Not just 'not all it was cracked up to be,' but an out-and-out fake
In a post on Sunday, I referred to the 'Muslim peace ring' around an Oslo synagogue as 'not all it was cracked up to be.' In fact, it was even less than that. It turns out that the whole thing was an out-and-out fake. The 'peace ring' had about 20 Muslims, while the funeral for the Copenhagen terrorist drew 500 Muslims (Hat Tip: Jack W).
According to a local eyewitness, only about 20
or so Muslims formed the “ring of peace” around the Oslo synagogue. In
fact, pictures from multiple angles show that there wasn’t enough people
to form a ring, so the locals instead formed a horizontal line in front
of the synagogue.
A local news outlet explained how the media got to its “1,300
Muslims” number. “According to police, there were 1300 persons present
in the event. Very many of them ethnic Norwegians,” read a translated report from Osloby.no.
Demonstrators also reportedly chanted, “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” conflating criticism of Islam and hatred of Jews.
Photos pulled off of social media appear to corroborate the narrative that only twenty or so people formed the “peace ring.”
Multiple news outlets, including wire services for hundreds of news
sites, ran with the false narrative that 1,000 or more people–sometimes
all of them Muslim–formed the ring of peace outside of the Oslo
synagogue.
Today was the funeral for the alleged shooter, and police told the
BBC that between 600 and 700 attended. DR reports (as translated by
Google):
Several hundred people — many of them young men dressed
in big down jackets and with their faces covered — on Friday afternoon
in light rain collected at a grave at the Muslim cemetery in Brondby.
Up to half of the attendees, who were all men, had masked their faces
with jackets or scarves. More directed their index fingers toward the
sky, while others beat their chests with a clenched fist. Most were
silent.
Oslo synagogue 'peace ring' not all it's cracked up to be
A big deal has been made this weekend about a 'peace ring' that was formed by about 1,000 people - 'many of them Muslims' - around an Oslo synagogue. But the 'peace ring' has already been tainted.
The organizers, many of them Muslims, had planned the initiative with
the endorsement of the Jewish community to protest the slaying on Feb.
15 by an Islamist of a Jewish volunteer guard at the main synagogue of
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ervin Kohn, head of the Jewish community of Oslo, told JTA he thought
the initiative was “extremely positive” and said it could change the
dynamics of minority relations in Scandinavia.
But some members of his community said the event was tainted because
of anti-Semitic statements that one of its eight organizers made in
2008, and because he said this week that he dislikes people who support
Israel.
Ali Chishti confirmed on Saturday in an interview with Verdens Gang, a
highbrow Norwegian newspaper, that he delivered on March 22, 2008, in
Oslo a speech on the alleged involvement of Jews in planning the 9/11
Twin Towers bombings in New York. The speech’s title was:”Therefore I
Hate Jews and Gays,” the paper reported, though Chishti said he was not
the one who came up with the title.
“There were several thousand Jews away from work in the World Trade
Center, and why there were more Jews in Mumbai when Pakistani terrorists
attacked than usual?” he said then, repeating the conspiracy theory
that Jews knew in advance of the attack that killed thousands.
“Jews are
a small group, but everyone knows that they have a lot of power,” he
said.
In Saturday interviews, he retracted his words. In an interview with the daily Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, he said they were “anti-Semitic” and “unacceptable.”
“I was angry,” he told
Verdens Gang. “I have since changed my views.” But he also said he
“dislikes” people who support “an occupying force that has been
condemned in several United Nations resolutions.”
“I think it is important to distinguish between being critical of Israel and anti-Semitism,” he also told Verdens Gang.
We've all heard that one before. But as has been proven time and time again, non-Jews who are anti-Israel are anti-Semitic.
Zionism is a Jewish and a European ideology.
It was born in Europe as a response to a hatred of Jews. A hatred whose
very name, anti-Semitism, was coined by a Jew hater who wanted his
hatred to sound more scientific. Every time you hear someone arguing
they can’t be anti-Semitic because they’re a Semite you’ll see his
effort bearing fruit.
The only reason Israel exists is because of
Europe’s shabby treatment of Jews. The fact that in the 21st century
Jews are still abandoning Europe to flock to Israel is a harsh reminder
of European failure vis a vis the Jews. No wonder European politicians
are taking it personally it’s a harsh indictment of their
ineffectiveness.
In April in Southampton at a conference
entitled ‘International Law and the State of Israel’ Zionism will be
attacked on the grounds of human rights. This is Europe’s big issue. The
liberal breeding ground for ideas of tolerance, enlightenment and many
other nice, fluffy philosophies will always have an issue with Zionism, a
Jewish ideology that holds a mirror up to ‘enlightened’ Europe and
shows it the real reflection of itself.
After all how enlightened can Europe be if the
Jews can’t find a home there? Rather than deal with the ramifications
of such a question European intellectuals would far rather attack and
attempt to de-legitimise Israel. It’s easier and requires a great deal
less soul searching.
