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The former prime minister of Norway, Kare Willoch, spoke out recently against Israel and also against a grouping of Israeli scholars who this past week held a conference in Jerusalem where they accused the Scandinavian countries of anti-Antisemitism and Israel-hatred.
Willoch responded that that such a tactic of accusing critics of Israel as anti-Semitic, as tactic often veiled in the language of a so-called “new Antisemitism”, is nothing more than a snide effort to shield Israel from criticism.
“It’s a traditional deflection tactic aimed at diverting attention from the real problem, which is Israel’s well-documented and incontestable abuse of Palestinians,” Willoch stated.
The aforementioned event was held at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs where several speakers sought to document Scandinavian, as seen by the speakers, anti-Antisemitism.
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfled, a Holland-born Israeli-citizen Holocaust survivor, spoke about the anti-Antisemitism he saw in Norwegian newspaper. “Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Scandinavia,” he stated.
One cartoon ,in a supposedly mainstream paper in Norway, featured an ultra-Orthodox Jew engraving “thou shall murder” into an alternative Decalogue. Another cartoon - though clearly anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic - featured resigning Israeli PM Olmert dressed at a guard in front of a death camp while holding a rifle and smiling. Gerstenfled thought the latter cartoon also anti-Semitic.
Willoch responded to the charge of Norway being anti-Semitic by stated: “Anyone who accuses Norway of anti-Semitism is closing his eyes and ears.”
The Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish ambassadors were all invited but did not show up. Though five Scandinavian journalists did attend and some countered the accusations.
“Why is criticism of Israel automatically considered anti-Semitism,” Louise Stigsgaard Nissen, the Middle East Bureau chief for a Danish newspaper he questioned. “Why can’t one criticize Israel as one criticizes the U.S. without being called an anti-Semite?,” he continued.
RSS 
Criticism of Israel or the Israeli government is not anti-Semitism, per se. If it were, many, if not most Israelis would have to be considered ”anti-Semitic” as well (including myself, at times).
The sad fact is, however, that certain groups, organizations and even governments do hide genuine anti-Semitism behind the cloak of ”legitimate criticism” regarding Israel. It can be difficult to differentiate between the two at times, and mistakes will be made.
One of the obvious characteristics to help define whether a statement is merely ”anti-Israel” or genuinely ”anti-Semitic” is the use of double standards.
For example, when one criticizes the Israeli treatment of Palestinians without criticizing Palestinian terrorist actions, this becomes an anti-Semitic statement rather than an anti-Israel one.
It’s anyone’s right to make comments either for or against a particular government, organization, etc.
Before you respond with your usual claim that Palestinian terrorism would not exist if not for the occupation, let me remind you that Arab anti-Semitism pre-dates not only the State of Israel and the Zionist movement, but goes back to the first days of Islam, 1400 years ago.
Perhaps, ex-PM should attend to our forum while talking his problems:
http://annet.instablogs.com/entry/barak-obamas-lucky-stars/
http://mkwrk2.instablogs.com/entry/danish-talent-australian-footprint/
If one looks into the history of the word, “semite”, it has to do with a language group and no more. The semitic languages are, at least according to most linguistic experts, Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the lands once known as Abyssinia), Arabic (spoken in all the Arab countries and in many Muslim countries because it is the language of the Qur’an), Hebrew (spoken in Israel and by some Jews and others outside of Israel), Aramaic (spoken primarily by the Chaldeans of Iraq and by some Catholic and Maronite Christians in the world, at least in their church services if not in their homes or business) and Syriac (spoken by a few in various parts of Syria and in the Middle East). Incidentally, according to most linguists, Abraham, the father of the Jews and Arabs, spoke Aramaic, that was the language of the land at the time, not Hebrew.
Before you made this statement, you should have looked up the word ”anti-Semitism” in a dictionary or encyclodedia.
Webster’s Unabridged (2nd Ed.)defines ”anti-Semitism” as:
”(noun) 1. prejudice against Jews; dislike or fear of Jews and Jewish things.
2. discrimination against or persecution of Jews.”
The term was coined in Germany in the 1860s to provide a ”scientific justification” for Jew-hatred.
While your information on ”semite” is correct, your information on ”anti-Semite” and its derivatives is wrong.
The same type of skewed ”logic” is often used by anti-Semitic Arab terrorist groups who claim, ”but we ourselves are Semites, how can we be anti-Semitic?”
While the word ”Semite” in itself denotes an anthropoligical classification native to the Middle East, the term ”anti-Semite” and its derivatives do not.