THE HAGUE (JTA) — More than a third of Norwegians believe that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is similar to how Nazis treated Jews, according to a survey of attitudes toward Jews in Norway.
The recent survey found that 38 percent of Norwegians feel that way about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. It also indicates that 25 percent of Norwegians believe Jews exploit the memory of the Holocaust to their own advantage and 26 percent think Jews “consider themselves better than others.”
Some 12 percent of the Norwegian population “can be considered significantly prejudiced against Jews,” according to the survey, which was published last month by the Oslo-based Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities. The survey said the prevalence of anti-Semitic notions in Norway is limited and comparable to that of Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.
TNS Gallup collected data from 1,522 respondents last November for the survey.
Seventy-six percent of those who demonstrated anti-Jewish attitudes in the survey displayed similar attitudes toward Muslims.
Meanwhile, the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Wednesday urged the Norwegian Justice Ministry to “protect threatened children” in Norway’s school system following an unconfirmed report about alleged schoolyard abuse against a Jewish teenager in Oslo. The report, which appeared on the blog Norway Israel and the Jews, said a classmate of the 16-year-old Jewish boy branded him by placing a hot coin on his neck. The blog said the boy’s father was Israeli.
The head of Oslo’s Jewish community, Ervin Kohn, told JTA that he had not heard about the incident prior to the blog posting. Øivind Kopperud, a researcher at the Oslo-based Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities, said his watchdog organization was unaware of the attack.
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