Reservations expressed in Israel over next Foreign Minister in Germany

"Israeli officials also pointed out that in 2006, Westerwelle opposed the participation of German intelligence-gathering ships and naval personnel in preventing a rearming of Hizbullah as part of UN Security Council resolution 1701 that put an end to the Second Lebanon War."

Source: article by John Milner in EJP

Israeli officials have expressed reservations regarding the leader of the liberal Free Democrats party, who won Sunday’s parliament election in Germany and who is likely to become the next Foreign Minister. [...]

But according to The Jerusalem Post newspaper, some in Jerusalem are concerned about Guido Westerwelle replacing outgoing Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The 47-year-old Westerwelle was born after the Holocaust and as a member of a new generation of Germans, he did not have the same reflexive sympathy for Israel that has characterized other German leaders from the across the political spectrum.

The ‘Mölleman affair’

He joined the FDP as a teenager in 1980, rising swiftly through the ranks to become chairman in 2001 at just 40, the youngest leader amongst the big five parties in Germany.

In 2002, a top FDP politician and head of the German-Arab society, Jürgen Möllemann, distributed flyers attacking former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Michel Friedmann, who at the time was vice president of the Central Council of Jews, the umbrella group of Jewish communities in the country. He accused Friedmann of fuelling the spread of anti-Semitism in Germany, likened Sharon’s military assault on Palestinians to the practices of the Nazis and attempted to justify Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel. Mölleman, considered as an anti-Semite, was accused of pandering to the extreme right to boost his party's chances in the elections.

As the party’s head, Guido Westerwelle, failed to immediately distance himself from Möllemann and only after rising public pressure did he express regret about his attacks. Israeli officials also said that the FDP has been problematic regarding Iran, expressing opposition to sanctions against Teheran. Germany is Iran's largest European trade partner.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli officials also pointed out that in 2006, Westerwelle opposed the participation of German intelligence-gathering ships and naval personnel in preventing a rearming of Hizbullah as part of UN Security Council resolution 1701 that put an end to the Second Lebanon War.

Ford Foundation, European governments among those funding organization seeking to arrest Israeli Defense minister, Tom Gross

"It seems that these NGOs and European governments are responsible for this latest attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel and to aid those who would seek to destroy it."

Tom Gross writes in NRO :

"Following up my earlier item, Westminster Magistrates court in central London on Tuesday evening rejected a petition to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the grounds that he committed "war crimes" by defending Israel from Hamas attack. The British government intervened on Barak's behalf, submitting legal briefs to the court, and thus avoiding what would have been the most serious clash between Britain and Israel since 1948.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Al Mezan is the organization behind the British arrest efforts. Al Mezan had instructed expensive London law firms to carry them out. [1]

As noted by NGO Monitor, Al Mezan is funded by Sweden (1.1 million SEK), Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Ford Foundation, the International Commission of Jurists, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Netherlands Representative Office, the International Human Rights Funders Group/co Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Open Society Institute, Medico International and the European Commission, among others." [2]

It seems that these NGOs and European governments are responsible for this latest attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel and to aid those who would seek to destroy it.

[1] "The petition was brought by a Gaza-based human rights group, al-Mezan, on behalf of a group of 16 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Al-Mezan, in turn, instructed two London law firms - Irvine Thanvi and Natas (ITN) and Imran Khan and Partners - to represent the group. During the proceedings, the two firms applied for an international arrest warrant, claiming that Barak had committed war crimes and breaches of the Geneva Convention during Operation Cast Lead."

[2] "Donors include the NGO Development Centre (NDC - Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands), Norway, Open Society Institute (OSI), Medico International, Ford Foundation, Diakonia, Trocaire, European Commission."

Norway has decided to teach Israel a lesson

"Norway is trying to send us messages on different fronts through its talks with Hamas and intolerance toward settlements. [...] They are tough Vikings and are not intimidated, not even by Lieberman." (Alon Liel)

Source: The Jerusalem Post

FM accuses Norway of anti-Semitic policy

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Norway last week of upholding anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli policies, Army Radio reported Tuesday.

Lieberman fiercely criticized the Norwegian government during the UN General Assembly in New York, demanding answers from Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre regarding talks Oslo had been holding with Hamas. He then brought up what he termed Norway's quiet support of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating that Norwegian representatives to the UN did not leave the room during the Iranian leader's New York speech.

Lieberman also mentioned the Norwegian Culture Ministry's commemoration of Nazi-affiliated author Knut Hamsun, who had once eulogized Hitler in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten as a "warrior for mankind." In response, Støre denied the allegations of anti-Semitism, explaining that the commemoration was not political in nature and that a distinction was made between Hamsun's work and his world view.

