Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer offers the second part of his series of essays on the Left in Norway. In this installment, he examines the left-wing community in Norway and its sympathy for various terrorist organizations.
The terrorist supporters of the Left
by The Observer
This is the second essay in a three-part series in which I take a look at left-wing media bias in Norway, the Norwegian Left’s fraternizing with militant organizations abroad, and undemocratic elements within the Muslim community in Norway.
In the first instalment, ‘Left-wing media bias in Norway’, I looked at the Left’s stranglehold on the MSM in Norway, and how this stranglehold manifested itself in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Oslo on July 22, 2011. I also showed how the MSM tried to implicate parts of the conservative community in Norway for having emotionally contributed to these attacks.
In this essay I will take a critical look at the political Left in Norway and show that numerous individuals and organizations on the Left side of the political scale sympathize with terrorist organizations. I will also give examples of the Left’s eagerness to turn a blind eye to forces which engage in anti-democratic behaviour inside Norway.
The terrorist attacks in Oslo on July 22, 2011, were the biggest assault on Norwegian society since WW2. Needless to say, they had a huge impact on the national psyche. The left-wing community in Norway immediately demanded that conservative forces in Norway, and the Progress Party in particular, re-evaluate their political views on immigration and multi-culture, and distance themselves from what the Left labelled Muslim-hatred, once it was established that the perpetrator was a Norwegian non-Muslim ethnic male.
The Left claimed that these groups had paved the way for the atrocity. This massive broadside attack on the conservative community in Norway was wholeheartedly supported by the MSM, and it even had a distinct effect on political opinion polls that were carried out in the aftermath of the attacks. One of the consequences of this massive smear campaign was a significant drop in the support for the Progress Party which saw its support plummet to a mere 12 percent. At the same time the support for the Labour Party soared to well over 40 percent. This of course has political implications, as 2011 is an election year in Norway, and the political campaigning has started.
One thing that wasn’t debated at all in the MSM after the attacks was the widespread support within various political organizations on the Left, including the AUF (Arbeidernes Ungdomsfylking, Workers’ Youth League), for organizations which engage in terrorist activities. One is tempted to use a cliché to describe this total media silence on this issue in the days following the attacks and say that it was almost deafening. The subject was however raised by the media in Israel and it was raised on various conservative news sites in America, and in my personal opinion it was highly legitimate.
Norway’s ambassador to Israel drew distinctions between the Oslo and Utoya massacres and Palestinian terrorism.
Svein Sevje said in an Israeli newspaper interview Tuesday that while the Norwegian 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 native who is openly anti-Islam and anti-immigration.
“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.”
The views that the Norwegian ambassador expresses here are, to put it mildly, shocking and extremely disturbing. By drawing distinctions between Israeli terrorist victims and Norwegian terrorist victims he is indirectly legitimising the actions of terrorist organizations such as Hamas, which purposely targets civilians. Mr Sevje should also know that there are no such things as legitimate victims of terrorism, nor can there ever be such a thing. Victims of terrorism are by definition always innocent, and attacks that specifically target them can never be justified or excused. They has to be condemned in the strongest of terms. The ultimate consequences of Mr Sevje’s words is that anyone who is opposed to the current immigration policies of the Norwegian Government is somehow more justified, by using Mr Sevje’s own strange logic, in using terror against members of the Norwegian Government and its youth wing the AUF, because these two organizations have chosen to ‘forego’ Norwegian culture, a claim which of course is completely ludicrous.
The conservative community in Norway have been vigorously harassed in the MSM since the attacks for having ’emotionally’ contributed to the Oslo attacks, despite the fact that they have never encouraged or condoned such measures. The conservative community have in fact strongly condemned it and never attempted to make any excuses or find any mitigating circumstances that could be construed as indirect support for the terrorist. But still they have been harangued for it in the MSM. Mr. Sevje on the other hand, who in this interview makes a distinction between Israeli and Norwegian terrorist victims are given the all clear by the Norwegian MSM, and the episode is allowed to pass ‘unnoticed’ in the Norwegian press.
Another thing that is disturbing in this interview is that Mr Sevje legitimises Hamas as a worthy partner for dialogue. He’s claiming that no peace can be achieved without Hamas at the negotiation table. Mr. Sevje ought to know that it’s completely unacceptable to enter into negotiations with terrorists. I wonder if Norwegian authorities would be willing to sit down and talk to Breivik’s accomplices, if such do exist, or whether they would be willing to accept land for peace in order to dissuade terrorists from future attacks on innocent Norwegian youths. I don’t think the authorities in Norway would even contemplate such a scenario. So why is Mr Sevje suggesting that the Israelis should have to do so?
