Welcome to Norway, the West’s most anti-Semitic country
Welcome to Norway, the West’s most anti-Semitic country

The Trondheim City Council approved a plan to boycott all Israeli goods and services that are produced in Judea and Samaria. The city council is also asking residents of Norway’s third largest city to personally boycott settlement goods and services. 

Welcome to Norway, the West’s most anti-Semitic country.

In 2009 a proposed academic boycott against Israel was promoted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. If approved, the boycott would have been the first of its kind at a European university. Fortunately, it failed. The boycott initiative started with a letter, signed by 34 professors and assistant professors at the university, claiming that Israeli universities and other institutions of higher education “have played a key role in the policy of oppression” that the signatories claim exists in Israel.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, said that “never since Quisling (the Norwegian army officer and politician who collaborated with Nazi forces in Norway, ndr) has there been such academic prejudice in Norway, and never since Hitler has any University rector in Europe granted it his personal blessing.”

The Norwegian Ministry of Finance excluded Israeli firms Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus from its Government Global Pension Fund. It was one of the most significant BDS’ victories, since that fund, which invests the Nordic nation’s oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds to save for future generations, holds more than 1 percent of all global stocks. The Norwegian EL & IT union, which represents over 30,000 energy and telecommunications workers, then adopted a boycott of the Histadrut, Israel’s labor union.

Norway’s anti-Semitism also affected the so called “intellectuals”. One is Johan Galtung, the Norwegian sociologist nicknamed the “father of peace studies”, who made anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli remarks while lecturing at the University of Oslo, when he claimed that a possible connection exists between the terrorist responsible for the massacre of children in Norway and the Mossad. “The Jews control U.S. media, and divert it for the sake of Israel,” wrote Galtung in an article published in Norway.

The Norwegian National Theatre recently opened its International Ibsen Festival in Oslo with a dramatic video clip.  A video announcing the cultural boycott of the National Theatre of Israel, the Habima in Tel Aviv. Funded by the Oslo government, the clip shows an actress, on a black background, posing as the spokesman for the theater and calling for a boycott of the Israeli theater. The actress, Pia Maria Roll, “publicly apologizes for the shameful collaboration with Habima, the National Theatre of Israel”, adding that this cooperation has served to “normalize the Israeli occupation”. Pia Maria Roll then defines Israel a state “based on ethnic cleansing, racism, occupation and apartheid”.

The Foreign Ministry of Israel called the seven-minute video reminiscent of “the Nazi propaganda of Goebbels, the Nazi director Leni Riefenstahl and the Norwegian collaborationist Vidkun Quisling and Knut Hamson”. The video, and its transcription, was published by the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet.

The Norwegian newspapers are full of anti-Semitic tropes. The daily Dagbladet published a cartoon in which Palestinian terrorists  are freed in exchange of Gilad Shalit and come from a prison with the Nazi symbol of Buchenwald: “Jedem das Seine”.

It so happened that Evelyne Zeira, who works in gene therapy at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, asked Norwegian researcher Ingrid Harbitz, via e-mail, to provide material to be used to develop treatments for Palestinian victims of the blood disorder thalessemia. Harbitz replied: “Due to the present situation in the Middle East, I will not deliver any material to an Israelitic (sic) university”. The Israeli Jews don’t deserve the Norwegian blood!

During the Israeli war against Hezbollah, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten  ran an article by Jostein Gaarder, Norway’s most famous writer, in which he called for the destruction of Israel. Gaarder, whose book, “Sophie’s World”, was translated into 53 languages, and with 26 million copies sold, wrote: “If the entire Israeli nation should fall ... and part of the population must flee to another Diaspora, then we say: may their surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. Shoot not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them! They are vulnerable now -- like snails without shells! ... Give the Israeli refugees shelter; give them milk and honey!”. Gaarder envisages the expulsion of the entire Jewish people from their land.

No other anti-Semite after the Holocaust has ever ventured into this crazy Norwegian hate. These are the Social Democrats Quislings!