The decision to recognize a state of Palestine was one of dozens of foreign policy guidelines for the new Swedish government and Israel was not singled out, Swedish new Prime Minister Stefan Loefven told the leader of Israel’s opposition Labor party.
His comments came after Israeli politicians slammed the Swedish decisin which was announced Friday by Loefven in his inaugural address to the Riksdag, the parliament in Stockholm.
Loefven, a Social Democrat whose party defeated in the September parliament elections the center-right governing party and joined in a coalition with the Greens, stated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ‘’could only be resolved through a negotiated two-state solution that must guarantee the demands of both the Palestinians and the Israelis for national self-determination and security, as well as mutual recognition.’’ “Therefore,” Löfven concluded, “Sweden will recognize the State of Palestine,” he added.
Sweden became the first EU member state to recognize a Palestinian state.
“Sweden sees itself as a friend of both sides and will initiate a process of dialogue with both sides before taking any practical steps,” the Swedish Prime Minister told Herzog.
Herzog told daily The Jerusalem Post that he spoke to Loefven and to the new Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom (a former EU Commissioner) and explained in a frank discussion that the Oslo Accords forbid unilateral steps. Recognition of a Palestinian state by Sweden would violate the same clauses in the Oslo Accords as Israel building a new settlement in the West Bank.
“The nations of the world need to support a process rather than unilateral steps,” Herzog said he told Löfven.
“As someone who adamantly believes in a two-state solution, I think the right thing to do is to move to negotiations rather than crawl endlessly in a futile manner that only endangers the future of both peoples.
“A bilateral process is preferable to any unilateral step, and unilateralism undermines the possibility of reaching an agreement by negotiations.”
Loefven is leader of the Social Democrat party which is sister party of Israel’s Labour party.
On Monday, Sweden's ambassador in Israel, Carl Magnus Nesser, was was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem by the ministry's deputy director general for Europe, Aviv Shir-On.
Israel "protested and expressed its disappointment" at the Swedish Swedish Prime Minister’s announcement.
Shir-On warned that such a move would "not contribute to the relations between Israel and the Palestinians, but in fact worsen them."
The premier’s remarks “diminish the chances of reaching an agreement, since they create among the Palestinians an unfeasible expectation of being able to reach their goal unilaterally and not through negotiations with Israel,” he added.
He said the newly-elected Swedish premier’s decision to focus on the Palestinian issue was “strange” given the turmoil, wars and “daily acts of horror” taking place in the region.
The comments followed similar strong remarks from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman over the weekend. They denounced Loefven's hopes that recognition would be a step towards resolving the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Lieberman said he regretted that Sweden's new Prime Minister was "in a hurry to make statements on Sweden's position regarding recognition of a Palestinian state, apparently before he had time even to study the issue in depth."
The Swedish ambassador “noted the remarks and promised to inform his government,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Even before Monday’s meeting, Stockholm had asserted that it will not recognize Palestine “tomorrow morning,” but despite misleading reports in Israeli media, it did not reverse its decision.
Sweden’s move is the latest in a series of moves made by other Scandinanvian countries in recent weeks that provoked Israel’s criticism.
Last month, Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard threatened “new steps, including a change in our trade relations with Israel,” in case the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas in Cairo didn’t go the way the Europeans wanted.
Earlier that month, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja also warned Jerusalem that trade and other relations might suffer if the peace process doesn’t advance at the pace Helsinki desired. The European Union has offered enough carrots, he told Haaretz, adding that “it also seems that it needs the possibility of sticks. If there is no progress, [Israel] has to be shown that there are costs involved in the stalling,” he said.
The Nordic countries were never among Israel’s closest friends. Norway has long been accused of being the West’s most anti-Semitic state.
Sweden, along with Ireland, Malta and Finland, are generally themost critical of Israel in the EU bodies. Some observers aso blame increasing Muslim immigration to the Nordic countries for their pro-Palestinian stance.
According to The Times of Israel, a quick look at the makeup of the new government ‘’could already offer some hints.’’ ‘’Some senior ministers have a clear history of anti-Israel activity. Turkish-born Mehmet Kaplan, the new housing minister from the Green Party, for instance, participated in the Mavi Marmara flotilla that sought to break the Gaza blockade in 2010. Israeli forces reportedly arrested and later deported him. During this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, he called for the “liberation of Jerusalem” a pro-Palestinian rally.’’