However, former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel told Army Radio that "Norway is trying to send us messages on different fronts" through its talks with Hamas and "intolerance toward settlements."

"They are tough Vikings and are not intimidated, not even by Lieberman," concluded Liel. "[Norway] is an ideological opponent who has decided to teach us a lesson."

Lieberman first voiced his criticism of Norwegian policies in August, after a newspaper in neighboring Sweden published a controversial article accusing Israel of organ harvesting.

For more on Norway, please click HERE

ADL Calls On Spain To Reverse Disqualification Of Israeli Research Team From Solar Competition

"We hope that the Department of Energy will make clear to its Spanish partners its strong disagreement with this decision. And if Spain does not permit the Israeli team to participate, consider withdrawing its sponsorship from the competition."

NEW YORK (EJP)---The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has contacted the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the government of Spain in an effort to have the disqualification of Israeli researchers from an international competition in Madrid overturned.

Although the team of researchers from Ariel University Center of Samaria was announced as a finalist in the Solar Decathlon Europe, the Spanish government has disqualified the team from competing, apparently because the institution is located in the West Bank.

"The decision by the Spanish government to disqualify the Israeli researchers is unwarranted, biased and clearly discriminatory," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director, in a statement. "This unacceptable action introduces politics into an important scientific competition where politics has no place," he said.

Established through a joint agreement between the DOE and Spain’s Ministry of Housing, the competition has teams from around the world contending to build a solar-powered house. The prototypes will be assembled in Madrid and judged in June 2010.

In a letter to Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, ADL said his government’s claim that participation by the Israeli team would violate European Union policy relating to the West Bank was "spurious." "We are unaware of any EU policy that would support this action," ADL wrote to Moratinos. "Respectfully, we urge Spain to reverse this outrageous decision."

ADL also called on the US Department of Energy to reconsider its sponsorship of the competition should Spain refuse to reverse its decision. "We hope that the Department of Energy will make clear to its Spanish partners its strong disagreement with this decision. And if Spain does not permit the Israeli team to participate, consider withdrawing its sponsorship from the competition," the League said in a letter to US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.
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The first Solar Decathlon Europe Competition takes place in Madrid in June 2010 with the participation of universities from Europe, America and Asia.

It's a competition organized by the US Department of Energy for universities to design and build a self-sufficient house using solar power as the only source of energy.

The final phase of the competition takes place in the National Mall in Washington D.C., where the universities compete by undergoing 10 contests.
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- ADL Calls On Spain To Reverse Disqualification Of Israeli Research Team From Solar Competition
- Report: Anti-Semitism on Rise in Spain
- Spain (Angel Moratinos) Dumps Lieberman for Chavez
- Polluting the Public Square: Anti-Semitic Discourse In Spain

Norwegian university holds pro-Palestinian anti-Israel seminars

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews : NTNU seminars on the Middle East – based on research or bias?

NTNU [Norwegian University of Science and Technology], a prestigious Norwegian university, is this autumn offering a series of seminars on the Middle East. Seeing as how it’s NTNU one would normally expect only the best. Yet the series of seminars as a whole appears rather unbalanced. Clearly we will hear the Palestinian narrative, but who is there to provide the audience with Israel’s perspective? The fact that Ilan Pappé is Jewish is certainly no guarantee.

Seminar 1: Violations of international law, humanitarian rights and the Geneva convention in the wars of the Middle East? By senior researcher Cecilie Hellestveit, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo.

Readers of this blog are familiar with Cecilie Hellestveit from back in February 2009, when Islamic cleric Yusuf-al-Qaradawi of the European Fatwa Council was translated in Aftenposten as having said the following:

"Throughout history Allah has sent people against the jews in order to chastise them for their corruption. The last chastisement was implemented by Hitler. By all what he did to them, even if they have exaggerated this matter, he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. By the will of Allah, next time this will happen by the hands of the faithful."

Cecilie Hellestveit disagreed with Aftenposten’s translation. In an article in Morgenbladet the following week, she claimed that Qaradawi’s statements had been interpreted "out of context" and that read properly, Qaradawi’s statement "... is clearly rhetorically closer to JFK’s Ich bin ein berliner than with Hitler’s Der ewige Jude".

While translations often will be contested, and rightly so, the difference between Aftenposten’s and Hellestveit’s interpreations is vast and certainly ought to be examined more thoroughly. In a letter to the following edition of Morgenbladet, this is what psychologist Ragnar Kværness does, asking: "What makes a peace researcher – attached to Center for Human Rights – attempt to make hateful extremists such as Qaradawi into what she calls "wise old men in wheelchairs'?" While this one incident certainly does not make Cecilie Hellestveit unfit to speak at an NTNU seminar, it does make it obvious that her presence needs to be balanced by the presence of speakers who are less accommodating of Israel’s enemies.

