The current war is not only bringing out the Jew-haters in America, like Mel Gibson, but also in Europe. Yesterday, one of Norway's leading writers, Jostein Gaarder, author of best-seller "Sophie's World," with 26 million copies in print, wrote an astonishing op-ed in Aftenposten, Norway's leading paper. It's called "God's Chosen People." My friend Bruce Bawer has translated parts of it:
ISRAEL IS HISTORY. We no longer recognize the State of Israel. There is no way back. The State of Israel has raped the world’s recognition and will not receive peace before it lays down its weapons ...
NO WAY BACK ... We don't believe in the concept of God's chosen people. We laugh at this people's fancies and weep over their misdeeds. To present themselves as God's chosen people is not just stupid and arrogant, but a crime against humanity. We call it racism ...
There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance ...The State of Israel has raped the world’s recognition ...
We do not believe that Israel mourns forty killed Lebanese children more than they have lamented for over three thousand years the forty years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs just as they once exulted over the Lord’s scourges as 'appropriate punishment' for the Egyptian people ... We ask ourselves whether most Israelis think that one Israeli life is worth more than forty Palestinian or Lebanese lives.
Get the gist? Very few Arabs believe Israel deserves to exist in any form. And far more Europeans hold this view than will publicly say so. I think we are in the beginnings of an existential war to destroy the Jewish state. And this much I fear: it will not end, sooner or later, in a ceasefire.