HARSH BUT FAIR: Norway’s Vidkun Quisling again defines the country’s character.
Norwegians may believe that they, too, have turned their back on the age of Quisling and assert that he was an aberration rather than an archetype, but Norway never had a true reckoning. Norwegians were allowed the conceit that responsibility for the deaths of more than one-third of Norway’s Jews lay with Quisling, and not broader Norwegian society. Current events show the danger of lessons unlearned.
As Norway promotes a self-image of progressive virtue, its leadership fans antisemitism by denying its links to anti-Zionism and pro-Hamas activism. While Norway prides itself on initiating the Oslo Accords in which Israel agreed to negotiate a path to Palestinian statehood in exchange for the Palestinian leadership’s abandonment of terrorism, in 2024, Norway both recognized Palestinian independence absent any negotiated agreement. In effect, while Oslo lectures on the primacy of diplomacy, it signaled forswearing terrorism was a commitment no one needed to keep so long as the victims were Jews.
Norway later joined the Qatar-funded International Criminal Court case against Israel that made a mockery of international law and smeared Israel with a “genocide” blood libel that rests on polemic rather than fact. Completing the moral inversion is the fact that the Norwegian government simultaneously seeks to normalize Hamas, a group whose covenant calls for genocide.
Now, Oslo appears to take its Jew-hatred a step further. It seeks to criminalize any financial dealings with Jews in the West Bank or the Old City of Jerusalem. In effect, Norway’s position is that Israel must embrace anyone claiming Palestinian heritage, yet a future Palestinian state should be Judenrein. Historically, this is ignorant for two reasons.
At least.