"Norway’s case is unique because it is a country dominated by a political, media and cultural elite with deep-rooted anti-Israeli attitudes stemming from their political world view. It poses a threat to Israel because it may be the place where precedents are set in the campaign to delegitimize Israel." (Manfred Gerstenfeld)
Norway, Israel and the Jews reported about these "famous" Norwegians : "The posterboy for the call appears to be Egil Drillo Olsen, coach of the national football team. The rest of the names are the usual diehards, readers of this blog will recognize many of them. There is the usual apartheid rhetoric and such."
OSLO (EJP)---One hundred famous Norwegians, led by the country’s national football coach, have signed a petition demanding a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, accusing its educational institutions of “playing a key role in the occupation” and equating it with apartheid. A Norwegian ex-premier denounced their boycott call.
Egil Drillo Olsen, coach for the national Norwegian football team, recently wrote in Aftenposten, the country’s second largest paper, that the call to boycott Israel was "in line with what 90 percent of the world’s population believes. There cannot be many other opinions".
The petition is the last item in a string of similar and high-profile initiatives to have taken place in Norway over the past two years. It was signed by coach Olsen and 99 other public figures from the arts and culture, who stated that a boycott is "necessary" not only to help Palestinians, but also to "support Israelis opposing the occupation".
Norwegian former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik called the boycott call "unhelpful" and "not representative" of the current government’s policy. Bondevik, who presided over the Norwegian government for seven years over the period 1997 until 2005 on behalf of the Christian Democratic Party, added he wished to "reassure" Israelis that "boycott is not an issue in Norway".
But Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a senior researcher of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionist trends in Scandinavia, alleges Norway is a "pioneer" in the Western world promoting boycotts and hatred against Israel. Gerstenfeld, Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, notes some "uniquely Norwegian developments unparalleled elsewhere in the West".
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Paris museum : suspended Israel-bashing exhibit to re-open today
Update: according to AFP, Kai Wiedenhöfer's exhibition is to open today. It is difficult to tell because as reported "a thorough search of the museum's website on Wednesday by Israel National News did not reveal any mention of the exhibition either in French or in English, nor any indication that it was either currently being shown, or was scheduled to appear". Clever tactics by the museum.
Source: Elder of Ziyon (Paris museum suspends Israel-bashing exhibit)
I mentioned on November 10th that the Museum of Modern Art in Paris was showing an "award winning" collection of photos from the Gaza Strip meant to bash Israel. Not only were the photos biased, but the very rules of the award were created for a single purpose - to compare Israel to Nazis.
Last Sunday, a group of Zionists mobilized on Facebook to create a unique counter-protest. In the words of the leader of the group, Jean-Patrick Grumberg :
"With the active support of members of the Europe-Israel group, volunteers recruited on Facebook, and members of the JDL, leaflets was distributed on Sunday 21 November, before the exhibition opened.
The flyer was a perfectly neutral, and could not be construed as an attack. Photos, taken from Palestinian sites, with this title: "Disturbing Gaza photos." Thus, we followed the logic of the show: the audience was invited to see for themselves that there is another truth, in Gaza.
I mentioned on November 10th that the Museum of Modern Art in Paris was showing an "award winning" collection of photos from the Gaza Strip meant to bash Israel. Not only were the photos biased, but the very rules of the award were created for a single purpose - to compare Israel to Nazis.
Last Sunday, a group of Zionists mobilized on Facebook to create a unique counter-protest. In the words of the leader of the group, Jean-Patrick Grumberg :
"With the active support of members of the Europe-Israel group, volunteers recruited on Facebook, and members of the JDL, leaflets was distributed on Sunday 21 November, before the exhibition opened.
The flyer was a perfectly neutral, and could not be construed as an attack. Photos, taken from Palestinian sites, with this title: "Disturbing Gaza photos." Thus, we followed the logic of the show: the audience was invited to see for themselves that there is another truth, in Gaza.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Norwegian historians on thinner ice than Sonja Hennie after the war
Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews
Two Norwegian historians are claiming that Germany is romanticizing the occupation of Norway, when it is a fact that more Norwegian soldiers fought for Hitler than against him, that it was the Norwegian police who rounded up the Norwegian Jews, and that such a large number of Norwegian women swarmed to the Hugo Boss-dressed German soldiers that Norway ended up with more Lebensborn programs than any other occupied nation.
