Larry’s dismissal is made all the more obscene by virtue of the light it sheds on the egregious double-standard that once-professional publication now employs in regard to conservative versus liberal opinion; I say that as someone who fondly remembers the fairly conservative op-ed editor of my own time at the Post soliciting op-ed pieces he openly disagreed with. Larry worries his post might end up on some Hamas website. This is yet to occur, and even if it does take place, it’s doubtful it would influence the decision of any young Palestinian whether to become a terrorist or not. By contrast, the writings of Jerusalem Post deputy-editor Caroline Glick were cited in the manic manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik in justification of the bloodbath he executed earlier this summer; unlike Derfner, Glick has yet to be shown the door.
Moreover, right after the Norway carnage the Jerusalem Post published an outlandish editorial suggesting the calculated, murderous rampage of a self-confessed xenophobe was an opportunity for Norway to revisit its immigration policy. The editorial was so beyond the pale the Post only put it up on the website with a disclaimer, and sparked such an outrage in Norway the newspaper had to spend another editorial on an apology; to my knowledge, all of those responsible for this serialised farce kept their jobs. Not so for Derfner.
Now, I’m not suggesting Glick and the author of that editorial (assuming they’re not the same person) should be fired for their opinions. There are many other reasons not to retain Glick’s services. Serious complaints of her conservative column’s ultra-liberal attitude to facts should be a warning sign for any reader; her suggestions regarding the possibility of an alliance between Israel and the Vatican, instead of fickle, fickle USA, are enough to give anybody pause; and as far as embarrassing appearances outside the Jpost go, her responsibility for a “satirical” clip showing a blackface minstrel Barack Obama singing to Israel’s destruction is hard to forget.
Yet Glick’s right to express even the strangest and most obsolete of opinion from the pages of what publication would have her remains in place and should not be infringed upon. Opinion is up there to be read, to be disagreed with and to be criticised; this is the fundamental principle of op-ed pages. The Jerusalem Post has obviously sunk so low and became wedded to Glenn-Beck-type readership so tightly it now applies this principle to conservative opinion only. Pity. It used to be a newspaper once.
Hello? It was a business decision! By Derfner's own admission, the Post had HUNDREDS of subscription cancellations because of what Derfner wrote. A newspaper is a commercial enterprise (unlike blogs which are written by true believers who toil in anonymity for free). Is the Post supposed to lose money to give Derfner a platform to spew his noxious venom at Israelis?
Caroline Glick is probably the most popular columnist in Israel and is certainly the most popular Israeli columnist among Israelis abroad. Given that the writer - Dimi Reider - acknowledges Glick's right to write whatever she pleases, what is the point of implying that she should be fired because Derfner was?
Reider may not like it, but the fact is that English-speaking olim are far more conservative than are Israelis or diaspora Jews. Unlike Haaretz, the JPost caters (or at least did until a couple of weeks ago) to that crowd.
Finally, Glick did not suggest that Norway revisit its immigration policy. Neither did Barry Rubin, who has also been subject to constant attack on the Post's editorial pages by representatives of the Norwegian government. Rather, Glick and Rubin suggested that Norway ought to do some introspection as to whether their support for 'Palestinian' terrorists was giving succor to those who would terrorize Norwegians. Norway still has not (or doesn't want to) get that point.
And for those wondering why Reider didn't mention Barry Rubin along with Glick, go here.
On Thursday, I blogged the latest rant by Norway's ambassador to Israel Svein Sevje. In Tuesday's JPost, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld responded.
This expression of Israeli empathy was all the more impressive since after this tragic incident, hate-mongering directed at Israel by mainstream Norwegian society came again to the fore. Even if the Middle East was only one item on its agenda, the AUF camp at Utoya where Breivik murdered many can be characterized as an anti-Israel hate camp.
More information has since become available regarding how “successful” the demonization of Israel was at Utoya. When Breivik started firing some youngsters thought it was a demonstration of how Israeli soldiers shoot at Palestinian civilians. When I first read this story by German journalist Ulrich Sahm, it seemed unbelievable. I there upon contacted Sahm and he provided me with several sources for his story.
AUF is the youth movement of the Labor Party of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. As a young man he also attended the camp at Utoya. Many Labor party ministers come out of AUF. It is now a breeding ground for Israel-haters, some of whom will become prominent in the Labor Party.
Someone on this blog keeps asking me whether Breivik attended Utoya as well. I am trying to find out.
Here's an interesting video that might give some indication of where Anders Behring Breivik came from. The video is a bit long - 18 minutes - but it's worth watching in full.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Israellycool).
Norway has banned Kosher animal slaughter since before the Nazis
The Norwegian government may be sorry today that they messed with Caroline Glick. And although she explicitly did not ask for one, they might consider an apology. Glick gives us a contemporary history lesson about Norwegian anti-Semitism.
In a 2006 report on Jew hatred in contemporary Norwegian caricatures published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Erez Uriely noted among other things that Norway banned kosher ritual slaughter in 1929 – three years before a similar ban was instituted in Nazi Germany.
And whereas the ban on kosher ritual slaughter was lifted in post-war Germany, it was never abrogated in Norway.
As Uriely noted, Norway’s prohibition on Jewish ritual slaughter makes Judaism the only religion that cannot be freely practiced in Norway.
Fascism was deeply popular in Norway in the 1930s.
