I think
it's bad when Norway is profiled in this way abroad.
In my
answer, I described the main reasons for this sad situation.
This picture was in the New York Times after an anti-Israeli demonstrations
in Oslo in January 2009, where a minister in the Norwegian government participates. She went under the poster "The greatest axis of evil, are the U.S. and Israel
Hello S……!
You wrote an email, where you asked me to check out an article about anti-Semitism
in Norway.
This
article refers to a survey of Norwegian attitudes toward Jews and other
minorities, undertaken by the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious
Minorities
in Oslo, November 2011
This report
has received some attention in the Norwegian newspapers, and in the Norwegian
parliament.
The
information I received concerning this survey, I have received from a pro
Israeli organization MIFF (http://www.miff.no) who had a thorough review of this report on their website.
This is the
Web address of the report (a pdf document)
The report
is written in Norwegian, but on page 8, you will find an English summary
In this report, the Norwegian Holocaust Center has sought to
find the attitudes
Norwegians have
to some nationalities, and religious minority groups that we have here in
Norway,
Americans,
Catholics, Jews, Poles, Pentecostals, Muslims, Somalis and Gypsies
The survey has
also mapped attitudes toward the Middle East conflict. While approximately half
of the respondents take no stand regarding this conflict, 13 per cent support
Israel and 38 per cent support the Palestinians.
I think
these numbers are quite accurate when it comes to the support of the
Palestinians, but I don’t think these numbers give a completely accurate
picture of the support of Israel among Norwegians.
Half of
those asked do not take a stand on the conflict. I'm pretty sure this is due to
the media situation in Norway, where Israel always is portrayed as the
aggressive party in the conflict with the Palestinians. This means that many
Norwegians who do not feel they have enough knowledge about what is going on, remains
neutral to the conflict, although they have sympathies with Israel.
On page 24
of the report 27% say they feel a special sympathy for the Jews.
Avlad Ivri,
a former deputy ambassador at the Israeli embassy in Oslo, had a lecture on a
MIFF meeting some years ago. He told us that the Israeli embassy in Oslo had
conducted a poll of the support Israel had among the Norwegians, and they came
up with 22% which clearly supported Israel. After the Mavi Marmara episode, a
Norwegian newspaper conducted an opinion poll, about Israel's treatment of the
protesters. There was about 46% support for Israel. The reason for this support
had to do with the pictures shown on TV, which did not exactly show any
peaceful flotilla protesters.
I will return later to
the Norwegian media situation, how the media affects us in an anti-Semitic
direction.
I think these questions below, on page 33 in the report, gives a
better picture of the Norwegians' feelings about Jews.
Norway has
become a highly secular country, where many people are more scared of having
contact with Pentecostals, than with Jews.
But what
the Norwegians fear most of all,
are Muslims,
and Gypsies from Romania.
We have
many Muslims and Gypsies in Oslo today
Question: When you think of… the type of connection
You would
think was good for you? to what extent would you
like or
dislike that they were brought into your circle of friends?
Dislike
strongly
|
dislike
it a little
|
nothing
against it
|
|
Americans
|
1%
|
2%
|
66%
|
Catholics
|
1%
|
5%
|
70%
|
Jews
|
3%
|
6%
|
73%
|
Poles
|
2%
|
10%
|
71%
|
Pentecostals
|
7%
|
16%
|
61%
|
Muslims
|
11%
|
12%
|
64%
|
Somalis
|
15%
|
17%
|
55%
|
Gypsies
|
17%
|
21%
|
49%
|
Question: When you think of…the type of connection
You would
think was good for you? to what extent would
you like or
dislike that they married into your family?
