Iceland: Local Icon Makes Anti-Semitic Remarks Regarding Eurovision, Takes It Back And Apologises

Via Reykjavik Grapevine:

Musician and Eurovision enthusiast Páll Óskar Hjálmtýsson, who is currently pressing for Iceland to withdraw from Eurovision this year on account of it being held in Tel Aviv, made some decidedly anti-Semitic remarks on national broadcasting radio yesterday. Hours later, he posted a lengthy apology.

Thousands of Icelanders currently support boycotting Eurovision as it takes place in Israel this year; support for Eurovision, it is argued, expresses tacit support for the Israeli government’s policies regarding the Palestinian people. While Iceland ultimately decided to participate, the debate is far from over, and Páll Óskar has been amongst the most vocal supporters of a boycott.

However, when speaking with radio station Rás 1 yesterday, he made remarks regarding Jewish people as a whole that crossed the line from criticism of the Israeli government into more sweeping generalisations.

“The reason why the rest of Europe has been virtually silent is that Jews have woven themselves into the fabric of Europe in a very sly way for a very long time. It is not at all hip and cool to be pro-Palestine in Britain,” he said, saying at the interview’s conclusion: “The tragedy is that Jews learned nothing from the Holocaust. Instead, they have taken up the exact same policy of their worst enemy.”

The remarks were met with sharp criticism from many Icelanders, and hours later, Páll Óskar posted an apology and retraction.

“I admit unreservedly that I put the Israeli government, the Israeli military and the Jewish people under the same hat,” he wrote. “I made judgements and generalisations about Jewish people. … I take full responsibility for these words, take back my remarks about Jewish people, they are wrong and hurtful. I will take responsibility in actions, from this point forward, and will never again speak ill of the Jewish people, wherever in the world they may live.”

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Iceland: What do Icelanders really think about Israel? (video)

Via Rudy Rochman:

On the way to Iceland, I was told that many Icelanders were against Israel and that their media had been feeding them lies for years. I was also told that they had recently started a petition to boycott the Eurovision competition in Israel next year. 

Rudy Rochman Facebook

Belgium/Iceland physicians back outlawing circumcision

Via JTA:

Hundreds of physicians in Iceland and some of Belgium’s top doctors came out in support of a bill proposing to criminalize nonmedical circumcision of boys in the Scandinavian island nation.

The approximately 500 Icelandic physicians who backed the bill that was submitted last month to the parliament cited the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles.

“Potential complications should offset the benefits” of male circumcision, “which are few,” the Icelandic physicians wrote in a joint statement published Wednesday.

Advocates of male circumcision include many physicians who believe it reduces the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and genital infections.

In Belgium, several prominent physicians, including Guy T’Sjoen of Ghent University Hospital, told the De Morgen daily they also support a ban.

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Iceland: Circumcision ban will prevent Jewish life, leaders warn

Via Times of Israel:

The leaders of the Jewish communities of four Nordic countries said that a bill proposing to ban nonmedical circumcision in Iceland “will guarantee” that no Jewish community is established there.

The presidents of the umbrella groups of Jewish communities in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland issued the unusual warning Tuesday in an open letter to all Icelandic lawmakers in reaction to the submission last month of a bill proposing to ban all nonmedical circumcision of boys younger than 18 in Iceland, a Scandinavian island nation of some 300,000 people with a few hundred Jews and Muslims.

Lawmakers from four parties with 46 percent of the seats in parliament, including the ruling party, co-authored the bill.

If passed, “Iceland would be the only country to ban one of the most central, if not the most central rite in the Jewish tradition in modern times,” wrote Aron Verständig, Dan Rosenberg-Asmussen, Ervin Kohn and Yaron Nadbornik in the letter.

Referencing the Nazi prohibition on brit milah, Jewish ritual circumcision, they noted: “It would not be the first time in the long tradition of the Jewish people. Throughout history, more than one oppressive regime has tried to suppress our people and eradicate Judaism by prohibiting our religious practices.”

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Germany: Pandemonium as Nuremberg city council bans anti-Semitic photography exhibit

Via Times of Israel: 

“I am allowed to be a little bit emotional,” Anneliese Fikentscher said, excusing herself for her use of foul language in front of the roughly 30 people gathered in the Künstlerhaus to discuss the banned exhibit.