In the wake of the Nazi invasion, Norwegian governmental leaders founded and joined the Norwegian Nazi Party. Apparently, sympathy for Nazi collaborators is strong today in Norway.
As the JCPA’s Manfred Gerstenfeld noted in a report on the rise in Norwegian anti-Semitic attacks during 2009, two years ago the Norwegian government allocated more than $20 million in public funds to commemorate Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun [pictured. CiJ] on the occasion of the Nobel laureate for literature’s 150th birthday. As The New York Times reported, in February 2009, Norway’s Queen Sonja opened the, “year-long, publicly financed commemoration of Hamsun’s 150th birthday called ‘Hamsun 2009.’” But while Hamsun may have been a good writer, he is better remembered for being an enthusiastic Nazi. Hamsun gave his Nobel prize to Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels. During a wartime visit to Germany, Hamsun flew to meet Adolf Hitler at Hitler’s mountain home in Bavaria.
And in 2009, Norway built a $20 million museum to honor his achievements.
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Israel’s dovish Kadima government only began the operation in Gaza because it had no choice. For months then prime minister Ehud Olmert sat on his hands as southern Israel was pummeled with unprovoked barrages of thousands of missiles and rockets from Gaza. Olmert was forced to take action after Hamas massively escalated its rocket and missile attacks in November and early December 2008.
While silent about Palestinian aggression, Norway’s government attacked Israel for defending itself. As Store put it, “The Israeli ground offensive in Gaza constitutes a dramatic escalation of the conflict. Norway strongly condemns any form of warfare that causes severe civilian suffering, and calls on Israel to withdraw its forces immediately.”
Two of Store’s associates, Eric Fosse and Mads Gilbert, decamped to Gaza during Cast Lead and set up shop in Shifa Hospital. The two were fixtures in the Norwegian media, which constantly interviewed them throughout the conflict, and so spread their libelous charges against the IDF without question.
Fosse and Gilbert never mentioned that Hamas’s high command was located at the hospital in open breach of the laws of war.
When they returned home, they co-authored a book in which they accused the IDF of entering Gaza with the express goal of murdering women and children.
Store wrote a blurb of endorsement on the book’s back cover.
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It is a fact that the day before Breivik’s massacre of teenagers at the Labor Party’s youth camp on Utoya Island, Store spoke to them about the need to destroy Israel’s security fence. The campers role-played pro- Hamas activists breaking international law by challenging Israel’s lawful maritime blockade of the Gaza coastline.
Norwegians believe that terrorism is sometimes okay, especially when its targets are Israelis and it is perpetrated by 'Palestinians.' Anders Behring Breivik got that message. But he also decided that terrorism was okay at a time when it was wrong, even according to Norwegians. Instead of soul-searching, Norwegians are accusing. That is wrong.
UPDATE WEDNESDAY 12:09 AM
I just received the email below from reader Eliana:
Carl, the photo you're showing of Knut Hamsun is Max von Sydow who stared in a movie about the man.
The movie's name was "Hamsun" and it was produced in 1996.
The Norwegian government and media establishment is not ready to have an honest discussion of these issues. Instead, my article was misrepresented in order to stir up a frenzy that closed ears and shut eyes to what I was saying. Indeed, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet falsely claimed that I had endorsed the terrorist attack there. Not a single Norwegian reporter or editor made any attempt to contact me since the beginning of this issue to hear my side or to ask my views.
How’s that for constructive dialogue and healing? The blog Israel Matzav sums up my position very well: “Rubin said that this terror attack, committed by a ‘normal Norwegian boy’ [not my words] ought to make Norwegians do some introspection about their government’s support for terror organizations like Hamas. Is Norway giving its youth the wrong message through its support for Hamas? Why is Norway not even willing to ask itself that question?” And the Norwegian reaction is to reiterate – as its ambassador to Israel portrayed his country’s view – that there is a rational reason to murder Israeli children (“occupation,” despite the fact that Israel has withdrawn from all of the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank, and indicated its readiness to accept a Palestinian state 11 years ago), but not to murder Norwegian children. In other words, one can only discuss the evil Norwegian terrorist in the parameters laid down by the Norwegian Left. One can talk endlessly about how his specific ideology – right-wing, allegedly Christian, and Islamophobic – but not the way he fits into a much wider pattern of rising terrorism in general.
Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, Leiby Kletzky and the Utoya massacre
Many tragedies have befallen the Jewish people over the last few months. Two in particular have caused particular consternation.
In Brooklyn three weeks ago, almost-nine-year old Leiby Kletzky was kidnapped and murdered by a man whom he trusted because he appeared to be Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) just like him. And last Thursday night in Be'er Sheva, Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, one of the generation's pre-eminent Kabbalists, was murdered by a follower who was ostensibly seeking his blessing (picture from his burial last Friday above). In each case, the victim was murdered by someone whom he believed would not harm him because he was a member of his own community.
In between these two crimes, a 'normal Norwegian boy' named Anders Behring Breivik murdered 76 Norwegians, most of them while dressed as a police officer. It was reported, in the aftermath of the murders, that Breivik gestured to his youthful victims to approach him so that they would be safe, and then took advantage of them and shot them. They trusted Breivik because he was a Norwegian like them and would not harm them.
That's not all that dissimilar from the cases of Kletzky and Abuhatzeira, is it?
