Norway? No Way!
The little Nordic country famed, among less positive matters, for giving the world a vivid synonym for traitor — Quisling — for its pro-Nazi regime during WWII, is seemingly obsessed with heaping contempt on Israel and its supporters. The latest example centers on renowned Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz’s lecture tour of Norway, during which he offered to speak for no fee at any university on the subject of international law and Israel. All refused.
As Dershowitz notes in his Wall Street Journal column, these same universities, having presented virulent anti-Israel speakers and advocated academic boycotts of Jewish Israeli academics are now boycotting pro-Israel Jewish speakers as well. The bigoted sentiment of some Norwegian professors is striking. Trond Adresen from Trondheim University has written:
There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews…[They] as a whole, are charaterized by this mentality….It is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938.
Fortunately, students at three universities organized enthusiastic meetings for the Harvard professor, attracting large crowds eager to hear the facts about Israel.
Norway expert Manfred Gerstenfeld contends the crude, exclusionary policies of the anti-Israel academics are a reality underestimated in their virulence by many policymakers in Israel. At the same time, Gerstenfeld notes, they don’t represent everyone in Norway. Siv Jensen of the opposition Progress Party expresses positive sentiments towards Israel — and even displays an Israeli flag on her desk.
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