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'Israel Has Lost Its
Right To Exist'
From Jim Kirwan
12-28-8
 
My thoughts as well - because no legitimate 'state' could consider remaining outside the community of nations, for over fifty years, while using the barbaric savagery that Zionist Israel has chosen to pursue, against the original occupants of the now blood-soaked nation that was once called Palestine. Zionist Isreal 'must be dismantled' to keep the world from coming apart.
 
---Forwarded Message---
 
 
From: World View News Service 
Sent: Dec 24, 2008
To: wvns@yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Israel has lost right to exist 
 
Norway up in arms after author asserts  Israel has lost right to exist
 
By Assaf Uni
 
Haaretz Correspondent 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749493.html
 
 
An article in a leading Norwegian newspaper last weekend lambasted  Israel and Judaism and said Israel has lost its right to exist in its  present form. 
 
Entitled "God's chosen people," the article by author Jostein Gaarder  in Aftenposten is raising a storm in Norway. Gaarder, author of the  book "Sophie's World," links the Israel Defense Forces' acts in  Lebanon to Jewish history and foresees the coming dismantling of the  state as it exists today, with the Jews becoming refugees. 
 
In an interview with Haaretz Gaarder said Thursday that he was  misunderstood. "As John Kennedy declared in Germany 'I am a Berliner'  ¬ I say now 'I am a Jew,'" he said.  Advertisement 
 
The article compares Israel's government, the Afghan Taliban regime  and South African apartheid, and states, "We no longer recognize the  State of Israel" and "the State of Israel in its current form is  history." 
 
"We call child murderers 'child murderers,' and will never accept  that they have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages,"  Gaarder writes. "Shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist  strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah or  the State of Israel!" 
 
Gaarder repeatedly refers to the role Judaism plays in Israel's  territorial aspirations, writing, "We don't believe in the notion of  God's chosen people. We laugh at this nation's fancies and weep over  its misdeeds." 
 
He writes, "It is the State of Israel that fails to recognize,  respect or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948.  Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this,  there are those who want, with God's assistance, a final solution to  the Palestinian problem." 
 
The article has triggered off thousands of comments and dozens of  stormy debates in the Norwegian media. It also has sparked off a  debate about Gaarder's alleged anti-Semitic tendencies and the right  to criticize Israel.  The Jewish journalist and music critic Mona Levin spoke out in public  against Gaarder and said she was shocked by the Norwegian  government's silence. She blasted the cabinet for not denouncing what  she described as "the most appalling thing I've read since 'Mein  Kampf.'" 
 
"We're dealing with an ignorant man, a hate-filled man who derides  Judaism," she said in an interview from Oslo. Levin said it was  unacceptable that a man of such international repute (26 million  copies of his book have been sold) could attack an entire ethnic  group and that politicians would remain silent. 
 
"This is a classic anti-Semitic manifesto, which cannot even disguise  itself as criticism of Israel," said Professor Dina Porat, head of  the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti- Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University.  "The writer does not address the conflict in its contemporary context  but reaches back thousands of years to assert that the Jewish people  have traits of cruelty that have remained unchanged and account for  the current war," she says. 
 
Porat says that according to the European Union, denying Israel's  right to exist ¬ arguing that its existence is racist ¬ is an anti- Semitic statement. She also finds in Gaarder's text the use of  classic anti-Semitic symbols, like infanticide. 
 
"I've been head of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti- Semitism for 15 years and it's not every day that I get to read such  a radical document, in terms of its content and rhetoric," she said. 
 
Gaarder writes, among other things, "We do not believe that Israel  mourns 40 killed Lebanese children more than it has lamented for more  than 3,000 years 40 years in the desert. We note that many Israelis  celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the  Lord as 'fitting punishment' for the people of Egypt." 
 
He writes that the first Zionist terrorists started operating in the  days of Jesus. 
 
Speaking to Haaretz on Tuesday, a day before he stopped talking to  the media, Gaarder said he was misunderstood and emphasized that he  is a friend of Israel and the Jews. 
 
"I think what Hezbollah is doing is terrible," he said, adding that  he supports Israel's right to exist as a national homeland for the  Jews since 1948. 
 
Gaarder said he does not question Israel's right to exist, "but not  as an apartheid state." He said he could understand how his article  could be interpreted as "anti-Jewish" and admitted that if he were to  rewrite it, he would change a few things. 
 
He is aware he has hurt the Jews in Norway, he said, adding that he  would make sure the article is not translated into other languages.  However, Gaarder refused to retract publicly his main theme. 
 