Seminar 4: Ethnic cleansing of Palestine – a premise for the construction of Israel? By Professor Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter.

Ilan Pappé is increasingly popular in Norway, as we noted in this post. Yet his perspectives on the war of 1948 are hugely contested, not least by Israeli historian Benny Morris who is internationally recognized as being one of the leading authorities on the refugee crisis of 1948. The difference between the two is basically that while Mr. Pappé regards the Naqba as the direct consequence of a willed and planned ethnic cleansing which the Arab states attacked in order to stop, Mr. Morris sees the Naqba as the unintended consequence of an Arab war of aggression. These two different interpretations of the same event set the state of Israel in two vastly different roles. In selecting Ilan Pappé as a speaker NTNU is providing one of the interpretations with legitimacy, while completely disregarding the other. How is this justifiable?

Seminar 5: Norway’s role in the Israeli – Palestinian conflict Wednesday 2nd. Professor Hilde Henriksen Waage, University of Oslo

Professor Waage is the person who in Aftenposten on March 30th claimed that "For a long time something similar to a smear campaign has been conducted against Norway as the most anti-Semitic country in Europe". This claim was made after the Jerusalem Post had published an erroneous article on anti-Semitism in Norway which claimed, among other, that Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen had participated in a march on January 8th where she had cried "Death to the Jews". While this erroneous article indeed placed Norway in a bad light, one article alone does not a smear campaign make. Yet Professor Waage had no other evidence to exhibit, nor was she called upon to do so. If Professor Waage can make one single article into an entire "smear campaign", can she be trusted to give a balance view of the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflicts? (More on Professor Waage)

Seminar 6: One state, two states or federation – solutions to the conflict in the Middle East? Director Nils Butenschøn, Norwegian Center for Human Rights, University of Oslo.

When Nils Butenschøn ran for leadership of Palfront in 1976, he did so with the intention and strategy of winning "entire parties and organizations for Palestine" (here). In the words of Tarje Vågstøl’s dissertation on the history of the Palestine Movement in Norway: "The strategy was to start 'at the left' with NKP (Communist Party of Norway) and SV (Socialist Left), and then move towards the union movment and Arbeiderpartiet (Labor)". Vågstøl also narrates how Mr. Butenschøn laundered money for the PLO, telling of "... an intricate system which involved suitcases filled with thousand-kroner notes, all so the money could not be traced to the PLO". Mr. Butenschøn furthermore arranged a meeting between the PLO and the Black Panthers.

Regarding the exact topic of Mr. Butenschøn’s NTNU seminar: "One state, two states, or federation", his stance is exactly what it was when he introduced it to Norges Unge Venstre – a replication of that of Arbeiderpartiets Ungdoms Fylking’s (Labor Youth Wing) "… a progressive Palestinian state where all ethnic groups can live side by side under full equality". While Mr. Butenschøn has every right in the world to his views on how Israel should solve her problems, it must be evident from his personal history that he is a dedicated defender of the Palestinian cause more than an objective academic.

NTNU presents the seminars with the following words: "It is difficult to fashion a consistent, well funded and coherent understanding of the field (The ME conflicts). Media will never be the venue for deep thought and research-based deliberation. Thorough contemplation is something the universities must assume responsibility for. This is a contribution from NTNU".

If NTNU seriously can present the above-mentioned as speakers for a balanced seminar-series, we would very much like to see how a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel seminar-series would look like. NTNU’s rector Torbjørn Digernes would be well advised to have a closer look at what passes for "research-based" at his university.

More on the seminars :

NTNU invites Zuckermann to speak ("who on the German radio has claimed that 400 000 people were killed during Cast Lead. Read more here: German Radio Denies Gaza "Big Lie" Accusation. Notice that although Zuckermann afterwards claimed he had made a mistake, the German radio channel refused to alter the recording.")

- NTNU students protest biased seminars
- NTNU rector Torbjørn Digernes: "Seminar series is praiseworthy initiative"
- SPME: NORWEGIAN ACADEMICS CALL FOR ISRAEL BOYCOTT
- Ilan Pappé dismisses Digernes’ objectivity-defense:"We are all political"
- Stephen Walt recommended by Bin Laden, speaks at NTNU
- Criticism builds against unbalanced NTNU seminars
- NTNU student to dean: "We will not give in"
- Israeli weekly on NTNU
- Dignernes’ blog down after SPME article
- NTNU: A NORWEGIAN HATE UNIVERSITY
- Morten Levin and the serpent’s egg
- Why should Digernes resign ?

Ahmadinejad did not cross EU 'red line' with UN speech, says Sweden (EU presidency)

"Earlier this week, the European Union presidency issued a statement condemning Ahmadinejad for his statements on the Holocaust and on Israel, saying such remarks "encourage anti-Semitism and hatred"."

