Atle Haugen: a racist pastor and genocide-apologist (Palestine Stories: Ep. 3)

Atle Haugen is a Norwegian Adventist pastor, editor of the Adventist magazine, "Adventnytt", and Bible teacher at TVS, the Norwegian Adventist high school. He is also a vocal genocide-denier and a racist.

Pastor Haugen has, for many months now, used his platform at his church in Oslo (Cornelius church), in the classroom, online, in the wider church, and even in Vårt Land, Norway's biggest Christian newspaper, to spread misinformation about the Palestinian genocide. Using his influence, Atle Haugen has brazenly affirmed and echoed Zionist propaganda talking-points in Norway and beyond, going so far as to attack those people who bravely, and sometimes at great personal cost, have taken a stand against the atrocities being committed in Gaza, the West Bank, and in greater occupied Palestine.

Shortly following the Israeli Hannibal Directive of Oct 7th 2023, Atle posted a racist comic to his Facebook page (not unlike the type of antisemitic cartoons/posters the Nazis distributed about the Jews in 1930s/40s Germany.) The comic Atle shared depicted a Palestinian man (drawn in a derogatory manner) throwing rocks at a beehive with an "Israeli" flag on it. The disturbed bees sting the man in retaliation, and the man then cries and complains to news reporters and cameras. This comic intended to communicate that the genocide and oppression of Palestinians inside Gaza Concentration Camp is somehow deserved and provoked - brought on by the resistance of Palestinians and Palestinian liberation fighters. In insinuates that any Palestinians daring to resist their own annihilation is the crime, not the illegal occupation of their land, the rape of their people, the starvation of their population, being held in torture camps, walled in, denied all human rights, and mass murdered. How dare they resist! Well, now they'll get what they deserve.

When some of Atle's friends on Facebook called him out on his racism in the comment section, he quickly defaulted to playing the victim, complaining about how he "just can't say anything without getting attacked". This would not be the last time Atle would paint himself as a victim when called to accountability by others. As though one racist, misinforming comic were not enough, Atle then posted another comic, depicting the following theme: a character who, no matter where he treads, will get attacked for what he says.

Over the following months after posting these comics, Atle continued with his both-sidesing stance, and his parroting of Zionist arguments. But, after noticing some degree of negative backlash to his more "pointed" approach, he fell back on hiding behind a screen of "Christian peace-loving and pacifism". By hijacking and twisting Christ's message of love and peace, he made it much harder for himself to be challenged by other Christians, and benefitted from a facade of a meek and mild pastor throwing up peace signs and Bible verses about loving thy neighbour.

Atle continued his campaign of misinformation; shortly after posting the comics on his Facebook, Atle held a special presentation at his church in Oslo (called Cornelius) all about the "Israeli vs. Hamas conflict".

Since then, he's been actively and publicly spreading false information - Zionist propaganda - and all the while presenting himself as a heroic "voice of reason amid the chaos".

The video response I made to Atle Haugen's FB posts contains misguided and harmful comics. Made a few days after his first post.

In fact, Atle's criticism of those who boycott Israel pre-dated October 7th. Already back in January 2020 he wrote in an opinion piece to Vårt Land - the largest Norwegian Christian newspaper - in which he likens those who boycot to fundamentalists; contributors to a totalitarian-leaning ideology.

Atle wrote:

"...the left's eternal demand to boycott Israel...a pattern emerges. In all of this, there is an unmistakable scent of self-righteousness. The need to rise above "the others." Clear distinctions between "us" and "them."

The thrust of Atle's piece was to present those who boycott on the bases of values as having a divisive "us vs. them" mentality. He promotes the "better alternative" to boycotting and resistance as holding dialogue with those who "think differently than us".

