As a german living in Norway it is very curious to observe that you find the pro israeli people in Norway on the political right wing (the very right wing party Frp is the only one in Norway claiming to move the norwegian embassy to Israel`s capital Jerusalem). On the political left wing you find hughes of anti-israeli people (and politians) who want to boikott Israel. Maybe 10% or more of the people in Norway have a big heart for Israel and the jewish people (most of them are what the rest of the country calls fundamentical christians). We have in our small town a friendship organization "friends of Israel" with several meetings every year to inform about the political conflict in the Middle East from a non antisemitic point of view and the prophecies in the bible concernig Israel. There are dozen of these more or less small "Israel friendship organizations" in Norway and we proudly buy Jaffa oranges and all the other great products coming from Israel. Hoping #2 will continue to buy norwegian products too :-). P.S. Maybe the israeli embassador has a point when she says the royal family "could have done...", but let me tell you honestly that the royal family is tha last one to blame! Talk to the politians in the socialist parties and the former prime minister Kåre Willoch! We work here in Norway with documentation of what the half-truths are he is spreading and what`s wrong with Gaarder`s article (see: http://www.ikaj.no/nettavis/arkiv/Gaarders_research.html) see also: www.idag.no or www.miff.no (these are only a few websites working with it - but sorry, everything is in norwegian...)

my reply talkback to yours has been banned yesterday What shows that you are not the only self hater Ynet is doing a better a job than most talkbakers So BTW, dont reply, there's hardly a tb of mine that goes published I see that destroying the state of Israel or Jewish institutions abroad is better taken care off by "jews" like u, than muslims Again I dont think returning to this article , so may G-d help you

I've now read many of the comments on this page. Some of them I find very balanced and enlightend, some others, not so. From my standpoint, being an Norwegian, I could not care less what religion one might or might not have. I see that someone has been shooting at an building in Oslo, and I conclude that this is not very good, and we must ensure the saftey of the people in Oslo, and the capture of the wrong-doers. Nothing more,nothing less. I do however find it somewhat amateur-like of the Israeli ambassador when I saw her on TV. Her comments somewhat forced the jewish community in Norway to disagree with her. Remember, Norwegians are first of all Norwegians. I think maybe many in Israel think that just because they share a same religion with people in another country, they speak for them as well. This intermix between State and religion isn't very helpful, nor very wise. To put a fine point on it ; i'm utterly tired of the whole middle-eastern region. I sometime feel, whatever we do to help or please Israel, Palestine and others.. nothing helps. The world would indeed be a better place both without Israel and Palestine... I of-course do not mean this to the letter, but sometimes the futility of Israeli policy and Palestinian / Arab policy just makes me give up. From this I can conclude, that you are utterly incapable from achieving peace..so, leave Europe alone, and take care of your own "house" before bashing us for lack of support.

What Norwegian culture? Ibsen, Grieg, Munch, Sonja Henie, who else? Oh yes, Roald Amundsen... other than that what? Butchering whales against international law?

To #53. Thanks. To #61: You are quite right about your assessment of the current distribution of pro-palestinian/pro-israeli groups in Norwegian _public_ discourse. As in most modern countries when they want to run a political debate on TV, they invite the extemists on both ends of the spectrum in order to get a lively debate. Currently the right wing christians are loosing out in that public debate against the left wing radicals on the topic of the issues in the middle east. (Btw. I am not religious, not jewish but moderately conservative.) This has been supported by TV-news media coverage wherin palestinian grievances (e.g. poverty, children crying next to an IDF bulldozer etc) seem to generate a higher level of emotional impact than the attempts at depicting Isreali fear of terror (fear is hard to show on TV). There is also - importantly - a tendency to make Isreali leaders accountable for every IDF action or mishap, but no reciprocal understanding that there are leaders amongst the opposing groups that should be held strongly accountable for acts of terrorism. People in northern europe are typically unusually honest (by international standards) and we therfore tend to trust what people say, and take a lot of statements at face value. This is nice in the sense that if you come here as a tourist, you don't really need to keep your guard up in order to avoid being subjected to all sorts of scams. But it also means that Norwegians tend to place too much trust in allegedly peaceful statements made e.g. by leaders of Hizbollah or Hamas. As a result it has somehow become politically correct for Norwegians to be sceptical of Israeli actions, and generally supportive of palestinian causes. But I believe that it is very wrong to give up on getting support by the scandinavians just because this is the current bias in the sentiment. Opinions change, you just need the right driving force and the correct media strategy to get there. I have not conducted any polls, but even with current _political_ sentiment.... if you asked an average Norwegian on the street who he would rather have as his new next door neighbour (a jew or a palestinian) I would bet that you would get 95%+ support for the jewish neighbour :-) My point being: Ethnic Norwegians feel much more akin to jews and rather more estranged by muslim palestinians.

