Frank Johansson, Chairman of the Finnish Amnesty International, who called Israel a “scum state” (or, to be more exact, “nilkkimaa”) has backed down now that his comments have been exposed beyond his narrow Finnish readership.

Just kidding.

Frank JohanssonThe head of Amnesty International’s Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he stands by his statement that Israel is a “scum state.”

Writing in his blog, which appears on the Web site of Finland’s third largest newspaper Iltalehti, Johansson wrote on Monday that “A friend of mine who works in Israel was visiting [and] while piling wood in the shed, we got to [talking about] his favourite topic. [After] several years of residence in the Holy Land, he has come to the conclusion that ‘Israel is a scum state.’ Based on my own visit[s], which occurred during the 1970s and for the last time in the 1990s, I agree.”

—-

Asked why he termed Israel a “scum state,” Johansson told the Post in a telephone interview that it was because Israel has “repeatedly flouted international law,” and due to his “personal experiences inside and outside of Israel with meeting Israelis.”

Johansson said that his remarks were not anti-Semitic. “I actually praise Breaking the Silence,” he said, referring to an Israeli organization claiming to collect and share testimonies of former IDF soldiers over human rights violations they allegedly witnessed, while rarely providing names of troops, dates and locations of these incidents.

Asked whether there are other countries aside from Israel that, according to him, meet the definition of a “scum state,” Johansson did not specify any, but noted that there are “Russian officials” who meet the criteria.

The Amnesty International official said: “I have been on record on Finnish TV as saying George Bush is the biggest executioner in the Western Hemisphere, [I] use strong language… I am writing those [blogs] in my capacity as a private person, not as an Amnesty official.”

However, Iltalehti’s Web site clearly provides readers with his title as “director of the Finnish branch of Amnesty International,” which appears above his blog.

NGO Monitor chief Gerald Steinberg condemned Johansson’s remarks in the context of his organization as a whole. The head of the watchdog organization, which tracks anti-Israel activity among NGOs, told the Post in an e-mail on Tuesday that “Amnesty International has promoted an intense anti-Israel ideology, resulting in statements like these. Such one-sided ideological campaigns, with false allegations of war crimes, are entirely inconsistent with Amnesty’s claim to support ethical principles and universal human rights.

“Amnesty International’s new secretary general, Salil Shetty, must immediately condemn this immoral statement by the head of the Finnish chapter, freeze links to the chapter until he resigns, and take measures to end Amnesty’s central role in demonizing Israel,” he added.

Also Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International’s headquarters in London, Susanne Flood, told the Post in a telephone interview that “Amnesty would never use an expression like this toward the State of Israel, or any other state.”

Flood said that Johansson used the phrase “creep state” to describe Israel, rather than “scum,” as the initial English translation of the Finnish word found. Native Finnish speakers from Tundra Tabloids said the Finnish term used by Johansson to denigrate Israel is a “highly derogatory term,” and is frequently translated as “scum,” “scum bag” or “douche bag.”

Asked if AI plans to discipline or sack Johansson, Flood said she would have to check on his employment status, but noted that the organization generally does not comment on human resource matters.

Pressed if he is singling out Israel for disparate treatment – a manifestation of modern anti-Semitism according to some critics – Flood said that one “has to look at the full context of his articles.”

She added that Johansson assured her that he is not using his title to write the anti-Israeli blogs. But, when shown that his title was indeed being used in his blog, she conceded to this fact.

The deputy head of Mission for the Embassy of Finland in Israel, Anu Pulkkinen, told the Post on Tuesday that Johansson “is responsible for his own comments, and we are not commenting on blog writings of individual Finnish citizens.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:02PM: Return of the Zionist Death Cows.TM

A woman was lightly wounded and a few cars were damaged Wednesday when a cow went on a rampage at a shopping center in the northern Israeli city of Nesher.

Police said the cow, which eventually headed north towards Haifa’s Checkpost Junction, was part of a herd that was grazing near the “Big” shopping center. At some point, police said, the cows entered the area of the shopping center.

The cows were eventually cleared from the area, and their owner was questioned.

Witnesses said the cow rammed into a vehicle that tried to block its path.

Magen David Adom paramedic Kobi Ben-Haim said that during the incident, which went on for more than an hour, a woman sustained light injuries when the cow grazed her back.

So there you have it. The cow was merely getting revenge. What was the woman doing grazing the cow in the first place?

