QUOTE:
The article compares Israel's government, the Afghan Taliban regime and South African apartheid, and states, "We no longer recognize the State of Israel" and "the State of Israel in its current form is history."
So I looked it up. The opinion piece. And translated it. I post the translation below. Please bear in mind that Norwegian is not a language that I am fluent in, wherefore my translation might be flawed. I have tried to represent the author's ideas accurately, but because I find his spew repellent I may have been handicapped.
[The original ('Guds Utvalgte Folk') may be found here: http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/article1411153.ece
For those who read Norwegian. And I would appreciate your letting me know of any mistakes I made in the translation. Thanks in advance.]
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TRANSLATION:
GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE
By Jostein Gaarder
ISRAEL IS HISTORY. We no longer acknowledge the State of Israel. There is no way back. The State of Israel has violated the recognition of the world, and will get no peace until it lays down its weapons. The State of Israel in its current form is history, writes Jostein Gaarder.
It is time to learn a new slogan: We no longer recognize the State of Israel. We can't recognize the apartheid regime in South Africa, we didn't recognize the Afghani Taliban-regime. There were many who didn't recognize Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or the Serb ethnic cleansing. So now we must get used to the thought: the State of Israel, in its current form is history.
We do not believe in the pretensions of God's chosen people. We laugh at this people's misapprehensions and cry over its misdeeds. To pretend to be God's chosen people is not only stupid and arrogant, but an offense against all humanity; we call it racism.
LIMITS OF TOLERANCE
Patience has limits, and so does our tolerance. We don't believe in divine promises as a basis for occupation or apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind us. We are farklempt by those who believe that the god of plants, animals and galaxies had could make one people his favourite, and given them silly stone tablets, burning bushes, and a license to kill.
We call child-murders child-murderers, and shall not accept that such a people have a god-given or historical mandate that can excuse their reprehensible acts. We say: shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on all terrorist strikes against a civilian population whether committed by Hamas, Hezbollah, or the State of Israel!
THE UNSCRUPULOUS ART OF WAR
We recognize and accept Europe's deep responsibility for the Jewish fate, for the scandalous mobbings (?), pogroms, and the Holocaust. It was historically and morally imperative that the Jews got their own home. However the State of Israel has, with its unscrupulous art of war and horrific weaponry, massacred its own legitimacy. It has systematically violated international laws, international conventions, and several UN resolutions, and can no longer expect amnesty from any responsibility. It has carpet bombed the world's recognition. But fear not - the perilous time is nearly over. Israel has seen its own Soweto.
We are at the brink, there is no retreat. The State of Israel has violated the world's recognition and will not have peace until it lays down its arms.
WITHOUT FORBEARING, WITHOUT SKIN
Let both wills and words blow Israel's apartheid walls over. The State of Israel does not exist. It is without forbearing now, without skin. May the world show mercy on the civilian population Our doomsaying is not directed at civilians.
We wish the people in Israel well, everything well, but with our reservation that we will not eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste vile and poisonous. It was also easy to manage without the blue grapes of apartheid.
CELEBRATING TRIUMPH
We don't believe that Israel has greater sorrow for more than forty Lebanese children than f the three thousand years of lamenting over 40 years in the wasteland. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs as once they celebrated the plagues, as appropriate punishment for the Egyptian people. (In this tale the Lord of Israel acts as an immeasurable sadist). We ask if for Israelis one Israeli life is worth more than that of forty Palestinians or Lebanese.
Because we have seen the pictures of Israeli girls who wrote spiteful messages on the bombs that were to be released over the civilian population of Lebanon and Palestine. Israeli girls are not charming when they rejoice in death and suffering on the other side.
VENGEFULL PAYBACK
We reject the rhetoric of the State of Israel. We reject the blood-drenched spiral of vengeance of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". We reject the principle of thousands of Arab eyes for a few Israeli eye. We reject collective punishment or population purges as a political weapon. Two thousand years have gone by since a Jewish rabbi criticized the knackered doctrine of an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".
He said: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We reject a state that is built on anti-humanitarian principles and the ruins of an archaic nationalist religion and warlike faith. As Albert Schweitzer explained, "humanity is to never sacrifice a human for a cause."
CHARITY AND MERCY
We do not recognize the old kingdom of David as being normative for the 21st century's map of the Middle-East. That Jewish rabbi asserted two thousand years ago that the kingdom of God is not a rebirth of the kingdom of David, but that the kingdom of God is within us and among us. God's kingdom is charity and mercy.
