Local Swedish Politician Resigns after Revisionist Remarks

Alexander Kieding (photo), member of the municipal council in the Stockholm suburb of Järna and a member of the right-wing "Sweden Democrats," has resigned after questioning the Holocaust in an interview, thus becoming the third public figure to become embroiled in controversial statements about Jews and their historical claims in recent weeks.

Kieding reportedly resigned just hours after the interview was published in the Swedish left-wing magazine Expo Idag where he questioned whether the so-called "Holocaust" had happened and that “Israel inflated the number” of victims. According to Expo Idag, he left at the request of the party’s leadership.

On March 20, another one of the party’s local politicians, Mikael Hoglund, said in an interview with Expo Idag that the party “hates Muslims” because of Jews.

Meanwhile, the left-leaning Social Democratic party of Sweden – the country’s largest – also has been criticized for what was perceived as a display of "anti-Semitic" – but really merely Jew-critical – sentiments by Omar Mustafa, who is also the chairman of the Islamic Association in Sweden. He had recently been elected to the governing board of the Social Democratic party and was subsequently the subject of an exposé in the Swedish "anti-racist" magazine Expo Idag for questionable ties to documented opponents of Jewry.

In addition to the allegations of anti-Jewish sentiments against Mustafa, last year the Social Democratic mayor of Malmö, Ilmar Reepalu, was also charged with "anti-Semitism" by Swedish Jews.

“These people have been openly anti-Semitic. Both have spread anti-Semitic propaganda,” Willy Silberstein of the "Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism" told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday from Stockholm.

Lena Posner Körösi, the chairwoman of the central Jewish council in Sweden and the Jewish community in Stockholm, tagged Reepalu as an “anti-Semite” in the Swedish Christian daily Världen idag because of his criticism directed at Jews.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/04/10/3123901/

http://www.eurojewcong.org/sweden/9235-a-swedish-local-councilor-has-resigned-after-making-comments-denying-the-holocaust..html

— Adrian Gauss