A current exhibiton in the German Historical Museum in Berlin is named “Hitler und die Deutsche”. It deals primarily with the Führer cult, also as it developed in Norway.
Norwegian historians take offense
Dagbladet tells of how the married couple Ms. Jorunn Sem Fure, professor at Humbolt University in Berlin, and her husband Odd-Björn Fure at the Center for Holocaust studies in Oslo, find that the exhibition “Hitler und die Deutsche” romantizes the occupation of Norway. The couple claims that the exhibit exaggerates the support the occupation found in Norway. Ms.Jorunn Sem Fure says: “Our Norwegian history of occupation is seen with German eyes – without understading for those who had been defeated”.
The Fures have sent a letter of complaint – in Norwegian – to the German Historical Museum. Since it has not yet been translated, the museum has not yet responded. (This brings to mind how Director Bodil Børset of the Hamsun centre, in a letter written in Norwegian and published in a Norwegian newspaper, invited Israeli academics to visit the centre. When the academics read about the invitation in Haaretz, they accepted it. And never heard from Ms. Bodil Børset again.)
The Fures are acting in accordance with how we Norwegians would like to be portrayed – as a people who fought heroically against the German occupiers. This is of course to a large extent also true. But regard the following:
Norwegian soldiers fought for Hitler
More (regular) Norwegian soldiers fought for Germany than against her: 5500 Norwegians donned German uniforms. This goes only for regular soldiers, if you count those who claim to have been resistance fighters during the war you end up with different figures. Some of these soldiers partook in subduing the uprising in Warszaw in 1944.
Also, it was discovered only last week that some of these Norwegian soldiers served in German concentration camps.
Additionally we might have had a Norwegian death camp at Beisfjord except nobody can say for sure since it burned to the ground at the end of the war and nobody is talking.
WWII Norway – more Lebensborn programs than any other occupied nation
Historian Helle Aarnes has written the book “Tyskerjentene” [Sleeping with the enemy] about how up to 100 000 Norwegian women had romantic entanglements with German soldiers. As a result Norway had more Lebensborn programs than any other occupied nation.
It was Norwegians who rounded up and transported the Norwegian Jews to their deaths. Not Germans. Germans merely gave the order, the Norwegian Jews were sent to their deaths by fellow Norwegians.
Norway - Cowardice: 100 youths harass 2 Israeli salesgirls
"The two Israeli girls were selling cosmetics. Their only sin was to be Israelis selling Israeli products. Whoever you are and whatever you do, please take action: show the thugs that you won’t stand for this sort of behavior, and purchase some Dead Sea cosmetics products."
The picture shows a Jewish tailor-shop in Oslo in 1940, with the graffiti saying: "Palestine calls, Jews not tolerated in Norway".
Today [19/11] 100 youths, associated with various left-of-centre groups, directed a boycott action at two Israeli girls who were selling cosmetics in a shopping mall in the the centre of Oslo.
The demonstrating youths were attending an anti-globalization seminar co-financed by among other the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and Fritt Ord. The latter is a private foundations describing its paramount objective as being to “protect and promote freedom of expression and the environment for freedom of expression in Norway” [!!!].
The demonstrating youths were attached to various left-of-centre organizations, among them: Sosialistisk Ungdom (Socialist Youth) and Rød Ungdom (Red Youth), the youth group of Rødt (Red).
The two Israeli girls were selling cosmetics. Their only sin was to be Israelis selling Israeli products. The demonstration was unannounced and therefore illegal – one is required to notify the police in advance of staging demonstrations.
Sources: NRK, Adresseavisen, VG, Document
Denmark – Israeli salesclerk shot
The picture shows a Jewish tailor-shop in Oslo in 1940, with the graffiti saying: "Palestine calls, Jews not tolerated in Norway".
Today [19/11] 100 youths, associated with various left-of-centre groups, directed a boycott action at two Israeli girls who were selling cosmetics in a shopping mall in the the centre of Oslo.
The demonstrating youths were attending an anti-globalization seminar co-financed by among other the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and Fritt Ord. The latter is a private foundations describing its paramount objective as being to “protect and promote freedom of expression and the environment for freedom of expression in Norway” [!!!].
The demonstrating youths were attached to various left-of-centre organizations, among them: Sosialistisk Ungdom (Socialist Youth) and Rød Ungdom (Red Youth), the youth group of Rødt (Red).
