrupt Fatah, and who promised the Gazans infrastructure, economy and growth, but instead only delivered rocket firing, oppression and martyrdom, and in the end war. And worst of all, Helle Klein compares Hamas to the EU, as if they are two equal democratic institutions. Is it possible that a journalist is this ignorant and is it possible that a journalist can deliberately lie that ruthlessly? I doubt either one, and that leaves only one more option...