1:55PM: A look at Iran vs Israel weapon capabilities.

1:45PM: Israel’s Kadima party and opposition leader Tzipi Livni thinks to herself while listening to Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair at the ‘Delegitimization of Israel’ conference (photo credit: JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images).

Tony Blair Tzipi Livni
What the hell is wrong with his teeth?

1:40PM: Despite saying he stands behind “Israel is a scum state” comment, Frank Johansson is more standing in front of it.

Hiding it from view while he goes to town on it with a large eraser.

The article by Weinthal appears in today’s edition of the J’Lem Post, and surprise, the offending blog post by the AI chairman at the Iltalehti website has been scrubbed, thrown down the memory hole, but thanks to Vasarahammer we have the cached picture of the post. Interestingly enough, though the Amnesty International chairman (Finnish branch) is totally unrepentant, nonetheless the post has disappeared. A passive mea culpa?

11:54AM: Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East Tony Blair,speaking as keynote speaker at the August 24 symposium entitled “The De-legitimization of Israel: Threats, Challenges and Responses.”

He needn’t look much further than his own sister-in-law.

6:10AM: Turkey has seen a 90% decline in Israeli tourism.

Meanwhile, in other bad-news-for-the-Turks, a fire has destroyed many negatives of the virulently anti-Israel Turkish TV show “Ambush in the Valley of the Wolves” spinoff movie “The Valley of the Wolves: Palestine.”

6:05AM: Hassan Nasrallah, comedian.

Hassan NasrallahNasrallah  urged the Lebanese government to draw conclusions from the current electricity crisis and follow in Iran’s footsteps and build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity like the reactor in Bushehr.

“The cost of building the Bushehr reactor was less than Lebanon’s investment in the electricity network. I call on the government to build a nuclear reactor to generate electricity, and then we can also sell energy to Syria, Cyprus, and other countries in the region,” he said.

************************************************************************************

September specials at the Okeanus Hotels in Israel.  Suites, Sea, and Style.

Rooms start at only $170. Click here for more details.

************************************************************************************

30 thoughts on “The Day In Israel: Wednesday Aug 25th, 2010”

  1. Is anything made in Norway (going back to that last boycott the other day) that can be boycotted?

    I actually have a contact/friend in Norway. He says 99% of Norwegians are anti-Israel. 0.9% dont care, and the rest, like him, support Israel.

    1. they have oil and fish

      i suggest just ignoring them

      at at the next euro and jr eurovisions, making a point of not voting for their country

    2. I wasn't expecting a kind of Norwegian Inquisition. Lay off those Laplanders if you know what's good for you, juvanya. What do you want, your own Viking funeral? And I think you're confused about public opinion in Norway. 99% of Norwegians don't even know where Israel is. They're too busy keeping a close eye on the annoying Swedes to pay much attention to Israel.

    3. Norway has fallen far since Edvard Grieg canceled all his concerts in France to protest the Dreyfus travesty more than a century ago.

    4. This doesn't surprise me. After all, they're essentially a Nordic Saudi Arabia: a buttload of oil, a monarchy from a bygone era, and full blown anti-Semitism. They've even got a county full of Muslims now! 🙂 Yup, what's the diff?

  2. I don't think you are being fair to the Finnish Shy Guy,
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.a

    This was an article written about a year ago, about how Finland is probably the most Pro-Israel country in the EU

    Also lets not forget this
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3903547

    The fact is that Johansson's comments should more reflect the people that Amnesty International wants working and directing it's 'reports'. It's fairly obvious that they select specific people and this is just another example at the sham that AI has become.

    Also I have to say that the Israel government would be smart to step in and officially declare AI as a political group and not an NGO in Israel. This change of status would help to limit it's activities and also be a precedent for "NGO's" like B'tselem and HRW.

      1. Not any of the big ones, but just look for the small ones that help out the poor, the ones that are focused on food handouts, helping people with employment problems and so on.

        Basically if they don't deal with 'human rights' they should actually be okay.

      2. Michael Zvi Krumbein

        An NGO can be anything. The B'hai is an NGO. Ditto the Agudah. My cousin headed the united Israeli Women's organiztions, and went down to a UN conference in Nairobi and defended Israel during the Year of the Woman. (She said the women were all right. The problem was the second part when the men – the people with the actual power – met.)

