Sweden’s main public broadcaster apologised for an article that tied President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to the strength of the “Jewish Lobby.”
In a broadcast on Wednesday immediately following Trump’s address about Jerusalem, the broadcaster SVT asserted that the “Jewish Lobby in the US is incredibly strong,” and said the lobby “has championed this issue for a long time.”
“It was an unfortunate choice of words that immediately was corrected by our senior news commentator,” Charlotta Friborg, executive editor and publisher SVT News, told JTA in an email.
Viewers had complained online that the assertion promoted antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish control over US foreign policy.
Separately, leaders of Dutch Jewry complained about their state broadcaster’s editorial choices in covering an assault on a kosher restaurant.
The NOS broadcaster placed a picture of Jerusalem on its website accompanying its report about the attack, in which a 29-year-old man waving a Palestinian flag smashed multiple windows of the HaCarmel restaurant in southern Amsterdam on Thursday.
NOS accompanied the article with a photo of the Israeli and American flags projected on the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem but removed the picture following complaints.
“There were plenty of images from the antisemitic attack,” which was filmed in its entirety, tweeted Paul van der Bas, the chairman of the CIJO youth organization of the Hague-based Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI. “But NOS uses a photo of Jerusalem. Why so suggestive?”