The two Israeli girls were selling cosmetics. Their only sin was to be Israelis selling Israeli products. The demonstration was unannounced and therefore illegal – one is required to notify the police in advance of staging demonstrations.
Sources: NRK, Adresseavisen, VG, Document
Denmark – Israeli salesclerk shot
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Durban III: Anne Bayefsky criticizes Belgium lead role on behalf of the 27 European Union countries
“Is Germany going to stand side-by-side with a Holocaust denier [Ahmadinejad] having genocidal ambitions and claim this is the right forum by which to combat racism and xenophobia?”
"Responding to Bart Ouvry’s [a spokesman for Belgium’s Foreign Ministry] statements, Bayefsky told the Post that some EU states had opted not to participate in Durban II before Ahmadinejad speech. Those states, Bayefsky said, “did not leave only as a consequence of Ahmadinejad. They pulled out in advance because they recognized that the Durban Declaration and its followup processes harm the cause of combating racism...” [...] Bayefsky said Belgium was pushing the Durban Declaration against Israel and the commemoration event. If Belgium sought to fight racism, “there would be no need to make any mention of the Durban Declaration. They could adopt a statement against racism and refer to the convention on the elimination of all forms racial discrimination,” she said."
US doesn't support UN plan to hold Durban III next year
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL AND JORDANA HORN, TJP
10th anniversary event mooted for Sept. in NY at UN headquarters; ADL, pro-Israel NGOs appalled by idea of celebrating ‘notorious’ 2001 meeting.
A commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Durban I antiracism event is slated to take place in September 2011 at UN headquarters in New York, a source familiar with the plans told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
But Patrick Ventrell, a spokesman for the US Mission to the UN, told the Post on Thursday, “The US does not support the decision to hold the 10th anniversary of the Durban I Conference in New York City in September 2011. We do not believe it would be an appropriate time and venue.”
According to the UN insider, “Negotiators Tuesday spent time arguing about the date. Western states tried to object to September 21 on the basis that there were plans for other events already that day and GA [General Assembly] resolutions are never specific about dates so the issue should be left to future negotiations.”
Next year’s conference is intended to honor the initial Durban I event in South Africa and the follow-up Durban II review conference in Geneva last year. [The US, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland walked away from Durban II because the event was tainted by anti-Semitism and disparate treatment toward Israel.]
Officially known as the World Conference against Racism 2001, Durban I was marred by anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel’s right to exist. Last year’s Durban II showcased Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tirades against Israel as well as his denial of the Holocaust.
According to Natalie Kohli, senior adviser for the UN’s Human Rights Council Review, opposition to the commemoration is expected from the US, Israel, Canada, Australia and others.
Belgium is taking a lead role in negotiating on behalf of the 27 European Union countries regarding Durban III.
The Post learned that South Africa is pushing for a September 21, 2011, date, when most heads of state would be in New York for the annual session of the US General Assembly.
When asked whether Germany planned to participate in the Durban commemoration event, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Post via e-mail on Tuesday, “The discussions on the annual UN anti-racism resolution and the questions raised in this connection regarding a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Durban conference are currently still taking place in New York. Therefore, the outcome of the discussions cannot be anticipated at this time.”
The spokesman added, “The federal government is working actively within the UN against the misuse of the justified issue of the international fight against racism. This is also its position during the current negotiations.”
After considerable public pressure and media editorials urging Germany to boycott Durban II in 2009, then-foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier pulled the plug on Germany’s involvement in the Geneva Durban II event at the eleventh hour.
Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an expert on international human rights law, told the Post on Wednesday that the German Foreign Ministry’s statement was “shockingly misleading.”
“Last year, Germany voted against the resolution which decided specifically to hold a ‘Durban III,’ which nevertheless passed handily,” Bayefsky said. “Last year’s resolution also decided the event would be held in September 2011 in New York City, and would be scheduled during the opening days of the General Assembly so that heads of state and of government could be pressured into coming.
“The bottom line is, Germany has followed the decision to hold Durban III and the process of fleshing out the event details closely,” she said. “It is fully aware of precisely what can be anticipated from the current negotiations, since it knows full well that those meetings are fiddling at the edges and have no bearing whatsoever on the decision to have the event, which has already been made. Germany voted with their feet at Durban II, and voted against the resolution on Durban III last year.
“So why is Germany feigning ignorance days before they have to cast a vote on the details of the same meeting to which they objected the year before? Germany knows that Iranian President Ahmadinejad opened Durban II and that he will certainly come to Durban III along with his usual participation at the opening of the General Assembly.
