Once again this week we were subjected to NRK’s anti-Israeli propaganda, with Thursday’s debate programme being the highlight of the disinformation. Once again we can give credit to the Norwegian TV-presenter Fredrik Solvang, who managed to gather debaters with virtually the same views on the war in Gaza, on alleged war crimes and on a genocide that has never taken place. Of course, no “debater” was invited to defend the truth.
What Solvang and his “debaters” did not take into account are the crimes of Hamas, the very cause of the war, and how many of the estimated 50,000 killed so far in Gaza are actually terrorists. Nor was there any mention of how many civilians were killed due to Hamas’ cynical use of civilians in Gaza as human shields, or the bestial torture of innocent hostages by Hamas over 16 months. Both are in violation of the rules of war. Taking hostages is a war crime under Geneva Convention IV art 34. Using hostages as a means of exerting pressure is also contrary to Art 7 of the Treaties of Rome. But Solvang did not bring this to the fore.
We must assume that Terje Einarsen, professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen, who during the programme so eagerly proclaimed: » … It is one of the four crimes under international law. I think Israel is committing all of those crimes,” forgetting in his eagerness to mention Hamas’ war crimes.
When Professor Terje Einarsen gets a little breathing space from accusing Israel of «all [these]crimes, we ask him to acquire some knowledge about genocide, about Hamas’ crimes, the background to the Gaza war and, for example, also the number of civilians who have been killed in other wars, such as in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Kurdistan, Afghanistan and many other places.
The way lawyer Cecilie Hellestveit was attacked last week is a glaring example of how dangerous it is to speak even a little bit of truth in today’s Norway. We don’t have to wonder what the goal of NRK’s more than 40 years of propaganda is, but we do know that it has zero influence on Israeli politics. Its victims, however, are us, the Norwegian Jews. We know from experience what unjust and ruthless attacks, such as Hellestveit experienced, do to people.
Those in Gaza who were attacked by Israel this week are unfortunately civilians for the most part, but according to Norwegian State Broadcaster NRK they are people, and one gets the impression that none of them were terrorists. NRK journalist Åse Marit Befring, like the propaganda journalist Sidsel Wold, is unable to distinguish between feelings and facts.
Since the October massacre, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has tried to create a distorted image that Israel is committing genocide and that a majority of Israelis are allegedly protesting against the Netanyahu government. The fact is that Israel’s citizens have repeatedly brought his coalition to power in democratic elections. It is important to realise that the “protesters” portrayed by NRK as the general public are a limited but influential elite who are part of the peace industry and who, through usurpation of power and position, act in a way that can weaken Israel. The protesters at Tel Aviv’s Kaplangate (Kaplan demonstrators) are relatively few in number and are not representative of the Israeli population.
NRK fails to inform about the main difference between the popular protest in other countries and in Israel. In many countries, it is usually the poor, the people, who protest against the elite, the rich. In Israel, it’s the other way round: It is the rich elite who use their power and enormous resources to gag the population.
Demonstrations in Israel are nothing new either, as NRK would have us believe. We can go all the way back to 1977, when the right-wing gained power in the country through democratic elections. However, the left-wing elite could never accept defeat and still believe that they are the only ones who know what is best for the majority. The struggle to overthrow Netanyahu is in fact a struggle to overthrow the right wing itself, each time under a new pretext.
Since 1992, a group of super-rich people belonging to the peace industry has emerged, sailing under a false flag as “humanitarian organisations” and “organisations for democracy”. The huge sums of money that have been channelled into this activity over the years have become a honey trap for these left-wing radicals, who are no longer able to stand on their own two feet, just like the Norwegian media.
In the spring of 2024, this radicalisation took on new terrifying dimensions. From allegations of paying people to participate in demonstrations, the violence evolved into attempts to physically attack Netanyahu’s family in Caesarea with drones. Attacks on the checkpoints protecting Netanyahu’s Jerusalem apartment, calls for incitement and flare throwing at a policeman in Ayalon in an attempt to ignite him, show that this small group is willing to go to great lengths. On 20 April 2024, a policeman and a road worker were killed by car during an illegal demonstration. Two separate attempts to besiege the Knesset to force the National Assembly to advance the elections were thwarted by police. All this violence shows how “democratic” these so-called peace activists really are and how vast their financial resources are. The legal system has so far failed to enforce the country’s laws against the Kaplan protesters.
But now the left-wing elite have finally lost control of the IDF leadership and are losing control of the Security Service (Shabak). They know that their last bulwark is the Supreme Court and that they are the next to fall. That’s why they are now in a hurry to remove the right from power. The Kaplan elite fail to realise that they have never had a demographic majority in Israel, nor have they ever enjoyed the sympathy or support of the majority of people in Israel.
The process of overthrowing Netanyahu’s government began with false allegations against him in 2016, allegations that in the courtroom these days are crumbling bit by bit. The trial of Netanyahu shows just how much power «the deep state» has in Israel. The term «deep state» is used to refer to powerful bureaucracies, especially within the executive branch of the government, which behind the scenes hold on to power, while it was actually the elected leaders’ policies that were supposed to govern the bureaucrats. We know this from Norway. We change politicians, but at the same time we don’t change the civil service that ensures the same policy as before, regardless of the election result.
This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night tweeted X:
«When a strong right-wing leader wins the election in America or Israel, the deep state in the service of the left perverts the legal system to thwart the will of the people. They won’t let the people win in Israel or America. We stand strong together.
Netanyahu also accuses the media of colluding with the deep state:
«The media are not news outlets, they are fake media.»
We can thus conclude with a quote from US President Abraham Lincoln, from the famous Gettysburg Address (1863):
«What is incumbent upon us here is to sacrifice ourselves wholly to the great task before us. Following the example of these honourable dead, we shall devote ourselves to the cause for which they made their last great sacrifice. Here we shall honourably resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, with God’s help, shall be born again in freedom. Government shall spring from the people, consist of the people, and work for the people; then it shall never perish from the face of the earth.»
No matter what NRK’s propaganda says, it is the democratically elected in Israel who have the mandate to shape the country’s policies. But as long as we have media that live off the state coffers, there is hardly any hope that we in Norway can experience independent, fact-based journalism. As long as Israel allows the West and Norway to continue to flood certain organisations in Israel with our tax money, we can expect more demonstrations and more noise in Tel Aviv. Those truly concerned about genocide should turn their attention to Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine and Syria.