Norway: union rep wants to boycott the Histadrut, calls it an apartheid organization

"This is an organization only for Israeli Jews. In our world this is apartheid." Apartheid?  Arabs and other ethnic groups have had full right to membership from 1960 and Histadrut has currently over 200,000 Arab members.

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews

The leader of Fellesforbundet (The Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions), Lars Frøysa wants to boycott the Israeli Histadrut, on the grounds that it is an apartheid organization, according to an article in Vårt Land

This is an organization only for Israeli Jews. In our world this is apartheid. We think that the labour movement has an obligation to protect all workers, says Lars Frøysa. He is leader of the local chapter at Celsa Armeringsstål in Mo i Rana, who has submitted the motion.

He further claims that in spite of the Union’s rejection of the proposal, he is convinced that they will prosper at the ballot, since members are free individuals.

Our old friend Hilde Henriksen Waage, the historian and researcher who on occasion slips into activist mode on Israel related matters, has been consulted (apparently nobody was available at the Histadrut for comments, but that may reflect a certain insensitivity and ignorance on Jewish matters, since probably they were closed for Yom Kippur observation in addition to the weekly days of rest for workers, in Israel on Friday and Saturday):

From its inception in the 1920ies, Histadrut was am important instrument for the Zionist movement in the construciton of the Israeli State. They were mainnly concerned with building their own economy separate from the Palestinian. Their goal was to ensure that Jews got the jobs as well as maintaining high salaries.
– How did LO (The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions) view them?
– Histadrut was an important reason why the Labour party and the LO embraced the Jewish project. They saw the society they wanted to create in Israel as their socialistic paradice. It was almost like a religious conversion, says Henriksen Waage, who underlines that she is not updated on the development in later years for this organization.

If our rabid Unionist, Lars Frøysa, had cared to check the facts and not only let himself be guided by his hatred of Jews in general, Israeli Jews in particular, he might have discovered that Arabs and other ethnic groups have had full right to membership from 1960 and has currently over 200,000 Arab members.

Also inconvenient is the fact that the Histadrut cooperates fully and advocates on behalf of Palestinian workers and activists. But he may not have wanted to notice that, since that would have forced the realization that Israel is not an apartheid state, also when it comes to union matters.

But that neither the VL journalist nor Henriksen Waage should be unable to find relevant information on Histadrut, in terms of historical background and current policies is disappointing, or maybe they could not be bothred to find the info?

The The Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions has indicated that it wont accept this proposal, but nevertheless has singled Israel out for special treatment on more than 4 separate items. As far as I can tell, there are none for Arab dictators, even now that it is in vogue to want to get rid of them (as long as major Norwegian interests are not jeopardized). Again.


Well some sanity has prevailed. Union rejects motion to boycott Israel

43% of Belgians believe there are interesting aspects in Nazism!

A survey reveals that 43% of Belgians (French- and Flemish-speakers alike) believe that Nazism "promoted interesting ideas", even though they are deemed to be "essentially objectionable" or "objectionable in part".

44% believe that Nazism should be totally rejected.

Those who believe that there is some legitimacy to Nazi ideology mainly cite nationality motives and the boosting of the economy.  When one considers the phenomenal destruction wreaked by the Nazis, one wonders how they are supposed to bring material prosperity!

Most Belgians feel they are well informed about Nazism: 13% are "very well informed" and 56% "fairly well informed".

50% of those aged under 25 are not aware that anti-Semitism was an integral part of Nazism and only 26% that the Aryan race was considered to be superior.

Danish newspaper: bond between Israeli and American Jews based on myths

"It is an unsustainable situation that is kept alive by myths which makes the Palestinians dreams of statehood distant."


Source: Israel in Denmark: “The Jewish People is a Myth”

Dagsbladet Information published 26-09-2011 an article on their online news site which claimed Israel was built on lies and myths, the relationship between American Jews and Israeli was built on myths, the Kingdoms of David and Solomon never existed, the Jews of Russia all from the tribe with the king in Khazar who converted, says Jews converted to Islam for pecuniary reasons, says Israel is an ethnocratic state rather than democratic. The author [Maja Naur] has previously been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions, and some claim that she was involved with pro-Gaddafi groups in the 80ies.

