Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday night spoke with his Swedish counterpart, Stefan Loefven, and expressed his displeasure about Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom’s latest remarks against Israel.
Wallstrom, speaking to members of parliament in Stockholm on Friday, condemned the Palestinian knife attacks against Israelis but also criticized Israel's response, accusing the Jewish state of “extrajudicial executions” of terrorists who carry out stabbing attacks.
"This is the second time she has said things with regards to Israel that are not acceptable to us and are not true," Netanyahu told Loefven, and also denounced the double standards in the Swedish Foreign Minister’s remarks.
"I did not see her saying that last week in San Bernardino, or the attack in Paris when police killed the terrorists, that those were executions as she had said about Israel," added Netanyahu.
Wallstrom’s remarks on Friday marked the latest in a series of problematic statements she has made with regards to Israel.
Several weeks ago, the Swedish minister provoked a firestorm of criticism, when she appeared to blame the terrorist attacks in Paris on "Palestinian frustration" with Israel.
Wallstrom also engaged in a back and forth with former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman a year ago. Liberman, in denouncing Sweden’s decision to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as "the State of Palestine," said that “relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA”.
Wallstrom later replied and said she would be “happy” to send Liberman some IKEA furniture “and he will also see that what you need to put that together is, first of all, a partner.”
Following that incident, Wallstrom said Israel had overreacted to her country’s recognition of “Palestine”, accusing Israel of “irritating its allies”.
On Saturday, Israel’s foreign ministry denounced Wallstrom’s remarks as “scandalous, untruthful, impudent and detached from reality.”
"The foreign minister suggests that Israeli citizens offer up their necks to the murderers looking to stab them," said foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon.
"In Israel, any person who commits a crime appears before court, including terrorists," he added.