Swedish minister's Star of David called 'self-hatred'
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- Simona Mohamsson wore a Star of David necklace at Sweden's televised election debate Monday, telling viewers she did so "for the children who do not dare to in today's Sweden."
- Born in 1994 in Germany to a Palestinian father from Haifa and a Lebanese mother, Mohamsson became leader of Sweden's Liberal Party in 2025 and serves as minister for education and integration in the centre-right coalition government.
- Valley Ghanem, Malmo city's official adviser on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, called Mohamsson's gesture "self-hatred" and wrote "may she be burned" on Instagram, later retracting the remark.
- Mohamsson accused Sweden's Left Party politician Ilona Szatmari Waldau of enabling anti-Semitism by sending "love letters" to a jailed senior Hamas member; Waldau has apologized, saying the letters were meant as solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.
- Sweden recorded more than 200 acts of anti-Semitic violence in 2024, up sharply from 111 in 2022, and an EU Agency for Fundamental Rights survey of nearly 8,000 Jews across 13 countries found almost all had experienced anti-Semitism in the prior year.
Why it matters: The row exposes a fault line within Europe's Muslim-heritage communities over how to respond to Israel-Gaza politics: a Palestinian-born Swedish minister is branded 'self-hating' for a Jewish solidarity gesture at the exact moment documented anti-Semitic violence in Sweden nearly doubled — from 111 attacks in 2022 to 200+ in 2024.
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