Fikentscher is co-head of the Arbeiterfotografie photography association — which developed the current exhibit on the Cologne Wailing Wall — along with her comrade Andreas Neumann.

Fikentscher and Neumann claim the ban is against the city’s restrictions, and have described the actions against their group as censorship, saying the municipality was being unconstitutional. Article 5 in the German constitution prohibits censorship.

Yet some of the meeting’s attendees had other questions — such as why Arbeiterfotografie works together with right wing-publicists, and why the group went to Iran to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Elias Davidsson, an Icelandic composer who described himself as a Palestinian of Jewish decent, stepped to the microphone and declared, “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one of the greatest statesmen in the world!”

Jaws dropped.

A shouting match ensued, with supporters of Arbeiterfotografie taking aim at the critics. At one point, one critic stood up and said, “Fuck off,” before leaving the room.

Two women continued to ask questions, inquiring why Arbeiterfotografie works together with Salafist radicals. After one of the women was physically attacked, the Left Literature Fair’s organizer, Walter Bauer, lost his temper and threw the women out. The attacker, however, remained in the room undisturbed.

Arbeiterfotografie has participated several times at the Left Literature Fair, where this year more than 60 events were held.

Fikentscher and Neumann, heads of Arbeiterfotografie, have been accused of trying to form a “national-socialist querfront,” or unification of the extreme Left and extreme Right. The two contest the fact that Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust, and have reported that the US might have induced the earthquake in Fukushima using weather warfare technology.

The planned exhibit in Nuremberg, which was published online following the ban from the festival, does not mention the discussions about the Cologne Wailing Wall. The installation includes phrases like, “An elite of criminals, the New-World-Order-Mafia, enslaves the rest of the world and controls politics, media and corporations.”

According to Arbeiterfotografie, the Cologne Wailing Wall is an “outrcy against racism and war,” and “a memorial to democracy and freedom of expression.”

But prior to the fair, the publishing house Ventil Verlag decided to cancel its participation, stating that the exhibition is anti-Semitic.

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Iceland: Politician compares Israel to ISIS

Via Breitbart (h/t qumranqu)

Meanwhile, Iceland’s former Foreign Minister Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson was interviewed on an Icelandic radio station and urged people to pray not only for Paris but also for Palestinians killed in the territories.

“Let us pray for the sake of Paris, but let’s not just pray for her. Let us pray for the world,” said Hannibalsson. “Let us pray for Beirut, which was attacked by suicide bombers, even though it did not reach the media. Let us pray for the sake of Baghdad and what happened there. Let us pray for the Palestinians killed in the Occupied Territories.”

Israel’s ambassador to Norway, Rafi Schutz, who is also ambassador to Iceland, issued a response in which he attacked Hannibalsson for including the Palestinians on a list of terror victims.

“Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations that are bent on destroying are no different from the perpetrators of the massacre in Paris. Whoever fails to see this obvious reality, like Mr. Hannibalsson, is motivated by a distorted and immoral bias.”

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Iceland: Fake boycott: “I have yet to see even one Israeli product” in Iceland

Reykjavik revisiting Magritte's painting
"This is not a pipe."
"This is/was not a boycott."

This takes us to a new level of sophistication - boycotting Israeli products that never existed in Iceland.. And now the Reykjavik city council backtracks on its decision to boycott products that never existed in the first place.  Surrealistic situation.

Background: Iceland: Reykjavik passes law boycotting all Israeli products


Honest Reporting reports:

The Reykjavik city council backtracked somewhat on its decision to boycott Israeli products. City hall announced that its boycott only applies to West Bank products. But Israelis living in Iceland tell YNet there are no blue and white goods sold in Iceland.

“Don’t get wound up about Reykjavik’s decision to boycott Israel products, because it is meaningless,” said Nimrod Ron, an Israeli musician living in Iceland, regarding the capital’s recent decision to boycott Israeli goods. “I have lived in Iceland for three years, and have yet to see even one Israeli product.”

Iceland: Reykjavik passes law boycotting all Israeli products.

Jewish Press reports:

Reykjavik, Iceland passed a law boycotting all Israeli products. Both Israel and Iceland are parties to an international trade treaty which bans such boycotts.


The 15-member City Council passed a motion banning the city of Reykjavik from purchasing any goods made in Israel. Reykjavik went whole hog – all Israeli goods were banned under its new law, not just goods made or grown beyond the “Green Line.” The measure was passed by a majority of the City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 15.