But the similarities end there. On Wednesday - one day before the Abuhatzeira family rose from shiva - signs started going up all over our Haredi neighborhood. The signs draw a parallel between Kletzky and Abuhatzeira and urge members of our community to look inward to discover why God took these two righteous people from among us. We understand that it is our community that spawned the two murderers who committed unthinkable acts. And we understand that God is punishing us for our shortcomings by taking two righteous people from among us.
The Norwegians are still looking for someone else to blame.
We are left, mouths agape, wondering whether an editorial like the one above would have been written a couple of months ago when David Horowitz was the JPost's editor-in-chief. I suspect not.
The editorial squarely condemned the attack, saying that “as Israelis, a people that is sadly all too familiar with the horrors of indiscriminate, murderous terrorism, our hearts go out with empathy to the Norwegian people.”
However, it also, inappropriately, raised issues that were not directly pertinent, such as the dangers of multiculturalism, European immigration policies and even the Oslo peace process.
“Your editorial, while insistently condemning the violence in Norway, shockingly and shamelessly attempts to offer justification for his extremist violent act of terror,” wrote Esam Omeish in one of many letters to the editor, several of which were published in the paper.
Steve Linde, the editor-in-chief, immediately posted the following statement on our website, JPost.com: “As a newspaper, The Jerusalem Post strongly denounces all acts of violence against innocent civilians. This editorial is not aimed at deflecting attention from the horrific massacre perpetuated in Norway, nor the need to take greater precautions against extremists from all sides.”
I did not read that JPost editorial as justifying the Norwegian terror attacks. But one would not be human if one did not wonder what might have caused a 'normal Norwegian boy' to become a mass murderer of his own people. While it might more appropriately have been done by Norwegians themselves and not in a JPost editorial, introspection after such a tragedy is a good thing and not an attempt to justify the act.
As Senior Contributing Editor Caroline B. Glick suggested in her column last Friday, the fact that Breivik’s warped mind cited a group of conservative thinkers including herself as having influenced his thinking in no way reflects on them.
“As a rule, liberal democracies reject the resort to violence as a means of winning an argument. This is why, for liberal democracies, terrorism in all forms is absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote. “Whether or not one agrees with the ideological self-justifications of a terrorist, as a member of a liberal democratic society, one is expected to abhor his act of terrorism. Because by resorting to violence to achieve his aims, the terrorist is acting in a manner that fundamentally undermines the liberal democratic order.”
In today’s paper, we are publishing an opinion piece by Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, in which he thanks Israeli leaders “for their kind and comforting words” but expresses dismay over comments made by two Jerusalem Post columnists.
At the same time, he titles his column, “A time to heal.”
We echo his wish, and hope that the Norwegian government and people will accept the Post’s apology and forgive us for any offense or hurt caused by our editorial and columnists at this sensitive time.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store has attacked Professor Barry Rubin for allegedly labeling as 'pro-terrorist' the Utoya youth camp, at which 76 young people were murdered by a normal Norwegian boy. I'll come to Barry's response in a minute, but first let's look at what Store said (via Daily Kos, which takes the opportunity to pile on and bash Barry).
Rubin's claims are outrageous, and I'm not going to comment on them in any length. I will just say that the Labour Party and the AUF do not support terrorism in any way. They are not extremists.
You all know better than that. The Labour Party and the AUF do not support terrorism in any way... unless it's 'Palestinian' terrorism directed at Israeli Jews.
Svein Sevje said in an Israeli newspaper interview Tuesday that while the Norwergian bomb and gun rampages that killed 76 people and Palestinian attacks should both be considered morally unacceptable, he wanted to "outline the similarity and the difference in the two cases."
Palestinians, the ambassador told Maariv, "are doing this because of a defined goal that is related to the Israeli occupation. There are elements of revenge against Israel and hatred of Israel. To this you can add the religious element to their actions."
"In the case of the terror attack in Norway, the murderer had an ideology that says that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is forgoing Norwegian culture," Sevje said, referring to suspect Anders Breivik, a Christian nativist who is opently anti-Islam and anti-immigration.
If that's not supporting terrorism, I don't know what is.
1. Am I justifying the murders and saying they were well-deserved? Of course not.
I don't in any way believe such a thing. These were as I've said from the beginning terrible acts of terrorism. In the article you will see my explicit argument that nobody should be a victim of terrorism even if they support politically a group committing terrorism. Since my argument is that NO terrorism--defined as the deliberate murder of civilians as part of a conscious political strategy--is acceptable, why would I justify the cold-blooded murder of dozens of unarmed, non-violent people in Norway?
To justify it I would have to be saying that I supported the murder of young people because I disagree with their political views or those of their elders. That would be insane though, of course, that is precisely what actual terrorists do. And many "respectable" people wrote in various ways that the September 11 attacks on America were "well-deserved." That was precisely the kind of thing I had in mind as something dangerous and to be condemned when writing the article.
2. In short, since the entire purpose of the article is to urge a universal condemnation of terrorism and to ensure that it doesn't bear political profit, I had no intention of endorsing terrorism in this case! The point of the article can be simply stated as follows: It is a dangerous thing to empower or reward terrorism anywhere because that makes terrorism seem a successful strategy and thus encourages more terrorism. If you argue politically that terrorists are justified in the Middle East or, to put it a different way, that they aren't terrorists at all, you are making terrorism more likely to happen. It is tragic--not justifiable or deserved but horrible--that such people or such a country then becomes the target of terrorism.
