page_title: 2008–2009 Oslo riots
section_title: Analysis and aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: 2008–2009 Oslo riots / Analysis and aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Some shop windows smashed during Oslo riots on 8 January 2009.
context_page_description: On 29 December 2008, violent riots first broke out in Oslo, Norway amid protests against the Gaza War, starting outside the Israeli embassy. Riots broke out again following a protest on 4 January 2009, while the most violent and destructive riots took place on 8 and 10 January when riots spread throughout the city with widespread destruction of private and public property, clashes between rioters and police with several injuries, as well as attacks on civilians, including individuals targeted due to being thought by rioters to be Jews. Around 200 people were arrested in total, mainly Muslim youth, supported by left-wing autonomous Blitz activists.
context_section_description: In his book The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo (2010), Norwegian author and editor Eirik Eiglad, himself a socialist who was present in Oslo during the riots, wrote:
  As far as I can judge, these were the largest anti-Jewish riots in Norwegian history. Even before and during World War II, when anti-Semitic prejudices were strong, public policies were discriminatory, and the Nazified State Police efficiently confiscated Jewish property and deported Jews on that despicable slave ship SS Donau - even then, Norway had not seen anti-Jewish outbursts of this scale. This country had no previous history of wanton anti-Jewish mass violence.
  Police investigators noted similarities in the modus operandi of the Oslo riots with earlier riots in Paris and in the Middle East.
  In cooperation with Norwegian education authorities, Islamic leaders in Norway initiated "dialogue meetings" with youths in mosques following the riots, with the aim of "using the Quran" to reach out to youths who had participated in the riots. Tariq Ramadan later visited Oslo and held speeches in the Rabita Mosque.
  The riots have been credited by sociologists for "awakening" young Norwegian Muslims politically. Others have drawn connections to February 2010, when thousands of Oslo taxi drivers blocked the city centre, and 3,000 Muslims took part in an illegal demonstration against newspaper Dagbladet for publishing a Muhammad cartoon in the context of a news story about an internet link (which the newspaper strongly criticised), during which one of the speakers, Mohyeldeen Mohammad "warned" of a 9/11 or 7/7 in Norway. 
  The riots have later been noted as an important shared experience and common denominator for many members of the Norwegian Salafi-jihadist group Profetens Ummah, and Norwegian jihadists in the Syrian Civil War. One participant in the riots, leftist turned-Muslim convert Anders Cameroon Østensvig Dale went on to become an internationally wanted terrorist as a bomb-maker for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
caption: Shop windows smashed in the riots.
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