Gaza comes to Denmark
Francis Sedgemore, Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 13:33 UTC
You may have seen a brief news report from the BBC last Friday about the recent shooting in Odense of two visiting Israelis by locals of Palestinian heritage. Kellie Strøm has discussed the story, and included a very literal English translation of an article published in the respected Danish broadsheet Politiken. Few details have been published in English, but accompanying the following video clip from a DR1 TV news bulletin is a text commentary in English from Henrik Clausen:
Another clip, this time from TV2 news, features one of the wounded Israelis speaking in English.
This is a troubling development. Denmark’s Jewish community is small, having never recovered [or rather fully recovered; see comments below] following German occupation in World War II. While shootings are rare, anti-semitic violence is on the rise, and not just in Denmark. But there is a wider issue here concerning the assimilation into Danish society of immigrants, and in particular the role of the education system.
It doesn’t surprise me that Odense is at the centre of the Danish intifada. The city can be a depressing place at the best of times, and some would say that its concrete box and symmetry-loving planners deserve shooting. Odense is well-known for its Palestinian community, but there are sizeable Arab ghettos in other parts of the country. I am thinking in particular of sink estates in Copenhagen suburbs such as Ishøj and Brøndby.
“Integration” is a highly sensitive political topic in Denmark, and social democrat politicians across the water in Sweden use it as a stick with which to beat their centrist Danish counterparts.
What we are seeing now in Denmark is a consequence of political decisions made years ago regarding the tension between the assimilation of “nydanskere” on the one hand, and the cultural cohesion and wellbeing of immigrant communities on the other. It is a complex, multipolar debate, and there are no easy answers.
I have a friend in Copenhagen who works as a pedagogue in an inner-city infant school. For those readers unfamiliar with Denmark, I should explain that “pedagoger” are professional teachers, as opposed to classroom assistants in the UK, or in more general terms graduate teachers without a specifically education-focused diploma.
My pedagogue friend specialises in working with children of Muslim heritage. When we spoke of the challenges involved in her work, my friend would often, and quite uncharacteristically, shrug her shoulders. That small gesture spoke volumes. She was clearly dedicated to her charges, but at the same time was frustrated, and more than a little worried about rising racial intolerance and consequent developments on the political front.
In some ways Denmark comes across as more genuinely multicultural than plural monocultural Britain. But at the same time one sees worryingly large concentrations of ‘national’ communities in particular housing projects. With the relatively large numbers involved, Denmark’s small and dispersed Jewish community is left exposed.
The Odense shooter has been charged with attempted murder.
As for Gaza itself, a BBC News article published today has caught my attention, as have the incisive comments of Tony Blair. Shame on those British politicians who demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire [by implication by the Israelis alone]. And the same goes for Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who no doubt thought he was being terribly clever when he answered a reporter’s question about his Israeli counterpart’s war-on-terror rhetoric by saying: “We all know about election campaigns.”
Hamas may be an evil entity that deserves grinding into the Gazan dust, but this does not give Israel the right to broaden the definition of ‘enemy combatant’ beyond that which is accepted in the rest of the civilised world. And as Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch says, “Even if you have a legitimate target you can’t just drop 10-tonne bombs on it.”. We demand a higher standard of Israel as it is a righteous nation.
Feed the writer! 
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 20:42 UTC
>> Denmark’s Jewish community is small, having never recovered following German occupation in World War II.
To be fair, Francis, was it not small to begin with? Not forgetting the spiriting away of Danish Jews to Sweden, even if Carl Theodor Dreyer ostensibly didn’t imagine that Day of Wrath (the witch-burning scene never fails to shock me) could be seen as an allegory of the Nazi occupation.
Appalling report, all the same.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 20:49 UTC
It was fairly small, but is now by comparison tiny.
As for appalling, what I didn’t mention above is that some bystanders applauded the shooting of the Israeli toiletries merchants, and others threw parties afterwards.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 21:01 UTC
Were they ‘ethnic’ Danish, or associates of the assailants? If the latter, it could be seen as part of the attack.
>> And as Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch says, “Even if you have a legitimate target you can’t just drop 10-tonne bombs on it.”. We demand a higher standard of Israel as it is a righteous nation.
I disagree with that. First of all, why not? [Dropping the bombs.] Secondly, if there were an unacceptable risk to civilian life, it should be opposed in *whichever* country the conflict is occurring. The guff about Israel being a “righteous nation” either says that Arab states (or Sri Lanka, which is smashing Tamil Tiger bases as we speak) are subject to lower standards of morality, or that Jews are the Chosen People which is irrelevant and Biblically inaccurate.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 21:12 UTC
Military planners need to make moral decisions on the fly, and sometimes they get it wrong. Israel more than not gets it right, in my view, but I will always question the proportionality of its response to attacks from Palestinian terrorists.
What happened today in Jabalya has yet to be determined, and I shall not comment on the incident save to highlight the well-conducted interview by Channel 4 of and IDF PR and a spokesman for the UN.
I think it was other Dano-Palestinians who cheered the shooters in Odense.
As for righteous nation, this is not guff, and has nothing to do with the so-called Biblical Covenant. Israel is a free country, and the most civilised in the region. Holding it to a high (or even higher) standard than others is certainly justified.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 21:19 UTC
According to the Danish-Israeli Association the number of Danish Jews was never higher than 8000.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 21:28 UTC
That surprises me, Thomas. It must be some years ago that I saw any figures, but I was under the impression that there used to be a few tens of thousands of Jews in Denmark.
I’ve added a few words in square brackets to the text above.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 21:57 UTC
I’m going to take a break from Israel for the mo’, and catch up on personal correspondence, but I suspect the higher figure was due to Jews arriving from other parts of Europe in the 1930s and, even, the initial Occupation period.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 22:18 UTC
I see that HP Sauce continues to blaze a trail for civilised online debate.
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 22:40 UTC
And I’ve reciprocated with the link. Any messages in the queue?
Tuesday 6 January 2009 at 22:49 UTC
Ah, so that’s where all my visitors are coming from this evening. Nothing in the queue. However, I’m getting around 500 comments trapped each day in the SPAM filter. That’s too many to search through for false positives, but a cursory glance reveals that they are all SPAM.
Wednesday 7 January 2009 at 06:17 UTC
I rather liked Odense and also find it hard to call anything in Denmark a “sink estate” compared to other places in world, but it seems that people will always find a reason to be violent if it suits them. The shooters have been arrested, that (and maybe arrests for inciting racial hatred) should be enough for now; anything more heavy-handed could lead to… oh, I think we know.
Wednesday 7 January 2009 at 10:22 UTC
Odense is an old city, and it still has nice bits. But the housing projects and city centre new build is representative of the naïve modernism of an age now thankfully past. Fucking shite, in other words. Carbuncle, blah.