The head of a state-funded research institute in Finland accused Israel on television of seeking a “final solution” against Palestinians through “annihilation” in “concentration camps,” prompting local Jews and others to accuse her of spreading antisemitism.
Susanne Dahlgren, director of the Finnish Institute in the Middle East, spoke last week with Finland’s public broadcaster YLe, where she was interviewed about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “clearly is driving toward ethnic cleansing,” said Dahlgren, whose institution received 91% of its budget in 2024 from Finland’s education ministry.
Dahlgren criticized Germany for supporting Israel, using language that Yaron Nadbornik, president of the Central Council of Jewish Communities in Finland, told JNS was antisemitic.
“A central country is, of course, Germany, which, for a historical reason, is now making the Germans pay for what they did to the Jews in the previous century,” she said.
The working definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance includes an example that speaks of “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Nadbornik told JNS this meant that Dahlgren “engaged in antisemitic rhetoric,” with no pushback from YLe.
Whereas hostile treatment of Israel in Finnish media is not unusual, “the interview with Dr. Dahlgren was unusually acrimonious, discriminatory and unhinged,” said Nadbornik.
Atte Kaleva, a Finnish member of parliament, also called Dahlgren’s rhetoric antisemitic and rejected her assertions. “How can it be that this activist-researcher, Dahlgren, is allowed to spread her open antisemitism without pushback on YLe, and that she is presented as a ‘neutral’ expert. Is this the deplorable level of public service YLe’s journalism?” Kaleva wrote on X
Another Finnish lawmaker, Tere Sammallahti, wrote on X: “An activist disguised as an expert backs up [YLe’s claims about Israeli war crimes in Gaza], rants about ethnic cleansing, and spins a conspiracy theory about how Germany is supposedly now avenging Nazi atrocities on Palestinians. Utterly insane Hamas propaganda from start to finish.”
In an interview with Verkkuuutiset, the news site of the two lawmakers’ conservative National Coalition Party, Nadbornik said the rhetoric used by Dahlgren raises several questions, including: “Can a researcher who spreads antisemitism continue to lead the Finnish Institute for the Middle East? Can Finland as a state continue to fund the Institute?”
Dahlgren did not reply to a query sent to her by JNS.
Miika Ranne, YLe’s executive producer, replied to JNS that whereas “news and current affairs content is reviewed on journalistic grounds before publication,” live broadcasts are not. “If factual errors are presented in a live broadcast, efforts are made to correct them immediately during the broadcast or as soon as possible afterward.”
He did not reply to JNS’s follow-up question on whether YLe had sought to correct or balance Dahlgren’s claims by quoting Nadbornik, the lawmakers or others.
