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Icelandic flag at the port of Reykjavik, Iceland, photo by Chris Goldberg via Flickr CC
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 888, July 10, 2018
ABSTRACT: Whenever the media mention Iceland in the context of Israel, C is usually for reporting negative news. It is difficult to find in the history of Iceland more than one important occasion where it has played a positive role for Israel. There have been many cases of anti-Semitism in Iceland over the centuries. Every year, during the Lenten period before Easter, 17 hymns full of hatred for Jews are read daily by distinguished citizens and broadcast on Icelandic public radio
. In the context of Israel, it usually involves reporting negative news. A recent development is a petition circulating in the country not to participate in the Eurovision contest, which will take place next year in Israel. Until now, this petition has received 11,000 signatories. This is important in a country with only about 350,000 inhabitants. (Apparently, the national broadcaster nevertheless intends to participate in the Eurovision program.)
It is difficult to find in the history of Iceland more than one important occasion where it played a positive role for Israel or the Jews. The representative of Iceland to the UN, Ambbadador Thor Thors, was the rapporteur of the Special Committee on Palestine of 1947 (UNSCOP). This committee recommended dividing the British mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. In her autobiography, Abba Eban reports that Thors was "gorgeous" in presenting the recommendation to the General Assembly where the vote would be taken.
In 2015, the Reykjavik City Council, the capital of Iceland, decided to boycott Israeli products. A week later, the mayor of Reykjavik, Dagur B. Eggertsson, changed the proposal so that the city would only boycott goods produced in the "occupied" areas. Council members said the boycott was a symbolic act designed to support the Palestinian state and condemn Israel's so-called apartheid policy.
The Icelandic Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the decision of the city council was not in accordance with the country's policy. Yair Lapid, leader of the Israeli Yesh Atid party and former finance minister, responded by asking among others whether the boycott included Microsoft Office, cell phones, cameras and Google, all of which contain elements produced in Israel. Lapid added that if the answer to all these questions is yes, he wishes them a pleasant life until their infarction unfortunately inevitable, because pacemakers are also an Israeli invention.
For such a small country, Iceland has caused a lot of international mischief this century. He made the international press in 2008 in an important way when he suffered a systematic bank failure. Given the relative size of its economy, its financial collapse was the largest ever recorded in the world.
In 2011, the Icelandic parliament was the first country in Western Europe to recognize a Palestinian state. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ossour Skarphedinson, was extremely anti-Israeli. Iceland Birgitta Jonsdottir was the first parliamentarian of all countries to visit the participants of the second flotilla failed Gaza.
The attitude of Iceland towards Jews, both recently and in the past, can be described as miserable. The latest indignity was a proposal this year to be the first country in Europe to ban circumcision. In addition to the politicians, 400 doctors supported the bill.
Iceland has attracted a lot of negative international attention in this regard. Reinhard Marx, Cardinal of Munich and President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community, denounced the bill as an attack on religious freedom. The bishop of the National Church of Iceland said that the ban could criminalize Judaism and Islam in this country and result in the exclusion of people who adhere to these religions.
The leading Republican and Democrat in the United States House of Representatives urged Iceland not to support the bill. They wrote to the Icelandic ambbadador in Washington: "While the Jewish and Muslim populations in Iceland may be small, the ban on your country could be exploited by those who stoke xenophobia and lure it. anti-Semitism in more diverse countries. The rabbis announced that they had managed to convince doctors, academics and heads of organizations of all faiths to call the proposal "anti-Semitic".
There are many other examples of antisemitic behavior in Iceland's past. Iceland has given a warm haven to the Estonian Nazi war criminal Evald Mikson. In the late 1980s, the Nazi hunter Ephraim Zuroff tried to bring Mikson to justice for his involvement in the murder of Jews in Estonia. This led to numerous attacks by the Icelandic media against Israel. The government of the country took more than 10 years after Zuroff's initial appeals to set up a commission to investigate Mikson's war crimes. It was only after his death that the investigators found that he had indeed committed atrocities.
In 2004, Iceland offered asylum to Bobby Fischer, the former world champion of extremely anti-Semitic chess. In 2004, he was arrested in Japan and detained for several months for using a pbadport revoked by the US government. Fischer fought extradition in the United States. Eventually he received an Icelandic pbadport and citizenship by a special act from the Althing, the Icelandic parliament. This allowed him to live in Iceland until his death in 2008. (Aside, he hailed the attacks of September 11.)
Many cases of anti-Semitism in Iceland over the centuries have were described by Vilhjalmur Örn Vilhjálmsson, an expert on the country's history towards Jews. One example is the deportation in 1938 of an impoverished German Jewish refugee to Denmark. The Icelandic authorities then offered to cover all the costs of his deportation to Nazi Germany if Denmark refused him entry. Decades after the war, similar cases were known.
Vilhjálmsson also published the fact that several Icelandic members of the Waffen SS were fighting for Nazi Germany and that others were serving in concentration camps. He added that after the war, various former members of the Nazi Party of Iceland quickly "reached high positions in society, including some police chiefs, a bank manager and some doctors."
Icelandic anti-Semitism continues. Every year during the Lenten period before Easter, daily hymns full of hatred for Jews are read by distinguished citizens and broadcast on Icelandic public radio. These texts were written in the 17th century – many years before the first Jews arrived in the country – by the Christian priest, the poet, and the anti Semitic Halgrimur Petterson. A hymn, entitled "The Crucifixion Claim," reads: "The Jewish rulers all decide that Jesus must be crucified, the prince of life their prey must be, the murderer set free." In 2012, the center Simon Wiesenthal tried in vain to stop this odious practice.
A Chabad emissary recently arrived in Iceland and a Habad house was established in Reykjavik. It is the first permanent Jewish institution in the country. The highest estimate of Jews in the country is 250, a tiny presence. It can only be hoped that the new emissary will not be subject to abuse.
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Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is a Research Associate at the BESA Center and former Chair of the Jerusalem Public Affairs Center Steering Committee. He specializes in Western European relations, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and is the author of The War of One Million Cuts [19659005] BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published generosity of the Greg Rosshandler family
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