RSS Norway, Israel and the Jews

  • Document 15 calls on Jonas Gahr Støre to explain Senator Brownback’s letter
    "Mowgli made leader of the Bandar-log" by John Charles Dollman On August 3rd  US Senator Brownback wrote a letter, expressing concern over Israel-hatred and anti-Semitism, to Norway’s ambassador to Washington DC. While this site published the letter on August 12th, Norwegian journalists failed to find it newsworthy. Members of the opposition […]
  • NRK mentions Naqba-effect but omits war-cause
    NRK reports on the Naqba without mentioning war which caused it Journalist Laila Ø. Bakken of the Norwegian State Broadcasting Authority NRK manages to report on how Abbas’ family fled during the “Naqba”, while completely omitting any mention of the 1948 war which caused the “Naqba”. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and […]
  • Letter from Minister of Defense denies boycott of Israel, claims ‘constructive dialogue’ with Israel
    Hans Olav Syversen from the Christian Democrats refers to a letter from the Minister of Defense Vårt Land today reports that the Christian Democrats (KrF) and Conservatives (Høyre) aim to stop Minister of Defense Grete Faremo (Labor) from boycotting Israeli companies on an individual basis. The article (above) refers to a letter from […]
  • NUPI invites Freeman to speak about US-Israel relations
    When Charles W. Freeman had to resign from a position with the Obama administration in March 2009, he blamed the Israel-Lobby. On Wednesday he visited NUPI in order to speak about US-Israel relations. Vårt Land reports, in an NTB article, that Freeman has as little faith in the current round of peace […]
  • Scandinavian democracy – a guided affair
    Screenshots from Norwegian newspapers Aftenposten and DagenMagazinet Not even in Scandinavia does democracy work flawlessly. Is there an invisible hand at work? In the screenshot above (left) we see an op-ed from yesterday’s Aftenposten, with Eirik Vatnøy from Civita, a liberal think tank, asking some rather poignant questions. Vatnøy points out that it appe […]
  • Washington Post on terrorism in Norway
    Three men were apprehended this summer on suspicion of terrorism. As the Washington Post points out, we Norwegians were told that we at no time have been in any danger whatsoever. Norway ‘bomb plot’ underscores al-Qaida pitfalls In late 2009, Jakobsen went to Norway’s Police Security Service and began providing information on Davud’s activities after what he […]
  • Protected: Norway suspects Israel unethical, invests in Turkmenistan
    There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. […]
  • JP mentions Norway: Has Europe learned from its past?
    In material terms, being Norwegian is like winning the lottery. Intellectually it is like living in a carnival. Once groupthink sets in there is nobody left to comment upon how it affects us, and prominent citizens can act bizarrely with impunity . The JP, which editor of Aftenposten Harald Stanghelle tells us is […]
  • Interview with a convert reveals anti-Semitism
    In Aslak Nore book “Ekstremistan” the author predicts that in the near future, Norway will be more mulit-cultural, for good and for worse. The reader is treated to some of the latter in Nore’s interview with a Norwegian convert to Islam, who reflects upon some of her formerly held beliefs. The following […]
  • Nous allons manger des pommes de terre israéliennes », annonce notre hôte
    This blog is not about Israel or the Norwegian Jews. It is about Norway’s perception of and relationship to Israel and Jews. Yet Norway is only one little piece in a larger puzzle. It is while trying to solve this puzzle that foreigners every now and then are brought to pay attention to us up […]

Errors and mistakes

Please let NIJ know when we make ourselves guilty of erroneous coverage – the Norwegian Middle East debate has enough of them already.

1. Gerstenfeld vs. TV2: Following a TV2 interview with Manfred Gerstenfeld of the JCPA, TV2 published an erroneous article where Gerstenfeld was misquoted as having said that Norwegians are “barbaric and unintelligent”. These misquotes were disseminated throughout Norway (by NTB) and Sweden (by TT) and caused irreperable damage to Gerstenfeld’s reputation. This site repeatedly erred by making the case a Gerstenfeld – Græsvik dispute rather than a Gerstenfeld – TV2 dispute.  Fredrik Græsvik made the interview but did not write the article and can therefore not be held responsible for the misquotes. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

2. Vågstøl on Nils Butenschøn and Palfront: This site has on several occasions claimed that historian Tarjei Johannessen Vågstøl writes that Nils Butenschøn assumed leadership of Palfron in 1969. This is incorrect. Vågstøl writes that Nils Butenschøn assumed leadership of Palfront in 1976.

3. Webjørn Espeland on “Israeli voices”: On April 20th this site posted a transcript of NRK’s Webjørn Espeland interviewing Benjamin Weinthal. When Webjørn Espeland claimed that according to several Israeli voices “Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Northern Europe”, we claimed that no Israeli voices were making such claims and that this was just something Norwegian journalists were making up to make Israeli critics look silly. It now appears that Manfred Gerstenfeld might have said exactly such a thing, back in 2008. But not in the TV2 interview in 2009.