Let me start with a digression.
—What do you mean, digression! Digression from what?
So, ok, maybe the correct term isn’t “digression”, but I want to start by pointing out something that has nothing do with today’s topic.
I live in the northern hemisphere. We use thick winter clothing six months a year. You may, or may not, know what “thick winter clothing” means. I’d better spell it out: woollen sweaters, wind breakers, thermals, puffer jackets and coats, knitted hats, boots… and scarves. Lots and lots of scarves, not because we need to wear many at the same time, but because they serve as accessories in addition to providing warmth and bursts of colour, which we badly need, because there is hardly any natural light in winter, hence no colour. Forget about the fairytale landscapes of Christmas cards: Winters are dull. Period.
So most of us living here prefer summer to winter. So did I until recently. However, only in winter can I wear my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf. That scarf is a scream, a silent protest, a reminder to those who are as aware as I am of what is going on, but who “cannot bear to think about it”.
Mind you, I do – I really do – understand that they cannot bear to think about it. It is so very much worse than all the evils we have read about in fairytales or seen even in Hollywood films. “We are powerless,” they say. And of course, they are right because Norway is, to all intents and purposes, an occupied country. Norwegians don’t like it when I say that, but we are only 5 million people here, and the USA has 12 military bases on our soil. Could we militarily defend Gaza? We have no independent armed forces. None. We are just part of NATO, and NATO is USA’s European arm, to deploy as it sees fit, against Russia, Afghanistan, Libya., … AND PALESTINE: What would we do. for example, if the US were to invade Greenland?
I am actually looking forward to winter, when I shall once more don my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf. That scarf, that blessed scarf – just thinking about it evokes the very real memory of its softness against my skin – is not only a scream; it is my pitchfork!
I have, I admit, a pitchfork, a real one, that is. It hangs from a dedicated hook in my tool shed. A lot of Norwegians have pitchforks in their tool sheds. Let me tell you, in case you didn’t know: Pitchforks are murder weapons. However, unlike the murder weapon, HUNGER, employed by Israel (USA’s “aircraft carrier ” in the Middle East), pitchforks kill only one person at a time. Norwegians are not, unlike most US congressmen and most Israelis, a murderous tribe.
Nor am I a murderous person. But I want to hurt USA’s aircraft carrier Israel. I want to hurt USA. I promise I shall never again, ever, EVER buy anything I know has been produced by Israel or the USA. But I shall not murder.
I shall just wear my large, very warm, red and white Palestinian scarf and imagine that it is a pitchfork against the USA and its 800 military bases all over the world and its crippling sanctions, and its bigotry and hypocrisy and… and…
Now, for today’s topic:
Look up the Koran, 2.62. Neither the Iranians nor the Palestinians are “antisemitic”! If I were to write a book of doctrine, it might consist of only one sentence:
Thou shalt judge men and women by their deeds,
not by their religion or the colour of their skin.