Norway ‘peace ring’ organizer has history of anti-Semitic remarks

Several hundred people gather at a Norwegian synagogue to support Jews at an event which draws praise but also criticism because of an organizer’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements.

Ervin Kohn, head of the Jewish community of Oslo, tells JTA he thought the initiative was “extremely positive” and said it could change the dynamics of minority relations in Scandinavia.

But some members of his community say the event was tainted because of anti-Semitic statements that one of its eight organizers made in 2008, and because he said this week that he dislikes people who support Israel.

Ali Chishti confirmed on Saturday in an interview with Verdens Gang, a highbrow Norwegian newspaper, that he delivered on March 22, 2008, in Oslo a speech on the alleged involvement of Jews in planning the 9/11 Twin Towers bombings in New York. The speech’s title was: “Therefore I Hate Jews and Gays,” the paper reported, though Chishti says he was not the one who came up with the title.

“There were several thousand Jews away from work in the World Trade Center, and why there were more Jews in Mumbai when Pakistani terrorists attacked than usual?” he said then, repeating the conspiracy theory that Jews knew in advance of the attack that killed thousands. “Jews are a small group, but everyone knows that they have a lot of power,” he said.

In Saturday interviews, he retracts his words. In an interview with the daily Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, he says they were “anti-Semitic” and “unacceptable.”

“I was angry,” he tells Verdens Gang. “I have since changed my views.” But he also says he “dislikes” people who support “an occupying force that has been condemned in several United Nations resolutions.”

“I think it is important to distinguish between being critical of Israel and anti-Semitism,” he also tells Verdens Gang.

Eric Argaman, a pro-Israel activist and member of Norway’s Jewish community, says Chishti’s involvement “stained the event, which now feels more like a spin, on our backs, than a gesture of good will.”

— JTA