Barry Rubin finner seg ikke i å bli tillagt meninger om 22/7. Han tar til motmæle i Jerusalem Post og viser at det for tiden er større takhøyde i Israel enn i Norge.

Rubin skrev en kommentar, The Oslo Syndrome, der han påpeker det paradoksale ved at AUFs leir hyllet palestinernes kamp rett før 22/7, i tråd med regjeringens politikk overfor Hamas og palestinske myndigheter. Norge tror det kan diffrensiere mellom terror, men det kan man ikke: Terror er terror, skrev Rubin. Han viste til Norges ambassadør Svein Sevje som i et intervju med Maariv sa at Norge ikke kom til å forandre syn på terroren Israel utsettes for: den skyldes okkupasjonen. Dette mener Rubin og mange israelere ikke bare er dobbeltmoral, men politisk farlig. Man kan ikke tolerere én form for terror. Da svekker man motstanden mot terror. Terror er en taktikk som også andre kan benytte. Dette betyr på ingen måte at Rubin relativiserer Anders Behring Breivik. Det stikk motsatte er tilfelle.

Han prøver å få europeere til å forstå at man har tolerert terror som kom fra «riktig side».

When Norway’s ambassador to Israel tries to distinguish between “bad” terrorism in Norway and “understandable” terrorism against Israelis, that opens the door to a man who thinks his country is “occupied” by leftists and Muslims.

In this sense, the most important thing about the Norway terrorist is not that he is right-wing or anti-Islam, The most important thing is that he believed terrorism would work on behalf of his cause.

Had he held all of the same beliefs but didn’t think murder was a good tactic, nobody would be dead from his actions.

Of course, he was mentally unbalanced, but had a material basis for his imaginings.

What he didn’t understand is that many Europeans will accept terrorism against Israelis or even Americans; very few will applaud terrorism against fellow Europeans.

Nevertheless, many people gave him the idea that terrorism would change minds, and bring victory. They weren’t those whose blogs he quoted a few times in a 1,500-page manifesto, and who explicitly rejected violence. It was the successful terrorists and their Western enablers who gave him the tactic he implemented.

Dette er et svært ubehagelig budskap, og Rubin fikk massiv kritikk. Jerusalem Post var inne på noe av det samme i sin første leder, men ba om unnskyldning. Hverken Caroline Glick eller Rubin ber om unnskyldning. Debatten gjelder vitale israelske interesser.

Ved å si det han gjorde har ambassadør Sevje knyttet sammen debatten i Norge og Israel. Det åpner mange perspektiver.

Rubin har fått med seg at han er blitt kritisert i norske aviser. Men ingen av dem har tatt kontakt og gitt ham anledning til å forklare seg.

Nå skriver han en ny kommentar og forklarer og forsvarer seg. Norge ser bare ut til å godta en debatt som føres på egne premisser, skriver Rubin. Det er uholdbart.

How’s that for constructive dialogue and healing? The blog Israel Matzav sums up my position very well: “Rubin said that this terror attack, committed by a ‘normal Norwegian boy’ [not my words] ought to make Norwegians do some introspection about their government’s support for terror organizations like Hamas. Is Norway giving its youth the wrong message through its support for Hamas? Why is Norway not even willing to ask itself that question?” And the Norwegian reaction is to reiterate – as its ambassador to Israel portrayed his country’s view – that there is a rational reason to murder Israeli children (“occupation,” despite the fact that Israel has withdrawn from all of the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank, and indicated its readiness to accept a Palestinian state 11 years ago), but not to murder Norwegian children. In other words, one can only discuss the evil Norwegian terrorist in the parameters laid down by the Norwegian Left. One can talk endlessly about how his specific ideology – right-wing, allegedly Christian, and Islamophobic – but not the way he fits into a much wider pattern of rising terrorism in general.

Hvis man viser ved sin politikk at terrorisme betaler seg, slik den norske regjering har gjort ved sin tolerante holdning til Hamas, vil man øke risikoen for at terror sprer seg. Faren øker når myndighetene gir etter for eller tolererer grupper som bruker terror, slik som Hamas.

But I never said and I’m not saying now that a terrorist attack took place in Norway because of its anti-Israel policies or atmosphere. Nor am I saying that Norway “supports” terrorism itself, that it applauds the murder of civilians elsewhere. What I’m saying – as nobody has publicly acknowledged in Norway – is that to show terrorists they will get more sympathy than Israel, to reward a group such as Hamas, to say that terrorism can be ignored if directed against the “proper” people is to increase the overall level of terrorism against Israel and in the world, including in Norway itself.

If others who have extremist views and/or mental disorders see every day that terrorism produces political advantage and sympathy for those who commit it, they are more likely to commit terrorism. If groups see their terrorism is no barrier to being invited to Norway and to having lunch with cabinet ministers while their enemies’ self-defense countermeasures are condemned and vilified, they are more likely to adopt terrorism as a strategy.

The underlying concept of the Norwegian response is that Norway is a country that isn’t supposed to have terrorism committed against it. But Israel is a country that deserves to have terrorism committed against it. My point is that neither country “deserves” to have this happen. That doesn’t mean Norway is guilty or should be punished or that an evil terrorist attack is justified. No, it means that Norway should be more consistently and universally against giving terrorists victories – even though it does so by ignoring their terrorism.

Rubin peker på at mange i Europa har forståelse for eller relativiserer terror mot Israel og USA. Ambassadør Sevje var svært umusikalsk da han sa at Norges syn på terror mot Israel ligger fast, den skyldes okkupasjonen. Men israelere vet at den har en mørkere side, som er antisemittisme og et ønske om å utrydde jødene fra Midtøsten. Dermed får Sevjes rasjonelle forklaring på terroren en helt annen undertone i israelske ører.

Rubin åpner artikkelen med å sitere Shimon Peres og Hamas-leder Mahmoud Zahar:

“I do not understand Norway’s position, and I say that as a friend of Norway. If they shoot, if they fire rockets, why doesn’t Norway believe that they are terrorists? What else do they need to do? Let us not forget that Norway and the other Scandinavian countries called in Yasser Arafat and said: ‘If you want a deal, you must first renounce terrorism. You must recognize the State of Israel, and you must commit yourself to peace.’ Why is all this forgotten? What is the difference between the PLO at that time and Hamas today?” – President Shimon Peres, May 2011

“We want Palestine in its entirety – so there will not be any misunderstandings. If our generation is unable to achieve this, the next one will, and we are raising our children on this. Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, and Israel cannot exist in our midst… We liberated Gaza through resistance. We want to conduct resistance in the West Bank as well.” – Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, July 2011, a few days before members of Norway’s ruling party expressed enthusiastic support for helping Hamas.

Norway and terror: Repressing discussion doesn’t help