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4. If Hamas uses a strategy of terrorism and then gains Western sympathy and help, then Hamas and other groups will conclude that terrorism works. Thus, more terrorism will take place and more innocent victims murdered. It is not true to say that I claimed any group in Norway applauded terrorism against Israelis. They either did not define it as terrorism, did not take it into account as a factor to be considered, or supported groups despite the fact that they used massive terrorism. Indeed, Norway's ambassador himself said that people in his country viewed terrorism as only a response to occupation while the main newspaper attacking me repeatedly denied--and denies--that Hamas is a terrorist group.
5. I never said and don't believe that the camp in Norway was a terrorist training camp. A terrorist training camp is a place where people are trained to use guns, explosives, and various methods to stage military attacks and then escape afterward. What went on in the camp in Norway was purely conversational, theoretical, and political. That's obvious.
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9. My goal is to reduce the frequency and effectiveness of terrorism and to reduce the number of victims. This article was written in that spirit--to save lives in future. It is based on 35 years of work on this issue and following it on a daily basis. When those who attack me--overwhelmingly one faction within Norway--insist that Hamas is not a terrorist group and thus distinguish between "justified" terrorism and "non-justified" terrorism they are doing what I'm being accused of doing. By the way, that is precisely the same way that Norway's ambassador to Israel characterized the view of people in that country (as I quote in my article).
Anders Behring Breivik didn't need any of the Right wing thinkers and bloggers that the Left is trying to tag with the blame for his bombing in Oslo and shooting rampage on Utoya Island. He came to it all by himself. In fact, his father was a Norwegian diplomat who was affiliated with the same Labor party whose youth movement members were targeted by Breivik.
For many Norwegians, still numbed by the worst violence in the country since World War Two, the fact the alleged killer looked and acted so normally is one of the most disturbing aspects of the attacks.
"What keeps me awake at night is that he is not a monster," wrote Peter Svaar, a Norwegian journalist who was at school with Breivik as a young teenager. "He is a normal Norwegian boy."
Most of those close to Breivik have gone to ground since the attacks of July 22. Phones are left answered and a policeman who answered the door of Breivik's mother's upmarket Oslo house simply smiled and said "There's no one home."
And while some of those prepared to speak say there was always something odd about the quiet, serious young man, others insist they saw no warning signs at all.
"He was a normal, well-behaved Norwegian boy," his former stepmother Tove Oevermo told Reuters in a short telephone interview. "There were no signs."
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Breivik's upbringing was remarkably privileged, even by Norwegian standards. He went to the same Oslo primary school as Crown Prince Haakon, who was a few years older.
At Handelsgymnasium, a high school in central Oslo where parents of new students are treated to an organist playing music by Edward Elgar, Breivik would have been surrounded not only by a keen sense of tradition but by his country's future business and political leaders.
"I haven't really had any negative experiences in my childhood in any way," Breivik himself wrote of his upbringing.
But some of those who knew him say that even as a child Breivik always pushed the limits.
"He seemed a tough guy who could do things that were unthinkable for us. Like spitting in the cellar, urinating in the neighbour's storeroom and took great pleasure in killing ants," Lina Engelsrud, a childhood friend who knew him from roughly the age of 3 to 14 wrote in Aura Avis, a local newspaper.
Crime researchers speculate that Breivik may have struggled to cope with the absence of a high-achieving diplomat father who abandoned the family when his son was only one. Jens Breivik worked for the Foreign Ministry from 1966-96, ministry spokesman Frode Andersen said. Breivik senior served postings in London, Tehran and Paris before retiring in France.
Jens and his new wife Tove -- another career diplomat -- briefly sued for custody of the young Anders, he writes, but lost the case. He occasionally visited them in France, he says, but grew up with his mother Wenche, a nurse, and her new husband, a Norwegian army officer.
Breivik says his youth was dominated by strong "matriarchal" figures he worries "feminised" him, devoting a significant proportion of its manifesto to bemoaning the decline of conventional "fatherhood" in western Europe in general.
"The absence of fatherhood has created a society full of social pathologies, and the lack of male self-confidence has made us easy prey to our enemies," he said. "If the West is to survive, we need to reassert a healthy dose of male authority."
Contact with his father was broken off completely, Breivik says, after he got into trouble for graffiti during his teens -- although he remained in contact with his stepmother. He said his father had also isolated himself from his other four children "so it is pretty clear whose fault that was". Breivik talks of his occasional desire for a rapprochement, but says it never happened.
Speaking to Norwegian television from France after the attack last month, Breivik's father said he sometimes wished his son had killed himself rather than attack others.
"Maybe he felt he was not as good as his father, but this is just speculation," Ragnhild Bjoernebekk, a researcher at Norway's police school who specialises in crime and violence, told Reuters.
So whom else can we blame for this 'normal Norwegian boy' turned killer? Read the whole thing.
I have received three letters from Norway shocked and angry [along with one that understands my theme and provides additional information reinforcing it.] that I allegedly wrote that the victims of the terrorist attack in Norway were terrorists or supported violence. That was not in any way my intention nor did I do such a thing. These people misread my point--perhaps because they were expecting that is what I was going to say.