Dislike
strongly
|
dislike
it a little
|
nothing
against it
|
|
Americans
|
1%
|
11%
|
65%
|
Catholics
|
5%
|
15%
|
63%
|
Jews
|
10%
|
23%
|
54%
|
Poles
|
8%
|
25%
|
55%
|
Pentecostals
|
18%
|
29%
|
39%
|
Muslims
|
38%
|
28%
|
26%
|
Somalis
|
38%
|
27%
|
25%
|
Gypsies
|
37%
|
27%
|
25%
|
Page 24 in
the report shows that a total of 88 percent do not show any signs of dislike having
contact with Jews
Page 37
39% of
respondents believe that Jew-Hatred must be fought
Page 46
39% believe
that Palestinian groups are behind the unrest.
But there are also some very negative things in
this report
38%
believe that Israel treat the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews
Here it is
quite clear that the Norwegian media have influenced the outcome.
A brief review of the Norwegian history.
Norway is
located in the outskirts of Europe, off the beaten track for hundreds of years,
a
homogeneous tribe, with a lot of xenophobia, which also led to some anti-Semitism,
particularly in the 1930's and 40s
Norway was
occupied by Germany from 1940 -1945.
From 1945
to 1964 the Norwegian Labour Party was the governing party.
This party
had a very good relationship with Israel, and most Norwegians were pro-Israeli
those days.
But when
the 68th generation began to influence Norwegian politics in the late 70's and
80's, it changed the whole picture.
These
Marxist Leninists, formed their own party, (Rødt) which has never been above
2%, but they have power in the universities and the media,
We also have
another very Israeli hostile left-socialist party, (SV) which gets about 4-8 %
of the votes. These two parties together with the Labour Party, totally
dominate the Norwegian media, and are the cause of much of the pro Palestinian and
Israel hostile attitudes in this report.
The Labour
Party is the biggest party in the parliament. From being a very pro Israeli
party from 1945 to the 1970s, this party is an Israeli hostile party today.
We also have
some small centrist parties. One of this
is a pro Israeli Christian Democratic party and two right wing parties, one of
this (The Progress party) is strongly Israel's friendly, and get approx. 16-22%
of the votes.
But these parties have not been in government the last eight years.
Norwegian anti-Semitism.
Although
Norway does not have a particularly anti-Semitic history, there are some ugly
pages in our history book too.
A clause in
the Norwegian constitution of 1814 banned Jews from entering Norway. This
clause was repealed in 1851.
In the
1930s the influence from Nazi Germany was strong in Norway, especially in some
of the eastern part of the country. The largest newspaper in the country
"Aftenposten" became very pro German, and Norwegian borders were
closed to Jews who had to flee from Germany.
In 1941-42
during the German occupation, the German authorities used the Norwegian police to
gather 775 Jews, who were sent to Germany with the SS Donau, a shameful stain on
our history, that many Norwegian long refused to talk about.
But
Norwegian anti-Semitism is however not like the Eastern European anti-Semitism,
which comes from the grassroots of the people and the church.
In Norway,
anti-Semitism mostly comes from above. In the early 40s from the Norwegian Nazi
bureaucracy.
To day, the anti-Israeli stance in Norway, are
acting largely as a "trinity" of the media, left-wing politicians,
and the university management.
Alan M Dershowitzs,
and his anti-Jewish experience at Norwegian universities.
Alan Dershowitz visited Norway in 2011 in a large pro Israel gathering in Oslo "Oslo Symposium” on
behalf of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem.
His
sponsor, a Norwegian pro-Israeli group, offered three major universities to
have him lecture without any charge, about international law as applied to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Universities said No.
When
Stephen Walt, co-author of "The Israel Lobby," came to Norway, he was
immediately invited to present a lecture at the Norwegian University of Science
and Technology in Trondheim. Likewise with Ilan Pappe, a demonizer of Israel.
Dershowitz was rejected by the Universities of Oslo, Bergen and
Trondheim.
But the students themselves took action, inviting him to lectures at all three universities in packed auditoriums.
But the students themselves took action, inviting him to lectures at all three universities in packed auditoriums.