"Norwegians have as of the last decade gradually become convinced that Israelis are agressors suppressing a defenceless minority of palestinians, rather than a recilient minority defending itself from hostilities supported and backed by most of the arab/muslim world. The "we-experience-peace-every-single-day-Norwegians" have a hard time fully absorbing what it means to be a party in such a conflict, and definitely do not understand the tough decisions that Israeli leaders sometimes have to make." see? this is the problem. Israel is presented by the media as the perpetrator, murderer, etc.etc. While the Palestinians are presented as helpless victims. Which not at all accurate. You better check out the link below. http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/483/521.html

"Remember, Norwegians are first of all Norwegians. " I was wondering, are the muslim in your country Norwegians? Has anyone explained to them that they have to be Norwegians first. I saw Mrs. Sender on TV saying that Norwegian Jews are Norwegian citizens. I couldn't agree more. I wonder where the Muslims (Arabs)' loyalty lies... According to this logic, if Muslims in Norway don't like what's happening in Israel, why should they attack the Oslo synagogue, where there are mostly Norwegian worshippers? Now if both Jews and Muslims are law-abiding Norwegian citizens, then if a group of Norwegian citizens attacks another group of Norwegian citizens... isn't that civil war?

Bush jr. and our king only share the property that they are both formally the heads of the state. Aside from that our king has no real power, all power has been delegated to the government and parliament. Bush on the other hand has great power (he may propose legislation and he can/and may veto decisions made by the Congress) I accept that this sounds strange to people that are used to living in a rebulic, but the king strives to be politically neutral. Norwegians don't live in any sort of misconception that our king has blue blood or anything like that, but because it is a matter of tradition, and because it _works_ , there has never been any support for converting our system into a republic. It might still eventually happen. But it is miles away from happening right now. The royal family receives allowances from the governement and in turn serve as figureheads for the nation and as sort of senior ambassadors of our country when abroad. They wave to the children's parade on the 17th of may (liberation day) and they visit all sorts of communities, suburbs and charities throughout the year to provide encouragement. But that's where their responsibilities stop. Due to their habit of saying nice things, doing nice deeds and being politically neutral topped with extensive media coverage, they also get a lot of emotional support from the people. (same effect as for sport stars) The problem with the critizism from the isreali ambassador is not that it is illegal or that the words of support that she was hoping for were totally wrong. But it was mistargeted, and was perceived as culturally improper. It was like asking a mute to just say a few small words about anything. Not much, just a word or two... Maybe just one word. If that person is known to be mute, people who witness the request - even as feeble as it may sound - feel uneasy and embarrassed on behalf of the requester. As simple as that.

