Posted on 07/15/23
| News Source: JPost
The burning of sacred religious texts —including the Torah — remains a danger in Sweden, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said after an activist failed to make good on his threat to burn the Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm on Saturday.
“The despicable act of burning a Jewish Bible did not come to fruition,” Cohen said.
The “danger of desecrating sacred texts has not yet passed,” Cohen warned as he pledged that Israel “will work with the authorities in Sweden to prevent such acts in the future.”
Israel “welcomes the encouraging messages and the solidarity shown by the Christian and Muslim communities in Sweden,” Cohen stressed.
He spoke after a tense weekend in which his office had worked to stop the planned sacred text burning but was not able to sway the Swedish government or the police to intervene.
Activist Ahmed Alush, 32, showed up as promised outside the Embassy on Saturday, but did not strike a match.