Middle East Foreign Policy Takes Center Stage as Sweden Approaches Knife-Edge General Election

Stockholm, Sweden – Sweden is heading to the polls on Sunday for a general election that could result in significant shifts to the country’s foreign policy, particularly regarding its stance on Israel. Back in 2014, Sweden made history by becoming the first European Union member state to officially recognise Palestine. That decision immediately strained diplomatic ties with Israel, with then Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman remarking at the time that Sweden failed to grasp that Middle Eastern relations are far more complex than assembling IKEA furniture.

As voters prepare to cast their ballots, the far-right Sweden Democrats—currently the Nordic nation’s second-largest political party—are actively pushing for that recognition to be revoked. However, a Novus survey published on Monday indicated that a left-wing coalition holds 50.3 percent support, narrowly ahead of the current right-wing government at 47.9 percent.

The complex history between Sweden and the Israel-Palestine conflict dates back decades. In 1948, Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte, who served as the United Nations’ first mediator for Palestine, was assassinated in Jerusalem by the Zionist paramilitary group Lehi, widely known as the Stern Gang. Four decades later, Sweden successfully brokered talks in Stockholm between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and a delegation of prominent American Jews, which led Washington to open formal dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) just days later.

Swedish politics currently operates within two distinct blocs. On the right, the governing Moderates, Christian Democrats, and Liberals are aligned with the Sweden Democrats, who have supported the government from outside since signing an agreement in 2022. Prime Minister and Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson and Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson previously announced that a victory would establish a four-party cabinet featuring significant roles for the Sweden Democrats. On the left, the bloc includes the Social Democrats, the Left Party, and the Greens, with the Centre Party emerging as a potential fourth member.

A victory by the right-wing bloc could yield notable policy shifts. The incumbent government has declined to label Israel’s military conduct in Gaza as genocide and has chosen not to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Although funding for UNRWA—the UN agency for Palestinian refugees—was initially suspended following Israeli allegations that several UNRWA staff participated in the October 7, 2023 attacks led by Hamas in southern Israel, funding was later resumed before core funding concluded in December 2024. By December 2025, the administration allocated approximately $83m toward humanitarian relief in Gaza and the wider region for 2026, routing support away from UNRWA.

When Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters in October 2025 and detained more than 400 individuals, including Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, the government acknowledged reports of mistreatment toward activists but emphasized its long-standing travel warnings against visiting Gaza, stating that participants bore clear personal responsibility. Meanwhile, certain MPs within the right-wing coalition have demonstrated strong support for Israel. Christian Democrat lawmakers have submitted motions advocating for Jerusalem to be recognized as Israel’s capital, the relocation of the Swedish embassy there, the transfer of UNRWA duties to UNHCR, and the eventual dissolution of UNRWA entirely. Party leader Ebba Busch was photographed around 2009 wearing an Israeli army T-shirt in front of a military vehicle in the occupied Golan Heights. Furthermore, European Parliament member Alice Teodorescu Mawe argued in October 2024 that applicants for Swedish citizenship should acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and embrace Judeo-Christian values. In August, she shared a clip from The Free Press questioning the famine in Gaza, though an interview by public broadcaster SVT later deemed the video misleading.

Despite these positions, the current government is not uniformly pro-Israel, having advocated for EU sanctions against extremist settlers and ministers, alongside proposed tariffs and export certificates on settlement products in April. Nevertheless, the Sweden Democrats possess neo-Nazi roots and would introduce the most explicitly pro-Israel perspective into the government if victorious. Their policy proposals include relocating the embassy to Jerusalem and cutting off all Swedish aid to Palestinians. Jimmie Akesson stated in January that he would personally pursue the withdrawal of Palestine's recognition during coalition negotiations. Zina al-Dewany, a political commentator and editorial writer for Aftonbladet, noted that recognition is a formal declaration subject to change, adding that the current administration has demonstrated a lack of resolve against the demands of the Sweden Democrats.

Conversely, a victory for the left-wing bloc would likely herald a different diplomatic direction. The left coalition is unified on restoring UNRWA funding, while the Left Party and Green Party actively advocate for Sweden to join South Africa’s ICJ genocide case against Israel. Anfal Mahdi, an opposition councillor in Malmo, observed that the Left Party has maintained clear support for Palestine while the Social Democrats have approached the issue more cautiously. Mahdi predicted that a leftist government would implement a trade boycott against Israel, increase financial support for UNRWA, and expand funding to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over war crimes. All political factions have condemned the October 7 Hamas-led attacks and maintain that the armed group should play no part in any future Palestinian governance. Meanwhile, the Social Democrats—Sweden's dominant political party for a century—continue to favor targeted sanctions against Israeli officials and extremist settlers while navigating these complex foreign policy debates with caution.