Having been observing the responses on this talkback, I want to make a few observations: 1. There is a real tendency to overpoliticize anything that has to do with Jews. All of my attempts to get through the fact that we are talking about Norwegian Royal family failing to offer support to Norwegian Jewish community after a shooting by Norwegians of a Norwegian synagogue keep meeting the same refrain. I keep seeing messages from our Scandinavian friends, talking about "you Jews", "you Israelies", Palestenian/Arab conflict, etc. In my opinion, as far as the (non)actions of the Royal family is concerned, the fact that this act was commited against Jewish community is almost incidental, and definitely has nothing to do with a Middle East conflict. 2. The tone of Scandinavian responders commenting on the Shomrat interview has been condescending, at best, insulting, at worst. Here the refrain has been "stupid", "immature". There was one, ostensibly pro-Israeli commentator, who described Ambassador Shomrat as a child that needs reprimand for calling a fat lady fat in public. Nice, guys, very nice! Teaching etiquette, are we? 3. I find something surreal and ridiculous reading comments on the norms of behaviour in the 21st century from anyone so blindly commited to the anachronistic Royal personality cult and practice old-fashion scapegoatism, that they are incapable of allowing simple compassion for their own countrymen. In the last 24 hours my opinion of Scandinavia as an enlightened, progressive, compassionate culture has shifted drastically lower. 4. As for Norwegian Jews, I remember what it was like in the old Soviet Union, where I spent the early part of my life. The Jews were always expected to be the loudest to condemn Israel and declare their loyalty to the king and state, lest they be accused of being Zionists themselves. This, too, shall pass. Shalom and Shana Tova! Qualification: I realize that the un-statistical sample here does not represent every single citizen of Scandinavia. To all those, enlightened and open minded enough to see byond the cliche refrains, I want to express my sincere appreciation from the bottom of my heart. Together we can overcome the ugliness. Respect

Yes, that was my point. It _is_ the problem. I don't know how to precisely formulate a strategy to combat the problem, but if I was the Isreaeli ambassador, combating those perceptions would be my primary goal. If I was trying to convince someone, I would pick out one or two misconceptions and try to set them right. In the process I would probably concur to some imprecise misconceptions of my disagreeing audience in order to make sure that my audience felt that we were generally aligned on most issues. A lot of the problems related to discussions about politics in the middle east, is that disagreeing parties are rarely able to find mutual facts that they perceive in the same way. Thus convincing somebody really is a difficult job.

Yes, it was a breach of etiquette. Somewhat grave breach as well, because etiquette is a very fundamental part of dimplomacy. You may find Norwegian etiquette silly, and standards of etiquette are both hard to explain and defend. They are just there. And you know when it has been breached because you feel insulted by the breach of etiquette rather than by the actual content of the message. It can happen to anybody, and surely it must have happened to Norwegians abroad as well (many would probably say Terje Rød Larsen has done it on some occasions). This time it happened to Shomrat. Regardless: When in Rome do like the Romans. Especially if you have an important agenda to push.

your point no. 1 sounds almost identical to what I wrote in #67. Should civil war break out in Norway (between Norwegian Jews and Norwegian Muslims, e.g.) the royal family would probably go on keeping above politics. I wonder, does the royal family in Norway live on a state budget (i.e. tax-payer money), or do they rely on personal wealth? By the way, I spent the first 30 years of my life in Romania - don't you recognize Soviet propaganda traits in Arab propaganda? Have you read this article? http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjUzMGU4NTMyOTdkOTdmNTA1MWJlYjYyZDliODZkOGM=

What must be understood is that the most important obligation the royals in European communities have, is that they accept that they are an institution based on the foundation that they stay out of politics. They can not and will not make any comments on any domestic politics. And suddenly the Israel Ambassador demands that they should publish a statement where they support the Israel Community in Norway. That would be a huge political statement, which probably would lead to the end of the royal institution, and create the Democratic Republic of Norway, instead... The royals probably do support them, but they can never express that in public. They are nonpolitical. The king is king for all Norwegians. No matter what their ethnic background is.

I haven't gone very deep into these accusations against the king... But, what strikes me about Israelis around the world is this: You have a VERY well developed propaganda machinery, and you've got VERY good methods for contacting the media and for creating a fuzz whenever there's the SLIGHTEST sign of anti-israeli sentiments or opinions. In other words... you're protecting yourselves very well, verbally. And you obviously have the resources to do so. Regarding your opponents, however, they do not have this machinery ready... and thus their voice is seldom heard, even though they may in the end have a case which is JUST as fair as the Israeli case, seen from an objective standpoint. So.... knowing all this, I tend to not put too much weight on Israeli cry-outs like this present one, because I know it's part of some greater Israeli defence strategy, rather than any expression of REAL oppression against the jews within Norway.

