Swedish Moderate Party MP and group leader Mattias Karlsson became furious when members of a Jewish leftist organization protested against an Israeli soldier being invited to lecture at the same address where a Jewish independent school is also located.
Karlsson called the demonstrators “beasts” who spread “antisemitism in its purest form” – and therefore he has now himself been reported for incitement against an ethnic group.
“This is not about Israel. This is not about politics. This is about standing outside a Jewish school, when children are going home, with banners that blame their identity. This is everyday terror. This is antisemitism in its purest form. Those who do this are not activists, they are beasts”, Karlsson wrote on X on Monday while sharing an image from the protest.
People with deeper knowledge than the Swedish Moderate politician quickly explained that the protest was not directed at any schoolchildren but at a lecture by a genocide-accused IDF soldier held at the same address, and that it was rather those who invited the soldier who should be blamed.
Det här handlar inte om Israel. Det handlar inte om politik.
Det handlar om att stå utanför en judisk skola, när barn går hem, med banderoller som skuldbelägger deras identitet.
Det är terror i vardagen. Det är antisemitism i sin renaste form.
De som gör detta är inte aktivister,… pic.twitter.com/2zZJMe5o47— Mattias Karlsson (@moderatkarlsson) September 15, 2025
However, Karlsson did not respond to this criticism and left his post up, which was also shared by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard (M) and other Swedish top politicians.
Calling Jews “beasts” is extremely controversial, and according to several observers is probably also criminal. For this reason, the Moderate Party group leader has now been reported to police for the hate crime of incitement against an ethnic group.
“The legal process must take its course”
“Calling peaceful demonstrators beasts is a classic rhetorical tool to justify oppression and portray political opponents as less worthy”, says Alexandra Esser, from the activist group Jewish Anti-Zionist Alliance, which is behind the report.
“When this is directed at Jews, whose historical vulnerability Karlsson himself often highlights, the action is particularly cynical and dangerous”, she continues.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government has promised to focus particularly on combating what it describes as antisemitism and crimes directed against Jews, but it is unclear whether Karlsson’s latest statement will affect his future within the party.
To TT, the Moderate Party’s press service writes that “if a report has now been filed, the legal process must naturally take its course. For now, it does not affect Mattias Karlsson’s work in the Riksdag”.