Two thousand years it has been since the Jewish rabbi unweaponed and humanized the knackered rhetoric of war, yet already in his time there the first Zionist terrorists operated.
ISRAEL DOES NOT LISTEN
For two thousand years we have stressed the concept of humanity, yet Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisees who helped the man who lay on the side of the road because he had been attacked by robbers. It was a Samaritan, what today we would call a Palestinian. Because before everything else, we are human - whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew. Or as that Jewish rabbi said: "And if regard only your own, how are you different from others?" We reject the kidnapping for ransom of soldiers. But we also reject the deportation of entire groups of people and the abduction of lawfully elected parliamentarians or government functionaries also.
We recognize the State of Israel of 1948, but not of 1967. That is the State of Israel which doesn't recognize, respect, or yield to the legitimate state of 1948. Israel wants to have more - more water and more settlements. To achieve that some wish a final solution to the Palestinian problem, with god's help. "Palestinians have so many other countries", some Israeli politicians assert, "while we have just one".
USA OR THE WORLD
Or as the state of Israel's greatest protector puts it: "May God continue to bless America." A little child noticed this and turned to his mother, and asked: "Why does the president always end his speeches with 'God bless America'? Why does he not say 'God bless the world?'"
A Norwegian poet exclaimed the following childlike heart-sigh: "Whence mankind's slow progress?" He was the one who wrote so strikingly about "the Jew" and "the Jewess". But he rejected the the fantasy of a chosen people. He called himself a Mohammedan.
MERCY AND TOLERATION
We do not accept the State of Israel. Not today, not in this hour of writing, not in sorrow and wrath. If the nation of Israel should fall because of its own actions, and parts of its population must flee the occupied area and into another diaspora, then we say: May their hosts show them mercy and toleration. It is eternally an unjustifiable crime to lay a hand on refugees and the stateless.
Peace and the right of passage for an evacuating civilian populace that have no state shall protect them! Do not shoot at refugees! Do not target them! They are as vulnerable as snails without their shells now, vulnerable like the slow-moving columns of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, defenseless as women, children, and old folks, in Qana, Gaza, Sabra and Shatila. Give the Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!
Don't let a single Israeli child die. Too many children and civilians have been murdered already.
Source: AFTENPOSTEN
Først publisert: 05.08.06 Oppdatert: 11.08.06 kl. 18:14
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I'm not quite sure what he's getting at. But I will say that rather than exploring the causes of Middle-East strife in any depth, and examining the issues in detail, he shows the usual superficial judgementalism.
The inclusion of that reference to Jesus (whom he erroneously calls a rabbi) is disturbing, along with the accusations that immediately follow. Either one must assume a remarkably dense and blithering ignorance, OR, as is much more likely, he deliberately parrots the standard slanders of the church regarding Jews.
The mention of the Norwegian poet is baffling. Or a misapplied show of literacy.
The final part of his disquisition is vile. Utterly.
I do not think Jostein Gaarder ignorant. I cannot forgive him because he might not know what he is saying. This is an educated man, who is more than capable of becoming informed and doing the necessary reading. Yet he deliberately chooses to write such a hateful, shallow, and glibly moralistic condemnation, playing on well-known imagery and canards, with an unmistakable bias.
Some have defended this man as merely trying to discuss the policies of the state of Israel.
Balderdash!
He is an anti-Semite.
He's something rotten in the state of Norway.
8 comments:
For the truly curious, here's the Norwegian text:
GUDS UTVALGTE FOLK
ISRAEL ER HISTORIE. Vi anerkjenner ikke lenger staten Israel. Det er ingen vei tilbake. Staten Israel har voldtatt verdens anerkjennelse og får ikke fred før den legger ned sine våpen. Staten Israel i sin nåværende form er historie, skriver Jostein Gaarder.
Det er på tide å øve inn en ny lekse: Vi anerkjenner ikke lenger staten Israel. Vi kunne ikke anerkjenne det sørafrikanske apartheidregimet, og vi anerkjente ikke det afghanske Taliban-regimet. Så var det mange som ikke anerkjente Saddam Husseins Irak, eller serbernes etniske rensing. Nå må vi venne oss til tanken: Staten Israel i sin nåværende form er historie.