"Responding to Bart Ouvry’s [a spokesman for Belgium’s Foreign Ministry] statements, Bayefsky told the Post that some EU states had opted not to participate in Durban II before Ahmadinejad speech. Those states, Bayefsky said, “did not leave only as a consequence of Ahmadinejad. They pulled out in advance because they recognized that the Durban Declaration and its followup processes harm the cause of combating racism...” [...] Bayefsky said Belgium was pushing the Durban Declaration against Israel and the commemoration event. If Belgium sought to fight racism, “there would be no need to make any mention of the Durban Declaration. They could adopt a statement against racism and refer to the convention on the elimination of all forms racial discrimination,” she said."
US doesn't support UN plan to hold Durban III next year
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL AND JORDANA HORN, TJP
10th anniversary event mooted for Sept. in NY at UN headquarters; ADL, pro-Israel NGOs appalled by idea of celebrating ‘notorious’ 2001 meeting.
A commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Durban I antiracism event is slated to take place in September 2011 at UN headquarters in New York, a source familiar with the plans told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
But Patrick Ventrell, a spokesman for the US Mission to the UN, told the Post on Thursday, “The US does not support the decision to hold the 10th anniversary of the Durban I Conference in New York City in September 2011. We do not believe it would be an appropriate time and venue.”
According to the UN insider, “Negotiators Tuesday spent time arguing about the date. Western states tried to object to September 21 on the basis that there were plans for other events already that day and GA [General Assembly] resolutions are never specific about dates so the issue should be left to future negotiations.”
Next year’s conference is intended to honor the initial Durban I event in South Africa and the follow-up Durban II review conference in Geneva last year. [The US, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland walked away from Durban II because the event was tainted by anti-Semitism and disparate treatment toward Israel.]
Officially known as the World Conference against Racism 2001, Durban I was marred by anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel’s right to exist. Last year’s Durban II showcased Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tirades against Israel as well as his denial of the Holocaust.
According to Natalie Kohli, senior adviser for the UN’s Human Rights Council Review, opposition to the commemoration is expected from the US, Israel, Canada, Australia and others.
Belgium is taking a lead role in negotiating on behalf of the 27 European Union countries regarding Durban III.
The Post learned that South Africa is pushing for a September 21, 2011, date, when most heads of state would be in New York for the annual session of the US General Assembly.
When asked whether Germany planned to participate in the Durban commemoration event, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman told the Post via e-mail on Tuesday, “The discussions on the annual UN anti-racism resolution and the questions raised in this connection regarding a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Durban conference are currently still taking place in New York. Therefore, the outcome of the discussions cannot be anticipated at this time.”
The spokesman added, “The federal government is working actively within the UN against the misuse of the justified issue of the international fight against racism. This is also its position during the current negotiations.”
After considerable public pressure and media editorials urging Germany to boycott Durban II in 2009, then-foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier pulled the plug on Germany’s involvement in the Geneva Durban II event at the eleventh hour.
Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and an expert on international human rights law, told the Post on Wednesday that the German Foreign Ministry’s statement was “shockingly misleading.”
“Last year, Germany voted against the resolution which decided specifically to hold a ‘Durban III,’ which nevertheless passed handily,” Bayefsky said. “Last year’s resolution also decided the event would be held in September 2011 in New York City, and would be scheduled during the opening days of the General Assembly so that heads of state and of government could be pressured into coming.
“The bottom line is, Germany has followed the decision to hold Durban III and the process of fleshing out the event details closely,” she said. “It is fully aware of precisely what can be anticipated from the current negotiations, since it knows full well that those meetings are fiddling at the edges and have no bearing whatsoever on the decision to have the event, which has already been made. Germany voted with their feet at Durban II, and voted against the resolution on Durban III last year.
“So why is Germany feigning ignorance days before they have to cast a vote on the details of the same meeting to which they objected the year before? Germany knows that Iranian President Ahmadinejad opened Durban II and that he will certainly come to Durban III along with his usual participation at the opening of the General Assembly.
Friday, 19 November 2010
European blood libel and lie of the day
This serves to show that it is virtually impossible to turn the anti-Israel/Jewish trend in Europe and that Jews like George Sluizer play an important part in the demonization of Israel process in Europe. The media are only too eager to spread stories like these. Sluizer, until now unknown to the vast majority of Europeans, has become instantlly a famous man, a celebrity.
