Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom on Tuesday called for an investigation to determine whether Israel has been conducting extrajudicial executions of Palestinian attackers throughout the current wave of violence, which has claimed the lives of over 130 Palestinians.
“It is vital that there is a thorough, credible investigation into these deaths in order to clarify and bring about possible accountability, ” Wallstrom said during a parliamentary debate on extrajudicial executions, Reuters reporting, quoting local media source TT.
Sweden has been among the countries most critical of Israel’s handling of the conflict with the Palestinians. Sweden recognized the state of Palestine on October 30, 2014, shortly after Wallstrom’s center-left Social Democrats won parliamentary elections.
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Wallstrom publicly accused Israeli of ‘extrajudicial killings’ in December during a discussion at the Swedish parliament about the ongoing wave of violence and terror attacks raging in Israel.
Speaking during a tour of Samaria with cadets in the Foreign Ministry course, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said that “Israel was sending in the clearest manner possible a very sharp message to Sweden saying that it is backing terror and giving a tail wind to Islamic State to act throughout Europe.”
Hotovely said that Wallstrom’s comments were a “bad combination of folly and diplomatic stupidity, and Israel will close its door to official visits from Sweden.”
National Infrastructure Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an Israel Radio interview, “She is being pulled after an anti-Semitic sentiment.”
Former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman also criticised Wallstrom, saying that “the only thing the Swedish foreign minister still has not done is physically join the Palestinian terrorists and stab Jews. In the light of her behavior up until now, we need to hope that this will not happen.