Vi tror ikke på forestillingen om Guds utvalgte folk. Vi ler av dette folkets griller og gråter over dets misgjerninger. Å opptre som Guds utvalgte folk er ikke bare dumt og arrogant, men en forbrytelse mot menneskeheten. Vi kaller det rasisme.
Grenser for toleranse.
Det er grenser for vår tålmodighet, og det er grenser for vår toleranse. Vi tror ikke på guddommelige løfter som begrunnelse for okkupasjon og apartheid. Vi har lagt middelalderen bak oss. Vi ler beklemt av dem som fortsatt tror at floraens, faunaens og galaksenes gud har valgt seg ut et bestemt folk som sine favoritter og gitt dem morsomme steintavler, brennende busker og license to kill.
Vi kaller barnemordere for barnemordere og aksepterer aldri at slike har noe guddommelig eller historisk mandat som kan unnskylde deres skjenselsgjerninger. Vi sier bare: Skam over all apartheid, skam over etnisk rensing, skam over samtlige terroranslag mot sivilbefolkning enten de begås av Hamas, Hizballah eller staten Israel!
Skruppelløs krigskunst.
Vi erkjenner og tar inn over oss Europas dype ansvar for jødenes skjebne, for den skjendige mobbingen, pogromene og Holocaust. Det var historisk og moralsk nødvendig at jødene fikk sitt eget hjem. Men staten Israel har med sin skruppelløse krigskunst og sine motbydelige våpen massakrert sin egen legitimitet. Den har systematisk forbrutt seg mot folkeretten, internasjonale konvensjoner og et utall FN-resolusjoner og kan ikke lenger forvente beskyttelse fra samme hold. Den har teppebombet verdens anerkjennelse. Men frykt ikke! Trengselstidene er snart over. Staten Israel har sett sitt Soweto.
Vi er ved vannskillet nå. Det er ingen vei tilbake. Staten Israel har voldtatt verdens anerkjennelse og får ikke fred før den legger ned sine våpen.
Uten forsvar, uten hud.
Måtte ånd og ord blåse Israels apartheidmurer overende. Staten Israel eksisterer ikke. Den er uten forsvar nå, uten hud. Må verden derfor se i nåde til sivilbefolkningen. For det er ikke de sivile enkeltmennesker våre domsprofetier er rettet mot.
Vi vil alt folket i Israel vel, alt vel, men vi forbeholder oss retten til å ikke spise Jaffa-appelsiner så lenge de smaker vondt og er giftige. Det var overkommelig å leve i noen år uten de blå apartheiddruene.
De feirer triumfene.
Vi tror ikke at Israel sørger mer over førti drepte libanesiske barn enn de i mer enn tre tusen år har jamret over førti år i ørkenen. Vi noterer oss at mange israelere feirer slike triumfer slik de en gang jublet over Herrens landeplager som "passende straff" for det egyptiske folk. (I den fortellingen opptrer Herren Israels Gud som en umettelig sadist.) Vi spør oss om de fleste israelere mener at ett israelsk liv er mer verdt enn førti palestinske eller libanesiske.
For vi har sett bilder av israelske småpiker som skriver hatske hilsener på bombene som skal slippes over sivilbefolkningen i Libanon og Palestina. Israelske småpiker er ikke søte når de kroer seg av fryd over død og pinsel på den andre siden av frontene.
Blodhevnens gjengjeldelse.
Vi anerkjenner ikke staten Israels retorikk. Vi anerkjenner ikke blodhevnens gjengjeldelsesspiral med "øye for øye og tann for tann". Vi anerkjenner ikke prinsippet om ti eller tusen arabiske øyne for ett israelsk øye. Vi anerkjenner ikke kollektiv straff eller populasjonsslankekurer som politisk våpen. To tusen år er gått siden en jødisk rabbi kritiserte den urgamle doktrine om "øye for øye og tann for tann".
Han sa: "Alt dere vil at andre skal gjøre mot dere, skal også dere gjøre mot dem". Vi anerkjenner ikke en stat som tuftes på antihumanistiske prinsipper og ruinene av en arkaisk nasjonalreligion og krigsreligion. Eller som Albert Schweitzer utla det: "Humanitet vil si aldri å ofre et menneske for en sak".
Barmhjertighet og tilgivelse.
Vi anerkjenner ikke det gamle Davidsriket som normgivende for det 21. århundres kart over Midtøsten. Den jødiske rabbi hevdet for to tusen år siden at Guds rike ikke er en krigersk gjenreising av Davidsriket, men at Guds rike er inni oss og iblant oss. Guds rike er barmhjertighet og tilgivelse.
