[Circa 2002-2003] many Palestinian groups, left-wing political parties (such as the Socialist People’s Party, the Unity List and the Communist Party) and NGOs (such as the International Forum and the Anti-fascist Association), together with trade unions, launched a nation-wide campaign to boycott Israel. The boycott, which includes farm produce and manufactured goods, as well as cultural and scientific exchanges, is specifically aimed at the preferential trade agreement between the EU and Israel. Despite a huge propaganda campaign the boycott has not had a great impact in Denmark.
As part of this campaign, attempts were made to boycott a friendly football match between Denmark and Israel on 17 April. When, nevertheless, 30,000 people showed up, violent demonstrations ensued outside the stadium and about 150 demonstrators were arrested.
By contrast, the “right-wing” Danish People’s Party “demonstrated its support for Israel by defying an anti-Israel boycott and serving Israeli produce at its annual convention in October.” I suppose Denmark can take limited pride in the fact that neighboring Norway’s attitude toward Israel is even worse. But a country in which a boycott of Israel can thrive, if not necessarily succeed, because a large chunk of the public was angry at Israel for retaliating against Islamist violence in 2002 is one that is, in a sense, getting a reality check when it gets boycotted. Denmark is actually in a relatively favorable position–it is being boycotted for having freedom of speech; Israel is attacked for merely existing on “Muslim” land (i.e., Israel).
And while on the subject of the Mohammed cartoons, with regard to Islamist claims that Danes would never dare say anything offensive about the Holocaust:
Although most writers were careful to avoid comments that might be construed as antisemitic [in opposing male circumsion], Finn Nielsen, in Jyllands Posten[!–same newspaper that printed the Mohammed pictures], stated, for instance, that the practice of circumcision was “barbarian,” but that there was no hope of abolishing it since any criticism led to “a chorus crying ‘Holocaust!'”
And regarding Jews more generally: “Under the headline ‘The World’s Strongest Lobby,’ a man called Kjeld Poulsen wrote in Jyllands Posten[!] on 8 March [2003] that no American president with an anti-Israel position could be elected because Jews ‘control a very large percentage of the American press as well as… radio and television.'”
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