This will be brief, as I am heading to bed, but the quotes speak for themselves.
Columnist, professor and GLORIA director Barry Rubin in the Jerusalem Post today:
One of the most sensitive aspects of the murderous terrorist attack in Norway by a right-wing gunman is this irony: The youth camp he attacked was engaged in what was essentially (though the campers didn’t see it that way, no doubt) a pro-terrorist program.
Wiki:
Rubin is a frequent contributor to the Middle East column in The Jerusalem Post. His articles have also appeared frequently in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, Middle East Quarterly, The National Interest, The Washington Quarterly, The New Republic, and others.
After the Norwegian daily Dagbladet gave Rubin's views some attention, Rubin continued his rant on his blog, accusing Dagbladet of shocking lies and claiming that people had misread his point.
He then reiterated his point that the AUF kids and youths who were slaughtered were basically victims of bad karma, as they were enablers for Anders Behring Breivik:
But if people cheer and help terrorist groups (even if they don't understand that they are terrorist, perhaps because their media and leaders haven't told them so or even told them the exact opposite) they make terrorism more successful and thus attractive as a strategy.
Rubin goes on:
The camp, run by Norway’s left-wing party, was lobbying for breaking the blockade of the terrorist Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state without that entity needing do anything that would prevent it from being a terrorist base against Israel. They were backing and justifying forces that had committed terrorism against Israelis and killing thousands of people like themselves.
For a somewhat more nuanced explanation, here's Norway's Minister of Foreign Affaris Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour). (The article is in Norwegian, here's a Google translation.)
Rubin's claims are outrageous, and I'm not going to comment on them in any length. I will just say that the Labour Party and the AUF do not support terrorism in any way. They are not extremists.
What Norway's many Labour-led governments since at least World War 2 have done is to try to reach out to several parties of a conflict in an attempt play a part in conflict resolution. F.i. the Labour party has traditionally enjoyed good relations with its Israeli counterparts, and this has been important in negotiations and peace talks.
Labour and the AUF are about as mainstream as you can get in Norwegian politics. The AUF does criticize Israel's policies, and some of its left-wing members, including its leader, have even advocated an economic boycott. But they are not pro-terrorist, they are not like Hitler Youth, and they are not brainwashed kids. I fear that if lies like these are repeated a sufficient number of times, many will believe the claims have some truth to them. (Maybe it's because I read the Glenn Beck comment sections for the first time recently -- talk about a bizarre experience.)
I will end with some historical facts, from one of my previous comments, as the AUF has no reason to be ashamed of its history or its political identity.
On 9/25/1940 the AUF was made illegal by the Nazis -- along with all other Norwegian political parties, except Nasjonal Samling (the Norwegian Nazi-party).For the next five years, a great number of AUF-members worked illegally against the Germans. Many of them were executed.
Additionally, many AUF-members died in battle, before and after the Norwegian capitulation on june 10 1940. Shortly prior to the capitulation, the King, the Crown Prince and the Labour government fled to London to continue the fight from abroad.
Between 1936 and 1939, more than 100 AUF-members died in battle while fighting the fascists in Spain.
In 1940 Norway had a population of fewer than 3 million.
-LL Oslo