Mr. Sevje’s response to Maariv does however give us an insight into the mentality of the Norwegian left-wing community. They believe that different rules should be applied to the state of Israel. They insist that Israel must acknowledge the moral right of Palestinian terrorists to attack Israel, because the Palestinian ‘struggle’ is somehow justified. In this case they believe that the end result justifies the means, which of course it doesn’t. But in the ambassador’s defence, he’s just conveying the official government line. In January 2011 it was revealed that the Norwegian foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, had been involved in talks with the leadership of Hamas, an organization that the EU, Israel and USA have classified as a terrorist organization. When Støre was confronted with this in an interview with Norwegian TV2, his first reaction was to try and deny it, but he was forced to admit that the talks had occurred after the interviewer presented indisputable evidence that such talks had taken place.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has admitted to Norway’s national commercial television channel TV2 that he’s had direct contact with the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, even though Norway officially only has contact with Hamas at a bureaucratic level. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre claims his conversations with Hamas’ leader in 2007 came at the urging of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal had confirmed to TV2 that he has had several phone conversations with Støre. Hamas has won voter support among the Palestinians, not least for its social welfare work among the poor, but is also an Islamic and paramilitary organization that has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and took control of Gaza by force. The US, the EU and Israel consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization.
It is hard to fathom how a Norwegian Politician could even think to engage in talks with an organization which deliberately targets Israeli civilians and that doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. It’s also incomprehensible that a Norwegian politician could engage in talks with an organization that is actively propagating vile anti-Semitism and brainwashing young Palestinian children to hate Israel and loathe the Jews. In light of the terrorist attacks in Norway it’s also hard to understand how a Norwegian politician would so easily give legitimacy to a terrorist organization such as Hamas by engaging in a dialogue with its leaders.
Jonas Gahr Støre and the Norwegian political leadership are rightly horrified by the terrorist attacks in Norway, but they apparently had no qualms about approaching Breivik’s counterparts in the Middle East, a militant organization that has previously carried out horrific terrorist attacks inside Israel. How can the red-green Coalition Government in Norway even attempt to justify such a travesty? And why haven’t they joined the EU and US in classifying Hamas a terrorist organization? It’s absolutely disgusting and revolting. Israeli terrorist victims are just as innocent as Norwegian terrorist victims. The fact that Støre and Norwegian politicians would sink this low is a slap in the face of the families of all the Israeli terrorist victims that have died as a result of Hamas attacks, and it is by no means any less offensive than a foreign government wanting to engage in a dialogue with Breivik’s partners, if they exist.
But for those of us that have followed Norwegian politics for a while it doesn’t come as a big surprise. There is no question that large portions of the political Left in Norway have strong anti-Semitic views which are disguised as opposition to the policies of the state of Israel. According to Wikileaks documents even the US ambassador to Norway, Benson K. Whitney, shared this view. In a memo from 2009 he wrote:
Although the Government of Norway would deny it, there are clear signs that contacts with Hamas go beyond a tactical desire for dialogue to a level of sympathy for Hamas positions. The FM once told DCM for example that one could not expect Hamas to recognize Israel without knowing which borders Israel will have. While the Foreign Minister expresses some sympathy for the Hamas position only in unguarded moments other prominent Norwegians go further.
Another sign of the Norwegian left-wing authorities’ willingness to associate themselves with Hamas came in 2006, when they issued a visitor’s visa to the Hamas parliamentarian Yeahya al-Abadsa. This was done despite massive protest from both the US and Israel, which rightly pointed out that a terrorist organization such as Hamas shouldn’t be granted such a privilege. But the Norwegian red-green coalition Government chose to ignore this advice and issued the visa anyway. The Hamas representative had already been denied entry to the EU, but he was allowed to come to Norway. Mr Abadsa arrived on June 13, 2006, and had conversations with members of the Norwegian Foreign relations committee in the Norwegian Parliament. Prior to the visit several parliamentarian members from both the Labour Party and the Socialist Left had expressed a strong desire to meet with members from Hamas.
According to the leader of the Foreign Relations Committee, Olav Akselsen, Yeahya al-Abadsa seemed positive towards the Norwegian views. He indicated that Hamas is willing to look at those parts of the PLO Charter that dictates the destruction of the state of Israel. “He also told the committee that the Charter is no longer valid. Hamas’ point of view is that it is Hamas who are responsible for the situation in the Palestinian territories. Al-Abad also said that Hamas don’t accept the charter, and that they didn’t get elected on this issue,” says Akselsen.
