Swedish minister affirms aid to Israel

When your hosts arrive late to a meeting then leave you in the middle of the discussion, you might accept the reasons they provide and not get irritated. But when they fail to address the points you raise as though you never even raised them, one cannot but find this behavior very disrespectful, if not downright rude.
On Monday, together with other young Palestinians, I was invited to attend a meeting with Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s Minister of International Development Cooperation and vice chairman of the Moderate Party, a center-right political.
However, she made no mention of Israel’s policy of dividing Palestinians and forcing them into separate bantustans, with municipal powers at best.
We told her that bringing Palestinians “together” in the physical sense is impossible due to the Israeli-controlled Erez checkpoint that perches between us Carlsson nodded – nodding was the mantra – then went on to blame Hamas for cracking down on cultural activities and youth gatherings, implying that had it not been for the Hamas government and its security apparatus, Gaza would have flourished culturally.
Carlsson, clad in a traditional Palestinian embroidery dress, began by suggesting that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank should be “brought together” noting, with a smirk, that people in the West Bank refer to themselves as “West Bankers,” just as people in Gaza often refer to themselves as “Gazans.”