          http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/8/5/122335/1324

          Jostein Gaarder, the author of the global literary phenomenon Sophie's
          World (printed in 26m copies in 53 languages), launches a scorching
          attack on Israel in Aftenposten, Norway's paper of record. Gaarder, a
          historian of ideas, describes himself as a friend of the Jewish people
          but doubts whether Israel truly is the same. Suffice it to say that this
          will not appear in the New York Times anytime soon.

          The form of Gaarder's condemnation is inspired by Amos, the first Judaic
          prophet whose message is preserved in scroll (ca. 750 B.C.). Quoting
          Wikipedia: "The central idea of the book of Amos according to most
          scholars is that Yahweh puts his people on the same level as the nations
          that surround it -- Yahweh expects the same morality of them all."

    God's chosen people

    Jostein Gaarder, Aftenposten 05.08.06

    From the Norwegian by Sirocco

    There is no turning back. It is time to learn a new lesson: We do no
    longer recognize the state of Israel. We could not recognize the South
    African apartheid regime, nor did we recognize the Afghan Taliban
    regime. Then there were many who did not recognize Saddam Hussein's Iraq
    or the Serbs' ethnic cleansing. We must now get used to the idea: The
    state of Israel in its current form is history.

    We do not believe in the notion of God's chosen people. We laugh at this
    people's fancies and weep over its misdeeds. To act as God's chosen
    people is not only stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We
    call it racism.

    Limits to tolerance

    There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance.
    We do not believe in divine promises as justification for occupation and
    apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at
    those who still believe that the God of flora, fauna, and galaxies has
    selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it funny
    stone tablets, burning bushes, and a license to kill.

    We call child murderers 'child murderers' and will never accept that
    such have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We say
    but this: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on
    every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas,
    Hizballah, or the state of Israel!

    Unscrupulous art of war

    We acknowledge and pay heed to Europe's deep responsibility for the
    plight of the Jews, for the disgraceful harassment, the pogroms, and the
    Holocaust. It was historically and morally necessary for Jews to get
    their own home. However, the state of Israel, with its unscrupulous art
    of war and its disgusting weapons, has massacred its own legitimacy. It
    has systematically flaunted International Law, international
    conventions, and countless UN resolutions, and it can no longer expect
    protection from same. It has carpet bombed the recognition of the world.
    But fear not! The time of trouble shall soon be over. The state of
    Israel has seen its Soweto.

    We are now at the watershed. There is no turning back. The state of
    Israel has raped the recognition of the world and shall have no peace
    until it lays down its arms.

    Without defense, without skin

    May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The state
    of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without skin. May
    the world therefore have mercy on the civilian population. For it is not
    civilian individuals at whom our doomsaying is directed.

    We wish the people of Israel well, nothing but well, but we reserve the
    right not to eat Jaffa oranges as long as they taste foul and are
    poisonous. It was endurable to live some years without the blue grapes
    of apartheid.

    They celebrate their triumphs

    We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children more
    than it for over three thousand years has lamented forty years in the
    desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they
    once cheered the scourges of the Lord as "fitting punishment" for the
    people of Egypt. (In that tale, the Lord, God of Israel, appears as an
    insatiable sadist.) We query whether most Israelis think that one
    Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or Lebanese lives.

    For we have seen pictures of little Israeli girls writing hateful
    greetings on the bombs to be dropped on the civilian population of
    Lebanon and Palestine. Little Israeli girls are not cute when they strut
    with glee at death and torment across the fronts.

    The retribution of blood vengeance

    We do not recognize the rhetoric of the state of Israel. We do not
    recognize the spiral of retribution of the blood vengeance with "an eye
    for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." We do not recognize the principle
    of one or a thousand Arab eyes for one Israeli eye. We do not recognize
    collective punishment or population-wide diets as political weapons. Two
    thousand years have passed since a Jewish rabbi criticized the ancient
    doctrine of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

    He said: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." We do not
    recognize a state founded on antihumanistic principles and on the ruins
    of an archaic national and war religion. Or as Albert Schweitzer
    expressed it: "Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human
    being to a purpose."

    Compassion and forgiveness

    We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st
    century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand
    years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the
    Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among us.
    The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness.

    Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and
    humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first Zionist
    terrorists were operating.

    Israel does not listen

    For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but
    Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the man who
    lay by the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan;
    today we would say, a Palestinian. For we are human first of all -- then
    Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. Or as the Jewish rabbi said: "And if you
    greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?" We do not
    accept the abduction of soldiers. But nor do we accept the deportation
    of whole populations or the abduction of legally elected
    parliamentarians and government ministers.

    We recognize the state of Israel of 1948, but not the one of 1967. It is
    the state of Israel that fails to recognize, respect, or defer to the
    internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more
    water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with
    God's assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem. The
    Palestinians have so many other countries, certain Israeli politicians
    have argued; we have only one.

    The USA or the world?

    Or as the highest protector of the state of Israel puts it: "May God
    continue to bless America." A little child took note of that. She turned
    to her mother, saying: "Why does the President always end his speeches
    with 'God bless America'? Why not, 'God bless the world'?"

    Then there was a Norwegian poet who let out this childlike sigh of the
    heart: "Why doth Humanity so slowly progress?" It was he that wrote so
    beautifully of the Jew and the Jewess. But he rejected the notion of
    God's chosen people. He personally liked to call himself a Muhammedan.

