Sweden: Synagogue firebombed after anti-Trump demonstrations

Muslims in Sweden reacted to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with anti-Semitic incidents.  

By: World Israel News Staff

Some 20 men hurled firebombs at a synagogue in Gothenburg in southern Sweden on Saturday night, causing damage to the building but causing no injuries.

A local Jewish youth group was holding a celebration in the building during the attack.

The seemingly anti-Semitic attack occurred hours after hundreds of locals marched in the city against the US’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Police have arrested three suspects in the attack.

In Stockholm, protestors took to the streets on Saturday to protest Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

Demonstrators set an Israeli flag on fire. A local photographer at the scene reported that people behind the demonstration noticed a man waving an Israeli flag. The demonstrators rushed towards the man and took the flag, stamped on it and set it alight.

The incident comes a day after marchers chanted anti-Semitic slogans during a demonstration in Malmo.

Swedish media reported that anti-Jewish slogans were yelled when about 200 people, some waving Palestinian flags in an illegal demonstration, rallied late Friday in Malmo.

Demonstrators shouted “we want our freedom back and we’re going to shoot the Jews,” among other slogans, according to a report by Sveriges Radio.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom stated that those who called for Jews to be killed did something “totally unacceptable.”

Wallstrom tweeted Saturday that “threats, hate and anti-Semitism have no place in our society” and were “totally unacceptable.”

Justice Minister Morgan Johansson tweeted “it is horrendous … to invoke violence against Jews,” and promised that if anyone could be identified as those who shouted it, the person would be prosecuted.

In Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, which is notorious for its anti-Semitism, about seven percent of its 285,000 inhabitants were born in the Middle East, according to city statistics.

In related news, Dutch police released from custody a 29-year-old Palestinian who on Thursday smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam while waving a Palestinian flag, the De Telegraaf daily reported. He will be tried later this month for vandalism and theft, because he removed from the restaurant an Israeli flag before two police officers arrested him.

The report did not stated whether he would also be tried for a hate crime.

AP contributed to this report. 

anti-SemitismJerusalemSweden