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By Rob Harris

Deputy Minister Torgeir Larsen in Tripoli, Dec 21, 2011. (Photo: Kjetil Elsebutangen, MFA)

This month a Norwegian news media report conveyed a message that is hardly ever addressed by the mainstream media in Europe, namely the reality of common incitement by the Palestinian Authority against Jewish people and the Jewish State. Whilst the news report focused on depictions of Israel and Jews in the Arab-Palestinian media, this is a phenomenon that affects every level of society, beginning in childhood.

The news report, carried on the state-owned TV channel NRK, interviewed Palestinian Media Watch who noted a highly divergent anti-Semitic narrative issued by the PA media in Arabic, which contrasts greatly with its peaceful international voice. A director of the TV channel that the PA control, denied that there is incitement against Israel and that Jewish people are demonised.

However, the report went on to interview numerous ordinary Arab-Palestinians who unashamedly echoed similar anti-Semitic tropes of a classical variety. The reporter even inferred that these anti-Jewish smears are very popular topics of conversation. Moreover, these ordinary folks supported the PA TV channel’s hero worship of Arab-Palestinian terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians en masse.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME3N2kZFVOk

Most interesting perhaps is the response of the Norwegian government. The Norwegian State has long been hostile to Israel, and a generous contributor to the Palestinian Authority. Secretary of State, Torgeir Larsen, acknowledged the hateful content as being accurate but effectively dismissed it because it was being provided by what he views as a politicised organisation!

NRK narrator: “Since 2008, Norway has given over 300 million kroner a year in budget support to the Palestinian Authority. [The PA] finances and partly controls PA TV. The State Secretary [Torgeir Larsen] has read PMW’s material.”

State Secretary, Torgeir Larsen: “There are examples in the book (PMW’s Deception) that clearly express hatred. There are also examples of Antisemitism, which you find in Palestinian society. But these are examples. And it’s also important for me to emphasize that those (i.e., PMW) who have put together these examples – I do not doubt the content – are part of an ongoing political battle.”

NRK narrator: “He [State Secretary Torgeir Larsen] said Norway has discussed this with the PA, but that it is not relevant to stop the Norwegian financial support [to the PA], which goes to building Palestinian institutions.”

In effect Larsen found the anti-Semitic incitement to be acceptable, and saw no reason to even threaten the suspension of Norway’s generous funding! Mainstream politicians typically reflect the political climate of a nation so it should be of little wonder that Jewish Norwegians find their country to be an increasingly inhospitable place when there is such a blithe acceptance of the very basest anti-Semitism. A study by the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities found that 12% of Norwegians in the survey expressed strongly anti-Semitic sentiments.

The report ends with a response from the Palestinian Authority representative in Norway. He denied there has ever been any element of anti-Semitism in Arab-Palestinian culture! Rather the envoy blamed the problems on Israel’s character as being that of a principally Jewish State. In other words, the PA do not want there to be any existent Jewish State! So much for the two-states for two-peoples peace process, the philosophy upon which all the attempts of peace have been founded since the UN in 1947.

Postscript

It appears that Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, has been attacked several times by the Norwegian government since a debate in Norway over incitement in the Arab-Palestinian media began.

Norwegian website Israel-What noted that criticism by government officials dismissed the material by PWM because the head of the organisation is a Jewish man that lives in the Jewish ancestral land of Judea and Samaria, better known today as the West Bank. The criticism has been made without attempting to deny the veracity of the material PWM presents because it would be rather hard to do so considering their content is derived from the Palestinian media. Rather they cast doubt on Marcus by presenting him as a nationalistic Israeli. Such posturing is indicative of how far the Norwegian powers have drifted from any form of cogent sense, thanks to their embrace of ideological Palestinianism.

Interestingly, the article points out that it has been common knowledge in Norway for some time that Norwegian State funding to the Palestinian Authority is in part used to fund media institutions that incite violence and hatred, something of which the authorities appear to be very much aware.

Just as egregious is the fact that Norway seems quite OK with a portion of its funding going to convicted terrorists that have targeted/killed Israeli civilians, as reported by Dagbladet, a popular Norwegian newspaper:

PA is the same as other countries a variety of schemes for social transfers to its citizens, including persons who are in prison. Social benefits to families of Palestinians in Israeli prisons are part of the total Palestinian welfare and social security system and is intended to compensate for loss of income. Such social transfers have been made as long as the PA has been around and have a social justification, including consideration of children in the family, writes Frode Overland Andersen in the MFA in an email.

The obsession the largely left-wing Norwegian authorities have with Israel is rather baffling. However, they intensively promote a militant Palestinian agenda, seemingly even at the behest of groups like Hamas, an organisation advocating Jewish genocide. This posturing, allied with rising anti-Semitism in the State, makes it rather unlikely that anything other than a deep malignity motivates Norway’s intent.

Rob Harris contributes articles to several websites on contentious political issues (not to be confused with the popular English novelist (1957-) of the same name). He blogs at eirael.blogspot.com. He lives in Ireland. For all the exclusive blog entries by Rob Harris, go here.