Sunday, October 17, 2010

Kent Ekeroth on Israeli TV

In Sweden’s general election on September 19th, the Sweden Democrats scored a major triumph and gained seats in Parliament for the first time. The following news report from Israel includes an interview Kent Ekeroth, the international secretary for the Sweden Democrats and now an MP.

Many thanks to DarLink for the translation of the Hebrew portions, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling. Note: the original recording posted on the Israeli TV network’s website is defective, and is the cause of all the video and audio problems in this clip. The translator has made a heroic effort to recover the garbled portions of the Hebrew voice-over, but there are some unavoidable gaps.

Also, unless Blogger has fixed its “feature”, you will have to click the “read more” link before you can watch the video, at least on Internet Explorer:


A full transcript is below the jump.

Transcript:

00:01 We continue today with a series
00:03 of special articles about the rise
00:04 of extreme right-wing parties
00:05 in Europe.
00:06 Tonight it is Sweden.
00:07 The right-wing party Sweden Democrats
00:09 dramatically joined the Swedish parliament
00:11 after elections last month,
00:13 while supporting an anti-Islam
00:15 and pro-Israel agenda.
00:16 But it appears that they have a pro-Nazi past
00:18 and once even proposed a law
00:20 against eating kosher meat.
00:22 Amit Segal, our correspondent in Europe,
00:24 met with party representatives in Sweden.
00:27 Meet Sweden.
00:29 “Tolerance” is the state’s religion.
00:31 “Politically correct” is the official language.
00:33 And now meet the Sweden Democrats party…
00:51 20 new members joined the parliament,
00:55 with their leader barely over 30.
00:58 When one hears the muezzin call for prayer
01:00 on Friday in the heart of Stockholm,
01:02 one can understand the meteoric success
01:04 of the party, which carries the flag of
01:06 struggle against Muslim immigration.
01:14 This is Kent Ekeroth, just 29 years old,
01:16 and already a member of parliament.
01:30 When Sweden is the head of
01:32 the rotational EU presidency,
01:34 the Israeli government is on standby:
01:35 This is a country that claimed that
01:37 Israel’s soldiers harvested Palestinians’ organs.
01:39 Here is Malmö — the city with the highest
01:41 Muslim population on the European continent.
01:46 What you see is the reason for the dizzying success
01:48 of the Sweden Democrats.
01:49 This is also why they are the only party in
01:51 Europe to press Israel’s government to
01:52 continue building in the West Bank.
02:36 When the president of Sweden’s Jewish community
02:38 thinks this way, it is a sign that
02:40 the story behind it should be interesting.
03:00 The party’s chairman was forced to request
03:02 party members in the previous decade
03:05 not to not bring SS symbols to the meetings anymore.
03:19 This is not certain. One of the most prominent
03:21 donors to the party in the previous decade
03:23 was French racist Jean-Marie Le Pen.
03:25 By the way, even if tomorrow
03:27 100,000 bearded Jews were to decide to immigrate
03:31 to Stockholm, they will not be met with
03:32 open arms. The Sweden Democrats propose
03:35 to forbid Kosher and Halal meat,
03:37 and even to make circumcision illegal.
04:01 Yes. Some of the texts of the Sweden Democrats
04:03 appear to be taken from Israel’s
04:05 foreign affairs ministry and maybe that’s why
04:07 it is worth listening to Swedish liberal
04:11 member of parliament [???] who says: “Israelis
04:13 should be careful. You are being used
04:17 to whitewash the stains of this party’s voice,
04:19 to cleanse their past,
04:21 to hide their Nazi past and to
04:23 cover up their xenophobic present.”
04:25 But it is even more complicated
04:27 than that, because Ekeroth is a Jew, too.
04:29 And this, if you please,
04:31 is the heart of the story.
04:33 Israel...
04:35 strange coalition....
04:37 Ultraliberal left and Radical Islam...
04:43 Creates strange coalition with parties...
04:46 ...
04:48 In the end it is a dilemma between
04:50 two ancient truths:
04:52 “Is my enemy’s enemy my friend?”
04:54 Or “With friends like these who need enemies?”

6 comments:

ole said...

Well , as you can see ,israeli TV is dominated by left-leaning journalists like most MSM . The guy who interwiews Ekeroth is not even one of the worst .
They are fighting a loosing batle.
Before or later mainstream israel wil stop living in the past and will realise that the new right in europe is its natural ally .
This would already have happened exept for the corrupting influence of the MSM.

Anonymous said...

Is there anything in this document that indicates Israelis are at all interested in what's good for... the Swedes? What about a commitment to plain old-fashioned goodness? You know, the same commitment that motivated our forefathers to fight the Nazis in the first place?

Israelis need to decide here what they're after: what is good, true, and right, or just what they think is in their own interests. The two are not, after all, always synonymous. But the honest man is bound to pursue what is right, regardless of the cost to himself.

The man who refuses to view the world through any other lens but his own narrow interests is a man lost to truth and reason and beholden to fear and superstition.

Westward Ho said...

"old-fashioned goodness" "own narrow interests"

Well, as it's an Israeli news show, I expect that the images and ideas involved signify a possibly more immediate perils to the viewers than to the Swedes.

Left/EU/Islamist movement = peril (they love Israel's foes who seek its death).

Nazi resurgence (however unlikely) = fears of peril. (I guess the fear lives).

So yes, I think Israel (and a large numbers of Jews elsewhere) are "beholden to fear." And I agree this is a grievously narrowing specter. I sense you conflating mere "interests" with "will this empower the throngs seeking our annihilation, perhaps enabling their fulfillment of it in the next 5 or so years." Such a nightmare. And yep, much thoughtfulness is lost in that climate.

But this is a basically positive piece on the SD, amidst truly hostile world media coverage.

Are they roused inwardly to support the Swedes facing their unfolding Islamic threat, as any person ought to be? I'd think so, but I don't know.

Unknown said...

As an Israeli who reads this blog regularly, I can say that it is a matter of knowledge; we do not know enough about the SD yet to be certain either way; I, for one would rather wait and see what they actually do, now that they are elected, before making a decision.

Zenster said...

Josiah: As an Israeli who reads this blog regularly…

It is with heartfelt support of Israel's refusal to accept Muslim domination that I ask if you might consider becoming a regular contributor to Gates of Vienna.

I make this request solely in a personal capacity but any and all direct input from Israel is of inestimable value with respect to adjudging what goes on there. Especially regarding the routine dose of horseradish many of us get from global media outlets about the Arab - Israeli conflict (i.e., relentless terrorism).

Any cooperation upon your part would be deeply appreciated. Thanking you in advance.

RonL said...

Josiah,
You won't learn the truth from the commies who run the media. In the 1990s, the antisemites were expelled from the Sweden Democrats. They are now in the National Democrats or the Party of Swedes. And you will notice that the interviewer forgot to mention that Kent Ekeroth is Jewish and that his brother Ted (also an Sweden Democrats member) won the Herzl Award in 2006.

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