For the first time in my life, I’m ashamed to be Norwegian. Why on earth would I be ashamed of coming from a peaceful, prosperous nation, with one of the supposedly happiest populations on earth, beautiful nature and a history of bravery and diplomacy, you may ask? Surely everyone loves Norway, that innocuous, northern country of five million, which hardly ever makes the news except once a year when it’s yet again come out on top, or at least close to the top, of some “best quality of life” survey?
Well, that was before Norway decided to recognise Palestine as a state. Last week, the Norwegian Government joined Ireland and Spain in unilaterally recognising a state of Palestine on May 28th. The move has received praise from Hamas, and prompted the departure of the Israeli ambassador to Oslo, Avi Nir-Feldklein. He told the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK: ”It’s a very sad moment for the relationship between Israel and Norway… This is the low point in the relationship between Norway and the Israeli people.” Norway is now regarded as one of the “most hostile countries”, according to Nir-Feldklein.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Hamas is thanking Norway, as well as Spain and Ireland, for what it believes to be support for its cause. “We consider this an important step towards affirming our right to our land,” a spokesman for Hamas said, according to the Daily Mail. Hamas is calling on “countries around the world to recognise our legitimate national rights”.
Most Western governments say they will recognise Palestine as a sovereign state, but not before agreement has been reached on issues like where it’s borders will be drawn and what the status of Jerusalem will be.
Norway is out of step not only with the U.K., but also the U.S., France and Germany, which have all said this isn’t the right time for such a move.
What is prompting Norway, which played a central part in the (failed) Oslo Accords negotiations, to take such a radically different stance to most of its NATO allies and other Western governments?
Unfortunately, this is not as shocking as it appears at first glance. Norway has a track record of showing – both financially and politically – support for Palestine. Norway is a top donor to the controversial UN agency UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). After it was revealed by an Israel intelligence dossier that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the attack on Israel on October 7th, countries around the world paused funding to the agency. Yet Norway has maintained its funding. It made its annual contribution of 275 million NOK (£20.5 million) in February and said more could be on its way.
The key person in Norway’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict is Espen Barth-Eide. The 60 year-old minister of foreign affairs in Norway’s red-green coalition Government has climbed the ranks of the Labour party over several decades. He was co-editor of International Peacekeeping, a London-based journal, and in 2003 he was named as a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum. Wiki-Leaks revealed that he was not only described as competent and knowledgeable, but as a “weasel” by the CIA. He is also a long-standing campaigner for Palestine and used to champion their cause as a youth politician.
As well as recognising Palestine as a state, Barth-Eide says Norway will arrest Israel’s president Benjamin Netanyahu if an arrest warrant is issued by the ICC and he sets foot on Norwegian soil. Norway is the first country in Europe to issue such a statement.
In contrast, the Taliban Government of Afghanistan was flown into Oslo in 2022, paid for by Norwegian taxpayers, to talk to Norwegian ministers. The Taliban delegation received a warm welcome, whereas the elected president of the only democracy in the Middle East has been warned to stay away.
Thankfully, many Norwegians support Israel in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on Israeli soil. Our King, Harald V, wanted to send his condolences to Israel, but was advised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to because it was a “political” conflict, the King revealed in a recent documentary.
While supporters of Palestine, who march through the streets of Oslo yelling “from the river to the sea” are in their thousands, Jews in Norway are a tiny minority. This is the country that lost between 30 and 40% of its small Jewish population of 2,100 people in the Holocaust. Norwegian Jews, at present number only about 1500 and tell of how they now feel unsafe, as they do in the U.K. and many other Western nations.
Ayelet Azoury, a Norwegian-Israeli Jew living in Oslo, recently decided to move back to Israel because she no longer feels safe in Norway. “The Norway I once knew is no longer safe for Jews or Israelis,” she said in a Facebook post. Azoury is an activist who has highlighted the atrocities of Hamas, something the Norwegian media have been reluctant to do. The focus is very much on the Palestinians, and a friend recently commented that even the Guardian is more balanced in its coverage of the current conflict than the Norwegian mainstream media.
Norway hosted the Oslo Accords in 1993. The outcome was the decision to pursue a two-state solution, yet this has proved impossible in the years since. Now Israel says there is no role for the country in future negotiations.
Ambassador Nir-Feldklein claims Norway was trusted as an honest broker because it used to be seen as a neutral country. “Today Norway lost that role,” he told NRK yesterday. The trust is gone, he said. “I see no role for Norway. It’s Qatar, Egypt and the USA that have a role.”
Surely, this is a big blow to Norway’s reputation as a peace-keeper.
In Norway, there is a phrase we use to describe ourselves which translated as the “different country” – and it’s not always used in a positive way. The expression “annerledeslandet” was coined by the poet Rolf Jacobsen and later used during the EU referendum in 1994. Norway should be different and stay out of the EU, said some, while the pro-EU side used the word mockingly. Sometimes it’s good to be different, but in this instance, being different means taking the side of terrorists. Whether it’s because of naivety, weaselly politicians wanting to climb the UN ladder, or simply a lack of moral judgement, I don’t know. But Norway certainly stands out now as a different sort of country, and one that I am thoroughly ashamed of.
Stop Press: in her latest Substack post, Melanie Phillips says the human rights establishment, in its unrelenting attack on Israel since October 7th, has destroyed any claim it has to the moral high ground.
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