Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday phoned his Swedish counterpart Stefan Lofven to protest remarks made by his foreign minister on the recent developments between the Palestinians and Israelis.
“I condemn the statements, the scandalous statements, made by the foreign minister of Sweden,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.
“The [Swedish] foreign minister suggests that Israeli citizens simply give their necks to the murderers trying to stab them with knives. The citizens of Israel and its security forces have the right to defend themselves,” he added.
Netanyahu also claimed that everybody who commits a crime in Israel is brought in front of a judge.
“The citizens of Israel have to deal with terrorism that receives support from irresponsible and false statements like that,” Netanyahu said.
Speaking before the Swedish Parliament on Friday, Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said: “The response to Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks must not be of the kind – and this is what I say in other situations where the response is such that it results in extrajudicial executions or is disproportionate in that the number of people killed on that side exceeds the original number of deaths many times over.”
Swedish and Israeli differences emerged after Sweden recognised a Palestinian state at the end of last year.
Also read: