Happy news from VG today: The vice president of the Parliament Akhtar Chaudrhy wont go to Gaza after all: FM Jonas Gahr Støre has previously warned against participating in the convoy. He thinks that the red-green politicians who participate int he convoy risk being used by other groups with ulterior motifs. State Secretary Espen...
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Sidsel Wold is triumphant these days. After her jury nullification acquittal by the Broadcasting Council and a flurry of awards and nominations, she obviously feels she can let loose on the home stretch. Her latest rant is an attempt at a survey of the political situation in Israel but is really just a poorly...
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The opposition keeps demanding straight answers from FM Støre on the situation in the Middle East. Støre has now replied to a question posed by parliamentarian Hans Olav Syversen (Christian Peoples’ Party). Notice that Støre, while not willing to call Hamas a terrorist organization, does acknowledge that Hamas has carried out terrorist acts and...
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The season of festivals is upon us and in the UK that means a lot of fun and provocations. This weekend, festival goers to Hay-on-Wye literature festival got a bit of everything, starting with a scientist who presented credible studies to sound alarm bells that many Muslim communities, especially from South East Asia, allow...
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The weekly summaries are supplied by Normakor. Norwegian media memes on Israel, Jews, and the Middle East Week of May 22, 2011 Aftenposten’s article titled “Rich Jews Threaten Obama” (reported here last week) created a bit of a stir-up, prompting Barry White, the US ambassador to Norway, to submit a letter of protest to...
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You don’t have to read Norwegian newspapers for a long time to realize that NTB functions a bit like the political commisariate for the press here. Their releases read like political talking points for the editors who reprint things. NTB in turn tends to cut, paste, translate, redact, and edit from AFP and occasionally...
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Several human rights organizations has asked the Crown Prince of Norway, Haakon, to not go on an official visit to Azerbaijan, according to Vårt Land. His Royal Highness is going to represent Norwegian business interests at the opening of the Baku Oil and Gas expo in June. The human rights organizations have warned that...
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When Aftenposten published the “Rich Jews threaten Obama” headline, they did not understand how that was wrong until first their readers and then the world reacted. Aftenposten’s completely uncritical coverage of how an art project allowed youngsters to spray-paint “Free Palestine” on subway walls has not received the same amount of attention. But now...
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We Norwegians are obsessed with Israel. Always something, and so rarely anything good. NRK offers a lengthy article by journalist Dan Robert Larsen, on the situation of the bedouin on the West Bank. This is run of the mill bad-news which we have been drip-fed with for decades. Excerpt: In his speech al Korshan...
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Foreign minister Støre wrote an article for Dagsavisen that was also published on the government website. Here follows an unauthorized translation: Dialogue: upheavals in the Arab world could also provide a framework for a new spring between Palestinians and Israelis. Our message is clear: go to the negotiating table! We are witnessing a popular...
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Life in Norway is not all sunshine and roses. Sometimes tough decisions need to be made. As luck has it, the Norwegian media corps usually manages to stay on top of the situation. Verdens Gang journalist Anders Park Framstad reports: Duck gets police escort to cross the road. Summary: The Israeli Embassy’s neighbor, the Norwegian...
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When times in Norway were hard, the USA took in our emigrants. When Norway was occupied during WWII, the USA stepped in to stop the nazi aggression. All through the cold war, the USA kept the wolf from our door. Now the US ambassador to Norway writes in to Aftenposten, pointing out that perhaps...
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Following story that the MoD and the defense establishment are not too keen to let the public know what our boys actually do in our name in Libya, VG now reports that army chief Harald Sunde says that the army take these allegations seriously and it does not want to be seen as withholding...
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Who would have thought it? Norway, or to be precise, the current political leadership, who is always harping on about Israel and her obligation to be transparent in all she does, is more than reluctant to let us Norwegians in on exactly what our armed forces are doing in Libya. Aftenposten runs a concerned...
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The ministry of finance in cooperation with the ministry of foreign affairs are tabling a proposal to ban tax deductions for donations to West Bank construction. Our always ethically minded FM Støre, you know the one who thinks its OK to be friendly with Hamas, is quoted in Vårt Land : The financing of...
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To what extent is anti-Semitism a problem here in Norway? Jüdische Allgemeine tries to make sense of things. Excerpt from article titled “So verbreitet ist die Angst“: Sie haben ihm einen gelben Stern auf den Rücken geklebt und ihn als ›Judenschwein‹ beschimpft«, vor laufender Kamera beschreibt eine jüdische Mutter, wie ihr Sohn in der...
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It is no news that Norway is one of the Palestinian people’s main financiers, but here is a recent example of how things work up here. The municipality of Rana has decided to throw some spare cash to the Palestinians. Journalis Beate Nygård in Rana Blad, a local newspaper, reports: DISAGREEMENT OVER FISCAL SUPPORT...
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Jay Nordlinger at the National Review is one of the few foreigners who pays any attention to Norway. Let us hope that he continues to do so. This time Nordlinger has picked up on Aftenposten’s “Rich Jews threaten Obama” story. Read the National Review story. Excerpt: This morning, I learned something from Tom Gross, that...
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Norwegian punditry has had some serious indigestion lately. As much as they revere Barack Obama and despise Netanyahu, it takes a lot of work to parse the language of each to make sure that they appear to be of entirely separate minds. So it’s interesting to compare the following three interpretations of Netanyahu’s speech...
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As our unelected Parliamentary Vice president Akhtar Chaudry (Socialist Left) prepares his bags to travel to the opening of the new swish shopping mall in Gaza (there cannot possibly be any other reason to go, the Red Cross has cancelled the so-called humanitarian crisis), he does take some time out to talk nonsense in public....
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