And that's why I wrote the opening three paragraphs to make it crystal clear. Read especially the second paragraph where the issues is stated clearly:
"One of the most sensitive aspects of the very sensitive subject of the murderous terrorist attack in Norway by a right-wing gunman is this irony: The youth political camp he attacked was at the time engaged in what was essentially (though the campers didn’t see it that way, no doubt) a pro-terrorist program.
"The camp, run by Norway’s left-wing party, was lobbying for breaking the blockade of the terrorist Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state without that entity needing do anything that would prevent it from being a terrorist base against Israel. They were backing and justifying forces that had committed terrorism against Israelis and killing thousands of people like themselves.
"Even to mention this irony is dangerous since it might be taken to imply that the victims “had it coming.” The victims never deserve to be murdered by terrorists, even any victims who think that other victims of terrorists “had it coming.” This is in no way a justification of that horrendous terrorist act. It’s the exact opposite: a vital but forgotten lesson arising from it that can and should save lives in future."
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Now if only the media and various political readers in Norway stop acting as if its justified when Israeli kids are murdered by terrorists we might actually make some progress against all those extremists who are practicing--and rationalizing--terrorism.
What happens when people start to believe that depending upon the cause, terrorism might be okay?
Here's an interview done by Australian television with Adrian Pracon, a survivor of the Utoya Island attack, and the country secretary of Norway's Labor party. The key part is around the 11:00 mark, but if you miss it, don't worry, because I've reproduced a summary of it below.
Among the wounded was Adrian Pracon, who was shot in the left shoulder as the gunman opened fire.
Speaking to ABC News 24 from hospital, he said the scene on the island was like a "Nazi movie" and described how he felt the heat from the barrel of the gunman's weapon.
"He was armed with a gun and he was shooting people at close range and starting to shoot at us. He stood first 10 metres from me and shooting at people in the water," he said.
"He had an M16, it did look like a machine gun. When I saw him from the side yelling that he was about to kill us, he looked like he was taken from a Nazi movie or something.
"He started shooting at these people, so I laid down and acted as if I was dead. He stood maybe two metres away from me. I could hear him breathing. I could feel the heat of the machine gun.
"He was very near. I heard a big boom and for a second I couldn't hear anything in my left ear. But I didn't think I was shot because it felt like something just hit me and peeled off. But it turned out I was shot pretty badly.
"He tried everyone, he kicked them to see if they were alive, or he just shot them.
"From what I saw he had one thing on his mind.
"Many of these bodies are laying in the water and drifting around the island.
"The shooting started at 5:00pm. The meeting we had was just half an hour sooner, so when the shooting started, from 5:00pm it was maybe two hours before we saw police, before they were circling with the helicopter and they had the situation under control.
Mr Pracon said he jumped into the water to swim for safety but turned around when he saw that the opposite shore was around 700 metres away.
"I swam back because I saw it was impossible for me to swim over. I'm very glad I did.
"Some of my friends tried to stop him by talking to him. Many people thought that it was a test ... comparing it to how it is to live in Gaza. So many people went to him and tried to talk to him, but they were shot immediately."
And this is what the Norwegians don't get. Nazis aren't just figures in movies. And in Gaza, it's not the IDF that randomly shoots civilians. It's their friends the 'Palestinians,' and you can't just talk to them. As Richard Landes notes:
These poor youth were operating on (at least) two major misconceptions: 1) that Israelis are like Nazis, and 2) that talking is enough to change a monster. Putting the two together led them to make a fatal error in reasoning. It’s as if they were operating on a radical leftist holodeck… but they weren’t.
The Oslo Syndrome encompasses all of these things but goes a step further, for the most dangerous things you can do about terrorism is to make it appear politically successful and hence a great thing to do. For terrorism is not an ideology or a movement but merely a tactic: to murder noncombatants systematically and deliberately for political ends.
If you do this, will others, including the victims, be so terrorized as to give you whatever you want? Will they ignore the moral implications and support you nonetheless? Can you successfully make the argument that you are so oppressed as to justify terrorism, as the ambassador of Norway implied is true against Israel after the killings in the summer camp? Is it possible to engage in terrorism yet convince much of the world that your victims are the real terrorists?
And if you can answer any of these questions with a “yes” then terrorism may be for you. Of course, not every worldview or movement would use it but for those who do it is a very practical issue whether using terrorism is likely to result in being reviled and killed yourself or being celebrated internationally and receiving large amounts of money.
The Oslo Syndrome can be defined the opposite of the Stockholm Syndrome. Instead of being a target of terrorism and then changing views to support the terrorists’ side, it means—individually, as part of a movement, or as an entire country—supporting the terrorists’ side then being victims of terrorism.
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Yasir Arafat spent decades as a terrorist, was applauded at the UN—after a speech in which he threatened more murder—then spent decades more as a terrorist, afterward becoming a virtual head of state and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Why should others not dream that the road to victory is paved with the corpses of deliberately murdered civilians?
If terrorist murders by Hamas and Islamists did not stop well-intentioned future leaders of Norway from enthusiastically considering them heroic underdogs, a local evil man could think his act of terrorism would gain sympathy and change Europe’s politics. After all, it has already changed the Middle East and even been sanctified by Western media, intellectuals, and governments.
When Norway’s ambassador to Israel distinguishes between “bad” terrorism in Norway and “understandable” terrorism against Israelis that opens the door to a man in Norway who thinks his country is “occupied” by leftists and Muslims?
