Sweden, which recognised Palestine in 2014, is heading to the polls on Sunday in a vote that could see foreign policy changes [File: Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]By Nils AdlerPublished On 8 Sep 20268 Sep 2026
Stockholm, Sweden – This Sunday, Sweden will vote in a knife-edge general election that could change the country’s stance on Israel.
In 2014, Sweden became the first European Union member state to recognise Palestine.
The decision strained relations with Israel, with then Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stating that Sweden did not understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than assembling IKEA furniture.
Now, as Swedes head to the polls, the far-right Sweden Democrats, the Nordic nation’s second-largest political party, want that recognition revoked.
But a Novus survey released on Monday suggested 50.3 percent support a left-wing coalition compared with 47.9 percent for the current right-wing government.
The Israel-Palestine conflict has been baked into the political landscape ever since Sweden’s Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations’ first mediator for Palestine, was assassinated in 1948 by the Zionist paramilitary group Lehi, widely known as the Stern Gang, in Jerusalem.
Forty years later, Sweden brokered talks in Stockholm between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and a delegation of prominent American Jews. Days later, Washington opened dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
On the right: The governing Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals, plus the Sweden Democrats, who have propped up the government from outside since all four parties signed an agreement in 2022.
Current Prime Minister and Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson and Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson announced earlier this year that an election victory would see a four-party cabinet, with the Sweden Democrats promised significant portfolios.
On the left: The Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens, with the Centre Party a possible fourth.
The current right-wing government does not regard Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide and has not joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The government suspended Sweden’s funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, after Israel alleged that a number of UNRWA staff took part in the deadly October 7, 2023 attack led by Hamas on southern Israel.
It resumed funding later and then ended core funding in December 2024.
In December 2025, the government allocated about $83m to the humanitarian response in Gaza and the region for 2026, bypassing UNRWA.
When Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters in October 2025 and arrested more than 400 people on board, among them Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, the government acknowledged reports of Israeli abuse towards the activists but said it had long advised against travel to Gaza and stated the group had “clear personal responsibility”.
Some MPs in the right-wing bloc appear to be favouring Israel.
Christian Democrat MPs have filed motions calling for Jerusalem to be recognised as Israel’s capital and the Swedish embassy to be moved there, for UNRWA’s responsibilities to be transferred to UNHCR, and ultimately for UNRWA to be wound up entirely.
The party’s leader, Ebba Busch, was photographed about 2009 in front of a military vehicle in the occupied Golan Heights wearing an Israeli army T-shirt.
Alice Teodorescu Mawe, a Christian Democrat member of the European Parliament, argued in October 2024 that people applying 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 published by a pro-Israel media enterprise, The Free Press, that questioned the famine in Gaza. An expert interviewed by SVT, Sweden’s public broadcaster, concluded that the video was misleading.
But the current government is not uniformly pro-Israel. It has pushed for EU sanctions against “extremist” settlers and ministers, and in April proposed extra tariffs and export certificates on settlement products.
However, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, if it were to get into government, would represent the most pro-Israel views in the bloc.
Their motions this session call for moving the Swedish embassy to Jerusalem and ending all Swedish aid to Palestinians.
Akesson also said in January that if it were up to him, recognition would absolutely be withdrawn, and that he would raise it in coalition talks.
In practical terms, recognition is a declaration by a state, and that can be changed, Zina al-Dewany, a political commentator and editorial writer for the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, told Al Jazeera.
It is something that could be a possibility given the government has not shown much of a “backbone” in standing up to Sweden Democrats’ wishes, she said.
If the Sweden Democrats join the government, she added, they could theoretically end up in charge of foreign affairs, and “our foreign policy is decided by the government, not the parliament,” which means it would not need a parliamentary vote.
The left, currently ahead in polling, is aligned on several key issues, including the resumption of UNRWA funding.
Within the bloc, the Left Party and Green Party have called for Sweden to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.
Anfal Mahdi, an opposition councillor in Malmo, told Al Jazeera that her Left Party had been an outlier in its explicit support of Palestine, and that the Social Democrats have been fearful of adopting a clearer stance.
“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,” Mahdi said, referring to the International Criminal Court, which issued in 2024 an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over war crimes.
All parties have condemned the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and state the armed group should hold no role in any future Palestinian government.
The Social Democrats, Sweden’s dominant party for a century and architect of the welfare state that still defines Swedish politics, support elements of these issues, but have erred more on the side of caution, focusing more on targeted sanctions against Israeli officials and “extremist” settlers.
