The Norwegian National daily Klassekampen yesterday had a full-page story about the harassment against Gaza activists that venstresida.net wrote about a few days ago. The article also addresses how the Swedish author Henning Mankell has been subjected to similar harassment (although he is not a target for this particular attack even though the article may give this impression). Mankell recently discovered that a false Facebook profile in his name was created, on which questionable messages were published - obviously to discredit the well-known author and activist.

PAPER WITH CLASS: It is great that Klassekampen takes responsibility and exposes this story so that it hopefully will backfire on those who use such undemocratic means. (Click image for larger facsimile).

When I first became aware of this campaign, I was a little shocked, but after seeing what kind of people are on the list, and otherwise subjected to such campaigns, I must say that it is an honor beeing subjectet to this slander. It is an honor to be mentioned in the same breath as Henning Mankell, Espen Goffeng and all the other champions of the rights of opressed peoples.

After I published the first article, I received an avalanche of new Facebook friends, and received declarations of support from around the world. Others have also published and written about the case, including the blog Palestine Occupied. The web page that started the slanderous campaign also has a Facebook Page which ironically enough clearly violates Facebook's policy regarding personal attacks. This has inspired someone to start a "counter-campaign" on Facebook.

In the English version of the previous article, I received a response from a pro-Israel debater who can seem like one of the people behind the campaign - you can follow the debate at: http://venstresida.net/?q=node/2563

I have wondered a bit about what exactly got me included on this "hate list" and have probably concluded that it must be my written activity on the Internet, in newspapers, speeches at demonstrations, etc. around the previous Ship to Gaza campaign. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to highlight a few "greatest hits" with respect to old blog posts about the Israel / Palestine conflict. These are in Norwegian, but if you copy the url, and paste it onto http://translate.google.com/ you should get the general idea of what I'm writing about. Enjoy:

Israel - an apartheid state? http://venstresida.net/?q=node/791
Palestine - the answers to all your questions: http://venstresida.net/?q=node/772
Palestine - a few questions more: http://venstresida.net/?q=node/776
Send the Ambassador home, Jens! http://venstresida.net/?q=node/1055
Excuses, excuses ... http://venstresida.net/?q=node/1058