Israel Matzav: Norwegian art project trains delinquents to draw anti-Israel graffiti on subways

Norwegian art project trains delinquents to draw anti-Israel graffiti on subways

It's been just two days since I pointed you to a post that argued that Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in the West. Now, I have more proof for you. Norway is training juvenile delinquents to draw anti-Israel graffiti in its subway system (Hat Tip: Tundra Tabloids).

The picture above is from [Monday's] Aftenposten, with the article heading saying “Spray fantasies on the subway” with the subtitle saying “Meet the wall in a creative way”. The title refers to how the youths in the project are being taught how to spray-paint the walls in the subway station with messages of their own choice. That’s right, they are receiving expert tuition, from a Berlin-based Norwegian artist, on how to best get their message across. The subtitle is a play on how the youths in question are in a special school for students who have “met the wall”, that is, are unable to function in a normal school.

So we have young thugs painting political propaganda on the walls of a public space, and this is somehow what, art? This is good? Not a critical question from the Aftenposten journalist, of course, who probably sincerely believes that “Free Palestine” cannot possibly translate into “Destroy Israel”. Except if Israel is Palestine, than the freeing of Palestine can only come about through the abortion of the zionist project, duh?

Now as it happens, Artists4Israel are currently in Israel, and I will be meeting with some of them on Wednesday night. I would love to send them to Norway to teach these kids something different, and they are willing to go run a program there, but... how do we pay for it?

Ideas appreciated.

Israel Matzav: Norwegian art project trains delinquents to draw anti-Israel graffiti on subways

Israel Matzav: The most anti-Semitic country in the West?

The most anti-Semitic country in the West?

Which is the most anti-Semitic country in the West? Go here to find out.


Israel Matzav: The most anti-Semitic country in the West?

Love of the Land: Oslo Discord

Oslo Discord

Asgeir Ueland
Tablatmag.com
04 March '10

Once staunch supporters of Israel, Norwegians have shifted to a pro-Palestinian stance. What changed?

It is late January, and red-eyed travelers on an overnight train to Oslo can see little of Norway’s frozen capital. Darkness holds the city in its grip, and by 8 a.m. there still is no sign of the sun.

Despite its weather, Norway stands at the top of the yearly U.N. Human Development Index, thanks to massive oil and gas reserves that were discovered in the North Sea in 1969 and changed the face of Norwegian society. Over the last 40 years, the country went from being a poor, frozen outpost of Northern Europe to a social democratic paradise whose capital gave its name to the 1993 peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet over the same period, Norway also went from being a warm ally of Israel to a hotbed of pro-Palestinian sentiment and an unfriendly place for Israelis to visit and do business. The marked shift in Norwegian feeling toward Israel is typical of a larger shift throughout Scandinavia toward demonizing the Jewish state, despite the near-total absence of sizable communities of Jews or Muslims there who might seek to shape domestic opinion or foreign policy. The question of why Norwegians have become so invested in a complex conflict between two very un-Scandinavian peoples on the other side of the globe offers useful insight into the social and political dynamics that have turned once-friendly Europeans against Israel.

“The relations between Norway and Israel are relations between friends, but they lack real content,” said an Israeli diplomat I talked to in Oslo. “The bilateral plate is empty.” In 2003, according to the Israeli trade ministry, overall Israeli exports to the European Union stood at $10.4 billion; exports to Norway were a mere $69 million and have remained at more or less the same level since.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Oslo Discord

Love of the Land: Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Ben Cohen
Z-Word Blog
20 January '10

This is a guest post by Christian Tau of NIJ.

Norway FM Jonas Gahr Støre toured the Middle East between January 16th-20th, visiting Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Egypt and UAE. The topics of Støre’s meetings in the different countries as well as the manner in which he was received shows us a Norwegian foreign policy bathed in the gold sheen of hypocrisy. The manner in which the Norwegian media reports on Støre’s tour reveals how this hypocrisy is rooted in a bedrock of popular denial.


Criticizing Israel on human rights

Of the countries Støre visited we find Israel at the far end of the spectrum. Freedom House ranks the little nation as a “Free”. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index for 2008 ranks Israel at no.38. The nation is a vibrant affair, producing writers, film-makers, and scientists amidst a strong entrepreneurial culture. It is by far the state in which most Norwegians would settle, if they were to live in the Middle East.

In spite of this, Israel has reluctantly come to realize that what goodwill she enjoyed with Norwegian Labor has, after the failure of the Oslo accords, mutated into a seething resentment of failed expectations and dashed hopes. Merged with the traditional anti-Zionism of the Norwegian left-of-centre, this resentment has made criticism of Israel the very core of the Norwegian debate on the Middle East. In this debate Hamas and Hezbollah appear as symptoms of a problem which in itself consists solely of Israeli politics.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Norway’s Middle East Hypocrisy

Love of the Land: Anti-Israel Boycott Proposal Costs NTNU Funded Professorship

Anti-Israel Boycott Proposal Costs NTNU Funded Professorship

CAMERA/Snapshots
07 December 09

Former NTNU Donor Olav Thon

Anti-Israel activists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, have cost the university the support of one of its most prominent donors, real estate and hotel magnate Olav Thon, who according to Forbes.com is worth $2 billion. Thon has given the university 300,000 ($52,500) annually for the past few years to support an adjunct professorship.