Aftenposten's political editor Harald Stanghelle said he saw no  problem publishing Gaarder's article. 
 
"Of course I don't agree with what he says," he said. "But an open  debate on the issue is better than a covert one. 
 
"Gaarder's voice is important in the Norwegian discourse and it was  right to publish the article," he said. 
 
Meanwhile, the furor over Gaarder's article coincides with a series  of anti-Semitic incidents in Norway, including the desecration of an  Oslo Synagogue and cemeteries and the assault and battery of a  skullcap-wearing youngster. 
 
Quotes from article were taken from an unofficial translation 
 
===
 
Norwegian ex-premier counters anti-Semitism accusations, slams Israel Haaretz Israel  <http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=2712>http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=2712
 
 
Ex-Norwegian prime minister Kåre Willoch spoke out Thursday against  Israel and a group of Israeli scholars who earlier this week held a  symposium in Jerusalem devoted to accusing the Scandinavian countries  of racism, anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred.
 
"It's a traditional deflection tactic aimed at diverting attention  from the real problem, which is Israel's well-documented and  incontestable abuse of Palestinians," Willoch, who presided as  Norway's prime minister in the 1980s, told a Norwegian daily.
 
Willoch, a long-time critic of Israel, was reacting to accusations  leveled at an event hosted on Tuesday by the Jerusalem Center for  Public Affairs, which, as reported by Haaretz, is described by the  organizers as "probably Israel's first comprehensive discussion into  Scandinavia's approach to the Jewish people and state."
 
The English-language event attracted approximately 50 listeners,  including at least five Scandinavian journalists, who later wrote  about the event.
 
"Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Scandinavia," Dr. Manfred  Gerstenfeld, a scholar of Western European anti-Semitism from the  Center said at the symposium. 
 
Gerstenfeld, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel many years  ago from Holland, projected cartoons he had found in Norwegian  mainstream press over the past few years. 
 
One cartoon, which appeared in Dagsavisen, the same paper which  published the ex-premier's reaction, showed an ultra-Orthodox Jew  engraving "thou shall murder" into an alternative Decalogue. Another  cartoon from the daily Dagbladet showed Ehud Olmert dressed up as a  guard at a death camp, smiling and holding a rifle.
 
"These cartoons are one of many ugly anti-Semitic phenomena in  Norway," he said. 
 
"There is something wrong with a society which is willing to accept  these Nazi cartoons. With a Jewish population of only 1,300, Norway  has led the pack in anti-Semitism before, during and after WWII."
 
In his reaction, former premier Willoch said: "Anyone who accuses  Norway of anti-Semitism is closing his eyes and ears." Other  Norwegian politicians were also quoted in the article in similar  context.
 
Besides Gerstenfeld, the humble-sized event offered two more  speakers: Zvi Mazel, a former ambassador to Sweden who spoke of  a "deep-rooted" anti-Semitism in Sweden, and Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the  U.S.-born director of the Wiesenthal Center in Israel - which co- sponsored the event - who addressed Norway and Sweden's failure to  prosecute Nazi war criminals. 
 
Earlier this year, the three men contributed to a recently-published  book entitled "Behind the Humanitarian Mask," which served as the  kernel for the symposium. The book accuses the Scandinavian countries  of adhering to a form of "a white supremacist" approach, which views  non-whites such as the Palestinians as eternal victims and aid- recipients who are not responsible for their actions. 
 
The Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish ambassadors were invited  to the event but did not come. However, five Scandinavian journalists  were in attendance to counter some of the allegations.
 
"Why is criticism of Israel automatically considered anti-Semitism,"  Louise Stigsgaard Nissen, Middle East Bureau chief for the Danish  daily Berlingske Tidende, asked. "Why can't one criticize Israel as  one criticizes the U.S. without being called an anti-Semite?" 
 
While Zuroff argued that Israelis generally accept harsh criticism  when they do not suspect anti-Semitism, Gerstenfeld quoted the  European Union's definition of anti-Semitism as a double  standard. "One cannot criticize Israel for things other countries  also do while refraining from criticizing those countries," he said.
 
Another Danish reporter said that by closing Gaza to reporters when  international organizations speak of a humanitarian crisis there,  Israel was "inevitably rendering itself suspect in human rights  violations" and "inviting hostile treatment." 
 
Each such statement was received by the audience with disapproving  mumbles, until the guests began to argue aloud with the  Scandinavians - who argued right back. "It's good to see some action  around here," one JCPA regular said. "Usually these lectures end with  a few approving nods and hear-hears."
 
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