Source: Elder of Ziyon and Haaretz
"Dutch media this month published articles accusing Ariel Sharon of murdering Palestinian children in Lebanon. Former officials who worked with Sharon said the publications were false. The Israeli foreign ministry called the claim "a modern blood libel".
The claim first appeared in the Volkskrant, the third largest paper in the Netherlands, in an interview with the well-known Dutch-Jewish director George Sluizer. According to Sluizer, 78, he witnessed Sharon killing two Palestinian toddlers with a pistol in 1982 near the refugee camp Sabra-Shatilla while filming a documentary there.
"I met Sharon and saw him kill two children before my eyes," said Sluizer, who lives in Amsterdam. Sluizer repeated the accusation in an interview for Vrij Nederland, an intellectual magazine, published on November 13 ahead of a screening of his film at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. "Sharon shot two children like you shoot rabbits, in front of my eyes," he said.
The children, according to Sluizer, "were toddlers, two or three years old. He shot them from a distance of 10 meters with a pistol that he carried. I was very close to him." Sluizer added he thought this happened in November, when Sharon was Israel’s minister of defense, but he was not sure of the month.
His account was published in a special Volkskrant supplement for the film festival, which opened on Wednesday. The festival featured Sluizer’s fourth and most recent film about Israel, in which he is filmed telling a Sharon effigy that he wished Sharon would have died at Auschwitz."
Source: Elder of Ziyon and Haaretz
"Dutch media this month published articles accusing Ariel Sharon of murdering Palestinian children in Lebanon. Former officials who worked with Sharon said the publications were false. The Israeli foreign ministry called the claim "a modern blood libel".
The claim first appeared in the Volkskrant, the third largest paper in the Netherlands, in an interview with the well-known Dutch-Jewish director George Sluizer. According to Sluizer, 78, he witnessed Sharon killing two Palestinian toddlers with a pistol in 1982 near the refugee camp Sabra-Shatilla while filming a documentary there.
"I met Sharon and saw him kill two children before my eyes," said Sluizer, who lives in Amsterdam. Sluizer repeated the accusation in an interview for Vrij Nederland, an intellectual magazine, published on November 13 ahead of a screening of his film at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. "Sharon shot two children like you shoot rabbits, in front of my eyes," he said.
The children, according to Sluizer, "were toddlers, two or three years old. He shot them from a distance of 10 meters with a pistol that he carried. I was very close to him." Sluizer added he thought this happened in November, when Sharon was Israel’s minister of defense, but he was not sure of the month.
His account was published in a special Volkskrant supplement for the film festival, which opened on Wednesday. The festival featured Sluizer’s fourth and most recent film about Israel, in which he is filmed telling a Sharon effigy that he wished Sharon would have died at Auschwitz."
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Israel Bashing: A Multicultural Conference in Belgium Hijacked By Islamists
Source: Brussels Journal (A Multicultural Conference Hijacked By Islamists, by Luc Van Braekel)
During the last weekend of October, a conference in Antwerp got a lot of resonance in the Arab world. The same conference was virtually ignored in Belgium, even within the local Muslim community. "The place of Islam in the new Europe" was the title of the conference which was widely reported on Al Jazeera (see video below this article) and the Moroccan newspaper Le Matin. In Belgium, only Gazet van Antwerpen published a short article on the local pages in three of its six regional editions. Make no mistake: this was a conference to promote multiculturalism and mutual understanding between the Islamic world and Europe. The conference was organized by the Institute for Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies of the University of Antwerp, abbreviated as "IMaMs".
CHAOTIC
The conference was announced as a big event, but its course was chaotic. Jacques Attali was announced as the keynote speaker, but he didn't come. The program and the panelists were very different from what was announced in the invitation, and a complete schedule was distributed on paper only halfway through the conference. What should have been a conference on an academic level, turned out to be an event with very few high-level scholars and with very few references to scientific studies, statistics or serious references.
