In the Hebrew daily, Ma’ariv, Norway’s ambassador to Israel, Svein Sevje, was interviewed on Tuesday and asked whether the attacks in Oslo and Utøya carried out by Anders Behring Breivik, will alter Norwegians’ perception of Palestinian attacks on Israel.
Q: Has this caused you to undertake some soul-searching? Has it changed Norway’s and its citizens’ opinion as to what the international community calls the battle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank?
Probably not. We Norwegians consider the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel. Many Norwegians still consider the occupation to be the reason for the attacks on Israel. Those who believe this will not change their mind because of the attack in Oslo.
Q: In general, the perception in Israel is that you are against us. Why?
You have to explain to me why Israelis perceive us to be against you. I don’t think that Norway is anti-Israel, but rather criticism of the occupation and what we consider a violation of international law and support for the Palestinians’ right to have a state. We have supported Israel since its establishment. And then 1967 came along and the occupation and the settlements—and Norway’s attitude toward Israel changed. The Palestinians are the weak side, and Norway tends to support the weak side. Incidentally, Israelis may be surprised to learn the depth of the connection between Israel and Norway. For example, the Norwegian pension fund invested a billion dollars in Israeli companies. This is despite the fact that there are Israeli companies in which we don’t invest because they violate international law and are building the separation fence.
Q: Some Israelis would say that the terror attack in Norway is an “eye for an eye” for your positions against Israel.
Then I say that they are mistaken. The Norwegians will not change their position because of what happened. It will not change our understanding of international law and justice.
Q: Will this terrible terror attack have ramifications for the Muslim community in your country?
I will quote from Sholem Aleichem’s play Tevye the Milkman, in which I played the small role of Rabbi Nahum the butcher in 1968. When they were persecuted, one of the Jews said they should restore “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” to the pogroms. Tevye said: “and we’ll do this until the world no longer has any teeth or eyes?” In other words, the answer is no. As our prime minister said: we will respond with more openness, transparency and democracy.
Q: Why are you, out of all the important Europe states, the only one to say in a clear voice that you will support recognition of Palestinian state in the UN?
Norway has said that it prefers an arrangement reached through negotiations, but we think that it is legitimate for the Palestinian side to go to the UN.
Q: If you were the world policeman today, what would your parameters be for resuming the talks?
In general, resuming the negotiations would be based on the 1967 borders with a land swap on a scale of 1:1, dividing Jerusalem as the capital of the two states, a symbolic solution to the refugee problem and compensation by means of a fund to the refugees.
Q: Are you in favor of a political dialogue with Hamas?
We have no political dialogue with Hamas, but we do have connections on the level of senior officials and we meet with them. Can Israel and the Palestinians solve the problems without Hamas? I don’t think so.
We recognize Palestine’s right to exist and to live in peace and dignity.
Israelis Debate on the Web: Did Norway Get What It Deserved?
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 11:23PM Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon: Read it for yourself. Israelis show their real face.
If psychopathy is defined as a sever lack in empathy, we are clearly dealing here with a psychotic collective
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/israelis-debate-on-the-web-did-norway-get-what-it-deserved.html#entry12303856
“The taxi driver recalled this week: “There was nothing suspicious about him at all. He seemed just like any easy-going cop. He told me he was just going to check the security on the island because of the bomb blast in Oslo that we were hearing about on the car radio.”
The taxi driver hailed the Utoya island ferry boat to come and pick Breivik up. The ferryman willingly obliged. Breivik, with an automatic rifle slung over his arm in a case, was also carrying a large black plastic suitcase full of his other weapons. The ferryman remembers lugging the case up the jetty. “I was a bit surprised how heavy it was,” he said in an interview yesterday. Once off the jetty, Breivik unpacked his weapons and like a murderous Pied Piper, began summoning the band of happy campers to come towards him. “I have come to protect you,” he insisted as he opened fire.
In the end it was not Norway’s immigrants or Muslims that Breivik chose to assassinate, but people who came from the same background as he did and whose parents were almost certainly Labour Party supporters like his own. But the fact was that by last Friday, Breivik felt not only that he no longer belonged to his own people, he had come to detest them with a virulence that was unprecedented.Is Norway’s ostensibly tolerant social model partially to blame? Critics point out that in the aftermath of the humiliation inflicted on the country by the Nazi invasion and the imposition of a fascist puppet government during the Second World War, Norway has religiously adhered to an almost stifling form of consensus politics in which the main parties tend to agree on everything.
The upshot is a generous welfare state, excellent schooling, high wages, high taxes and prices and considerable social uniformity. Immigration, which has hit the 20 per cent mark in Oslo and is largely confined to the city’s eastern districts, may be high by Norwegian standards but is insignificant when compared to areas in Britain or other parts of continental Europe.
Political commentators like Norway’s Kjetil Kollsrud say that consensus politics conducted Norwegian-style have resulted in a form of extreme egalitarianism. “The fact is that in a system like this there is simply not a great deal of room for people who don’t fit it,” he told The Independent. Anders Breivik was clearly one of those who didn’t.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/what-turned-anders-breivik-into-norways-worst-nightmare-2327214.html