With such lack of coherence, no wonder there is huge disapppointment in Europe with the EU. It is impossible to know what Europe really stands for.

STOCKHOLM (AFP-EJP)--- Sweden, the country which chairs the EU, Finland and non-EU Norway stayed in the room when Ahmadinejad spoke at the UN.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not cross the "red line" that would have prompted a walkout by all EU states in his speech at the United Nations, the Swedish foreign ministry said Thursday. "There were certain criteria set for when the EU would leave the room and those criteria were not fulfilled," spokeswoman Cecilia Julin said.

Sweden currently holds the rotating EU presidency. The criteria agreed in New York before the Iranian leader spoke included denying the Holocaust and calling for the annihilation of Israel, which Ahmadinejad avoided doing this time. Even so, a number of EU states did walk out when Ahmadinejad attacked Israel, including Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary and Italy.
"We're not commenting on who left or who didn't leave," Julin said. "I think there were other reasons for other countries that decided to leave."

In his address, Ahmadinejad again took aim at Israel but without mentioning the country or Jews by name, referring only to the "Zionist regime." He accused Israel of "inhumane policies in Palestine," including genocide, and seeking to "establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions."

Suggesting there was a Jewish conspiracy, Ahmadinejad added: "It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks." He accused Jews of seeking to "establish a new form of slavery and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions."

Israel had called for a boycott of the speech, and was not present when the Iranian leader spoke.
Canada heeded the boycott call, while delegations from Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, New Zealand and the United States also left the room as Ahmadinejad began to rail against Israel, a European source said.

Earlier this week, the European Union presidency issued a statement condemning Ahmadinejad for his statements on the Holocaust and on Israel, saying such remarks "encourage anti-Semitism and hatred".

Swedish author Henning Mankell on Israel apartheid

"The comparisons to apartheid - or, more radically and these days more typically, to the Nazis. The comparison to the Nazis began to emerge in the 1970s in Western Europe and also in the Arab world, and by now it is pretty much everywhere you look." (Paul Berman, Z Word)

"What we are now experiencing is a repetition of the despicable Apartheid system that once treated Africans and coloured as second-class citizens in their own country. [...] those who advocate a two-state solution have not got it right." (Henning Mankell, Swedish writer, 2009)

Source: Swedish newspapaer Aftonbladet's cultural section (Stoppad av apartheid)

"About a week ago, I visited Israel and Palestine. I was part of a delegation of authors with representatives from different parts of the world. We came to participate in the Palestinian Literary Festival. The opening ceremony was supposed to take place at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem. We had just gathered when heavily armed Israeli military and policemen walked in and announced that they were going to stop the ceremony. When we asked why, they answered: You are a security risk.

To claim that we at that moment posed a viable terroristic threat to Israel is absolute nonsense. But at the same time, they were right. We pose a threat when we come to Israel and speak our minds about the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian population. It can be compared to the threat that I and thousands of others once were to the Apartheid system in South Africa. Words are dangerous.

That was also what I said when those who organized the conference had managed to move the whole opening ceremony to the French Cultural Centre: – What we are now experiencing is a repetition of the despicable Apartheid system that once treated Africans and coloured as second-class citizens in their own country. But let us not forget: that very apartheid system no longer exists. That system was overthrown by human force in the beginning of the 1990’s. There is a straight line between Soweto, Sharpeville and what recently happened in Gaza. [...]

What I saw during my trip was obvious: the state of Israel in its current form has no future. Moreover, those who advocate a two-state solution have not got it right."

Read the whole piece HERE
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Norway, Israel and the Jews write about Swedes:

"Swedes think Norwegians are a bunch of undisciplined cowboys. Meanwhile Norwegians see Swedes as being overly prim-and-proper and obsessed with going by the book. This prejudice is not entirely unfounded. Norway was never feudal the way Sweden was, neither was Norway industrialized, nor was Norway ever a military power as Sweden was. In short, Obedience was never beaten into Norwegians the way it was in Sweden. The political consequence is that Sweden does not challenge its political establishment but sticks to the Social Democrats (and every now and then the Moderates). Meanwhile in Norway’s 2009 election (Yesterday) the Progress Party got 22,9 percent of the votes. Troubling as the situation in Norway may be, it is generally worse over in neighboring Sweden – they are fearful of questioning authority.

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Israeli video pokes fun at Scandinavians' sense of self-righteousness
Abba in Latma's Studio (English Subs)

- Kristoffer Larsson, a Swedish theologian, backs Israeli organ theft claim
- Aftonbladet: behind the banner 'freedom of press', by Lisa Abramowicz