The motion was sponsored by retiring Councillor Björk Vilhelmsdóttir, of the center-left Social Democrats. The motion was introduced in 2014, as a response to that summer’s conflict between Hamas and Israel. Vilhelmsdóttir also encouraged individuals to boycott all Israeli goods.  The preamble to the new law states that the City of Reykjavik will not purchase any goods from Israel so long as that country “occupies Palestinian territories.”

In the opinion of the Reykjavik City Council, Israel deserves to be slapped – at least symbolically – for “violating international agreements” and for treating Palestinian Arabs with a form of Apartheid, akin to South Africa.

Vilhelmsdóttir claims neither she nor her legislative action have anything to do with anti-Semitism, and neither are opposed to Israel, merely to the current government of Israel.

The councillor’s husband, Sveinn Runar Hauksson, is the head of the Iceland-Palestine Association.

On the Councillor’s Facebook page, she features a picture of two young girls holding a huge poster of a man with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanuyahu’s head on the body of a Nazi officer.

Although most photographs of Hauksson show him wearing a kefiyah expressing allegiance to Fatah, his Facebook page boasts a picture of him in 2010 handing an award to the then-Prime Minister of Gaza and head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.

 Read more.

Iceland: Artist uses Down's Syndrome, trans women as 'moral shield' for antisemitic clip

h/t Scandinavian Anti-semitism Watch

Snorri Ásmundsson is an Icelandic artist who "works with social taboos of politics, sex and religion".   Antisemitism, however, isn't taboo in Iceland, it's a cultural norm.

In any case, this past July Snorri posted a clip of 'Hatikva', the Israeli national anthem.   The clip is full of antisemitic imagery, but as we will see below, Snorri is not stupid, and he has found a way to protect himself from accusations of antisemitism: Throw in a couple of Down's Syndrome actors and dress up as Israel's most famous trans woman singer, Dana International.

Haukur Már Helgason reviewed the clip and noted its antisemitic undertones:

The video starts with a close-up of a woman wearing a hijab or a burqa, a black veil covering half her face. She is then grabbed and pulled out of the frame by a man wearing the Jewish star of David over his upper arm.

Snorri showing evil Zionist attacking defenseless Muslim woman

 Consequently, the artist, Snorri, appears in drag: red lipstick, eye shadow, tight shiny dress, black feathers extending from its back, over the artist’s head. Snorri has explained the outfit as a reference to Dana International, the drag queen who, as Israel’s representative, won the Eurovision song contest in 1998.

Snorri's gotcha - If you claim it's antisemitism,

you're insulting trans women

 The artist is surrounded by characters, each of which is defined by an apparently obvious reference to nationality: two men with downs-syndrome are dressed up in what seems to be the traditional black-and-white clothing of Hasidic Jews, including hats and the traditional locks of hair.

Snorri's gotcha - If you claim it's antisemitism,
you're insulting Down's Syndrome people

He then spoke with Snorri about it:

It felt as if Snorri had dodged the question of anti-Semitism, rather than answer it. But I couldn’t get rid of it. Looking at the video, it is just about all I see.  

(...) 

Q: [T]wo of the actors have Downs-syndrome, don’t they? 

A :‘Yes.’ 

Q: And both of them are dressed as Hasidic Jews? 

A: ‘Yes.’ 

Q: And now, if I understand correctly your method in this piece, you put me up against a wall, where I want to ask if you, by this, intend to belittle Jews —but if I ask you that, it will sound as if I am belittling people with Downs-syndrome. 

A: ‘That’s exactly it. That’s precisely the point,’ said Snorri and laughed. 

Q: So you consider that to be a fair description of the trick you play there? 

A: ‘I partly work with, yes, I am disrupting something there. I expected this question. Saw it coming. But you sort of answered the question for me as well. Then you would be belittling them, you see. I knew in advance that this was what I’m putting on the table, you know.’

(...) 

After going here and there through the first part of the interview, Snorri finally confirmed to have, in his video to the song Hatikvah, aimed at belittling Jews in a way that would make it as hard as possible for others to put their fingers on; and that he had, for that sake, employed actors with Downs-syndrome, as a sort of moral human shield, teflon-coating against possible criticism.

In his interview Snorri also says that his friends were concerned for his life when he started making this clip.  Why?  Where they afraid of the evil Israelis or the evil Jews?