What: This is a Norwegian blog.
Mission: To examine and cover matters pertaining to the relationships between Norway, Israel and the jews, with an emphasis on bias, the anti-Israel lobby and anti-Semitism.
Vision: To contribute to the transparency of Norwegian debate on the Middle East. This is necessary in Norway for two reasons: 1) The Norwegian debate on the Middle East can after the events of January 8th and the perpetual necessity for police protection of the Oslo synagogue no longer be said to be sound 2) After the termination of Aftenposten’s News in English, Norway has become linguistically isolated to the extent that events and processes in Norway almost completely escape international attention, which is scarce enough under even the best circumstances.
Why? As the findings of this site suggest, there is reason to believe that criticism of Israel has become axiomatic in Norway. Compared to other countries in the Middle East, criticism of Israel: a) is more frequent than criticism of the other countries in the ME b) has become dangerously easy for the public to accept and c) is notoriously difficult to dislodge from the public consciousness, even when the allegations are proven wrong.
There are also indications that excessive criticism of Israel bears stronger relation to outright Jew hatred than many would prefer to believe. There is reason to believe that Jew-hatred as a force may not be confined to the WWII era.
Whom? There are currently three people contributing to this site on a regular basis. We happily accept criticism, feedback and tips from readers. We are just as happy to abandon ship at a moment’s notice. After the death threat against Siv Jensen on January 8th, the Norwegian debate on the Middle East can be said to be neither safe nor sound. For reasons of convenience as well as safety we prefer to remain anonymous.
How: Our goal is to translate as much as possible, and comment as little as possible. We are currently in the process of removing unauthorised pictures, photographs and graphics. Where the content in question is available in English on the Internet, we will publish only an excerpt and link to the source. Where the content is unavailable, as in articles published only in the paper press, we will on occasion publish the entire text. We will remove any text on request. If you are unhappy about the contents on this site, please contact NIJ@israelwhat.com and we will do whatever we can for you.
When: This site was started in January 2009. It will continue until someone else, preferably a state-backed NGO, does what we do, better than us.
Is this site part of a smear-campaign against Norway? Prominent Norwegians are already doing an excellent smear-job on themselves. Our contribution primarily consists of translating Norwegian texts into English.
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