The Swedish government has conveyed a message to Israel through senior officials that it is working to change the local law which permits the burning of sacred texts, Kan 11 News reported on Friday.
The message was conveyed after Swedish authorities decided to allow a Jewish Bible to be burned outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, a decision which has caused an uproar in Israel and in the Jewish world.
Despite this, the implementation of the move, if it is indeed implemented, will take time and it is unlikely that it will result in a cancellation of the Torah burning scheduled for Saturday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday slammed Sweden’s decision.
- “The State of Israel takes this embarrassing decision very seriously,” Netanyahu said, adding that such a burning “harms the Jewish nation’s ‘holiest of holies.'”
- “We must respect the holy books of every religion,” he said.
- President Isaac Herzog condemned the decision, adding, “As the President of the State of Israel, I condemned the burning of the Quran, sacred to Muslims world over, and I am now heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible, the eternal book of the Jewish people.”
- “Permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate. The whole world must join together in clearly condemning this repulsive act,” he emphasized.
The planned burning of the Jewish Bible follows a recent burning of a Quran in Stockholm which outraged the Muslim world.
Sweden’s government has condemned the Quran burning and called it an “Islamophobic” act.
Source: Arutz Sheva
Published by