Not any more.

Two days before the university rejected a proposal to divest from Israel, Thon sent a letter to NTNU stating that while he expected the school to vote the proposal down, he was cutting off future donations to the university.

According to this report (based on a google translation of a Norwegian newspaper article), Thon was not interested in supporting an institution where politics takes precedence over good research.

The $52,000 Thon gave to the school annually may seem like a small amount, but according to this report, he is setting up a charitable foundation to disburse his fortune after his death. The question for the fundraisers at NTNU is whether Thon will relent and allow this foundation to donate to the school after his death, or will his judgement be final?

The lesson for anti-Israel activists? Next time, go play with your own money and future, not somebody else’s!

Love of the Land: Anti-Israel Boycott Proposal Costs NTNU Funded Professorship

Love of the Land: Test case for European anti-Semitism as top Norwegian university prepares to vote on becoming first in Europe to boycott Israel

Test case for European anti-Semitism as top Norwegian university prepares to vote on becoming first in Europe to boycott Israel

Robin Shepherd
Robin Shepherd Online
1 November 09

(I will continue to update this posting as new information becomes available)

Norway’s University of Trondheim could become the first European university to adopt a formal academic boycott of Israel if a vote by the university’s board on November 12 goes through. The situation is particularly worrying because the rector of the university, Torbjorn Digernes, is (according to some reports) behind the campaign for a boycott himself or at least has been giving a nod of approval to those that are.*

The university, better known as NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), is Norway’s second largest university.

The vote is emerging as a test case of how anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist bigotry is being confronted by anti-racism groups and their sympathisers in Europe. If the boycott proposal is accepted it could set a precedent all across the continent and reignite the academic boycott campaign in Britain in particular.

Dr. Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote last week to Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg saying:

“The virus of antisemitism in Norway’s media, unions, NGOs and even government circles is now infecting academia. NTNU has deformed free and open scholarly discourse based upon mutual respect into a campaign of hate propaganda, led by masters of disinformation who exploit their academic credentials to call for a boycott of their colleagues who happen to be Israeli.”

The Wiesenthal Center’s website elaborated on the details of the letter adding:

“Samuels pointed to Norway’s ‘obligations, as a State Party to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to combat all forms of antisemitism under the Berlin Declaration of 2004 – a document which includes the singling out of Israel as a contributing factor to the scourge of Jew-hatred.’”

If the move goes through it is crucial that swift action is taken against the university. In the rest of Europe and also in the United States, students, academics, faculties, funders, university boards and research institutes should be lobbied to ensure that Trondheim itself becomes the subject of a crippling boycott.

* NB: The exact position of the rector of the university is difficult to work out. A reader of this site has informed me that he was quoted in a Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, on October 4 as saying that dialogue rather than boycotts are the way to go. On the other hand he has openly supported a recent seminar series involving extreme opponents of Israel who are themselves supporting the boycott campaign. The seminar series at the university provides the immediate backdrop for the boycott campaign. It is up to the rector to clarify his position.

Since details of the case are scant in the English speaking media I would like to ask readers of this website to send me further information. I am aware that there are readers in Norway itself, and any further details that they could provide would be particularly welcome. Either leave comments below or contact me by email.

To read the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s take on the matter, click here:

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/s/content.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4442915&ct=7610977

Love of the Land: Test case for European anti-Semitism as top Norwegian university prepares to vote on becoming first in Europe to boycott Israel

Love of the Land: The Ghost of Quisling Returns to Haunt Norway as Israel Boycott Movement Gets Major New Boost in Europe

The Ghost of Quisling Returns to Haunt Norway as Israel Boycott Movement Gets Major New Boost in Europe

Robin Shepherd
Think Tank Blog
04 September 09

Given that Norway’s most notable contribution to 20th century history was to give the world a new word for cowardice and treachery, reports that the country’s massive $400 billion sovereign wealth fund — the second largest such fund in the world — has been banned by the Norwegian government from owing shares in an Israeli arms company would not usually raise eyebrows.

But at a time of increasing hysteria against the Jewish state the move from the country that gave us “Quisling cowardice” — after wartime collaborationist leader Vidkun Quisling — may set an important precedent for the wider boycott movement across Europe. According to the international wire services, the fund was instructed to divest from Israel’s Elbit Systems because it provides surveillance equipment for the security barrier which has prevented countless suicide bombings emanating from the West Bank.

“We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law,” Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen was quoted by Reuters as saying.


Decisions of this kind are apparently made by Norway’s “Council on Ethics”. I’m glad that Norway feels it is in a position to make ethical judgements about companies that participate in attempts to stop fanatics from slaughtering innocent Jews. The country certainly has plenty of experience to draw upon.

According to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, Quisling “is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. It was most commonly used for fascist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.

“The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times on 15 April, 1940, entitled “Quislings everywhere.” The editorial asserted: “To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor… they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Actually it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous.”‘

Enough said, I think.

Love of the Land: The Ghost of Quisling Returns to Haunt Norway as Israel Boycott Movement Gets Major New Boost in Europe