I would think jews in general would know a lot about waht happend during wwii. Apperantly not. Norway was invaded by the nazis, we did not join the voluntarily. Quisling was unpopular, we shot him after the war. When he ran for election before the war, he recieved 1,5% of the votes. Most deaths in Norway in Norway at the hands of the nazis, were non-jewish norwegians. My grandfather, a pastor, lost his property and job. This endless hate from Israel towards Norway is ugly. Learn some history you ignorant nuts.

Once a upon a time, after the big war we supported UN and gave you your own state, Istrael. We felt like we did the right thing back then, supporting the Land of Israel, where Jewish nationhood could grow. Now you turn your back on a new country every day, this time its Norway. You israelie jews got the full responsibility for making us become anti zionists, maby by givng refuge to your victims, or just by listening, and watching to your stupid behavior. You must think deep before you speak, remeber even if it has gone many decades now since the last time you asked for support for the jeweish people. its not impossible that you will begg for help once more, and then you need the support from Norway and the rest of the world. Wonder why europe is adopting islamic behaviour, and not yours...

Be fair! You cite incidents and they are completely one-sided. No one is going to take you seriously if you only present a one-sided biased perspective. Are you so gullible that you believe all the media reports and take them at face value? Come on! Haven't you figured out yet that many media outlets, including Reuters, the AP, and the Guardian have fabricated propaganda by altering photos? Where have you been all summer?

why dont the ambasador read the news?it was some basterds who in fackt are imigrants to my contry and some right wingd fools.but norway dont like war we dont like mr bush as much as he like to think and not to for get hes lakai blair.and as mr arile sharon said is we the jews that controll america is that not so?and as a viking from norway i like peace but bombing sivilians is not an ackt of war thats terror and low way of ending a disput and why.and noe over to the fack of war on terror why call it that?call it war for oil in sted for that is what it is why cant iran get atomic power when you have loades of it ?you have the bomb france has it us has it italy has the it you have it and a bunch of other contrys have it or the tecko to get it.so sopp the critisisem of others consurning the bomb and nuclear power when you and your alies have louds of it.and then we have war israel and libanon syria palistein and the other contrys in the middel east have made war for now almoast my intier life 31 to bee corect or you want call it war you an act of defence and israle always get suportt from the us or the world police as i call it.i dont agre on evry thing in this world but talk and dialog are more efektiv then bombs and bullits,we pullud out of un troops in lebanon a few tears a go and what happend shit hit the fan ones again cant you and the i mean jews and arabs in that region do any thing but shoot and bomb your self to peace do you think it works?i dont ,it fiers anger and hate not understanding,it tok you the israeli goverment/military 48 hauers to bomb beirut back 15 years in time and that rebuild was wery much thanks to norway it happend and you have also got help to talk to the palistein peopels of the west bank,have you forgotten ww2?i hope not never again you said and what are you doing?calling a well spoken man and a well studid man he is the president of iran and you think he is like hitler? no no.get a grip of your self not only you but the leaders of the world GET A GRIP.i understand that this is srtong words but may bee stupid i say what i think and fell.bush and you and blair have made this world a less safe place to live in.and remember it was in norway hitler lost his first troops in combat he did not think he would get any but we gave em hell he lost his first big shipp in norway the to guns moses and aron slamd blucher to the botom of the drøbak sund and sank and to day your ambassador talks bad of my king and contry before asking the persons in that synagog and my king dont hardley or ever discus politicks in media he has never don that and nor did his father king olav the 5 long live his legazy ,so take a talk to miryam and ask does she now understad that pepole in norway gets wery angry when it commes to the royal family we get sad for we love them and that is for what they did for the contry in ww2 and afther so dont say we the norwegian are the moast israeli hostail contry in the world shame on you for printing that.im not cristian i say to you all may odin see us all when we die and hope we know the answer to his qustion of howe we livd ouer life did we live in did we live in shame of contry clan or famely?or did we bring honur to them all.so i think you never will get an statement from my king to you or eny.peace to you all.