In this sense, the most important thing about the terrorist in Norway is not that he is right-wing or anti-Islam, The most important thing is that he believed terrorism would work on behalf of his cause. After all, if he had held all of the same beliefs but didn’t think murder was a good tactic, nobody would be dead from his actions.
Read the whole thing. If you support or justify terrorism, it eventually comes back to bite you. Sadly, the Norwegians still don't get it.
It turns out that the Fatah Youth organization had participated for the last 15 years in the Norwegian summer camp at Utoya where 76 teenagers were murdered last week. But the 'Palestinians' weren't there last Friday.
The Fatah Youth group had taken part in the summer camp in the past on the Island of Utoya, near Oslo, where over 90 people were reportedly killed in a shooting spree on the Island and a bomb attack in Oslo on Friday, news reports said.
"Fatah Youth declares its consternation about the terror attack. There are no words to describe an attack against people that have been our comrades in our struggle for freedom and independence. Very few people have stood by our side as much as the Norwegian people, and particularly our AUF comrades."
"We know those who have been cowardly assassinated. Those are people that have stood for the human and national rights of the Palestinian people both in Europe and while visiting Palestine.
"Fatah Youth has participated for almost 15 years in the same summer camp and our youth has benefited by learning and sharing experiences on democracy and advocacy for peace and justice.
"We hope that those responsible for this criminal terror attack will be brought to justice. Such sick minds should not have a place in any society.
Norwegian ambassador to Israel Svein Sevje told Maariv this week that 'Palestinian terrorism' against Israel is more justified than terrorism against Norwegians. Perhaps it's time for Norwegians to wake up and smell the coffee? This is from Alan Dershowitz.
The causes of terrorism are multifaceted but at bottom they have a common cause: namely, a belief that violence is the proper response to policies that the terrorists disagree with. The other common cause is that terrorism has often been rewarded. Norway, for example, has repeatedly rewarded Palestinian terrorism against Israel, while punishing Israel for its efforts to protect its civilians. While purporting to condemn all terrorist acts, the Norwegian government has sought to justify Palestinian terrorism as having a legitimate cause. This clearly is an invitation to continued terrorism.
It is important for the world never to reward terrorism by supporting the policies of those who employ it as an alternative to reasonable discourse, diplomatic resolution or political compromise.
I know of no reasonable person who has tried to justify the terrorist attacks against Norway. Yet there are many Norwegians who not only justify terrorist attacks against Israel, but praise them, support them, help finance them, and legitimate them.
The world must unite in condemning and punishing all terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, regardless of the motive or purported cause of the terrorism. Norway, as a nation, has failed to do this. It wants us all to condemn the terrorist attack on its civilians, and we should all do that, but it refuses to live by a single standard.
Norwegian Jews worry they will be blamed for Breivik
Norwegian Jews are expressing concern over the possibility that they could be blamed for last Friday's rampage by xenophobe Anders Behring Breivik.
Yet even as they mourn along with their fellow countrymen, some Jews here are quietly expressing concern that the attack by a right-wing xenophobe who apparently sympathized with Israel may further mute pro-Israel voices in Norway, where anti-Zionist sentiment already runs strong.
In the rambling 1,500-page manifesto attributed to the alleged perpetrator of the attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, anti-Muslim diatribes are punctuated at times with expressions of admiration for Israel and its fight against Islamic terrorism.
And on Utoya island, the young Labor Party activists who were holding a retreat when Breivik ambushed them, had spent part of the day before discussing the organization of a boycott against Israel and pressing the country’s foreign minister, who was visiting the camp, to recognize a Palestinian state.
If the Norwegian public is looking for a larger villain than Breivik, Jews here are worried that Zionism and pro-Israel organizations may be singled out.
“Can the average Norwegian accept that this is the one random act of one confused ethnic Norwegian?” Ring asked. “What I’m worried about is that in the Norwegian mind it will slowly attach an antagonism to Israel.”
Joakim Plavnik, a young Norwegian Jew who works in the financial sector, said he’s already worried by news reports that have focused on the seemingly pro-Zionist parts of Breivik’s writings.
“That can potentially have very negative ramifications toward the small, vulnerable Jewish community,” Plavnik said. But, he added, “We can’t be paralyzed by that fear.”
Rachel Suissa runs the Center Against Antisemitism, a pro-Israel group that counts about 23,000 supporters and 10,000 subscribers to a quarterly journal. She said the Norwegian government’s general pro-Palestinian stance – Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store, recently said that Oslo soon would announce its support for an independent Palestinian state – makes Zionism difficult to promote here.
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Suissa said she is concerned that Breivik’s attack will make it more difficult for Israel supporters and the right-wing Christian groups she works with to express their views. But Rabbi Joav Melchior, spiritual leader of the community synagogue also known as DMT, dismissed such concerns.
“That someone … calls himself pro-Israel shouldn’t in principle change anything for us,” he said of Breivik. “We don’t feel that he’s a part of our group.”
Read the whole thing. Given what we already knew of Norway's feelings toward Jews before this happened, I would be deeply concerned if I lived there.
As many of you are already aware, San Francisco has an item on the ballot this year that would make performing a bris (circumcision) within the city limits a crime. Dennis Prager says it might be good for the Jews if that initiative passed.