Again it’s frightening to see how willingly the Left in Norway associate themselves with organizations that engage in terrorist activities. Notice also the casual reference made by Mr. Akselsen regarding the PLO charter that dictates the destruction of the state of Israel. Just the mention of this charter should sound some serious alarm bells with these politicians. It’s a declaration to commit genocide. Individuals such as Mr. Al-Abadsa should be shunned and certainly not be dignified with a visit to the Norwegian Parliament.
But then again this tendency to turn a blind eye to what these terrorists really stand for seems to be endemic within the extreme left community in Norway. Prominent members of this faction will always passionately criticize Israel for the slightest perceived human rights violation, but choose to keep their mouths shut when it comes to Palestinian terror, fervent anti-Semitic rhetoric and widespread use of terrorism. This willingness to turn a blind eye goes way beyond intellectual dishonesty and can only be called by its proper name, which is anti-Semitism.
One of the best examples of the vile extreme left-wing anti-Semitism came in 2006, when the best-selling Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder wrote an opinion piece called “God’s chosen people’ in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. In this op-ed he stated that the world community could no longer recognize the state of Israel’s right to exist. This was Mr Gaarder’s response to Israel’s justified invasion of Lebanon the same year.
…There’s no turning back. It’s time to learn a new lesson: We no longer recognize the State of Israel. We could not recognize the apartheid regime of South Africa, nor did we recognize the Afghani Taliban regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Serbs’ ethnic cleansing. We need to get used to the idea: The State of Israel, in its current form, is history.
We don’t believe in the notion of God’s Chosen People. We laugh at this people’s capriciousness and weep at its misdeeds. To act as God’s Chosen People is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism.
Limits to tolerance
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as a justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the god of flora, fauna and the galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favourite and given it silly, stone tablets, burning bushes and a license to kill.
We call baby killers “baby killers” and will never accept that people such as these have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We just say: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing and shame on every terrorist strike against civilians whether carried out by Hamas, the Hezbollah or the State of Israel!
Mr Gaarder doesn’t seem to be too concerned about terrorism directed at Israeli civilians. He only focuses on what he perceives to be Israeli aggression. Mr Gaarder also doesn’t mention that Israel was justified in invading Lebanon after numerous Hezbollah incursions on its northern borders and numerous rocket attacks. Nor is there any mention of the fact that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians. Nor does he mention that the leadership of Hamas, which won in a landslide election, wants to wipe Israel off the map. Like most of his left-wing extremists cohorts in Norway, he chooses to forget those ‘troublesome’ facts that don’t fit in with his skewed view of reality.
And, unfortunately, it is in this type of environment of one-sidedness and political propaganda that the future left-wing politicians of Norway have their ideas and opinions formed. And nowhere is it more prevalent than within the ranks of SU (the youth wing of the socialist Left) and the AUF (the youth wing of the Labour Party). Former leader of the Oslo branch of the AUF, Askil Pedersen, was thrilled that Hamas won the elections in 2006 and stated that:
Hamas has won the most democratic elections in Palestine’s history, and the election results should be recognized with a state visit. Pedersen believes he will get the necessary support for this proposal from Oslo AUF, because Ariel Sharon — who is equally controversial — has previously been invited to Norway.
It wasn’t a big surprise that the AUF leader would sing the praises of this terrorist organization and invite them on an official visit to Norway to congratulate them on their victory. It just follows the pattern of AUF’s vigorous anti-Israeli bias. In a press release from 2008, the AUF takes it one step further and gives full support to Hamas and other Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’.
The AUF supports the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation and the AUF will fight for an independent Palestinian state.
It can’t be made any clearer than that. Here the AUF goes on the record and publicly stated that they support the Palestinian’s ‘liberation struggle’ and the fight for a Palestinian homeland. The result of a Hamas victory is of course the annihilation of the state of Israel. Hamas and all the other militant Palestinian organization have stated time after time that their ultimate goal is to wipe Israel off the map. And apparently the AUF is willing to aid them in this ‘struggle’. But none of this gets any mention in the MSM in Norway. In fact, a few days after the Oslo attack when the Israeli media pointed out that the AUF supported terrorism against Israel the reaction from the MSM in Norway was profound outrage over such insensitive accusations.
