Haaretz

Americans are coming to Oslo next week in order to partake in the seminar “Norway, Israel and the Jews”. Among other, they will visit Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

There are of course a number of matters our guests might like to bear in mind during their visit. Here are two of them:

1) On January 19th 2010 Jonas Gahr Støre went on a tour of the Middle East. In Jerusalem he woke up to some rather unexpected, though justified, criticism in both the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. In an interview with Haaretz he attributed the criticism to “a campaign, which is being organized and orchestrated from circles who point out enemies of Israel in Norway“.  At the time, this idea of an anti-Norwegian campaign had already been spread by researcher Hilde Henriksen Waage, who also identified Manfred Gerstenfeld’s book “Behind the Humanitarian Mask” on anti-Semitism in the Nordic countries as being part of that campaign.

Read Haaretz article “Norway FM speaks of unnamed forces waging campaign against Norway“.

2) The fact is that neither Hilde Henriksen Waage nor Jonas Gahr Støre has ever had any evidence which can prove the existence of any anti-Norwegian conspiracy. Neither of them have ever provided anything but the allegation. It is therefore a wee bit disconcerting to see how they both get away with referring to it. But it is outrightly frightening to register how the Norwegian media has failed to pursue them on the issue.

Dear Norwegian press corps, do you really think this is somehow ok for prominent citizens, to bandy such ideas about when there is no proof?

Aftenposten on March 30th 2009: After the JP published an article containing a few errors on Norway, Waage idenfied an entire anti-Norwegian campaign. The title above goes "Believes Norway is being smeared in Israel".

Støre, Waage, press corps: there is no conspiracy, only Israelwhat.com. And we will quit as soon as the nonsense stops, promise.

Another thing our American guests might want to know is that during the second world war, Victoria Terrasse housed the Nazi police and parts of the building were used as holding and torture cells.

So yanks, watch your step, keep an eye on each-other, and stay away from the basement.