I am insulted that you (and so many others) comment about my country without knowing anything whatsoever about it. Mosques and Muslims have been targetted far harder than Jews recently, yet the ministers of our governments don't seem to pay much attention to that. However, the prime minister, the foreign minister and the minister of justice have been very clear in expressing sympathies with the Jewish community after the shots against the synagogue. The minister of justice (who is responsible for among other things, the police) spent a lot of time personally in the synagogue to talk through ideas on how to improve safety and security for Norwegian Jews. Norwegian Jews are, in general, not afraid of angering Norwegians. In fact, in the recent debates over the Lebanese war, I found that the more vocal in the debate are indeed Jews, condemning people with differing opinions very harshly (and in my opinion unfairly). The royal family in Norway, for your information, is completely withdrawn from the public debates. They will not utter anything that can be considered even remotely political. Whereas theoretically the King is the dead of state, the prime minister is the de-facto head of state, and he HAS addressed this issue. I think any Norwegian can tell you that attacks and criticism against Muslims are common, racism against Muslims is common, whereas only right-wing nutcases are hostile towards Jews. I wish all racism would stop, no matter who is targetted, but it's ridiculous to claim that Muslims aren't the primary target of racism in the world - and in Norway - nowadays.

What I find really disturbing is that Norwegian Jews (Norwegian citiznes, nationals, subjects, whatever their legal status) are viewed as "Israel Community in Norway", while they see themselves as Norwegians. This good news comes to us in the 21st century.

"...the futility of Israeli policy and Palestinian / Arab policy just makes me give up." Needless to say, of course, you can give up. You have nothing to lose.

Thanks to the well-written, well-argued (mostly) posts by Norwegians on this topic, and the consistancy in the explanations that links these posts to a common theme, I think I finally understand your way of thinking about your Royal Family. You probably have understood by now that the failure of Americans like me and the Israelis posting here has to do with our different understanding of how democracy works. Since both countries have elected officials and not Royals, it has just taken a long time to see the differences in our democracies compared to Norway's. Given our history of being oppressed by the tyranny of the British crown 2 centuries ago, being an American still gives me a fundamental distrust of Royals, even if they are non-political. But now I think I understand that your system is different than ours. Probably, the Israeli ambassador was just breaching ettiquette because her idea of democracy differed from yours. She has since apologized, and one would hope that her apology is accepted as the faux pas that it is and not something malicious. Thank you for the honest debate on this issue. I get it now.

I think something here deserves pointing out, with regard to "Muslims in Norway" as a group connected to the shots against the synagogue wall. First of all, the guy suspected and accused of this is one of the senior members of Norway's first organized crime gangs. Most Norwegians would prefer him being in jail, indefinitely. Second of all, I do not know a single Muslim who have even a fragment of support for an action such as shooting at the synagogue wall during the night. They may well exist, but of those I know, nobody would have any support whatsoever. The shooting towards the synagogue was done with no people present, and the bullet holes and the direction show that he stopped shooting before reaching an area where someone could have been wounded. There was no risk to anyone involved. Apart from that: I do not believe ambassador Shomrat would have had much of a reaction if there hadn't been a turmoil of attacks from her and several prominent Norwegian Jews against amongst others Gaarder and Willoch. Since people can see the simplicity in what Gaarder and Willoch say and can check it (for example, Willoch has been compared to Hitler for saying that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is against international law - however everyone can check that it indeed is, and thus know that Willoch is right on that exact point). A lot of energy is put into calling people nazists for pointing out the simple fact that the occupation is against international law. Being called a nazist is extremely uncomfortable for people, and they sympathise with those being treated to such a degrading label when they know that the reason quoted for doing so is erroneous. I believe this persistent attacking of people calling them nazists (or anti-semites) is the primary reason for Norwegians not being 100% united behind Israel in whatever Israel does. Most Norwegians back Israel far more strongly than any other country if the deed is identic. Take a quick look at for example post #1 and #4 in this talkback, and remember that we Norwegians read this and feel insulted. We know it has no root in reality, but it leaves a sour taste in our mouths. If similar comments was said to mike and gil, the commentator would have been called the equal of Hitler. How would you feel? Remember that next time you decide to play the "you are a nazist" card. Because the person pointing out that the occupation is against international law doesn't dislike you or your country beforehand, but by playing that card and thus gravely insulting the person, you are contributing to making that person dislike you and by extension, your country.