This general principle, of course being good and right in itself, is woefully irrelevant when it comes to matters such as genocide, abuse, oppression, apartheid, and wilful murder. There is nothing new about this "both-sidesing" language. It has been used as a stalling and misinformation tactic for years by Zionists and the Western Christians who support them. And it is so seductive precisely because it sounds very Christian and peace-promoting and moral. But urging Palestinians and their supports to "stop fighting and talk peacefully in dialogue" with their oppressors and butchers, is as absurd as reprimanding the Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz for resisting their captors as they're being dragged off to the gas chambers. It is as sinister as telling Holocaust victims to instead find peaceful solutions by "sitting down and having a constructive dialogue with their Nazi prison guards."

Source: https://www.vl.no/meninger/verdidebatt/2020/01/15/de-som-boikotter-ma-besinne-seg/

Beyond Atle's own words and actions, his wife, Gry Haugen, is the communication director for ADRA Norway (the Adventist humanitarian aid-work branch). One would expect that a person in her position, and with her many years of work within ADRA, would have a sturdy grasp on the realities of the evils of forced starvation, mass extermination, and crimes against humanity. But, despite the fact that she's supposed to be a voice for the poor, oppressed, and marginalised which ADRA is meant to serve, she has posted nothing online about the Palestinian Holocaust on social media to date. And ADRA remains "out of the fight", so to speak.

It's time we stop beating around the bush and get real about accountability: Genocide deniers aren't faceless. They have faces and names. This one's name is Atle Haugen.

Those people who are enabling the Palestinian genocide and the existence of the Israeli colonial project - and misleading other Christians to do the same - don't look like monsters. They don't approach wearing horns. They don't appear as lunatics (most of the time). They don't wear Hitler moustaches. Some sit in pews. Some deliver sermons. Some speak calmly and with measured tone.

They are normal, every-day people who, time and time again, choose the wrong path. They often sound reasoned, rational, peace-promoting, and call "peace peace" when there is no peace. But the misguided or intentional damage they do - whether through sowing doubt, twisting the narrative, hijacking scripture, or spreading misinformation - is not harmless.

We need to start acknowledging how very real and very close this sort of heinous lies and insidious evil truly is.

Think of all those people Atle is influencing; all those church members, susceptible children, young, impressionable teens who listen to him in pews and classrooms. Think of how he is guiding Bible study and interpretation for Adventist high school students. He is influencing a new generation of church members. Will they be yet another generation who are misguided, blind, or unsympathetic toward the illegal occupation of Palestine?

Atle is openly a genocide-enabler masquerading as a "balanced thinker" and a peace-promoter. The nature of his methods and messaging is such a sneaky and subtle thing. But the danger of the approach towards Palestine which he promotes is chilling and detrimental.

As Omar El Akkad rightly wrote:

"One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this."

One day, everyone will have always been again this.

One day, Atle will no doubt try to rewrite history. He will try to claim that he did the right thing; that he was a religious leader "for peace" and "against war". He will paint himself as a wise and thoughtful spiritual leader and thinker, as he has done before. There's nothing new about this story. Nazis among the German citizenry in the 1940s did the same thing - they too claimed they were victims: just trying to do the right thing.

But we know the truth about Atle. And he will be held accountable. By other people, and by God himself.

Remember Atle Haugen's name. Remember what he did.

We won't forget.

#atlehaugen

#freepalestine

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This is Episode 3 of a series of blogs called "Palestine Stories".

Their purpose is to share how the fight for Palestinian freedom is playing out in real, everyday ways. To show how it affects relationships, professional and personal engagements, the shocking and surprising revelations the path to liberation brings.

It is disturbingly easy to view racists, Islamophobes, and Zionists as these faceless, distant monsters. Or we picture Neo-Nazis and gruff bikers and domestic terrorists and insanity. But these enablers are very much all around us. They are often nice, polite, neat, civilised, tax-paying, tattooless people. And they wear the faces of our friends, family, teachers, pastors, and leaders.

Only once we shatter the mythologising of their existence, and understand the slippery slopes which led them to hold the horrible beliefs they do, can we identify dangerous patterns in our own beliefs, and start to challenge them internally and externally.

Stay tuned for more.