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The Gaarder Debate Revisited: Drawing the Demarcation Line between Legitimate and Illegitimate Criticism of Israel
Author(s): Lenz, Claudia; Geelmuyden, Theodor Vestavik
Editor(s): Hoffmann, Christhard; Moe, Vibeke
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism: Discourse, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Israel Criticism, Anti-Zionism, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Antisemitism: Left-Wing
Abstract: This chapter explores the afterlife of the newspaper op-ed article “God’s chosen people”, written by Jostein Gaarder in 2006, and the intense and heated debate it sparked off. In this debate, Gaarder was accused of antisemitism due to his portrayal of the Jewish religion as archaic and violent and his indication that Israel, following its brutal warfare in the region, had lost its right to exist. The chapter looks into how the opening of the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies and a growing public awareness of the Holocaust may be seen as possible reasons for the fierce criticism of Gaarder and how his op-ed became the prime example of criticism of Israel crossing the line to antisemitism. The chapter argues that the “Gaarder debate”, despite Gaarder’s own attempts to free himself from the stigma of antisemitism, lives a life of its own as a narrative abbreviation. As such, the allusion to Gaarder is used to mark the red line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. The “Gaarder trope” is even used to discuss latent antisemitism in contexts outside Norway.