Go ahead and adopt Islamic behavior if you want to. Just don't cry that they forced you to drop Christianity and convert at the end of a sword and took away all the democratic rights you enjoy now and replaced them with Sharia! And especially don't adopt the Islamic behavior where they hide among women and children and scream "genocide!" and then in the same breath fire Katyusha rockets at Israeli kindergartners!

because emotions are running high at the moment. That is called prejudice. Norwegians seem to be pretty open-minded and fair when they know the facts, but try to understand the fear and pain Jews have lived with for many centuries has put them on the defensive in regard to their right to their national homeland in Israel. They get threats from all sides and are sick of terror and war. Please try to understand.

Here jews, nordic and arabs attend the same kindergartens, and its even free of charge! I would asume they dont even know about each others religions, because they all look at them selfes as peacefull Norwegians! Therefor no one adopt anyones else behavior, then the Norwegian one! But i asmue an israeli jew in Norway would consider brainwashing his children at home, about all the mean things in the world. And the hate against other, arabs, muslims.. christians.. and so on.. Then we could have the Katyusha problem over here too.

You r right, same to you!

Imagine this situation: The Norwegian ambassador to Israel suddenly decides to (without consulting them) "adopt" Israeli citizens of the Lutheran faith, and claim that he is representing their interests versus the state of Israel. Would Israelis be somewhat pissed off and tell him that he is just representing Norway, not lutherans in general. Ms Shomrat is the representative of the state of Israel. Not the representative of those of us Norwegians that also happens to be jews. As for reactions to the shooting at the Norwegian jewish synagogue in Bergstien in Oslo - the Norwegian government has reacted. The Norwegian police has reacted. The perpetrators have been arrested. They will be given a fair tried and then locked up for a significant length of time. Who were the perps ? Anti-semtic ethnic Norwegians, who rove around in large groups just looking for jews to beat up ? Nope. Apparently the ring leader was a muslim. Same in another case that has been quoted as showing how dangerous it is to be a jew in Norway: some moslem idiot yelled at and hit out at a guy wearing a skull cap. Totally moronic. Norwegians, no matter what religion they have, are not to blame for whatever idiocy the government of Israel does in their quest to bring "peace" to the region. It is time that both Ms Shomrat and those idiot arabs learn the difference between "jewish" and "israeli".

All I'm saying is that Israeli officials abroad are CLEVER in their use of western media. In a way it seems as if they're waging a pre-emptive war of words, where they create a HUGE ruckus even when only mild accusations are made against the Israeli policies in the middle east. And thus... an impression is made that it's a HUGE insult to even suggest that the Israeli actions against the arabs in the middle east are unfair. My impression is that israeli reactions are CALCULATED, and that they're part of some kind of official or semi-official policy of how to influence the world opinion about Israeli actions in the middle east. I think it can somehow be compared to the way westerners presented their wars against the native indians of the United States. There too it was presented as a "just cause", and the Indians were presented as barbaric people who needed to be rounded up or eliminated in order to keep them from being a threat to the westerners. And I'm sure the depictions were correct: The Indians WERE a threat to the western settlers. However... in the bigger perspective, and in retrospective, it's 100% clear that the Indians were being treated unfairly... I think it's the same with the current Israeli propaganda. You're RIGHT that the arabs represent a threat to your settlers. But it's ALSO right to say that the arabs are being unfairly treated.