Further down in the press release from 2008 we get a glimpse into how the AUF aims to help the Palestinians in their ‘struggle’ against the Israelis:
“The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has indicated its intention to promote trade cooperation between Norway and Israel. The AUF is opposed to this. First and foremost because it is two-faced and it is irresponsible to increase trade with a nation that so clearly violates human rights and international law. Israeli foreign trade enables the country to maintain the occupation and the AUF demands that the Norwegian government stop its plans. The AUF suggests that the government should start working on an international boycott campaign of Israel. For a country that is so heavily dependent on foreign trade and good relations with the rest of the world, a boycott could be the reaction that is necessary for political change to occur. We saw this with the Apartheid regime in South-Africa, and if the international community come together and join this initiative this could help bring down the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank. The AUF demands that: The Government stop the Foreign Ministry initiative to promote trade cooperation with Israel. That the Government should start working for an international boycott of Israel. That the Government sell its shares in the two French companies Alstom and Veolia immediately and raise the issue with Israeli authorities. That the Government stop all its investments in the Israel Electric Company.
Of course some members of the AUF are less vocal in their opposition to Israel, but the organization itself is what I would label highly anti-Semitic. Former AUF leader Gry Larsen was infamous for her hatred of Israel and she was actually declared an enemy of the state of Israel. In 2003 she was arrested along with another AUF member at the airport in Tel Aviv. She was denied the right to enter the country and eventually deported. It’s also worth pointing out that after leaving the AUF, Gry Larsen landed a job as a political advisor in the Norwegian foreign ministry working closely with Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre, up until she quit in 2009.
Gry Larsen was declared an enemy of Israel in 2003. Later that same year she was stopped at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv when she tried to visit the country. After a lengthy questioning process and baggage examination, she and another AUF member were refused entry into Israel on the grounds that she was a security risk. “I was treated like a terrorist and sent home,” Larsen later told the newspaper Dagbladet. The statement was later withdrawn by Israel.
The AUF has also been a vocal supporter of the Gaza flotilla, which aims to break the Israeli navy blockade of Gaza. The AUF supported the flotilla even though it is organized by the Turkish terrorist organization IHH. And they continued to support it even after several radical passengers onboard the ships of the first Gaza flotilla physically assaulted several Israeli soldiers when these soldiers legally boarded the ships off the coast of Gaza. This is clear evidence that the AUF are willingly to support direct assaults on the Israeli state. In fact two Norwegian parliamentarians, Aksel Hagen from the Socialist Left and Stine Renate Håheim from the Labour Party were in the Norwegian ‘contingent’ who were supposed to join the latest ‘Freedom Flotilla’ in 2011.
The AUF has taken the initiative to start a petition within the social democrat community in support of the Gaza-flotilla and to demand that Israel end the illegal blockade of Gaza. “The struggle for a free Palestine is part of the Norwegian social democratic soul,” says AUF leader Eskil Pedersen. Among the names on the petition are several members of parliament from the Labour Party, representatives from trade unions, including union leader Jan Davidsen, and several candidates running in local elections, including Labour’s mayoral candidate in Bergen and member of the central committee, Martha Mjøs. “We demand that the ships be allowed to leave Greek ports, and that they be allowed into Gaza. We condemn the Israeli blockade of Gaza which imprisons 1.5 million people, and we demand that the Norwegian Government start working on having the blockade lifted,” says Pedersen.
As I have mentioned previously in this essay, the AUF is a strong supporter of the international campaign to boycott Israeli products. On the day before the massacre on Utøya Island, AUF leader Eskil Pedersen went on record and stated that:
The AUF want a unilateral Norwegian economic embargo of Israel.
“The AUF wants a more aggressive Middle East policy and we demand that Norway recognize Palestine. Enough is enough. We now need to get the peace process into a new track,” said Pedersen. The foreign minister admitted that the situation is difficult, but believes that a boycott is the wrong to proceed.
“Boycotting means that we go from dialogue to monologue. It would then be difficult to open the door the day we wish to start talking with Israel again,” said Støre.
This advocacy for an Israeli boycott campaign is of course AUF’s way of aiding ‘the Palestinian freedom fighters’ in their attempt to get rid of the state of Israel, which would be the end result if these ‘freedom fighters’ ever were to achieve their goal. But the AUF isn’t the only left-wing political organization in Norway which actively supports the boycott of Israeli products and businesses. The Socialist Left, a party which is a member of the red-green coalition Government in Norway, supported the idea of a boycott campaign and received international media attention for it in 2006.
Norway’s prime minister and foreign minister were busy with damage control tasks late this week, after one of their government’s coalition parties called for a boycott of Israeli products. And just when Israel’s own prime minister was lying gravely ill. The Norwegian government has long supported Israel and has been active in years of attempts to broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. That’s what Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg tried to stress, when downplaying the boycott call by the Socialist Left party (SV).
