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A huge international debate has developed around who is responsible for influencing the thoughts of the despicable Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik. His acts have also generated much unusual international publicity about Norway. This is therefore an appropriate time to investigate another type of Norwegian hate mongering: the major anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism there.
There are many indications that anti-Semitism, partly manifesting itself as anti-Israelism, is widespread in Norway – which has less than 2,000 Jews. Many acts of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism occur in this country with a population of less than 5 million.
In June this year, a quantitative study was published on racism and anti-Semitism in Oslo high schools. It was the first official report on an aspect of anti-Semitism in Norway. The study revealed that one third of Jewish children were physically or verbally harassed at least two or three times a month. That was far more than other children. The next in line were Buddhists at 10%, followed by Muslims at 5%. Fifty-one percent of the students consider the word “Jew” as pejorative.
There is also much anecdotal evidence about this. One Jewish girl told the media that all Jewish children she knows have been harassed in school. After Breivik ‘s massacre, a Jewish schoolteacher said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraph Agency that he has Jewish students who do not publicly identify as such, to avoid harassment.
As far as adult Norwegian anti-Semites are concerned, they are often too polite to make anti-Semitic remarks to a Jew in his presence. Thus, some Jews can honestly claim that they have never experienced anti-Semitism personally.
At the beginning of this century, the Jewish community began to complain publicly about the greatly increased anti-Semitism. Thereafter, two of their active members received an envelope with a live bullet in it. This was confirmed to me by various people, none of whom wanted their names mentioned publicly. Subsequently the Jewish community lowered its profile.
There has been anti-Jewish violence on various occasions. In 2006 during the Second Lebanon War, the cantor of the Oslo community was beaten up on the street. A Pakistani man fired shots at the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery was desecrated. In 2009 during the Cast Lead War in Gaza, the largest anti-Semitic riots ever in Norway took place in Oslo. A Christian man who walked to a pro-Israel demonstration with an Israeli flag was beaten up and severely wounded. When I met him recently I saw his scars. Projectiles, which could have killed people, were thrown at the demonstrators. The perpetrators were almost all Muslim immigrants. Eirik Eiglad, a Norwegian has described this in a booklet in English titled The anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo.
One also finds classic anti-Semitism in the media in a typically Norwegian form. In 2008, comedian Otto Jespersen told his nationwide TV audience that he commiserated with the billions of fleas and lice that lost their lives in the German gas chambers without having done anything wrong other than settling on people of Jewish background. Such an outrageous statement could have happened elsewhere perhaps, because management cannot control a live performance in front of the cameras. What made this incident specifically Norwegian was that the management of TV2, the country’s second largest TV station, supported Jespersen’s “freedom of speech.”
Another uniquely Norwegian example of anti-Semitism promotion is that this same TV station invited Holocaust denier David Irving for an interview. They paid his expenses and for more than one quarter of an hour, he expressed his views after the unqualified interviewer asked superficial questions. In several countries, Irving is denied entry and it’s highly doubtful any other Western European country would give him TV time, let alone with an ignorant interviewer.
In a more indirect way: in 2009 Norway spent $20 million on festivities on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Nobel Prize for Literature winner Knut Hamsun. A new museum was built in his honor. This ardent Hitler-admirer had dedicated his Nobel Prize to Joseph Goebbels and had been condemned after the Second World War. The Norwegian government promised that they would also point out his collaboration with the Nazis during the festivities. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has documented that this promise was largely neglected.
Norway is a democracy ruled by ‘progressive’ hate-mongers. The current government headed by Labor Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is soft on anti-Israel terror and sometimes even indirectly promotes it. In view of the horrific murders at the Utoya camp of the AUF Labor youth movement, many commentators have been rightly wary to fully expose the anti-Israel hatred which was promoted there to youngsters of 14 years old and up. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere spoke there a day before the murders and called upon Israel to remove the security barrier, which has dramatically reduced the number of Palestinian suicide bombings. Demands like that make Stoere an indirect promoter of terror. He was also photographed at Utoya in front of a sign stating “Boycott Israel.”
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