The Shifting Boundaries of Prejudice
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Open access Hoffmann and Moe (Eds.) In recent years, harassment and violent attacks against Jews and Muslims have become issues of concern in many Western countries. However, antisemitism and PREJUDICE OF BOUNDARIES SHIFTING THE Islamophobia are often framed as essentially different phenomena, not least as a Christhard Hoffmann and Vibeke Moe (Eds.) result of political polarization and deeply divided opinions on both immigration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The present volume challenges this view and argues that antisemitism and Isla- mophobia are largely related phenomena and linked to xenophobic ideas in the THE SHIFTING general population. The study is based on varied and comprehensive survey data about attitudes towards Jews and Muslims in Norway, including the attitudes and experiences of the two minority groups themselves. Moreover, it supplements survey analysis with qualitative research, exploring the discursively constructed BOUNDARIES boundaries of “what can or cannot be said” about Jews and Muslims. Focused on the rich material of the Norwegian case, the volume thus offers new perspectives for the study of prejudice in general. OF PREJUDICE Christhard Hoffmann (b. 1952) is Professor of modern European history at the Antisemitism and Islamophobia University of Bergen and Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Center for Holo- caust and Minority Studies in Oslo. Vibeke Moe (b. 1976) is Research Fellow in Contemporary Norway and Project Coordinator at the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies. This book is also available open access at Idunn. ISBN printed edition (print on demand) 978-82-15-03467-6 9788215034676_2korr.indd Alle sider 11.02.2020 13:19 The Shifting Boundaries of Prejudice Christhard Hoffmann and Vibeke Moe (Eds.) The Shifting Boundaries of Prejudice Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Contemporary Norway Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget AS) © Copyright 2020 Copyright of the collection and the preface is held by Scandinavian University Press (Universi- tetsforlaget AS) 2020. The Research Council of Norway has funded the research behind this volume. The publication has received financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This book was first published in 2020 by Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget AS). The material in this publication is covered by the Norwegian Copyright Act and published open access under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. This licence provides permission to copy or redistribute the material in any medium or format. These freedoms are granted under the following terms: you must give appropriate credit, pro- vide a link to the licence and indicate if changes have been made to the material. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the licence permits. The licensor cannot revoke the freedoms granted by this licence as long as the licence terms are met. Note that the licence may not provide all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights, such as publicity, privacy or moral rights, may limit how you use the material. The full text of this licence is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ legalcode. ISBN printed edition (print on demand): 978-82-15-03467-6 ISBN electronic pdf-edition: 978-82-15-03468-3 DOI: 10.18261/978-82-15-03468-3-2019 Enquiries about this publication may be directed to: [email protected]. www.universitetsforlaget.no Cover: Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget AS) Prepress: Tekstflyt AS Print: 07 Media – www.07.no Contents INTRODUCTION . 7 Christhard Hoffmann and Vibeke Moe 1. A FADING CONSENSUS . 26 Public Debates on Antisemitism in Norway, 1960 vs. 1983 Christhard Hoffmann 2. THE GAARDER DEBATE REVISITED . 51 Drawing the Demarcation Line between Legitimate and Illegitimate Criticism of Israel Claudia Lenz and Theodor Vestavik Geelmuyden 3. A GROWING CONSENSUS? . 76 A History of Public Debates on Islamophobia in Norway Cora Alexa Døving 4. ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA IN NORWAY . 108 A Survey Analysis of Prevalence, Trends and Possible Causes of Negative Attitudes towards Jews and Muslims Ottar Hellevik 5. COUNTING ANTISEMITES VERSUS MEASURING ANTISEMITISM . 155 An “Elastic View” of Antisemitism Werner Bergmann 6. CONSPIRACY BELIEFS ABOUT JEWS AND MUSLIMS IN NORWAY . 187 Asbjørn Dyrendal 6 CONTENTS | THE SHIFTING BOUNDARIES OF PREJUDICE 7. HOW DO JEWS AND MUSLIMS IN NORWAY PERCEIVE EACH OTHER? . 211 Between Prejudice and the Willingness to Cooperate Werner Bergmann 8. “MUSLIMS ARE…” . 