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.
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