Sweden’s Israel-bashing FM probed in housing scandal

STOCKHOLM — A Swedish anti-corruption prosecutor said Tuesday he had opened an inquiry to determine whether a crime was committed when Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom obtained a Stockholm rental apartment from a union.

Wallström is currently embroiled in a bitter dispute with Israel over her criticisms of its policies on the Palestinians.

“The media has since Friday published reports that representatives for the trade union Kommunal have since late summer 2014 until April 2015 promised and then obtained a rental contract for Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom in one of the union’s buildings in Stockholm,” special prosecutor Alf Johansson at the National Economic Crimes Bureau said in a statement.

The prosecutor said he had “decided to open an inquiry into both the giving and taking of a bribe to determine if a crime has been committed.”

The scandal erupted when daily Aftonbladet revealed that the influential municipal workers’ union had allowed the minister to move into a rent-controlled apartment, bypassing a queue for ordinary tenants.

Stockholm has an acute housing shortage and the average waiting period to officially obtain a rental apartment is 13 years.

Wallstrom, a 61-year-old Social Democrat and a popular figure in the government, has insisted she acted in good faith and that she had received guarantees that Kommunal was following the rules.

She welcomed the inquiry. “I welcome an investigation. I have nothing to hide and it is good that this will get sorted out,” she told news agency TT, adding: “I will continue to do my job.”

Wallstrom, who has driven a “feminist foreign policy” since the left-wing coalition came to power in October 2014, has come under fire for her vocal criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and her repeated criticism of Israel, starting with Sweden’s recognition of a Palestinian state shortly after she became foreign minister in October 2014.

In the wake of last November’s terror attacks in Paris, she identified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of the factors explaining why “there are so many people who have become radicalized” — comments Israel called “appallingly impudent.”

And in December, she called on Israel to halt what she called “extrajudicial executions” in response to attacks by knife-wielding Palestinians, following up with a demand this month for “thorough” investigations into the killing of Palestinians by the Israeli army.

Israel has made clear that she would not be a welcome visitor in the country, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday called her critiques outrageous, immoral, wrong and stupid.

“I mean, people are defending themselves against assailants, wielding knives, who are about to stab them to death. And they shoot the people. And that’s extrajudicial killings? So why is San Bernardino not extrajudicial killings? And the other day in Paris — a knife-wielding terrorist was shot to death. Is that extrajudicial killing? Does the Swedish foreign minister suggest that there be examinations of what happened there, in Paris. Or in the United States? This is definitely wrong. And it singles out Israel in an absurd way… I don’t want to call it by other names. I’ll just say this is an absurdity, and it’s outrageous,” Netanyahu said.