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Aim and method: What is the extent of Norwegian interest in Israel? To what extent does Norwegian media cover Israel? This rough survey consists of counting headlines in the indexing service of www.webavisen.no. Webavisen lists headlines and stories from 240 Norwegian news sources. This method is by no means exact, as it covers only 240 news sources and the survey is conducted on different times on different days.
March 28th: 149 headlines on Israel between March 21st and March 27th. 163 headlines on Afghanistan in the same timespan. The diffence between being in full scale war in a country and observing various degrees of conflict concerning Israel is 14 headlines.
March 26th: 20 headlines on Israel; ten on “Illegal use of white phosphorus” (exampleVG), two on “Israeli aircraft attack convoy in Sudan”, five on the Israeli multiparty government coalition, one on “1370 Palestinians killed in Gaza” and one item of business news regarding intellectual property rights.
March 25th: 22 headlines on Israel: elleven on “Netanyahu will work for peace” (exampleVG), two on “Israel admits murder of 189 children in Gaza”, two on “Israel accused of war crimes”, two on “Obama:not easier with Netanyahu as prime minister”, two on “Netanyahu and Barak agree on coalition government”, one on “Israel wants peace with Palestine”, one on “Gaza fatalities contested”, and one on “Widestretched Israeli government”.
March 20th: Seventeen headlines on Israel; eight on “Rabbies incited to religious war”, two on the Norwegian artist Gullvåg being backed by the mayor of his city in portraying Israeli soldiers as baby-killers, one headline in Dagbladet on “Has never experienced anti-semitism himself” about the Israeli director Yoav Shamiran and his film “Defamation”. Dagbladet writes that: “Shamir’s theis is that anti-semitism is a concept which to a significant extent is helt alive and nutured by the jews themselves, and which also has created a large industry”.One headline on “Israel demolishes family house of truck-killer”, two on “Netanyahu gets two more weeks for negotiations”, one on “It’s time to boycott”, one reader’s letter on a debate, and one on “Hamas politician arrested on the Westbank”.
March 16th: 1 headline on Israel; Israel – EU relationship depends on two-state solution. - Israel’s government needs to commit to a two-state solution in the peceprocess with the Palestinians, states Javier Solana.
March 15th: 18 headlines on Israel: 18 on “Israeli policemen gunned down in Gaza”, 2 on “Bin Laden condemns “hypocrite muslims”, 1 on “Obama cowed by Israel lobby”.
March 14th: 10 headlines on Israel today. 7 on “American activist wounded by Israeli soldiers”, 2 on “Israel wants to exchange Hamas-prisoners for Shalit”, 1 on “Coalition government may be formed in Israel”. 9 headlines on Russia, all of which are related to the dispute between the Russian authorities and the Norwegian tele-company Telenor.
March 13th: 2 headlines on Israel. 1 on “Netanyahus negotiations” and 1 on “Tax deductions for support to an occupation”. 9 headlines on Russia, 4 on sports and 5 on the dispute between Russian authorities and the Norwegian tele-company Telenor.
March 12th: 18 headlines on Israel. 8 on “960 civilians killed in Gaza”, 1 on “Falls to death from rescue helicopter”, 2 on “Friend of Israel receives swastica in mail”, 5 on “Norwegian oil fund investments increase in Israel”, 1 on “Sends all priests to Israel” and 1 on “Creates new music from old YouTube clips”. 35 headlines on Russia; 20 on the dispute between Russian authorities and Telenor, 12 on Georgia’s withdrawal from the Eurovision song contest due to Russian pressure, and 3 on the UEFA world cup.
March 11th: Aftenposten runs the article “Had to go – blames the Israel-lobby” on how Charles Freeman had to withdraw his application to a post in Obama’s administration due to pressure from the Israel-lobby. Charles Freeman is known for expressing support for the manner in which the Chinese authorities managed the student demonstrations for democracy on Tiananmen square in the end of the nineties. Dagen Magazinet runs the headline “Read the book of Ester”. Two sources run “Cousin of September 11th terrorist spied for Israel” and one source runs “Palestinian teenager killed on the Westbank”.
