ABSTRACT
Previous research has assumed that empathy with Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, combined with traditional racist stereotypes about Arabs, explained the pro-Zionist turn of Norwegian and other European social democrats after the Second World War. Chapter 2 in this book argued otherwise, suggesting that pro-Zionism arose out of the idea that it was necessary to defend Jews in order to defend a threatened and fragile civilisation. This chapter argues that empathy for Jews and prejudice against Arabs, rather than causing the pro-Zionist turn, were largely caused by it. Previously, Norwegian social democrats had considered Arab perspectives on the Palestine question as important. Only during the pro-Zionist turn did they begin to represent Arabs as barbaric threats to the Jews and to civilisation, and thus to disregard Arab perspectives. Moreover, it was only during the pro-Zionist turn they began to reinterpret the meaning of the ‘Jewish problem’. Previously, including after learning about the genocide, they had thought of this as a problem caused by Jews themselves, by being different. During the pro-Zionist turn, however, Norwegian social democrats increasingly began to think of the problem as being caused by the failure of the gentile surroundings to accept Jewish difference.