Interesting parts highlighted.

Last week the Palestinian president Abbas asked the UN General Assembly to vote for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel fights the idea with tooth and nail, and USA’s president Obama find himself in a mess, as he needs the Jewish votes for the primary elections next year.

The amount of Jews in USA is almost the same as in Israel. But the bonds between the Israeli and the American Jews are based on myths rather than facts.

This revealed the Israeli historian Shlomo Sand from Tel Aviv University in his book The Invention of the Jewish People from 2008.

The Book was met with equal amounts of ‘we knew that already’ and ‘it is all a lie’.

The first-mentioned reaction was based on the argument, that it is not unique for Israel to create ideological myths, that confirms the self-perceptions of the country – those kinds of myths are build in every state.

The other reaction, was on the other hand based on a denial of any talk about the Zionist colonization was anything else than the Jews returning to their native country.

Sand’s strength is that his detailed documentation builds on a long number of interdisciplinary examinations from historical sources. Together the myths form an unpleasant pattern, that is used politically against the Palestinians, and can be a part of the undermining legitimacy of the State of Israel. It is in the long run impossible to rely on a right by denying others the same right.

The people that doesn’t exist

But first: Sand’s historical analysis. The conclusion is, that there is no other state in the world that consists of one people. People have always been moving, and with time they are more like they non-religious neighbors than their coreligionists, who live other places in the world. Chinese, Ethiopian and Argentinian Jews look more like their non-Jewish neighbors than Jews that live other places in the world.

The Zionist colonization could not in meantime have existed without an ideological preparation, that fertilized the number of myths of the Jewish peoplehood. The Jewish statehood founding simply needed an illusion of an authentic indigenous people that as ‘Israel’s children’ came ‘out of Egypt’. Because only this myth about Hebrew ancestors could justify the right to Palestine. This made the Zionist historians to emphasize their mutual ethnic origin. The Jews was seen as one biological people.

More here

Palestinian refugees in Norway living in squalor - in squatter camps

Source: Norway, Israel and the Jews


Here is the tale of the Palestinina refugees who came to Norway thinking they would be well taken care of. This is also the story of a Lebanese young woman, born in Lebanon, with Lebanese passport, who, for political reasons, chooses to define herself as a Palestinian?
Am I the only person who thinks both of these stories show the utter falseness of Norwegians and others with a chip on their shoulder? And did the Lumiere brothers come to Palestine of Fatah and Hamas, or did they go to a town where Jews were in majority (according to a Prussian census) although Egyptian Muslims and immigrants from North Africa began to settle the town in order to gain influence?
Telling little lies, one little drip at a time, can slowly over time be perceived as truth. Maybe we should show the pictures showing Jewish life and culture in Israel, around the same time as the Lumiere brothers came to visit?

Life in Limbo

TONE B. VÆRVÅGEN, Published: 07.10.11 10:23

Piece of Palestine in Oslo - makeshift refugee camp

- We want to show another Palestine than the one we know from the media, showing only blood and murder, says Rana Issa (34).
She arranges the Palestinian Night Film From the South Festival.
- I do not need a movie like Tears of GAza. If I want to see  dying Palestinian children, I can see it on the news,  Issa says .
She is one of several Palestinians organizing the short film program Palestinian Night, where a cultural line is drawn all the way back to around teh time when film was born, when in 1897 the Lumiere brothers came to Palestine to film. One of the Lumiere short films are on the program.
- We want to create a cultural awareness of Palestine, for culture is the most important thing we have. We do not have a country, so it is culture that binds us together. And it is through culture that people can see things with different eyes.

More HERE

French journalist derides Mitt Romney and Walid Phares for Israel support

French journalist with Le Monde, the 'reference' newspaper in France as it likes to be called, Gilles Paris has a blog entitled "War or Peace" wholly devoted to Israel-bashing and, as a by-product, US-bashing.

