Will Sweden stick with recognising Palestine, or become the first country in the world to un-recognise it? This Sunday’s knife-edge vote could decide.

As Swedes get ready to vote this Sunday in what looks like the tightest general election in years, foreign policy is doing something unusual — it’s actually cutting through on the doorstep.

And right in the middle of it? Israel and Palestine.

According to cbinews.tv, this election could quietly reset Sweden’s whole stance on the conflict.

Here’s the background you need.

Sweden has form here. Way more than most people realise.

In 1948, Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte — the UN’s very first mediator for Palestine — was assassinated in Jerusalem by Lehi, the Zionist paramilitary group better known as the Stern Gang. It’s a wound in Swedish diplomacy that never quite went away.

Forty years later, it was Stockholm that brokered the secret talks between Yasser Arafat and a delegation of prominent American Jews. Just days after that meeting, Washington finally opened formal dialogue with the PLO.

Then came the big one. In 2014, under Stefan Löfven, Sweden became the first EU member state to officially recognise the State of Palestine. It caused a diplomatic storm. Israel recalled its ambassador, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman quipped that Sweden didn’t understand that Middle East relations are “more complicated than assembling IKEA furniture.”

Fast forward to now, and that 2014 decision is back on the table.

So, what happens if the right holds on?

The latest Novus poll, out on Monday, puts it on a knife-edge: 50.3% for the left-wing opposition bloc led by the Social Democrats, 47.9% for the current right-wing government led by Moderates and backed by the Sweden Democrats. Inside the margin of error — basically a coin toss.

The incumbent right-wing bloc has walked a careful line. It has not described Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide and has not joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

On aid, it suspended funding to UNRWA — the UN agency for Palestinian refugees — after Israel alleged a number of staff were involved in the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks. Funding was later resumed, then core funding was ended again in December 2024. In December 2025, the government earmarked around $83m — about £65m — for the humanitarian response in Gaza and the wider region for 2026, deliberately bypassing UNRWA.

And remember the Global Sumud Flotilla last October? When Israeli forces intercepted it in international waters and detained more than 400 people — including Sweden’s own Greta Thunberg — Stockholm acknowledged reports of mistreatment but said it had long advised against travel to Gaza and that activists had “clear personal responsibility”.

Inside the bloc, the Christian Democrats have pushed hardest. Their MPs have tabled motions to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move Sweden’s embassy there, and to shift UNRWA’s responsibilities to UNHCR with a view to winding UNRWA up entirely. Party leader Ebba Busch was famously photographed around 2009 in the occupied Golan Heights wearing an Israeli army T-shirt in front of a military vehicle.

Christian Democrat MEP Alice Teodorescu Måwe went further in October 2024, arguing applicants for Swedish citizenship should recognise Israel’s right to exist and “embrace the Judeo-Christian values on which Swedish democracy rests”. In August she shared a clip from US outlet The Free Press questioning famine in Gaza — a video Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT later found to be misleading.

That said, the government hasn’t been uniformly pro-Israel. It has pushed for EU sanctions on extremist settlers and Israeli ministers, and in April proposed extra tariffs and export certificates on settlement products.

The real wild card is the Sweden Democrats — Sweden’s second-largest party and a party with neo-Nazi roots in the 1980s before it rebranded. Their motions this session call for moving the embassy to Jerusalem and ending all Swedish aid to Palestinians. Leader Jimmie Åkesson said in January that if it were up to him, recognition of Palestine “would absolutely be withdrawn” and he would raise it in coalition talks.

Could they actually do it? Yes, says political commentator Zina al-Dewany of Aftonbladet, speaking to Al Jazeera via cbinews.tv. Recognition is a declaration by a government, and “that can be changed”. And because foreign policy in Sweden is decided by government, not parliament, it wouldn’t even necessarily need a full Riksdag vote. If the Sweden Democrats end up with the foreign affairs brief, she warns, they could have direct control.

And if the left wins?

The left bloc — Social Democrats, Greens, Left Party and Centre — is currently just ahead and far more aligned on this. All support resuming UNRWA funding.

The Left Party and Greens want Sweden to join South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ. The Left’s Anfal Mahdi, an opposition councillor in Malmö, told Al Jazeera her party has long been an outlier for explicitly backing Palestine while the Social Democrats have been “fearful of adopting a clearer stance”.

Mahdi’s prediction via cbinews.tv: “If the left bloc comes to power, you will see a trade boycott of Israel, more money to UNRWA, and we want more funding to the ICC” — the International Criminal Court, which in 2024 issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes.

For context, the Social Democrats are not a fringe player — they’ve dominated Swedish politics for a century and built the welfare state model Sweden is famous for. Their line has been more cautious: targeted sanctions on extremist settlers and ministers, rather than sweeping boycotts.

All parties, left and right, have condemned the 7 October Hamas attacks and agree Hamas should have no role in any future Palestinian government.

Bottom line: Sweden has gone from mediator to moral voice to aid power-broker in this conflict for almost 80 years. On Sunday, voters will decide which of those roles it wants to play next.

Source: cbinews.tv

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