"Norway now finds itself in the most serious security situation since 1945."

"[Svalbard has for too long been seen by nations as a place where] everyone who wants to can come up and do almost whatever they want."

"That's not the fact. This is Norwegian sovereign territory. So we're making that a bit clearer."

Eivind Vad Petersson State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway 

The Svalbard Archipelago   Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

 

Following World War 1, Norway's claim to the Arctic archipelago and its islands was officially recognized. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 banned the presence of activity linked to the military while granting all other nations choosing to sign on to the agreed-upon treaty access to hunting, fishing, mining and land ownership. Over the years, close to fifty countries added their names to the treaty which allowed them access.

 

Of late, studies of the geology of Svalbard and the ocean floor surrounding it have identified vast amounts of copper, zinc, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements buried in the ocean floor. These are eagerly-sought-after minerals that power electric car battery technologies and wind turbines. It was  generally taken that the Svalbard Treaty granted signatories rights to its surrounding seas and seabed. Until January 2024 when Norway's governing party announced it would pursue deep-sea mineral exploration in an enormous sweep of its seabed.

 

The remote, frigid island, viewed as hostile to human life on a prolonged basis where minus 34 Celsius temperatures were not unknown, were initially home to Norwegian miners and Russian fur trappers. Longyearbyen, Svalbard's largest town, these days boasts candlelit restaurants, hotels, daily flights to the mainland, and is home to 2,500 people from 50 countries. According to the town's mayor, a surge in investment, official visits and strategic attention has recently focused on Svalbard.

 

 

Recently, the Energy Ministry of Norway publicly declared that Norway's goal in exploiting the natural geology of the area had a defined purpose; the goal of "profitable and sustainable" pursuit of seabed minerals, including the seabed around Svalbard. As Norway moves toward consolidating its sovereign rule over the island, its attitude toward foreigners and civil rights has hardened. Foreigners since 2021 were able to cast a vote in the political arena. 

 

That changed when authorities declared that voting in local elections would be off limits to foreigners living on Svalbard if they had not lived on Norway's mainland for the previous three years. "Should have been done a long time ago", said Mr. Petersson. The Svalbard Treaty guaranteed "equal access, not equal rights", he said, pointing out that in other countries foreigners are not given the right to vote. 

 

Svalbard is located about 800 kilometers from the North Pole, one of the only places on Earth where instant connection is possible with polar-orbiting satellites, leading to uninterrupted, clearer feeds and faster downloading speeds; more advantageous than anywhere else on the planet. In fact SvalSat, the world's largest satellite downloading station is based on Svalbard. 

 

Telecommunications domes of KSAT, Kongsberg Satellite Services, on a mountain near Longyearbyen. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images 

Fur traders from the Pomor region in northwestern Russia arrived at Svalbard some 300 years ago. The Soviets established several coal mining towns in Svalbard a century ago and had signed the Treaty. Of the mining towns, only one, Barentsburg, remains and still operates minimally. Once there was a population of 1,000, now reduced to around 300. One Russian official claimed the archipelago should be renamed the "Pomor Islands".

 

A powerful radar system monitoring space weather and the atmosphere is at the service of Chinese scientists. Data gathered from this equipment have been shared with the China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, a Chinese defense organization. Members of the U.S. House Select Commission on the Chinese Communist Party are convinced China is performing military research on Svalbard in defiance of the Treaty proscription. 

 

Outside the Yellow River Station where the Chinese scientists live a pair of granite lions stands guard.  

Norway ordered the Chinese to remove the lions, each of which weighs 900 kilograms, installed 20 years ago when the Chinese government agents arrived on Svalbard. For the first time last summer, the archipelago's sole university,   the University Center, operated by the Norwegian government, barred entry to Chinese students, identified by Norwegian intelligence agencies as a potential security risk. 

 

Criticisms of China's activities represent "nothing but distortion of facts and groundless speculation", according to officials at the the Chinese Embassy in Norway. As for the lions standing guard, they continue to remain where they were placed two decades earlier. 

"While the Russian geopolitical threat remains paramount, Chinese encroachments facilitated by an isolated Russia may complicate the Arctic security landscape in the longer term. The coast guard agencies of Russia and China recently signed a cooperation agreement on strengthening maritime law enforcement to great fanfare in Murmansk, a city on Russia’s western flank close to Norway."

"Moreover, when all other Arctic coast guard agencies suspended their participation in the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, Russia invited China to join the forum—clear signs of China’s expanding presence in the High North."

"As Iris A. Ferguson, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for arctic and global resilience, has put it, Chinese efforts aim “to normalize its presence and pursue a larger role in shaping Arctic regional governance and security affairs.”"

Center for Strategic and International Studies  

The world’s northernmost Lenin statue looks over the abandoned Russian city of Pyramiden on Svalbard, summer 2018. Photo: Alina Bykova

 

Negotiated Settlements Set Aside by Norway, Ireland, Spain

"Today, Ireland, Norway and Spain are announcing that we recognize the state of Palestine. Each of us will now undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision."

