CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS ¨C It¡¯s no surprise that U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel¡¯s capital has sparked violence in the West Bank and Beirut, or even protests in far-flung Indonesia, which is majority Muslim.
But Sweden? Yet the western Swedish city of Gothenburg, headquarters of Volvo Car AB, saw the firebombing of a synagogue on Friday. The same evening, demonstrators in Malmo, in Sweden¡¯s far south, called for their own ¡°intifada¡± and threatened to shoot Jews.
What¡¯s going on in Sweden reflects a changed demographic and psychic reality. The ¡°Arab street,¡± if that abstraction ever existed, is no longer restricted to Arabic-speaking countries. Arab and other Muslim immigrants now living in Europe increasingly play just as active a role in enacting collective political opinion as their counterparts who did not leave their home countries.
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