    Calm and mercy

    We do not recognize the state of Israel. Not today, not as of this
    writing, not in the hour of grief and wrath. If the entire Israeli
    nation should fall to its own devices and parts of the population have
    to flee the occupied areas into another diaspora, then we say: May the
    surroundings stay calm and show them mercy. It is forever a crime
    without mitigation to lay hand on refugees and stateless people.

    Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer
    protected by a state. Fire not at the fugitives! Take not aim at them!
    They are vulnerable now like snails without shells, vulnerable like slow
    caravans of Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, defenseless like women
    and children and the old in Qana, Gaza, Sabra, and Chatilla. Give the
    Israeli refugees shelter, give them milk and honey!

    Let not one Israeli child be deprived of life. Far too many children and
    civilians have already been murdered.

          From (Sirocco) my blog.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
          Also available there:

          A partial analysis of the controversial essay, refuting some bad
          interpretations.

          A comment on the letter to the Norwegian people from Shimon Samuels at
          the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

          I wrote out of disgust for the war

          http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1415414.ece

    Jostein Gaarder sticks to the intentions behind his controversial
    critique of Israel's conduct in recent fighting in Lebanon, but admits
    that the approach chosen was 'problematic'.

    "I must admit that the reactions have been stronger than I expected. But
    now it is over for my part. Starting today I have no intention of
    further comment on this matter," Gaarder told Aftenposten.

    "Now it can run its course without my participation. But I hope that in
    a month or a year I can think back and not regret what I have done. I
    don't regret it today at least," Gaarder said.

    The reactions to Gaarder's editorial "God's chosen people", published on
    Saturday, have been ferocious. The author of the bestselling "Sophie's
    World" has been accused of being anti-Semitic, muddled, ignorant and
    mixing an ill assortment of themes. He now admits that he would have
    chosen a different form for trying to make his point if he were to do it
    again.

    "I said in advance that my greatest fear was to offend Jews and when I
    now see that I have done this I have to ask myself what could have been
    done differently. First and foremost I would have tried to differentiate
    more clearly between religion and how religion is used politically and
    rhetorically in Israel," Gaarder said.

    "Also, I think it is sad that the debate has turned away from my
    intention, namely to confront the war Israel is waging... but I must
    also point out that I have received hundreds of encouraging and
    supportive mails and messages, much more than would have thought from
    the debate in newspapers and other media. The support also concerns the
    style of the article."

    Form and content

    Gaarder is asked if he could expect to urge reconciliation from Israel
    while writing in the manner of biblical prophecy, and if he should not
    have given greater thought to the consequences of his article and the
    mood of anger that inspired it.

    "Perhaps. It is a bit early to say. Let us see how the debate develops.
    I see that the rhetorical devices chosen were debatable. On the other
    hand, I am a writer. The piece is written in literary style, formed as a
    prophecy. And I am absolutely not about to retreat from the content,
    despite the clarifications I have now given you. I have long thought of
    confronting Israel and the abuse of religion for political ends taking
    place in Israel itself. I drafted this with several Middle East experts
    before I published it. Many Israelis have messianic ideas about their
    nation and the war being waged. They believe the land is given them by
    God. This is naive and dangerous. I believe we must confront this type
    of thinking - no matter where we find it. 'God bless America' says
    President George W. Bush. Why can't he say 'God bless the world'?",
    Gaarder said.

    Worries

    Gaarder said that calls like those of Professor Helge Høibraaten, who
    wrote that he should 'shut his face', only remind him of those who ask
    for an author's books to be burned. Gaarder confirms that he has been
    frightened by the reactions.

    "It is correct that I have started to look over my shoulder when I walk
    down the street. Not that I have any objective reason to do so, it could
    well be just that I am just a bit crazy. And I have no fear at all of
    being attacked by Norwegian Jews. They are very peaceful people,"
    Gaarder said.

    'Laughable obsessions'

    Gaarder is asked about the passage "we laugh at this people's
    obsessions", one of the article's flashpoints.

    "...We must ask: Is it so that we can discuss some religions and not
    others? Some aspects of a religion and not others? It must be possible
    to put forth religious criticism in the public sphere. We have
    traditions for this in Norway. Arnulf Øverland wrote "Christianity - the
    tenth plague" in the 1930s and was accused of blasphemy. This is over
    and done with," Gaarder said, and goes on to stress the importance of
    using freedom of speech, and that it must be possible to have such
    discussions without being branded an anti-Semite.

    "I have said it countless times and I can repeat it again: I am a
    humanist, not an anti-Semite. Both the Jewish and Greek traditions of
    thought are part of the foundation on which I stand. My article was
    written from disgust for the war, and the assault of the Israeli war
    machine ... and I also condemn Hezbollah's missiles over Israel, to make
    that clear," Gaarder said.

    Mohammed caricatures

    Gaarder paused when asked if he would have published the caricatures of
    the prophet Mohammed that set off violent reactions in the Muslim world
    last winter.

    "I have seen the drawings and didn't like them. I have seen caricatures
    of Jesus, too, and don't like that either. So if I had been the editor I
    would not have printed the Mohammed drawings. Of course I don't mean
    that it should be forbidden, but that I personally would not have done
    it," Gaarder said.

    "It has to do with giving offense. This is not the type of religious
    criticism I want. I don't want to offend people. That is also why I say
    that the only thing that I am truly sorry about my article is that it
    has been hurtful."