If the most left-wing major city in America starts arresting Jews who have their children circumcised there, some American Jews might awaken to the threat to Jews posed by the Left. Obviously, San Francisco’s already-existing bans — on toys in Happy Meals, on soda in city-owned properties, on plastic bags, and the city’s proposed ban on the sale of pets, including goldfish — have not made many Jews (or non-Jews) wonder whether left-wing governance is dangerous. But perhaps a ban on circumcision will.
Of course, not everyone who is on the left — and certainly not the traditional liberal — is an enemy of the Jews. But, aside from Islamists, virtually all the enemies of the Jews are on the left.
The worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel (i.e., to pave the way for moral acceptance of Israel’s destruction) is virtually all on the left. Universities in America and elsewhere in the Western world, as well as the mainstream news-media outlets around the globe, are all dominated by the Left. They drum into the minds of their students, readers, listeners, and viewers that Israel is one of the worst societies on earth.
The anti-Israel propaganda on the left is so great and so effective that according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Many of the youths who survived the [Norway] massacre said they thought the killer, dressed as a police officer, was simulating Israeli crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
Yet, most American Jews still walk around thinking that Christians and conservatives are their enemies when, in fact, they are the best friends Jews have in the world today. From the present conservative Canadian government, which is probably the most vocal pro-Israel country at present, to every major conservative talk-show host in America (including the fiercely pro-Jewish and pro-Israel Glenn Beck, who has been libeled as an anti-Semite), to the leader of Holland’s Party for Freedom and member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders (one of the most eloquent pro-Israel voices in Europe today), to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page — the Right is where the Jews’ friends are.
Norwegian ambassador to Israel justifies 'Palestinian' terrorism
If you love Israel, then I guarantee you that after you read this post, you won't feel sorry for Norway anymore.
Svein Sevje said in an Israeli newspaper interview Tuesday that while the Norwergian bomb and gun rampages that killed 76 people and Palestinian attacks should both be considered morally unacceptable, he wanted to "outline the similarity and the difference in the two cases."
Palestinians, the ambassador told Maariv, "are doing this because of a defined goal that is related to the Israeli occupation. There are elements of revenge against Israel and hatred of Israel. To this you can add the religious element to their actions."
"In the case of the terror attack in Norway, the murderer had an ideology that says that Norway, particularly the Labor Party, is forgoing Norwegian culture," Sevje said, referring to suspect Anders Breivik, a Christian nativist who is opently anti-Islam and anti-immigration.
Unlike European Union states, Norway has engaged Hamas and often been fiercely critical of Israel, to Jerusalem's dismay.
While Sevje voiced sympathy for Israeli terror victims, having experienced "the inferno" of such attacks during his posting, he saw little chance of Norway reviewing its Middle East policies.
"We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel," he said. "Those who believe this will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo."
He added, "Can Israel and the Palestinians solve the problems without Hamas? I don't think so."
Norway's ambassador to Israel justifies 'Palestinian' terrorism and we're supposed to cry for the Norwegian Laborites? If the opposition Progress party ever manages to depose the scummy Norwegian Labor party, I will - bli neder (without taking a vow) - stand in the streets to hand out sweets to everyone.
If Breivik is 'Islamophobic' why did he target blonde, blue-eyed Norwegians?
I have not seen anywhere a list of those murdered by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway last Friday. But as I have noted, the mainstream media is playing up this incident as an instance of 'Islamophobia.'
Is there a connection between those two sentences? I suspect that there is. I suspect that the reason that the list of those who were murdered has not been released is because there was not a single Muslim among them. Breivik hated a lot of people. And he decided to murder a whole lot of blue-eyed, blonde Norwegians to show it. But that, of course, doesn't fit the mainstream media's preferred narrative.
Breivik’s manifesto seems to be determining the narrative in the anglophone media. The opening sentence from USA Today:
Islamophobia has reached a mass murder level in Norway as the confessed killer claims he sought to combat encroachment by Muslims into his country and Europe.
So, if a blonde blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavian kills dozens of other blonde blue-eyed Aryan Scandinavians, that’s now an “Islamophobic” mass murder? As far as we know, not a single Muslim was among the victims. Islamophobia seems an eccentric perspective to apply to this atrocity, and comes close to making the actual dead mere bit players in their own murder. Yet the Associated Press is on board:
Security Beefed Up At UK Mosques After Norway Massacre.
But again: No mosque was targeted in Norway. A member of the country’s second political party gunned down members of its first. But, in the merest evolution of post-9/11 syndrome, Muslims are now the preferred victims even in a story in which they are entirely absent. A Tweeter thinks that “turning this scumbag’s atrocity in Norway into a lesson about how Mark Steyn and his ilk are douchebags seems… opportunistic,” but that’s the least of it. Even by the elastic definitions of “Islamophobia,” the angle being pursued is bizarre and profoundly tasteless: A rambling Internet pdf is trumping the facts on the ground — trumping the specifics of what occurred, and the victims. This man Breivik may think he’s making history and bestriding the geopolitical currents and the clash of civilizations, but in the end he went and shot up his neighbors. Why let his self-aggrandizing bury the reality?
If Breivik hadn't written his manifesto, they would have had to invent it for him.
Turkey's Today's Zaman describes Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik as 'obsessed with Turkey' (Hat Tip: Joshua I).
