BERLIN/OSLO – Anders Behring Breivik, who killed at least 93 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage in Norway, has claimed he is pro-Zionist.

In numerous online postings, including a manifesto published on the day of the attacks, Breivik promoted the Vienna School or Crusader Nationalism philosophy, a mishmash of anti-modern principles that also calls for “the deportation of all Muslims from Europe” as well as from “the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on Sunday.
According to the manifesto, titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence” and published under the pseudonym Andrew Berwick, the Vienna School supports “pro-Zionism/Israeli nationalism.”
Breivik listed numerous European Freedom Parties and neo-Nazi parties as potential allies because of their anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim stance, and mentioned that right-wing populists like Dutch politician Geert Wilders “have to condemn us at this point which is fine. It is after all essential that they protect their reputational shields.”
Among the potential allies he listed for Germany were the three largest neo-Nazi parties -- the National Democratic Party, Deutsche Volksunion and Republikaner. In Holland, Wilders' Freedom Party topped the list, and the British National Party topped a long list of potential supporters in the United Kingdom.
European right-populist parties increasingly have been waving the flag of friendship with Israel, as well as expressing vehement opposition to Europe’s multicultural society.
According to JTA, last month, after it emerged that German-Swedish far-right politician Patrik Brinkmann had met in Berlin with Israeli Likud Party lawmaker Ayoub Kara, who is deputy minister for development of the Negev and Galilee, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Kara be prevented from making further trips abroad. According to Ynet, Lieberman accused Kara of meeting with neo-Nazis and causing damage to Israel's image. Brinkman said he had reached out to Israeli rightists hoping to build a coalition against Islam.
In postings on the website Document.no that appear to be by Breivik, the poster pondered whether one could “accept the moderate Nazis as long as they distance themselves” from the extermination of the Jews.
The words of right-wing populist politicians “are dangerous, it allows them to radicalize,” Hajo Funke, an expert on right-wing extremism in Europe at Touro College Berlin and the Free University of Berlin, told JTA in a phone interview.
On Monday, Breivik arrived at an Oslo courtroom for a closed custody hearing to jeers from an angry crowd, Reuters reported.
“Get out, get out!” shouted Alexander Roeine, 24, banging on the car he believed had brought Breivik to Oslo District Court. “Everyone here wants him dead,” he said, adding that he knew one of the dead and three survivors of Friday's attacks.
According to his lawyer, Breivik had wanted to explain why he perpetrated modern-day Norway's worst peace-time massacre, but a judge ruled that the hearing would be a closed session.
“We want to see him really hurt for what he did,” said Zezo Hasab, 32, among a crowd who gave Breivik a furious reception.
Norway's first glimpse of the killer was a shaky, long-range television picture of a man with close-cropped blond hair and a red top, as he got into a police jeep after the hearing.
He appeared calm and did not try to communicate with journalists standing across the road from an underground garage where he was brought down from the courtroom.
He sat unmovingly in the back seat, with a policeman beside him, his head tilted slightly back, before being whisked away.
Prosecutors wanted Breivik detained for an initial eight weeks -- normally this is in solitary confinement with no access to news, letters or visitors, except a lawyer. His custody can be extended before his trial on terrorism charges.
Breivik planted a bomb on Friday outside Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's Oslo office which killed seven, then travelled to the island of Utoeya and shot dead 86 at a youth camp of the ruling Labor Party.
The 32-year-old terrorist declared in a rambling 1,500-page manifesto posted online shortly before the massacre that he was on a self-appointed mission to save Europe from what he saw as the threats of Islam, immigration, and multiculturalism.
The judge's decision to close the hearing to the public followed an outcry from Norwegians enraged at the possibility that Breivik would be allowed a public platform for his views.
Photo: Anders Behring Breivik (Reuters photo)