March 10th: Three sources run “Norwegian computers hijacked for cyber warfare”. Here in Aftenposten, the article states that “Russia, Israel and muslims” have hijacked computers of unknowing civilians and used them to execute cyber-attacks. Examples are given of how Israel has been targeted by such attacks, but not of how Israel has conducted such attacks herself. See also page: Bias in Norwegian media.
March 9th: Webavisen only registers two headlines on Israel today, one from the TV2 News “Ex-president accused of rape”, the other “Occupation and war in Gaza ruinous for Israel’s cause” in Dagbladet. This is the lowest number of headlines on Israel in at least three months.
March 8th: 13 headlines on Isreal today. 12 sources run “Israel’s ex-president charged with rape” or an equivalent headline on the same story. 1 source runs “Pope to visit Israel and Palestinian territories in May”. Zero headlines on Syria.
March 7th: 53 headlines on Israel today, 18 sources run “Palestinian rocketeer killed in Gazastrip”, 12 sources run “Turbulent anti-Israeli demonstration in Malmö”, 11 sources run “Violent demonstration in Malmö”. Another 9 sources run similar articles under related headlines, such as “Police aim pistols at demonstrators”. 3 sources run “Israel-Syria trail can not be overestimated”. Meanwhile, Russia is covered in 30 headlines: by 19 sources running “Lavrov sets out Russian disarmament goals” and 11 sources run sports news on skiing results.
March 6th: 8 sources run “New attacks on Israel and Gaza”, 1 runs “Israel has closed embassy in Mauritania”, 1 runs “Right wing radical wants full control over Foreign Ministry”.
March 4th: 7 media sources run “Israel bombs tunnels”, 5 sources run “Clinton criticizes Israel for razing Palestinian homes”, 4 sources run “Iranian missiles can reach Israeli nuclear facilities”, 2 sources run “White phosphorus still glowing”, 2 sources run “Lieberman may become minister of foreign affairs”, 1 source runs “Israel to double illegal settlements”, 1 source runs “Abbas asks Clinton to say no to new settlements”, 1 source runs “Bombing Iran is not a solution”. In Dagsavisen: 1) “Deliberate ethnic cleansing” by editor of Foreign Affairs Erik Sagflaat 2)”Gaza does not notice the money”. In Aftenposten: “Israel bombs tunnels.” Russia, on the other hand, is covered by 45 different media sources, 30 of which are sports related and 5 of which concern the use of surveillance drones on the border.
March 3rd: 19 source run the headline “Palestinian state in Israel’s interest”, 6 sources run “Israel bombs tunnels in Gaza”, 3 sources run “Israeli threatens”, and 4 sources run “Israeli-Arabic peace duo participates in the Eurovision”.
March 2nd: 17 media sources report “Israel wants to double settlements on West Bank”. 13 sources report “Iran wants to arrest Israeli warcriminals”.
March 1st: 20 media sources report on Manfred Gerstenfeld’s statement “Norway most anti-semitic country in Europe” and “Norwegians are barbaric and uncivilized”, based on an interview in TV2 with journalist Fredrik Græsvik. In fact Gerstenfeld does not make these statements – read more here . Ilya Meyer, Swedish citizen and former member of “Peace now”, has written a piece on this here. It appears that the Norwegian response to a book on anti-semitism in Norway was for 20 Norwegian newspaper to report a lie.
February 28th: 16 media sources report “5 rockets fired on Israel from Gaza.”
February 27th: Norwegian minister of foreign affairs Jonas Gahr Støre has visited Gaza and states that international law has been violated during the war. 19 different Norwegian newspapers and other news sources run the headline “Israel violates international law” or “Støre accuses Israel of violating international law”. Here is an excerpt from Aftenposten, a largeNorwegian daily, starting with a quote from Støre:
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“ I have read about this, but nothing can match seeing and hearing for yourself. I have met civilians who have lost their houses and family members, I have seen what little there was of industry intentionally destroyed and I have seen the american school, which was bombed flat”, says Støre.
He is not in doubt over whether the systematic destruction of civilian targets is in violation of international law.
“I can’t understand how they couldn’t be” says Støre to NTB.
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