REFERENCE TO NAZI SCIENTIST
Already at the opening session, the first blunder was heard, even though most of the audience never noticed it. Speaker Muhammad Bensalah highlighted the contribution of Islam to European civilization, and suggested that few Western scholars fully recognized the Islamic contribution without covering it up. He named three: the American John Esposito, the German Sigrid Hunke and the Belgian George Sarton. Now, Sigrid Hunke was an employee of the scientific department of the SS under the Nazi regime, where she was researching racial psychology. In that position she came in contact with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who openly advocated the extermination of the Jews. In her book "Allahs Sonne über dem Abendland" ("Allah's sun over the Occident") she asserted that the roots of European civilization were not Christian, but are a mix of Islamic, pagan-Celtic and Germanic elements. She illustrates this argument with now discredited theories like the sea map of Piri Reis allegedly used by Columbus, and the fact that in German and Dutch one does not say "twenty three" but "three twenty" (Dreiundzwanzig, drieëntwintig), because in Arabic, one reads from right to left.
RANTING AGAINST ISRAEL, INDIVIDUALISM AND THE HEADSCARF BAN
During the panel discussions, more than once some members of the audience started lengthy invectives against Israel. The moderators did not intervene to stop or shorten these rantings. Antwerp alderman Robert Voorhamme intervened firmly, stating that it was improper to import the conflict in the Middle East into our countries and into this conference.
It may surprise some that a conference that had the ambition to enhance the mutual understanding between Islam and Europe had invited people like Yacob Mahi [he is fond of quoting Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and signed an appeal to have Hamas removed from the European list of terrorist organisations (Belgique: un autre professeur de religion islamique cite Garaudy et défend le Hamas)], who literally states that "liberalism is the murderer of human freedom". Or imam Yussef Ibrams of Geneva, a member of the European Council of the Fatwa, who claimed in 2004 that "stoning, although not necessary in Switzerland, may absolutely not be brought in disrepute".
During the last weekend of October, a conference in Antwerp got a lot of resonance in the Arab world. The same conference was virtually ignored in Belgium, even within the local Muslim community. "The place of Islam in the new Europe" was the title of the conference which was widely reported on Al Jazeera (see video below this article) and the Moroccan newspaper Le Matin. In Belgium, only Gazet van Antwerpen published a short article on the local pages in three of its six regional editions. Make no mistake: this was a conference to promote multiculturalism and mutual understanding between the Islamic world and Europe. The conference was organized by the Institute for Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies of the University of Antwerp, abbreviated as "IMaMs".
CHAOTIC
The conference was announced as a big event, but its course was chaotic. Jacques Attali was announced as the keynote speaker, but he didn't come. The program and the panelists were very different from what was announced in the invitation, and a complete schedule was distributed on paper only halfway through the conference. What should have been a conference on an academic level, turned out to be an event with very few high-level scholars and with very few references to scientific studies, statistics or serious references.
REFERENCE TO NAZI SCIENTIST
Already at the opening session, the first blunder was heard, even though most of the audience never noticed it. Speaker Muhammad Bensalah highlighted the contribution of Islam to European civilization, and suggested that few Western scholars fully recognized the Islamic contribution without covering it up. He named three: the American John Esposito, the German Sigrid Hunke and the Belgian George Sarton. Now, Sigrid Hunke was an employee of the scientific department of the SS under the Nazi regime, where she was researching racial psychology. In that position she came in contact with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who openly advocated the extermination of the Jews. In her book "Allahs Sonne über dem Abendland" ("Allah's sun over the Occident") she asserted that the roots of European civilization were not Christian, but are a mix of Islamic, pagan-Celtic and Germanic elements. She illustrates this argument with now discredited theories like the sea map of Piri Reis allegedly used by Columbus, and the fact that in German and Dutch one does not say "twenty three" but "three twenty" (Dreiundzwanzig, drieëntwintig), because in Arabic, one reads from right to left.
RANTING AGAINST ISRAEL, INDIVIDUALISM AND THE HEADSCARF BAN
During the panel discussions, more than once some members of the audience started lengthy invectives against Israel. The moderators did not intervene to stop or shorten these rantings. Antwerp alderman Robert Voorhamme intervened firmly, stating that it was improper to import the conflict in the Middle East into our countries and into this conference.
It may surprise some that a conference that had the ambition to enhance the mutual understanding between Islam and Europe had invited people like Yacob Mahi [he is fond of quoting Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and signed an appeal to have Hamas removed from the European list of terrorist organisations (Belgique: un autre professeur de religion islamique cite Garaudy et défend le Hamas)], who literally states that "liberalism is the murderer of human freedom". Or imam Yussef Ibrams of Geneva, a member of the European Council of the Fatwa, who claimed in 2004 that "stoning, although not necessary in Switzerland, may absolutely not be brought in disrepute".
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