There are 237 references to Turks and Turkey in the manifesto, but this number does not take into account the many other references to Ottoman history (written mostly focusing on the state of religious minorities) and the Seljuk Empire. He accuses the Ottoman Turks of genocide of various minorities, including the Armenians, the Orthodox Greeks and the Assyrians.
There are lengthy analyses of the Ottoman Tanzimat (Reformation) era, the Declaration of Reforms (Islahat Fermanı) period, the period under Abdülhamid II and the Committee of Union and Process government and its ruling triumvirate -- Enver, Talat and Cemal Paşa -- as well as the early republican period. After a 40-page analysis of the Ottomans and the early republican era, on page 187, he concludes: “[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan's efforts to further re-Islamize Turkey are entirely consistent with a return to Turkey's Ottoman past as the heartland of an empire established by jihad and governed by the Shariah. Indeed, both the current Erdoğan administration and the regime headed by the overtly pious Muslim [Necmettin] Erbakan a decade ago reflect the advanced state of Islam's ‘sociopolitical reawakening' in Turkey since 1950-1960, when the Menderes government, pandering to Muslim religious sentiments for electoral support, re-established the dervish orders and undertook an extensive campaign of mosque construction. Despite Frank Gaffney's apparent failure to understand this continuum of related historical phenomena, I share his acute concerns. And ultimately, we agree that Turkey's bid to join the EU should be rejected.”
The problem isn't so much with Breivik's beliefs as with the manner in which he acted upon them. Of course, the Turks may now try to use this as a weapon in their quest for admission to the European Union.
The Norwegian terror attacks have turned into an excuse to beat up on conservative, anti-Islamist bloggers. In a disgraceful piece written this morning, the New York Times all but blames Robert Spencer, Baron Bodissey and Pam Geller for the Oslo attacks.
In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.
His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.
...
In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. The author of a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism withdrawn by the department after criticism from conservatives repeated on Sunday his claim that the department had tilted too heavily toward the threat from Islamic militants.
The revelations about Mr. Breivik’s American influences exploded on the blogs over the weekend, putting Mr. Spencer and other self-described “counterjihad” activists on the defensive, as their critics suggested that their portrayal of Islam as a threat to the West indirectly fostered the crimes in Norway.
Mr. Spencer wrote on his Web site, jihadwatch.org, that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” He did not mention Mr. Breivik’s voluminous quotations from his writings.
The Gates of Vienna, a blog that ordinarily keeps up a drumbeat of anti-Islamist news and commentary, closed its pages to comments Sunday “due to the unusual situation in which it has recently found itself.”
Its operator, who describes himself as a Virginia consultant and uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.”
The name of that Web site — a reference to the siege of Vienna in 1683 by Muslim fighters who, the blog says in its headnote, “seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe” — was echoed in the title Mr. Breivik chose for his manifesto: “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” He chose that year, the 400th anniversary of the siege, as the target for the triumph of Christian forces in the European civil war he called for to drive out Islamic influence.
Marc Sageman, a former C.I.A. officer and a consultant on terrorism, said it would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”
...
Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other antijihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”
“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.
Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.
I understand that Melanie Phillips, Richard Landes and Phyllis Chesler are also mentioned in Breivik's manifesto. I can't link to the post that confirms that right now because Melanie Phillips' website has been attacked and is down right now.
Breivik did not specifically target Muslims, but the opportunists who would force their way of life on all of us are attempting to use this case as an instance of 'Islamophobia.'
None of the people cited in this article has ever called for or advocated violence. Unfortunately, others have used their writings as an excuse for it.
The picture at the top is Robert Spencer holding an Israeli flag in Berlin shortly after German authorities had removed one from someone's window.
In an editorial in Monday's paper, the Jerusalem Post urges that Friday's tragedy in Norway not be allowed to shut off criticism of the failures of multiculturalism.
Undoubtedly, there will be those – particularly on the Left – who will extrapolate out from Breivik’s horrific act that the real danger facing contemporary Europe is rightwing extremism and that criticism of multiculturalism is nothing more than so much Islamophobia.
While it is still too early to determine definitively Breivik’s precise motives, it could very well be that the attack was more pernicious – and more widespread – than the isolated act of a lunatic. Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere. While there is absolutely no justification for the sort of heinous act perpetrated this weekend in Norway, discontent with multiculturalism’s failure must not be delegitimatized or mistakenly portrayed as an opinion held by only the most extremist elements of the Right.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel have both recently lamented the “failure of multiculturalism” in their respective countries.
Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Prize laureate for welfare economics from India, has noted how terribly impractical it is to believe that the coexistence of an array of cultures in close proximity will lead to peace. Without a shared cultural foundation, no meaningful communication among diverse groups is possible, Sen has argued.
Norway, a country so oriented toward promoting peace, where the Muslim population is forecast to increase from 3 percent to 6.5% of the population by 2030, should heed Sen’s incisive analysis.
The challenge for Norway in particular and for Europe as a whole, where the Muslim population is expected to account for 8% of the population by 2030 according to a Pew Research Center, is to strike the right balance. Fostering an open society untainted by xenophobia or racism should go hand in hand with protection of unique European culture and values.
Europe’s fringe right-wing extremists present a real danger to society. But Oslo’s devastating tragedy should not be allowed to be manipulated by those who would cover up the abject failure of multiculturalism.
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
You had to know that something like this would happen. 
