Norway and the Jewish Problem

Time has made the joke acceptable. Frequent usage has made it unnecessary to tell the whole thing, short enough as it is already. “Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

On a recent Friday my wife, third son and I drove down to Scarborough Beach. It was a glorious day. We arrived a few minutes before high tide so the waves were crashing in, rolling one after another after another to the shouts of children and adults who threw themselves headlong into cresting waters or turned their back, trying to time perfectly when to jump towards land so that the water would catch and propel them forward. Over and over and over again we did one or the other in the great ocean that had seemed so frigid when first we entered but after moments was merely cool against our skin, and then we returned to our blanket and chairs and soaked up those rays capable of penetrating the slathering of SPF 70 sun block she insisted we wear while we read, raided the food locker and talked and laughed and enjoyed each other and the day.

On the ride home we listened to the news on the radio and heard the shocking reports out of Oslo and Utoya Island. The joy was sucked out of the car as the grim reports came through the speakers, more and more and more dead, most of them children, the Oslo bombing probably merely a diversion so that Anders Behring Breivik could operate his death machine uninterrupted on the island. “Other than that Josh, how was the day at the beach?” It loses something in the immediacy, doesn’t it?

Breivik, his lawyer tells the world, is insane. This is either a legal strategy or statement of belief, possibly both. I’m sure that future historians will wade through Breivik’s 1,500 page on-line manifesto which announced his intentions and provided his motivation. I’ve not yet begun the task, leaving it to others for the moment, but it’s become apparent that there are elements in it that smack of pro-Zionist sentiments.

The Jews of Norway are nervous about the perception that Breivik’s anti-Muslim sentiments couched in pro-Israeli terms. (He warns, “If Israel loses in the Middle East, Europe will succumb to Islam next.”) This in a country whose ambassador to Israel, Svein Sevje, was quoted in HaAretz as saying “We Norwegians consider the occupation [of the West Bank and Gaza] to be the cause of the terror against Israel.” It doesn’t really matter that Arab terrorism long preceded the Six Day War that brought these territories under Israeli control, that’s apparently the way Norwegians, certainly the government, see it. Local Jews are quick to point out that just because some whacko murderer says positive things about Israel doesn’t mean that Norway’s Jews are pro-whacko or that they do not mourn the senseless slaughter of children. They know that just the previous day those children discussed a boycott against Israel and pressed the country’s foreign minister to recognize a Palestinian state. But what of it? Whether we agree wit these ideas or not (and many Jews do) they are legitimate areas of discussion and should not diminish our grief over the slaughter of the innocents.

Michelle Goldberg (who I assume is Jewish) in The Daily Beast comments that “Breivik’s embrace of Israel, far from being unique, is just the latest sign of a great shift among the continent's reactionaries. Indeed, in European politics, fascism and an aggressive sort of Zionism increasingly go together.” (In another piece she sees the massacre as an assault on feminism.) The on-line edition of The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A. has a long riposte arguing that while Breivik often speaks of the importance of defending Israel, what he wants to defend is not the Israel of Zionism. “It certainly isn’t any of the values associated with Israel by those liberal Zionists [Breivik] frequently demonizes: democracy; open political discourse; the rule of law.” Rather, Breivik seems to perceive Israel as the frontline in a war all Muslims are waging against Jews and Christians.

My day at the beach ended when I heard the tragic news out of Norway. The children of Utoya Island had their lives snuffed out by an ultra-nationalist who has taken Israel as a hostage in his madness. In May 1974 Palestinian ultra-nationalists took more than 115 people (including 105 children) hostage in Ma’alot, Israel eventually killing Twenty-five hostages, including 22 children. Rest in Peace, children of Israel and Norway. When the über-nationalists come a-calling gone is your innocence, gone is your youth, gone is your life, gone is our hope.