The Leader of the Conservative Party, Erna Solberg, recently stated that Muslims in Norway are being treated like the Jews in post war Germany. A more truthful assertion would be that it is the extreme Norwegian Left that is acting like the Germans of the 1930’s and the recipient of their rage is Israel and the Jewish people. The hatred and the vitriolic propaganda emanating from these left-wing organizations is no better than the propaganda directed towards the Jews at that particular time. The political Left in Norway, however, don’t use the same derogatory words to describe the Jews, but they use the same poisonous rhetoric, wrapped in a poorly disguised ‘displeasure’ at Israeli policies. The Left in Norway should also consider the fact that the tactic of boycotting Jewish businesses and products was embraced by the Nazis, and any talk of such boycotts leaves a bad taste in the mouth with a lot of people.
But such arguments have no effect on the extreme radicals of the Socialist Left. In fact they’re more than willing to take it further. At a party convention earlier this year members suggested that the world community should intervene militarily if the Israeli military retaliated against Palestinians in Gaza. In this article from March 2011, we get to see how these rabid anti-Semites of the Socialist Left think and operate.
SV is open to the idea of using military force against Israel. In a proposal to the congress by a unanimous committee it is suggested that the international community could intervene militarily against Israel if the country decides to attack Gaza. The proposal that deals with Norway’s participation in the Libyan war is also open to military reactions against Israel. “The world’s credibility is undermined when actions aren’t taken against other states in the region which violate the rights of civilian populations. The world community must also respond to Israeli air attacks in the Gaza Strip,” according to the proposal.
What the members of this extreme socialist party want is for NATO troops, an organization by the way which the party is vehemently against, to carry out attacks on Israeli military personnel to protect militant Palestinian terrorists so that these can fire their missiles indiscriminately on Israeli civilian targets. The Socialist Left doesn’t even want to grant Israel the right to defend itself and its civilian population against Palestinian terrorism. This is blatant anti-Semitism, and again it shows how members of the political Left in Norway condone terror against Israeli civilians and are outraged whenever Israel retaliates.
But Mullah Krekar isn’t the only foreign terrorist living the high life in Norway. Another famous terrorist living in the country is Souhaila Andrawes, who participated in the hijacking of Lufthansa flight 181 in 1977, which resulted in the killing of the German captain. According to passengers that were onboard the plane at the time, Mrs. Andrawes acted very aggressively towards the passengers and she physically assaulted several of them. But the Norwegian authorities took pity on her and gave her a residence permit. Mrs. Andrawes now lives in Oslo.
And she isn’t the only hijacker that Norway has granted political asylum to. Norway also granted asylum on humanitarian grounds to two Iranian nationals who hijacked a Russian Aeroflot plane in 1993 and forced it to land in Norway. Like Mrs Andrawes, these hijackers also acted in a very aggressive manner during the hijacking.
It has also been revealed that Norwegian authorities gave political asylum on humanitarian grounds to 33 Taliban fighters in 2009.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the above-mentioned individuals, thousands of other criminals and potential terrorists are allowed to reside inside Norway’s borders and more are arriving every day. A question worth asking is: How many terrorists can be found among these so called ‘asylum seekers’, a hundred, or perhaps even a thousand?
Another question that raises serious doubts about the political Left’s belief in democratic principles is the violent Norwegian Marxist anarchist organization Blitz. This organization has since its inception in the early 1980’s extensively used violence and intimidation to curtail the freedom of its political opponents. And the truly shocking thing is that Blitz has since 1982 been allowed to stay in an old tenement building owned by the city of Oslo, despite the organization’s violent and undemocratic nature. Members of the Blitz movement were heavily involved in the physical assaults on members of anti-immigration organizations and for disrupting political meetings of the Progress Party in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The fact that the Norwegian authorities have chosen not to intervene and evict Blitz from their base in Oslo is clear evidence that the political left-wing establishment silently condones the Blitz’s behaviour, which may not be that hard to understand when we consider the political Left’s support for militant organizations abroad.
In the aftermath of the Oslo attacks, one Israeli political commentator suggested that Norwegian authorities’ ambiguous views on terrorism perhaps had an impact on Breivik’s decision to execute the attacks. I don’t personally subscribe to this assertion, but I believe that such a claim is just as valid as claims made by the Left that Breivik was heavily influenced by right-wing bloggers. I believe Breivik and only Breivik is to blame. There is a very distinct difference between ideas and actions.
As I mentioned previously in this essay, the left-wing community in Norway has made serious accusations against the conservative community in Norway in the aftermath of the attacks. The Left has also demanded that the conservative community re-evaluate their views in light of these attacks. I believe that it’s more appropriate to ask the Left to re-evaluate their views, and in particular their views and positions on terrorism, regardless of whether it is foreign or domestic, because neither should be supported.