Standing up to Zionism in Trondheim

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article about the harassment and intimidation campaign directed at visiting Israeli merchants carried out by Norwegian Socialist youths.

The translator includes this note:

The story gives the reader a good insight into the mentality of the “anti-fascists” in Norway. It adds some valuable information about the political climate in Norway, and proves the point that Bruce Bawer was making in the video posted on GoV the other day.

It’s also worth recalling the attack against the NDL member in Bergen at the start of the year, the threats made by AFA against the NDL in Bergen in February, and the very serious threats made against the FrP (Progress Party) parliamentarian Christian Tybring Gjedde following the 22/7 attacks. Plus of course all the other violent attacks against conservatives in Norway carried out by “anti-fascists” in the last few decades.

This incident has not been presented in the MSM, except for the local newspapers in Trondheim, as far as I’m aware. This would of course not be the case if fifteen Norwegians had harassed two Palestinians and scared away their customers. That would have been the hottest news scoop of the month and the MSM would have had a field day.

The same thing goes for the bus attack in which seven Somalis attacked a young Norwegian girl. Only Dagbladet and Nettavisen.no covered the case, as far as I know. And they only had two or three articles about it.

The left wing media in Norway seem to find these cases of blatant racism rather inconvenient. It’s apparently more fun to write about Norwegian ‘racists’ rather than stories about Mohammed the racist.

Note: MIFF is short for ‘Med Israel For Fred’ which means ‘With Israel For Peace’. It’s a Norwegian organization which supports Israel and attempts to counteract the vicious anti-Israel propaganda found in Norwegian MSM.

The translated article from MIFF:

Members of the Socialist Youth were harassing Israeli merchants in Trondheim

The latest trend among young Socialists in Trondheim these days is to harass Israelis and people who support Israel. Two Israeli merchants felt pressured to shut down their stall at a shopping centre in the downtown area after several incidents this week.

In February 2011 an Israeli flag was stolen when the local chapter of MIFF put up a stand in the city. Mehrnaz Bamdadsoofi was issued a fine of Nok 4000 for the theft of the flag, but this didn’t prevent her from participating in a new harassment campaign against MIFF in September last year.

Scared away a customer

The Norwegian Palestine Committee and the Socialist Youth in Trondheim don’t want to appear less eager than their comrades in the ‘Revolutionary Communist Youth’ and ‘Serve The People’ in their fight against Israel. The Trondheim chapter of SU reported with pride on their Twitter page on February 29, 2012 that:

“The demo against the stall selling merchandise from the occupied territories in Palestine was successful. Boycott Israel! Flyers from the Norwegian Palestine Committee were handed out during the demo.”

This is how the Israelis describe the situation that the activists describe as “successful”.

“Fifteen to twenty youths appeared and pushed away one of our customers. The female customer was so frightened that she decided to leave. The protesters then formed a circle around us and started shouting slogans, the Israeli merchants tell Miff.no. One of the things they shouted was ‘Israel kills Palestinian children.’” Due to poor Norwegian language skills the Israelis were unable to understand the rest. However there is no doubt that they found the ordeal threatening.

When the female Israeli sales rep went to get some food later on she was surrounded by angry youths who starting harassing her.

A new demo is scheduled for Monday

Several of the Socialist demonstrators were spotted in the city centre yesterday. The Israeli merchants were warned not to show up at their stall and chose to stay home today.

“We don’t want to cause any problems,” they say.

“Staging a demonstration is fair enough, but threatening and preventing lawful trade from taking place isn’t,” they add.

For the last few months the Israelis have visited several cities in the northern part of Norway, where they have sold products from Nature’s Heaven, a company based in the Dead Sea region in Israel. They have never experienced anything like this before.

The Israelis have nothing but praise for the shopping centre, Trondheim Torg, where they rented a stall for four days. They were supported by the centre management and the centre security guards from day one.

“What the Israelis were doing wasn’t illegal. However, an illegal demonstration was staged,” a member from the local business community who knows the case well says.

A fight against the occupation?

“Trondheim Torg is helping to maintain the Israeli occupation by allowing a stall with Israeli products to operate in their shopping centre,” representatives from the Norwegian Palestine Committee wrote in the local newspaper on March 6.

The Socialist activists and the writers from the Norwegian Palestine Committee probably believe that the State of Israel is occupied land, but in the Norwegian public discourse there is a broad consensus that only the West Bank is occupied. (The occupation is legal under international law until a peace settlement and proper boundaries have been negotiated, but this is beyond the scope of this article.)

According to one of the Israeli merchants, Nature’s Heaven’s production facilities lie within the “green line” in an area where there has never been any Palestinian settlements.

“Are those their arguments? It’s tragic. To us they shouted slogans about how terrible Israel is,” one of the merchants says.

Ethnic cleansing?

“Israel is relying on international recognition and trade to finance and continue with their occupation and ethnic cleansing in the Palestinian territories,” the Norwegian Palestine Committee writes in a letter to the local newspaper.

We’ve added two paragraphs about ethnic cleansing in the Middle East:

1.		The Arab population within the borders of the former British mandate (who in recent decades have preferred to label themselves Palestinians) have increased by at least eight times in the last hundred years. Life expectancy in Gaza and the West Bank has increased from 54 years in 1970 to 68 years in 1990 and 73 years in 2007.
2.		Before the Second World War there were approximately one million Jews residing in Arab countries. Today there are less than 10,000 remaining, and they still continue to leave because of harassment and threats against their lives, their places of worship, property and businesses, similar to the one that the Israelis were subjected to by the Socialists in Trondheim.

We register that the activists’ dishonesty is on par with their willingness to harass and threaten.

P.S. Are you willing to support the Israeli merchants in Trondheim? Come to the MIFF meeting on Wednesday, March 7, and buy their products.