Saturday, May 25, 2019

Finland: Will the Social Democrats Retain a Pro-Iran Anti-Semitic MP in Its Ranks?

by Kenneth Sikorski • May 25, 2019 at 5:00 am

A few days after the Finnish elections, Hussein Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook... For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a state-run conflict-resolution firm... currently headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.
Although Stubb publicly condemned Al-Taee's hate-filled social media comments... he has not been asked why a pro-Iranian regime advocate was working for CMI in the first place.
In other words, Al-Taee was expressing "embarrassment" about his "prejudices, thoughts and language" -- and lying about them -- but did not disavow the sentiments.
Failure on the part of the "center-left" Social Democrats to oust Al-Taee would constitute hypocrisy of the highest order, or else a tacit agreement with hateful positions that the MP has not denied espousing.

Hussein Al-Taee (left) is a new member of Finland's parliament from the Social Democratic Party. A few days after the recent elections, Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook. (Image sources: Al-Taee - Soppakanuuna/Wikimedia Commons; Parliament building - Jorge Láscar/Flickr)

A political crisis that has been brewing in Finland over the past few weeks sheds light on the ills of the so-called "center left."

The crisis surrounds Hussein Al-Taee, a new member of parliament from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which won a narrow victory in the April 14 elections.

A few days after the Finnish elections, Al-Taee, the son of the governor of Najaf in Iraq and a pro-Iranian regime advocate, was exposed for having spent eight years posting anti-Semitic, anti-American and homophobic comments on Facebook. For four of these years, Al-Taee served as an adviser on Middle Eastern affairs to the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), a state-run conflict-resolution firm founded by the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, and currently headed by former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.

Al-Taee's campaign had centered on his CMI credentials as someone who worked at "bridging peace."