– Israel has reached a point at which it is “now or never”. … While the Israelis are fighting for life, the Islamists are fighting for death. For them, death is a religious goal in itself, and civilians, on either side, have neither the right to nor any claim to protection.

The extensive Israeli attack on both Iran and Hizbollah bears witness to a marked shift in Israel’s view of the state’s existential threats. More than 100 years of Arab and Islamic terror have shown that the aim has always been to exterminate the Jews, albeit under ever-changing pretexts. The Hebron massacre in 1929 was carried out by Arabs who at that time had not yet assumed a “Palestinian identity”; and there was no “occupation” either. It was the Jews’ neighbours who, on a Friday evening, attacked their Jewish friends, in a manner just as bestial as during the October massacre in 2023. The few who dared to protect their neighbours were themselves murdered or attempted murdered by the mob.

It took a massacre such as that in October before Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu finally realised that the Oslo Accords were merely one of many attempts to annihilate the Israeli state – processes he himself at one time helped to support. Behind the Oslo Accords stood not only Norway with substantial funds, but also many other countries with “peace” intentions. The hope must have been that a partitioned Israel would eventually become quiet, indeed “disappear” in silence in the same way that Christians, Yazidis and other minorities have “disappeared” from the Middle East.

Now or never

Israel has reached a point at which it is “now or never”. The scope of the current war indicates that Israel does not intend to stop until it is certain that Iran and the Iranian-backed forces, Hizbollah and Hamas, no longer constitute a military threat.

The terror regime in Iran, which Norway has supported with approximately 700 million in aid kroner, and its proxies, such as Hamas in Gaza and Hizbollah in Lebanon, display no concern for their own civilian populations. While the Israelis are fighting for life, the Islamists are fighting for death. For them, death is a religious goal in itself, and civilians, on either side, have neither the right to nor any claim to protection.

The IDF is the only army in the world that warns civilians of planned attacks against terrorists, despite the fact that this in many cases reveals the IDF’s targets and gives the terrorists time to escape. Nevertheless, innocent civilians on both sides always pay a high price, which is exploited by both Islamists and the West in their struggle against Israel.

An Israeli victory could secure Jewish lives, not only in Israel, but also globally. Another dramatic change after the war may be a Middle East with less terror. This could have historical ripple effects that extend far beyond today’s challenges of high energy prices. Already now, Israelis and exiled Iranians are expressing hope for genuine peace and a future Middle East that is attractive to live in. Across the world, Iranians have demonstrated with both Iranian and Israeli flags. They thank both the United States and Israel for the struggle against a regime which, according to reports, killed tens of thousands of demonstrators in January alone this year. Several songs of thanks have been written to Bibi Joon (‘dear Bibi’ in Persian). Trump is also thanked in these demonstrations.

Terror against Western Jews

While Israel is fighting for its existence against the terror regime Iran and its extended arm, Hizbollah, both of which are experiencing defeats on a daily basis, the regime has decided to exploit the goodwill it encounters in the West in order to establish a new terrorist organisation, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, whose aim is to murder Jews in the West.

So far, this terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attacks in Belgium, Amsterdam and Rotterdam between 9 and 14 March. It also claimed responsibility for an alleged terrorist act against a Jewish congregation in Greece, although there is no evidence that such a terrorist act actually took place.

The terrorist attack in Michigan was carried out by the terrorist Ayman Muhammad Ghazali – born in Lebanon and brother of a senior Hizbollah commander who was eliminated the week before. Ghazali drove a pickup into the doors of the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, armed with a rifle and equipped with explosives and fireworks. Had the security guards on site not reacted so immediately, the terrorist could have killed or injured the 140 children who were in the building, together with the nursery staff. Nevertheless, these children received little attention here in Norway, as is almost always the case when the victims of Islamist terror are Jewish.

These cases, and many more both in recent times and throughout history, prove that the aim of the Islamists is to exterminate the Jewish people wherever they may be. Norway’s positive attitude towards terrorists makes us Norwegian Jews more exposed to terror. We have a nursery that is guarded around the clock, as was also the case in Michigan. But what we lack is a real and courageous discussion of why it is necessary for the Norwegian police to protect these children against Islamists.

Jews living in Norway and elsewhere in the West can, of course, not be accused of Israel’s actions. This form of collective accusation which Iran and other Islamists practise against the world’s Jews is antisemitic according to the widely accepted definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). But must we really wait until a murderous terrorist attack such as that at Bondi Beach in Australia takes place before our politicians awaken? The murder of Jews in Australia did not occur in a vacuum, but in a society with politicians who flirt with terror and blur the boundaries between antisemitic terror and uninformed disagreement about who was first in Israel; the Jews or the Arabs. It is the same message our politicians convey in our society when they sit at the King’s table together with terrorists who have blood on their hands.

The J7 group hangs the bell on the right cat

J7 (working group against antisemitism) represents Jewish diaspora communities in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. The group’s most recent meeting with UN diplomats took place at the headquarters of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) in New York on 18 March 2026. The meeting was organised as a result of a series of bomb explosions in Europe and shooting attacks in Canada and the United States, which showed that the world’s Jews are in constant and immediate danger. The J7 leaders issued the following joint statement:

“We welcome the opportunity to meet the UN Permanent Representatives for an open discussion about the growing crisis related to global antisemitism. Our message is clear: Our governments and the UN must do more – quickly and measurably – to combat antisemitism and the anti-Israeli bias that all too often fuels and legitimises it.

We call on the Permanent Representatives to ensure that UN officials and mandate holders are held to real accountability for antisemitic conduct, rhetoric and prejudice. We also demand measures to ensure that UN resources do not support or legitimise extremism, terrorism or antisemitism. This includes, inter alia, UN-produced teaching materials and UN support for programmes and campaigns that promote anti-Israeli boycotts.

Our communities are in the midst of a crisis of global antisemitism, with attacks on synagogues in North America and Europe in the past week alone. […] Antisemitism is being globalised through contagion effects, coordinated campaigns and state actors such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are deliberately internationalising hatred, extremism and terrorism, particularly directed at Jewish communities. The Iranian regime has in fact already targeted our communities – from the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 to the attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, as recently as December 2024. […] “

The attitude to terror against Jews

The Hamas massacre on 7 October has triggered a frightening wave of antisemitism and terror against Jews worldwide. While in Muslim countries there is no trace of protest from so-called “Palestine activists”, such groups here in the West – with support from left-fascists, the media and politically correct politicians – have transformed our society into a place where violence and terror are openly celebrated, while Israel’s struggle against real attempts at extermination is criticised, and antisemitism is ignored. This is done even by academics, such as the Arab NTNU professor Bassam Hussein, whom we wrote about in the previous editorial.

Israel’s war in Gaza, now also against Iran and Hizbollah, has created new waves of antisemitism, violence, threats and incitement against Jews in several countries. The problem is that Western countries continue to treat these incidents as ordinary criminal acts, instead of recognising that this form of hate crime directed against Jews is in fact terrorism.

If they truly wish to protect us Jews, antisemitism must be combated in exactly the same manner as all other terrorism. It is the Islamists and their supporters who must be surrounded by the police, not Jewish children and synagogues.