In Southampton the usual arguments against
Israel will be rolled out. Israel will be attacked as an ethnic state
that doesn’t provide human rights or democracy for all it’s citizens. It
will be decried as supremacist when in reality it’s existence is simply
the result of Jews creating a state where they can find the equality
that so eluded them in Europe. Of course if Europe had provided these
rights to Jews in the first place Zionism would never have been born.
Furthermore if the Europeans had managed to
create an environment where Jews were treated as equals they wouldn’t be
fleeing now.
Zionism serves to tell Europeans that the
societies of which they’re so proud are failing. It’s this critique
which is the reason we see such utter defensiveness on a Channel 4 interview
where an Israeli journalist who exposed anti-Semitism was accused of
“provocation.” We see it when politicians react to an Israeli Prime
Minister’s call for Jews to leave Europe with righteous indignation and
personal attacks.
It’s much easier to celebrate the irrelevant
actions of a couple of Muslim activists or to attack Bibi Netanyahu or
even to post armed guards to synagogues than it is to change the
underlying problems in European society that ensure thousands of young
European Muslims are running off to fight and die in the Islamic State.
This is rich... Guess which country is being threatened into complying with Sharia law....
A Muslim terrorist group is threatening a 9/11-type attack in Norway if a section of Oslo isn't turned into Sharia-compliant territory.
The Norwegian news portal VG Nett is reporting that a Muslim terrorist group, Ansar al-Sunna’,
is threatening that if a section of the nation's capitol isn't
transformed into a sharia-complaint Muslim nation, an attack rivaling
9/11 will be launched upon the Scandinavian nation.
VG Nett has stated that the Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste - PST) is already familiar with many members of this particular terror group.
As translated by Michael Laudahn,
"If norwegian soldiers can take planes to Afghanistan, then Osama and Mohammed can also take planes to Norway, inshaAllah.
Now, the government must wake up and assume responsibility, before
this war spreads to Norway. Before the counterpart reacts. Before
moslems take the step necessary.
Do not confuse the moslems’ silence with weakness. Do not profit from
the moslems’ patience. Do not force us to do something that can be
avoided. This is not a threat, only the words of truth. The words of
justice.
A warning that the consequences can be fatal. A warning about a 9/11
on norwegian ground, or larger attacks than the one carried out on 22
july. This is for your own good and in your own best interest.’
We do not want to be a part of norwegian society. And we do not
consider it necessary either to move away from Norway, because we were
born and grew up here. And Allah’s earth belongs to everybody.
But let Grønland become ours. Bar this city quarter and let us
control it the way we wish to do it. This is the best for both parts.
We do not wish to live together with dirty beasts like you."
'22 July' is of course a reference to the attacks carried out on that date three years ago by Anders Breivik, a 'normal Norwegian boy,' who set off a bomb in Oslo and then went to a youth camp in Utoya and opened fire with a machine gun on a camp run by the ruling Labor party, murdering approximately 98 people. The Muslim terrorists would like to exceed that total.
And why did I say that this entire story is 'rich'? Because Norway is arguably the most anti-Semitic country in Europe. Here's what was going on in that youth camp the day before Breivik committed his terror attack:
Flock Builder on how to conduct a National Referendum and simulation of the peace talks
Flock Builder explains how to conduct the National Referendum on
Israel's future and computer expert Geek Bizarre presents a computerized
simulation of the anticipated rounds of peace talks. Yes, it's the weekly LATMA update.
This post is being written on Friday afternoon. I did not cover the apparent car bomb in Oslo because it's not Israel, because it was too close to the start of the Sabbath and because the odds were too high that anything I might write would be disproven during the night.
But this picture will certainly be relevant on Saturday night.
Alan Dershowitz is the type of Jew the 'international community' claims to like. He is pro-Israel but he is a proponent of the 'two-state solution' and in the style of Israel's Left would gladly give up all of Judea and Samaria - if only there was someone willing to take them.
Professor Dershowitz recently visited Norway where he offered to lecture at three different universities free of charge. All of them turned him down. Professor Dershowitz wrote a post about his experiences, which he called Norway's "boycott" of pro-Israel professors. I've taken the scare quotes off the boycott - because after reading Dershowitz's post, I have no doubt the boycott is real. And I have no doubt that it extends beyond professors to anyone connected to Israel. In fact, if it doesn't extend to all Jews already, it's on its way there.
Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa where the government insisted on "approving" the text of my proposed talks on human rights. I declined.
But despite the refusal of the faculties of Norway's three major universities to invite me to deliver lectures on Israel and international law, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at each university. It turns out that the students wanted to hear me, despite their professors' efforts to keep my views from them. Student groups invited me. I came. And I received sustained applause both before and after my talks. Faculty members boycotted my talks and declined even to meet with me. I was recently told that free copies of the Norwegian translation of my book, The Case For Israel, were offered to several university libraries in Norway and that they declined to accept them.
