Same wine, new bottle?

In an interview with Klassekampen (Han skal lede norske jøder, 09.12.24), the newly elected Chairperson of Det Mosaiske Trossamfund, Marius Gaarder, says all the right things to avoid saying anything. The journalist, Åse Brandvold, helps him along by asking all the wrong questions.

Some questions answer themselves, such as whether he supports a two-state solution. But when Gaarder qualifies his answer by saying he supports it “under certain conditions,” Brandvold does not ask the logical follow-up question: “Such as…?”

Brandvold notes that Gaarder feels pressured to answer for what Israel does. Gaarder says, “Nothing has been clarified about war crimes and violations of international law… It is not right that I as a Jew or other Jews in Norway should be demanded to answer what we think about Israel’s warfare.”

Gaarder refuses to use terms like “war crimes” and “plausible genocide,” even though these have been substantiated by numerous human rights organizations and key UN officials. Even the ICJ agrees with “plausible genocide”. Nevertheless, Gaarder readily adopts the Netanyahu-friendly term “war.”

Brandvold never asks the obvious question of how Israel’s plausibly genocidal actions (as per the ICJ) in Gaza, and the increase of the same such actions in the West Bank, amount to a “war.”

All the while, Gaarder decries the rise in antisemitism as if it were happening in a vacuum.

Elephant in Room

The elephant in the room which neither Gaarder nor Brandvold want to address is the most plausible reasons for the increase in antisemitism. While the jury is still out (literally) on whether or not Israel is committing genocide, the facts are out there for the world to see and judge for themselves. 

Beyond that, there is no question that Israel is an occupying force against which Palestinians have the right to armed resistance. There is also no question that Israel is an apartheid state, as determined by the ICJ. 

While Jews are not responsible for Israel’s ongoing (plausible) genocide, Zionists (both Jews and gentiles) are. If not Gaarder then I hope others begin to understand that if you do not denounce the latter, you condemn the former.