In October 2010 the Israeli embassy in Oslo
sent a complaint to the Norwegian Broadcast Council
Where they
accused the official Norwegian TV channel NRK, of prejudiced and biased
coverage of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict
Researcher Cecilia Hellestveit at the
University of Oslo,
was
given the task of reviewing the complaint.
She
agreed with Israel's embassy in some of the criticism.
It
was not what NRK said, but what they do not say, and the sources they use, that
is the problem, according to her report.
NRK uses
only Palestinian and Arab sources, including Hamas.
Never
Israeli sources.
When the
broadcasting council discussed the report,
NRK was
acquitted of the Council's majority, and was praised for its coverage,
against the
votes of the Christian Democratic Party and the Progressive Party members in
the Council..
In April 2011, the Israeli Army IDF sent their
spokesperson Avital Leibovich to Norway,
for
dialogue with Norwegian media about bias coverage in Norwegian newspapers,
radio and TV
She was
attending a media event (SKUP) in Tønsberg, which gathered 600 Norwegian
journalists.
At the
conference, she met considerable resistance and hostility from most of the 600
journalists, only one single Norwegian journalist supported her.
She was
calm, and argued well in this hostile Assembly. She referred to the movie
"Tears of Gaza," which had been shown in both channels of NRK, a
propaganda film made by a left-wing Norwegian filmmaker, along with people
from Hamas.
She pointed
out that good manners allowed the accused to defend himself.
but Israel
is constantly accused of major crimes in NRK's broadcasts, without being
allowed to defend herself.
She said, I
have my office right in the press area of Jerusalem,
BBC is constantly
talking to me, I am regularly interviewed by Al Jazeera, but where are the
Norwegian journalists? Where is the reporter from NRK, I've never seen this reporter
before today
This
encounter was not shown in the Norwegian media (I saw it on a video that was
posted on the website of the Israeli embassy)
No
interview from any Norwegian journalists, but a Norwegian-Pakistani journalist
Shabama Rehman had an interview with her in one of the major newspapers in Oslo
"Aftenposten". It was a friendly and informative interview with the
headline "Let her be allowed to speak to us!
Norwegian anti-Semitism is directed primarily
against Israel.
But this
report on anti-Semitism also tells of a domestic harassment of Jews.
We have two
main cities with Jewish communities and synagogues,
It is
Trondheim and Oslo.
I have not
heard about problems in Trondheim, but I know that the Jewish community in Oslo
has experienced harassment and problems. The synagogue has been attacked,
Jewish children are bullied at school, and the word Jew has become a term of
abuse, but as far as I am informed , it's mainly the Muslim population in Oslo,
that is behind this harassment.
There are
actually people in the media, also in NRK that has discovered and revealed much
of the harassment Muslims are doing to the Jews.
But when it
comes to Israel, there is little sympathy from the media.
Something
that keeps coming up in the news is call for boycott of certain Israeli goods
There are
NGOs and trade unions that use substantial resources to promote a boycott
against Israel
The youth
organization of the Labour Party - AUF, has also been working for a boycott of
Israel. This youth organization of the biggest party, participating in the government,
has for years been very hostile to Israel. These young people are the future
labour party politicians.
21. of July
2011, this youth organization was gathered on a small island Utøya. This day
was devoted to condemning the crimes of Israel against the Palestinians, and
demands for a boycott of Israel.
The Foreign Minister Jonas Gaare Støre from The Labour Party, visited the Island, and gave a speech to his young audience, in which he denounced Israel in harsh words
The next
day 22 of July, Anders Behring Breivik arrived on the island and butchered 69
of these youngsters, and 55 were transported to hospitals,
with minor to critical injuries.
Breivik did
not come because of their attitude toward Israel, but because these future
Labour party politicians were strong defenders of multiculturalism.
It was a
shocking experience for the whole nation.
Especially
for those families that were affected. They watched this drama on television
and by radio for hours and could do nothing.
The head of
a Christian book publishers, was interviewed on NRK a few weeks later
He said, perhaps
we Norwegians now understand a little more of what Israel is fighting against.
