After previously accusing Sweden of anti-Semitism after the nation’s leading daily published unverified reports accusing the IDF of killing Palestinians for the purpose of harvesting their organs in a conspiracy involving New Jersey rabbis recently arrested for organ trafficking, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has turned his blunt-speaking manner against another Scandinavian country: Norway.

In a speech to Israeli students, Minister Lieberman reproached Norwegian authorities for honoring Norway’s most distinguished, albeit Nazi sympathizing, novelist Knut Hamsun. The recipient of the Noble Prize of Literature in 1920, Hamsun sent his medal to Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels in 1943 and, Lieberman told students, “even wrote a eulogy to Hitler saying he was fighting for humanity.”

Although admired for his writing, because of his Nazi past most Norwegians describe their relationship with Hamsun as “very complex.” And in the July announcement that Hamsun will be honored with a stamp and a museum inaugurated in his name, Norway’s Foreign Minister issued the following statement: “Nazi sympathies are a sordid part of his life. He received massive condemnation for them after the war, and they have been debated in Norway for many years.”

Nonetheless, Minister Lieberman strongly criticized the decision. “I was amazed at the Norwegian government’s decision to celebrate the 150th birthday of Knut Hamsun, who admired the Nazis,” Lieberman stated.

He added that this decision reflected latent anti-Semitism in Norway by citing by way of example the Durban-II conference: “I remember that in the Durban-II conference. The Norwegian representatives were among the few who didn’t walk out, and today I realize it’s not a coincidence.”

During Durban-II, Iran’s controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a speech denouncing Israel as a racist state during which most Western delegates walked out in protest. Norway’s representatives did not and Minister Lieberman evidently has harbored resentment toward that decision.

He concluded his lecture against Norway by proposing, “How low can you go?”

Norwegian officials did not issue a response to Minister Lieberman’s words. The editor-in-chief of the aforementioned Swedish publication did, however.

Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin denied that he is anti-Semitic and accused his critics of employing “vulgar propaganda” against him. He added that Israel’s far-right political establishment is using the controversy to serve its own ends. Editor Helin reasons that Minister Lieberman and others in the Israeli government are using the controversy to further their agenda of uniting Israelis against U.S. and European demands for a settlement freeze and instigating hostile policies against Israeli-Arabs by creating a rally-around-the-flag affect by raising the fears of international anti-Semitism: “Rightist populists in Israel, especially Lieberman, took advantage of the publication for their own personal aims. The government of Israel is becoming more and more isolated from the world in its views. I think the official responses should be understood as related to the local and internal opinions in Israel, which are harming Israel.”

Minister Lieberman is president of the far-right Israel Is Our Home party which advocates loyal oaths under threat of citizenship lose for Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens (“No loyalty, no citizenship.”), drawing Arab towns out of Israel’s boundaries, limited discussion on the forcible eviction of 800,000 Palestinians in 1948 and rallied in the last election on a campaign platform that stroked fifth-column-esque fears about Israel’s Arab citizens. The presence of Minister Lieberman has alienated, more than usually, Israel’s government from its European counterparts. Furthermore, Israel finds itself in a rare public dispute with the United States due to President Obama’s demand that the Israeli government of rightist, Likud Premier Benyamin Netanyahu agree to a freeze of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. International law dictates that the placement of one’s citizens on occupied land is illegal. The Obama administration has deemed Israeli settlements to be the main obstacle to a final peace by encroaching on land Palestinians want to be part of their country.