by Manfred Gerstenfeld
If Solberg manages to govern for four years, this may enable Israel to further improve relations with Norway and better counteract its leftwing enemies there.
Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg, February 2016, image via Wikimedia Commons
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 620, October 19, 2017
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Developments
in Norway are rarely analyzed abroad – not even in Israel, despite the
fact that Norway was the most problematic country in Europe for Israel
from 2005-13. Under governments led by Labor Party leader Jens
Stoltenberg, anti-Israel attitudes flourished. There were also extreme
expressions of anti-Semitism, including shots fired by a Muslim at
Oslo’s only synagogue. In 2012, the well-known Norwegian author Hanne
Nabintu Herland called Norway the “most anti-Semitic country.” The
recent surprise victory of Prime Minister Erna Solberg, the Conservative
leader, could alter this dynamic for the better.
The current prime minister of Norway, Erna
Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party (Hoyre), and three potential
coalition parties unexpectedly won Norway’s September 11 elections,
receiving 89 out of 170 seats. Creating a government will not be easy,
however. The Christian Democrat Party, a Solberg ally that barely passed
the entrance threshold of 4%, is opposed to the anti-Islam Progress
Party’s continuing in government.
A few months ago, polls indicated that Labor and
its allies would return to power. Had that in fact occurred, Labor
leader Jonas Gahr Stoere would have become prime minister. In that
event, Norway would likely have joined Sweden sooner or later in
recognizing a Palestinian Authority government that controls part of the
Palestinian territories.
In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 77 people, mainly
Labor Party youngsters. Then-prime minister Jens Stoltenberg thereafter
publicly proclaimed that Norway, despite this tragic event, would
become an even more open democracy. In reality, dissenters who strongly
opposed social-democratic rule were even more ostracized than before.
(After his 2013 defeat, Stoltenberg became secretary general of NATO.)
As prime minister, Stoltenberg was not so much an
anti-Israeli inciter himself as he was tolerant of such incitement by
his party and allies. At several venues where he spoke, there were
brutal verbal attacks on Israel, but he remained silent. By not
confronting these attacks he condoned them.
Moreover, the Stoltenberg governments were the
only European ones to include the extreme left. Several ministers came
from the SV party, some of the founders of which were Norwegian
communists. These governments frequently applied double standards
against Israel, a behavior that fits the European definition of
anti-Semitic acts.
The Stoltenberg government proffered de facto
legitimization on the Islamist Palestinian terror group Hamas on
several occasions. It also called on Israel to take down the security
barrier, which would, had Israel complied, have facilitated Palestinian
terror attacks. In yet another example of the poor judgment of a
democratic prime minister, the Stoltenberg government also organized
major festivities on the occasion of the 150th birthday of the late writer Knut Hamsun, a fanatical admirer of Hitler.
As for Labor leader Stoere, his anti-Israelism
reached an extreme point when he wrote a back-cover blurb legitimizing a
book by two Norwegian Hamas supporters, Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse.
Writing on the 2009 Cast Lead campaign in Øyne i Gaza (“Eyes in Gaza”), they claimed that Israel had entered the Gaza Strip in 2009 to kill women and children.
Stoere has always played both sides, however. In
January 2009, the most anti-Semitic riots ever to have taken place in
Norway occurred in Oslo. Muslims attacked pro-Israel demonstrators with
potentially lethal projectiles. Stoere visited the Oslo synagogue
afterward to express his solidarity with the Jewish community.
A study, paid for by the government, was published
in 2012 by the Norwegian Center for Studies of the Holocaust and
Religious Minorities. The study found that 38% percent of Norwegians
believe Israel acts towards the Palestinians the way the Nazis behaved
towards the Jews.
During Erna Solberg’s tenure as prime minister,
which began in 2013, extreme anti-Israelism among organizations mainly
on the Norwegian left continued apace. The large trade union LO, which
is a major force behind the Labor Party, came out in favor of totally
boycotting Israel. In 2014, the Christian youth organization YMCA-YWCA
voted in favor of a boycott on goods and services from the territories.
(The Oslo chapter rejected the boycott.)
It is easy to underestimate the importance of
Norway because it is not a member of the EU and has only about 5 million
inhabitants. Yet its huge gas and oil income has enabled it to make
major donations abroad, including to Palestinian causes. Labor
governments did so extensively, and the Solberg government has continued
the practice.
In May of this year, however, Norway asked for
funds it had donated to a center for women in the West Bank village of
Barak to be returned. It had become known that the center was named for
Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 massacre on a highway near Tel Aviv
that killed 37 Israeli civilians, many of them children, and wounded
dozens.
A recent study by Jonas Duc Enstad of Oslo
University’s Center for the Study of Extremism stated that it seems that
“most anti-Semitic incidents in Norway are caused by Arabs and
left-wing radicals.”
As Sweden’s government is currently the main
anti-Israel inciter in Europe, it is interesting to note that before the
elections, Norwegian Immigration Minister Sylvi Listhaug, of the
Progress Party, kept warning that Norway should not allow “Swedish
conditions” to develop.
The Financial Times wrote: “That is code
for the gang warfare, shootings, car burnings and other integration
problems that Sweden has endured recently in the suburbs of its three
largest cities, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.” One might also recall
that Malmö is considered by many experts the anti-Semitism capital of
Europe.
Listhaug traveled to Stockholm shortly before the
elections and visited the extremely violent Rinkeby suburb. She made a
point of noting that there are more than 60 no-go zones in Sweden.
Sweden, with its 10 million citizens, is the dominant Scandinavian
country, and many Swedes look down on Norway. This unusual Norwegian
criticism hit Sweden below the belt, all the more so as it is largely
true.
If Solberg manages to govern for four years, this
may enable Israel to further improve relations with Norway and better
counteract its leftwing enemies there.
A shorter version of this article was published in the Jerusalem Post.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/norwegian-election-israel-jews/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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