    1. I just flew off the handle right after reading the article.

      But frankly I can't wait till Europe gets flushed down the Sha'ariah toilet.

        1. 1 Why are the nations in an uproar? And why do the peoples mutter in vain?
          2 The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, {N}
          against the LORD, and against His anointed:
          3 'Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.'
          4 He that sitteth in heaven laugheth, the Lord hath them in derision.
          5 Then will He speak unto them in His wrath, and affright them in His sore displeasure:
          6 'Truly it is I that have established My king upon Zion, My holy mountain.'

          – Psalms 2

          I'm worried about how we behave as the Jewish people, not what happens to Europe.

  3. This is getting blown way out of proportion. Johansson merely used the word nilkki which is an idiomatic expression roughly equivalent to the word scoundrel. This is clearly a reference to the term rogue state used by Bush. In his blog post, Johansson quotes Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence. Since Shaul is an Israeli Jew, it's hard to call him anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli. And since Johansson agrees with Shaul, how can Johansson be anti-Semitic if Shaul isn't?

    1. Johansson quotes Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence. Since Shaul is an Israeli Jew, it's hard to call him anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli

      No it's not. It's very easy! (source: IsraPundit)

    2. oh please….jew haters hide behind their love for other jew hating jews

      all the members of breaking the silence are self hating jews

      1. Maybe jew haters hide behind their love for other self-hating jew hating jews because they themselves are self hating. Hate is a catagen.

    3. Michael Zvi Krumbein

      As the Rabbis said, "I only appoint your enemies from among yourself".

      By the term Rogue state Bush meant illegitamate – or to put it another way, bombable.

    4. Mikko, you've made this point on another site as well, but I'll answer you here. Every group, be it religious, ethnic, whatever, has 'self-haters' (some much more than others). Consequently, this fallacious argument that people use, and YOU are using, that if you are, say, Jewish you cannot be anti-Semitic is pure rubbish. For instance, some of the most profoundly anti-homosexual people were/are themselves gay. Well, this is true of the Jewish community. Jewish self-hatred is perhaps the oldest sport we've got, so please stop with this line of argument. If you'd like, I'll give you books and articles about this as there is an entire academic field dedicated to this phenomenon!
      Hell, I have written on this to a limited extent even though it isn't central to my areas of study.

      Next point, I can provide you a list of Jewish Jew-haters. Now, I have no idea if the person you mention above fits that criteria, but if they did, don't you think that it would, just maybe, undermine their credibility? After all, there were members of the friggin' Nazi party in the Second World War who were Jewish by various standards, and at least one example where intervened personally on behalf on his Jewish friend (if you're interested, look up Emil Maurice). With this in mind, I would find out more about Shaul's politics before citing him….

      and being Jewish is NOT enough. After all, it isn't just Norway that has had Quislings…..

  4. Mikko, if this were just some anonymous Finn, nobody would mention it. But Johansson is not a nondescript. He is the head of Amnesty International in Finland. So taking him to task for saying this is absolutely essential!

    Calling Israel "that shitty little country" is unlikely to make the headlines, unless you happen to be the French Ambassador to the UK: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ShittyLittleCountry….

    Israel is not a scumbag-dictatorship.
    Israel is not a scumbag-monarchy.
    Israel is not a scumbag-Islamic-republic.

    Israel is a democracy with a free and vibrant (and hyper-self-critical) press, independent judiciary and the safest streets in the middle-east – facts that are entirely ignored by Mr. Finnish-Head-of-Amnesty-International-Frank-Douchebag-Johannson.

    J.

  5. re: Zionist Death Cows- I only regret that Gary Larson no longer does his Far Side comic strip. His cows were the funniest ever. I'm sure he could have come up with a great angle for this very funny idea. But how exactly would you make a cow appear to be a Zionist?

      1. Oh boy, this is making me think about the movie "Airplane."

        Airplane with beard, kippah and tallit sitting on runway…. loudspeaker comes on: "Air Israel, please clear the runway….."

        I've always thought that was hilarious…..ok, a bit racist, but the whole movie was pretty screwed up. Still, toned down alot from Kentucky Fried Movie…. WOW….

        Okay, I've gotta stop….

  6. The video on Iran vs. Israel in an air war was informative and not just a little bit scary. Wasn't it in 2009 that Obama met with Netanyahu and promised to rein in Iran's nuclear program by September–of 2009?

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top