The Norwegian National Theatre 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”.
After protests in Jerusalem, the National Theatre of Norway was quick to apologize: the film does not represent the institution. But it refused to denounce it. 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.
We move to the London and you find the same script. A special exhibition was just opened in the Methodist Church in Hinde Street, central London. The five day show is designed to “re-create the experience of the checkpoint between Jerusalem and Bethlehem”. Rabbi Barry Marcus of the Central Synagogue, which is next to the church, said he feared that the exhibition would “demonize” Israel. Former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, also said that the representation of Israel as “oppressor” inflames violence since “Jews from all over Europe are being targeted and killed by the terrorists, who often attempt to justify their actions by demonizing Israel”.
It is not the first time that Protestant churches in London lend themselves to such operations. A panel eight meters high was built in front of the Cathedral of St. James in London, a glory of the Church of England. The panel included barbed wire. A replica of the “fence”, Israel’s anti-terrorism barrie. The Manchester Cathedral, seat of the Anglican Bishop, also organized a seminar in which he accused Israel of “crimes against humanity”.
From theaters to altars, it is the staging of contemporary anti-Semitism.
During a rally, before presenting Hitler to the cheering audience, Goebbels realized that the sun was about to make its way through the clouds. Thus he adjusted the length of his discourse so that the “light of God” was getting out while Hitler ascended to the podium. Goebbels had the idea of an appeal to the Big Lie in order to manipulate the public opinion. “The art of propaganda”, he said, “consists precisely in the ability to solicit the public’s imagination with an appeal to the feelings”.
Goebbels extended his rule to literature, burning forbidden books in the square and expropriating publishing houses. Goebbels wrote like a possessed man. Between 1924, when he appeared in political life, and 1945, when he committed suicide in Berlin, Goebbels kept a diary and furiously lashed thousands of pages. Goebbels supported, among other things, a literature of escape “for single women in the house and for the soldiers at the front”. He was a frustrated writer and an occasional journalist with a doctorate in literature, who possessed a hundred pairs of shoes. Goebbels even wrote a scathing attack against the unadorned wives of Nazi leaders, inviting them to the luxury to increase the industry of cosmetics and perfumes.
Through the same mix of anti-Semitic hatred and hyper modern vanity, little Goebbels grow again in Europe.