The latest target of his wrath is Mitt Romney's advisor for the Middle East Walid Phares.  Gilles Paris finds Phares' views expressed here (described as "a neo-con") totally objectionable:

"Over the past many years, the body of experts serving the US foreign policy establishment “has not given the administration, the president, and Congress the right expertise.” In my book, Future Jihad, I describe how our academic expertise and the national security analysis that is derived from it are compromised. Most of those who give academic advice come from the universities, whose Middle East departments are funded to a large degree by petrodollar regimes with strings attached. Thus, we have generations that have been raised in the classroom with the ideas of apology for jihadism. In sum, this explains why the President and Congress did not have from their experts the right information on either the threat or the democracy forces in the region. The bigger change has to be done not in the Middle East but here in Washington."

Gilles Paris goes on to criticise the support Benjamin Netanyahu received in Congress and the fact that the funds given to the Palestinians have been frozen.

But he doesn't stop there. He also criticises Richard Prasquier, head of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, because he does not like John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's book.  For Gilles Paris there is one "lobby" and that lobby is not the Arab lobby.

More blatant lies about Israel on French public TV

After posting this earlier today, French Jews protest against “violently anti-Israel’ public TV documentary, another 'spectacular' French media Israel-bashing exercise has come to light.  

Benjamin Barthe is one of the several Israel-bashing journalists at the Monde. Interestingly, Bernard-Henri Lévy sits at the board of directors of Le Monde... and is held to be by French standards a pro-Israel intellectual.  Other prominent French Jews are also associated with Le Monde.

The latest Israel-bashing exercise by Barthe did not go unnoticed.  Yaron Gamburg, the spokesperson for the Israel embassy in France was outraged and issued a statement:

"Mr Barthe, one of  the journalists who interviewed today the number two of the embassy Sammy Ravel,  for TV5 Monde [the equivalent of BBC World], claimed that there is no mention of the Palestinian territories on the maps issued by the Israel Tourism Ministry. Frankly, who does he think he is kidding?"

Well you can see for yourself (link):

More here in French

French Jews protest against “violently anti-Israel’ public TV documentary

French Jews are particularly docile.  The French media are the most hostile to Israel in Europe. There isn't a single French newspaper which is not heavily slanted against Israel. Remember France 2, Charles Enderlin and the al-Durah affair (In France, screwing Israel makes you a hero).  Ilan Halimi and Sebastian Sellam, two young French Jewish men were murdered because they were Jews. Dieudonné has many followers and is a regular guest on French TV.  Another 'iconic figure' is Pascal Boniface, a French academic and an advisor to the Socialist Party made the Socialist leaders aware of Arithmetics 101: political decisions should be made according to simple accountancy rules, Arab votes outnumber Jewish votes by ten to one in France, explained Boniface.  All the main contestants at the 2011 French Socialist Party presidential primary are anti-Israel, with the notable exception of Manuel Valls. The amount of anti-Israel (and even anti-semitic) books published every year in France is simply amazing. In a recent 'incident' Jews were beaten up.  And the list could go on and on.  At the U.N. France will never side with the United States to defend Israel!

It seems that things are changing and that French Jews are no longer prepared to stand still when French television broadcast by France 2 - yet again - another amazingly anti-Israel programme.
_________________
PARIS (EJP)---A French public tv documentary on the future of the Palestinian territories was denounced by the French Jewish community as "violently anti-Israeli."

"To my knowledge, never a public TV show had attracted such a reaction," said Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish organizations.

"Those who love Israel, whether Jewish or not, felt insulted and humiliated", he wrote in a letter to the president of France televisions, Remy Pflimlin.

The documentary, "Is a Palestinian state still possible?", was aired on France 2 television on October 3 in the magazine "An eye on the planet”.

"The program has strongly shocked the Jewish community and provoked a disgusted amazement", Prasquier said. The journalist, he added, acted more like an "activist."

"Especially in a public tv channel, the search for objectivity must be an absolute requirement."

As a result of this protest, France Televisions has announced that its president will meet Israel’s ambassador to France, Yossi Gal, and with CRIF.

On Facebook, a group calling to "Boycott France Televisions" was created. It urged the channel to issue an apology.