It was then that I realized why all this was happening. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact an academic and cultural boycott of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land, but the occupation that the hundreds of signers referred to is not of the West Bank but rather of every single inch of Israel. Here is the first line of the petition: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land…" Not surprisingly, the administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of academic collective punishment of all Jewish Israeli academics. So the formal demand for an academic and cultural boycott has failed. But in practice, it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subjected to a de facto boycott. Moreover, all Jews are presumed to be pro-Israel unless they have a long track record of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Read the words of the first signer of the academic boycott petition—an assistant professor of Trondheim named Trond Andresen as he writes about the "Jews"—not the Israelis!
"There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews. [Not] only the religious but also a large proportion of the large secular group consider their own ethnic group as worth more than all other ethnic groups. [Jews] as a whole, are characterized by this mentality…it is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938. [There is] a red carpet for the Jewish community…and a new round of squeezing and distorting the influence of the quite dry Holocaust lemon…."
This line of talk—directed at Jews not Israel or Israelis—is apparently acceptable among many in the elite of Norway. Consider former Prime Minister Kare Willock's reaction to President Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as his first Chief of Staff:
"It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish, and it is a matter of fact that many Americans look to the Bible rather than to the realities of today...."
Willock, of course, did not know anything about Emanuel's views. He based his criticism on the sole fact that Emanuel is a Jew.
All Jews are apparently the same in this country that has done everything in its power to make life in Norway nearly impossible for Jews. Norway was apparently the first modern nation to prohibit the production of Kosher meat, while at the same time permitting Halal meat and encouraging the slaughter of seals, whales and other animals that are protected by international treaties. No wonder less than 1000 Jews live in Norway. No wonder the leader of the tiny and frightened Jewish community didn't get around to meet me during my visit to his country. (The Chabad rabbi did reach out to me and I had a wonderful visit with a group of Norwegian Jews at the Chabad house.) It reminded me of my visits to the Soviet Union in the bad old days.
Here's Chabada's account of Dershowitz's visit to the Oslo Chabad House - where he met the only Jews who were willing to receive him in Norway.
Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz met with leading members of Oslo’s Jewish community at the city’s Chabad House last week, where he spoke about the extreme anti-Israel, anti-Semitic attitudes he encountered in Norway. He urged them to take lessons in Jewish pride and courage from Chabad.
The world famous civil rights lawyer who is typically invited to meet with heads of state wherever he travels, told the group of about 30—among them a number of professors—that he was turned down for meetings with Norway’s leaders. His offers to speak at NTNU-Trondheim and Oslo universities were also declined because of his views on Israel.
“I’ve spoken at every major university in the world, German, Russian, Chinese universities, and even at Bir Zeit. Only twice in my life have I been turned down. The first time in Apartheid South Africa when I was Nelson Mandela’s lawyer, and the only other time has been here.”
One of the things I greatly admire about Chabad is how they are willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring Jews closer to Judaism. Nine years ago, Mrs. Carl and I (and son # 3 child # 6, who was a toddler at the time) spent a Sabbath with another Chabad emissary in another European community. We were in touch by email before we went and offered to bring him anything he wanted from Israel. He wanted very little.
When we got there, we found out that he and his wife make all their own food because there is almost nothing Kosher available in the country in which they live. He had been there for many years, and he and his wife have many children bli ayin hara (warding off evil eyes). He has more children than I have. Many more.
His wife home-schooled their children until they were 12-13, and then they were sent off to a boarding school in another Jewish community that is 16 hours away by car or train. And they usually don't come home for the holidays. They go to New York to spend holidays with the Lubavitch community.
But the most amazing thing was what he told me about the community itself. He said that anyone whom he convinced to become religious had to immediately move out of the community, because their basic needs as religious Jews could not be fulfilled there (we were in the country for a week and brought all our own food). So the rabbi himself never had a base of supporters with whom he could work. Obviously, his dedication to this extremely thankless task is astounding. I suspect that Oslo, whose emissary looks much younger (the man with the long black beard in the picture above) is, if anything, worse than that other community where I visited.
And if I were in that emissary's position in Oslo, I believe I would have to place a high priority on getting Jews to leave the country. Oslo is a hostile environment to Jews even if they are not being rounded up to concentration camps, God forbid.
If you look at the comments to the post about Dershowitz's visit to the Chabad House, you will see that (at this moment) there is one comment and it is taking the rabbi to task for inviting Dershowitz to speak there. The commenter states that Dershowitz is a proponent of the 'two-state solution.' The Lubavitcher Rebbe zt"l (may the memory of the righteous be a blessing), as is well-known, was a proponent of a one-state solution for Jews only.
I disagree with the commenter. The most important thing that the Oslo Chabad rabbi did was to show his flock how completely hopeless their situation is in Oslo. After all, if Alan Dershowitz, who is identifiably Jewish but holds politically correct views, is prevented from speaking in Norway, what hope is there for those who are religious or who are on their way to becoming religious? By inviting Dershowitz, the rabbi performed a selfless act for which he is to be commended.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
