Ever since Margot Wallstrom took office as Sweden’s Foreign Minister, recognized the PA territories and Gaza as a Palestinian state and insinuated that Israel responded to Palestinian knife terror with ”extrajudicial executions” she has made herself known as a persona non grata in Israel.

Palestinian Arabs around the world have praised Wallstrom, placing her above the PA president Mahmoud Abbas and celebrating her as the real Palestinian.

Wallstrom also mentions recognizing a Palestinian state as a token of Sweden’s solidarity and respect in a statement in Arabic called ”Islamophobia and solidarity” on the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s website. All the other tokens of respect and solidarity Wallstrom mentions in this statement are related to showing respect for the Islamic faith.

Clearly Wallstrom in this statement used the recognition to play with the minds of religious extremists, that want to ignite a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims. Meanwhile in Swedish she is holding on to that it is important not to turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a religious one.

Wallstrom has never stopped being a controversial and shocking foreign minister. 

After the terror activities in Gaza on May 14 (the so called ”return march”) in which 50 proven terrorists were killed trying to break the border into Israel with the clear aim to carry out terror attacks in Israeli communities, Wallstrom told Swedish media that she thinks we can not be judges regarding the role of Hamas in the terror activities. 

On May 23 she again shocked Swedes, attending a Nakba art exhibition in the Palestinian embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. At the exhibition the Swedish defence minister Peter Hultqvist was also present as the Swedish foreign minister held a very biased and anti-Israeli speech about maps and fighting for her Palestinian allies:

”It couldn’t be more befitting then to put me in front of the paintings and pieces of arts that we see here and thank you to the artists because I want to say something about maps and keys.

"A visit to Palestine is very much about maps”, Wallstrom began her speech. 

”People will come and show you maps, saying this is where I used to live, this is where Palestine is, this is where our people lives.

"And maps become very very important, exactly how they are drawn, exactly how the borders are drawn, and unfortunately the maps change because on the other side they also show maps and the Israelis show maps and they move the borders.”

In her speech Wallstrom added: ”Maybe these maps could be realized. But they also represent history, they represent something that was and that has to be recognised by everybody. This is where we come from, this was our land.”

What is Wallstrom saying here? Well, there should be no doubts that Wallstrom is trying to satisfy her new fanbase by hinting that those Palestinian maps which have erased Israel and replaced it with an Arab Palestine should be recognised by everybody, including Israelis.

She is also hinting that the Palestinian maps have the right borders while Israel moves the borders and changes conditions on the ground, in the land that according to the Palestinian narrative once was Palestinian.  

However we must be clear that there has never ever been a Palestinian state and consequently there have never been any Palestinian borders and no such borders to move. It is up to the Israelis and the Arab Palestinian individuals to decide through a future peace deal if there ever will be any Palestinian borders. 

In case someone wasn’t sure of her government’s devotion to the Palestinian cause, Wallstrom also spoke about mobilizing friends of Palestine and stated: "You know how much we care about Palestine, you know that we are a friend of Palestine, that we will continue to hopefully fight with you and for you and we will fight for a two-state solution."


”You know how much we care about Palestine, you know that we are a friend of Palestine, that we will continue to hopefully fight with you and for you and we will fight for a two-state solution.” 

Wallstrom is as full of contradictory statements as she is full of Palestinian propaganda. First she talks about recognizing the maps she has seen on her trips in the Palestinian territories, maps that she knows have erased Israel and replaced it with a Palestinian one-state solution. Then she talks about  fighting for a two-state solution.

This is a contradiction. Wallstrom talks like a Palestinian activist. Which country does she represent if she will fight with and for the Palestinian Arabs? It surely is not Sweden.

Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Lofven must fire Wallstrom. She may be suitable as a pro-Palestinian activist on board Ship to Gaza or as a speaker at a Palestinian art exhibition. However she is not suitable to rule our foreign ministry.

Tobias Petersson is director of the Swedish think tank Perspective on Israel