By Seth Mandel
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Simona Mohamsson, leader of Sweden’s Liberal Party, was
born in Germany to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother, both Muslim. On
the debate stage Monday night, Mohamsson wore a Star of David necklace.
“I am the minister for integration, but first and
foremost I am wearing this star to show solidarity with Sweden’s Jews,” the
31-year-old said.
“Today, all party leaders must pledge that they stand behind the security that
Sweden’s Jews deserve, and ensure that they keep their own parties clean. That
is what is at stake. There are children today who do not dare to live out an
important part of their identity because antisemitism is being used to
terrorize an important minority in Sweden.”
In one fell swoop, Mohamsson schooled nearly the entire
Western world.
Since October 7, 2023, even the most generous approaches
to anti-Semitism from left-of-center politicians can best be summed up in Joe
Biden’s 2024 convention speech, in which he said that the Hamasnik
demonstrators outside the hall “have a point.” Thus, even those who didn’t
fully sympathize with the terrorist sympathizers have held to the following
concept: Western anti-Semitism, while bad, cannot be disentangled from the
State of Israel’s actions.
It’s an easy trap to fall into, to tell oneself that
people are upset at what they are being told about a faraway conflict and they
just “take it too far,” or some similar excuse. “You can criticize Israel’s
actions without resorting to anti-Semitic caricatures,” responsible adults will
say, as if that is some novel breakthrough in civility.
And of course it’s true. But when addressing anti-Semitic
violence aimed at Jews around the world, why pretend it has anything to do with
Israel at all? Those who attack Jews on the streets, those who harass Jewish
children, those who firebomb synagogues—these people are not making political
statements about Israel. They are not making any statement at all. They are
just trying to harm Jews.
Israel is not part of the conversation unless you make it
part of the conversation. And if that’s what you do, then you are reacting to
anti-Semitism by looking for a reason people might hate Jews. The fact
is, it doesn’t matter a whit what someone’s post-hoc justification or pretext
for racial violence might be.
If someone attacks Jewish children in the street, I don’t
care what they’re angry about. It’s entirely irrelevant. Every single instance
of anti-Semitism is inexcusable.
That’s what Mohamsson understands. A government has an
obligation to its citizens, period.
We should also raise our own standards. Yes, a
Palestinian should be expected to follow Mohamsson’s example. The expectation
that Arabs, especially those from Palestinian backgrounds, ought to be forgiven
for withholding empathy from Jews because of a conflict in Israel is deeply
corrosive to society and, frankly, insulting to Palestinians.
Two other aspects of this act of solidarity are
noteworthy. First, the Liberal Party is polling poorly, and rather than seeking
to raise its popularity by bending the knee to the populist mob, it is showing
spine and adhering to its principles.
Second, Mohamsson is also a human-rights activist. The
self-proclaimed human-rights community is rarely concerned with human rights;
too often they are Israel-obsessed anti-Zionist activists. It is nice to see an
actual-human rights activist who advocates for human rights.
Sweden’s Left Party, according to a recent investigation,
is chock-full of those who have expressed
support for terrorists, denied the Holocaust, or made statements in support
of the October 7 attacks. Many of the party’s parliamentarians also wrote a
letter of support to convicted Palestinian terrorists.
Ebba Busch, leader of the Christian Democratic Party,
echoed Mohamsson’s gesture, according to a translation from Israel Hayom’s
Hebrew edition: “There is nothing Swedish about a five-year-old girl in
Gothenburg, who walks around wearing the Star of David that Simona is wearing
today, deserving to hear threats and hatred and even [threats] to die.”
May we one day live in a world in which such stories
aren’t newsworthy.
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