Swiss group suspends 'anti-Semitic' Norway scholar

Researcher Johan Galtung suspended form Swiss World Peace Academy after he remarks that Jews control the American media.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Swiss World Peace Academy logo 370 (photo credit: Facebook)
Swiss World Peace Academy logo 370
(photo credit: Facebook)
BERLIN – The Swiss World Peace Academy suspended on Wednesday Norway’s peace researcher Johan Galtung because of his allegedly anti-Semitic comments.
According to articles in the Swiss papers Mittelland Zeitung and Basler Zeitung, Galtung was booted from the Swiss Academy because of “reckless and offensive statements to questions that are specifically sensitive for Jews.” The University of Basel is a partner organization of the Swiss World Peace Academy.
In an email to The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a leading Israeli expert on Norwegian anti-Semitism, said, “Orwell wrote in 1942 that pacifism was objectively pro-fascist, because of its hampering the war efforts of the allies. The ‘peace scholar’ Galtung uses a different method to help Israel’s totalitarian and murderous enemies.
“Without any proof, he associates the Mossad with the Norwegian mass murderer Breivik, he falsely suggests that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are genuine and so on. His attitude fits that of significant parts of the Norwegian cultural elite. Galtung has merited his place in textbooks of 21st century anti-Semitism.”
The Humanist magazine printed Galtung’s remarks. Galtung wrote in one of the exchanges that Jews control the American media.
“Six Jewish companies control 96% of the media,” he wrote, including the names of journalists, publishers, TV networks and movie studios that he claims are controlled by Jews.
He also wrote that “70% of the professors at the 20 most-important American universities are Jewish.”
Galtung recommended that people read the anti-Semitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and said, “It is impossible to do so today without thinking of Goldman Sachs,” the international investment bank.
Gil Shefler contributed to this report.