To tusen år er gått siden den jødiske rabbi avvæpnet og gjennomhumaniserte gammel krigsretorikk. Allerede på hans tid opererte de første sionistiske terrorister.
Israel hører ikke.
I to tusen år har vi terpet humanismens pensum, men Israel hører ikke. Det var ikke fariseeren som hjalp mannen som lå i veikanten fordi han var falt blant røvere. Det var en samaritaner, i dag ville vi si en palestiner. For først er vi mennesker - kristen, muslim eller jøde så. Eller som den jødiske rabbi sa: "Og om dere hilser vennlig på deres egne, er det noe storartet?" Vi aksepterer ikke bortføring av soldater. Men vi anerkjenner ikke deportasjon av hele folkegrupper eller bortføring av lovlig valgte parlamentsmedlemmer og regjeringsmedlemmer heller.
Vi anerkjenner staten Israel av 1948, men ikke den av 1967. Det er staten Israel som ikke anerkjenner, respekterer og bøyer seg for den folkerettslige staten Israel av 1948. Israel vil ha mer, mer vann og flere landsbyer. For å oppnå dette vil enkelte med Guds hjelp ha en endelig løsning på palestinerspørsmålet. Palestinerne har så mange andre land, har enkelte israelske politikere hevdet, vi har bare ett.
USA eller verden?
Eller som staten Israels høyeste beskytter uttrykker det: "May God continue to bless America." Det var et lite barn som bet seg merke i det. Hun vendte seg mot sin mor og sa: "Hvorfor avslutter presidenten alltid sine taler med å si God bless America? Hvorfor sier han ikke God bless the world?"
Så var det en gang en norsk dikter som ga fra seg følgende barnlige hjertesukk: "Hvi skrider Menneskeheden saa langsomt frem?" Det var han som skrev så vakkert om "Jøden" og "Jødinden". Men han avviste forestillingen om Guds utvalgte folk. Selv kalte han seg muhammedaner.
Sindighet og miskunn.
Vi anerkjenner ikke staten Israel. Ikke i dag, ikke i skrivende stund, ikke i sorgens og vredens time. Hvis hele den israelske nasjon skulle falle for eget grep og deler av befolkningen må flykte fra sine okkuperte områder tilbake til nok en diaspora, så sier vi: Må omgivelsene være sindige og vise miskunn med dem nå. Det er for evig og alltid en forbrytelse uten formildende omstendigheter å legge hånd på flyktninger og statsløse.
Fred og fritt leide for den evakuerende sivilbefolkning som ikke lenger har noen stat som kan beskytte dem. Ikke skyt på flyktningene! Ikke sikt på dem! De er sårbare som snegler uten sneglehus nå, sårbare som langsomme karavaner av palestinske og libanesiske flyktninger, forsvarsløse som kvinner og barn og gamle i Qana, Gaza, Sabra og Shatila. Gi de israelske flyktningene husrom, gi dem melk og honning!
La ikke ett israelsk barn bøte med livet. Altfor mange barn og sivile er myrdet allerede.
Norway gave us Quisling
I'm intrigued at the fact that the concept of the chosen people is brought up far more frequently by anti-Zionists than by Zionists.
The article is a bunch of confused sputterings. Israel has never set out the "Chosen People" doctrine as its raison d'etre.
Balabusta,
The Chosen People idea crops up ad-nauseum in the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rantings on the internet. I have yet to see it seriously used as any sort of justification for the existence and actions of Israel.
E-Kvetcher,
Confused sputterings, yes, but it reaches into the very depths of standard religion-based anti-Semitism for its themes. It is consequently much more poisonous than it at first appears. Whatever support the author may have had for Israel was a thin veneer - the anti-Semitic strata underneath go all the way to the bone. This article represents no casual change in his ideas, but an uncovering of something that heretofore was thinly hidden.
Great post: I'm bowled over at your Norwegian prowess. Most Scandis/Dutch I know, while linguistically blessed, don't normally stretch quite that far!
And thanks for tagging me- I'm looking forward to blogging about something that isn't the war!
More Scandinavian opinionation:
http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2009/08/palestinians-spread-blood-libel-swedish.html
And clickably: I hope this works
We Skandies better at antisemitismus than internetting, yah.
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