254 Contextualising Survey Answers Cora Alexa Døving 9. HOW PEOPLE EXPLAIN ANTISEMITISM . 274 Interpretation of Survey Answers Vibeke Moe 10. NEGOTIATIONS OF ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA IN GROUP CONVERSATIONS AMONG JEWS AND MUSLIMS . 297 Claudia Lenz and Vibeke Moe ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 324 ABOUT THE AUTHORS . 325 DOI: 10.18261/978-82-15-03468-3-2019-01 Introduction CHRISTHARD HOFFMANN AND VIBEKE MOE In present-day Europe, antisemitism has again become an issue of public concern. According to a recent survey, 28 per cent of European Jews experienced anti- Jewish harassment over the last year and close to 40 per cent have considered emi- gration during the last five years because of rising anti-Jewish hostilities.1 The new threat for Jews in Europe is often attributed to antisemitic attitudes among Muslim immigrants. At the same time, Islamophobic ideas have gained ground in Europe as a political tool and have become an integral part of an ideological worldview, particularly on the far right of the political spectrum. Intensified by deeply divided opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this constellation has framed a view of antisemitism and Islamophobia as essentially different.2 The present volume challenges this view. Based on varied and comprehensive survey data about attitudes towards Jews and Muslims in Norway, it provides a more differentiated picture. While the empirical evidence shows that Muslims in Norway support stereotypical ideas about Jews to a greater extent than the general population, and that opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are connected to attitudes towards Jews and Muslims in opposite directions, it also indicates that antisemitism and Islamophobia are closely related phenomena, and are linked to xenophobic ideas in the general population. The minorities’ experiences of dis- crimination show that Jews and Muslims share a number of the same problems associated with being minorities in Norway, and therefore see a possibility to cooperate on combating prejudice and discrimination. 1. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Experiences and perceptions of anti- semitism. Second survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in the EU (Luxem- bourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2018), 12. 2. As James Renton and Ben Gidley have observed, this view is often influenced by the present political situation, “in which the figures of the persecuted Jew and the political Muslim are on opposite sides of a war waged by the West.” James Renton and Ben Gidley, eds., Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe. A Shared Story? (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 4. On the problems of comparing Islamophobia and antisemitism, see Brian Klug, “The limits of analogy: Comparing Islamophobia and antisemitism”, Patterns of Prejudice 48:5 (2014): 442–459; Gideon Botsch, Olaf Glöckner, Christoph Kopke, Michael Spieker, eds., Islamophobie und Anti- semitismus – ein umstrittener Vergleich (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2012). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode. 8 CHRISTHARD HOFFMANN AND VIBEKE MOE | THE SHIFTING BOUNDARIES OF PREJUDICE Part of the public debate on both antisemitism and Islamophobia has been con- cerned with the definition of the terms themselves. The term “antisemitism” was coined in 1879 in Germany as the brand name of a socio-political movement that attributed negative traits of modern society to “Jewish influence”, combining social criticism with ideas of race and unifying under the slogan “Fight against Jewish domination!” Although the term was a misnomer (since there is no such thing as “Semitism” and the movement was not directed against “Semites” in general), it gained currency and is today used as a generic term to denote all forms of Jew-hatred throughout history. While there is a general consensus that “antisemitism” means hostility towards and discrimination against Jews as “Jews” (as defined in the anti- semitic worldview), it has been controversial whether hostility toward Zionism (anti-Zionism) and the State of Israel (anti-Israelism) is principally to be classified as a form of Jew-hatred (“new antisemitism”) or not.3 In the present volume and the surveys it is based on, attitudes towards Jews have been researched separately from attitudes towards the state of Israel. This is done for methodological reasons – in order to explore correlations and differences between the two phenomena. The term “Islamophobia” goes back to the early twentieth century,