"There is never a wrong time to do the right thing".

"It was my government’s preferred position to recognize a two-state solution as part of a peace process to bring that about, but sadly, unfortunately, such a comprehensive peace settlement now seems, in many ways, further away than it has ever been."

"We believe you can’t say you’re in favor of a two-state solution and not recognize the very existence of two states."

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris

From left, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, Spain's President Pedro Sánchez and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre are pictured.  Getty Images/PA/Reuters

 

 

Was ever a sentence uttered that should have been corrected as 'There is never a right time to do a wrong thing'? Israel, in reacting to the tripartite statement in shock and disbelief is entirely correct in chiding these three Western democracies for their gross error in judgement, deciding between them that the 'right thing' to do is to reward terrorist groups in the Middle East for their vicious penchant to declare their intention to destroy a legally and morally constituted state on its own ancestral geography that has been challenged for possession by a group of Arab (of mostly Egyptian origin) colonizers claiming it as their own. Did the three ask themselves why it was that a negotiated settlement was further away than ever?

 

The opportunity for a two-state 'solution' was offered through the UN's partition plan, promptly and gratefully accepted by Israel, furiously rejected by those now calling themselves 'Palestinians' who preferred to wait out the intentions of surrounding Arab/Muslim countries to march on the nascent state of Israel with a view to preventing the establishment of the Jewish state. Succeeding wars failed just as the initial one did, but the Palestinian-Arab determination to wreak havoc on Israel with the ultimate aim to destroy it and murder all its population has never faded.

 

The October 7 butchery that took place in southern Israel by the terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aided and abetted by Palestinian civilians exhibiting raw savagery in the sordid, ghoulish sadistic cruelty meted out to innocent civilians has few parallels in modern history. This declaration by Palestinians both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have been polled to render 85% support to Hamas terrorism and their approval of the October 7 bestiality represents the level of civilization that Spain, Norway and Ireland are prepared to recognize and legitimize with statehood.

 

Israel is dismayed, but perhaps not completely surprised by the three countries turning their backs on the only democracy in the Middle East, distinguished from all others because it is Jewish, its origins the very land it now sits upon, along with other areas the world prepared to honour and hand over to an Arab population that has no intention, ever, of living in peace with the original inhabitants of the land. In their preparation to recognize the State of Palestine, no effort has been made by Spain, Norway and Ireland to condemn the Palestinians for their aspirations to destroy Israel.

 

Nor has any overture been made to persuade the Palestinians through their leadership to turn their ambitions toward statehood infrastructure and the merits of civilized behaviour in favour of completely foregoing its lethal hostility against Israel. Needless to say, with no expectations of Palestinians curbing and abandoning their commitment to violence against Israel, the announcements of support in the form of recognition of their ambitions to form a legitimate state with no pre-conditions sits extremely well with the Palestinian leadership -- the Palestinian Authority and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

 

Envoys of the three countries were summoned by Israel in a diplomatic expression of profound disappointment in their judgement and decision-making. The European ambassadors to Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said grimly, would be requested to witness video footage of the October 7 attack, to ensure they had intimate first-hand knowledge of what had transpired, through videos produced by the terrorists themselves as they rampaged through Israeli farming kibbutzim, raping and vandalizing, torturing children and women before murdering them.    

 

"[A Palestinian state is] a prerequisite for achieving peace in the Middle East."

"There will be no peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution."

"There can be no two-state solution without a Palestinian state."

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre

 

"This recognition is not against the people of Israel and certainly not against the Jewish people."

"It’s not in favor of Hamas."

"It’s in favor of co-existence."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez

"[Recognizing a Palestinian state would be a] reward for terror."

"This will be a terror state, which will attempt to perpetrate the onslaught of October 7 time and again, and to that we shall not agree."

"This evil must not be given a state."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

A man waves the Palestinian flag in front of the Norwegian Parliament building during a demonstration in Oslo, Oct. 28, 2023. (Frederik Ringnes/NTB via AP)

 

 

Russia, Respecting The Rule of Law/Arctic Council Chairmanship 2021-2023

"A cross-cutting priority of the Russian Chairmanship in the Arctic Council will be "Responsible Governance for Sustainable Arctic" through promoting collective approaches to the sustainable development of the Arctic, environmentally, socially and economically balanced, enhancing synergy and cooperation and coordination with other regional structures, as well as implementation of the Council's Strategic Plan, while respecting the rule of law."

"The Russian Chairmanship will continue supporting the establishment of the Arctic Council as the leading format for international Arctic cooperation, improving its work, increasing the effectiveness of its Working and Expert groups, the Secretariat, as well as developing mechanisms for financing the Council's activities, including its projects and programs, implementing decisions and recommendations, as well as encouraging the dialogue and interaction with the Observers to provide their meaningful and balanced engagement in the Council’s activities. It intends to further intensify collaboration of the Arctic Council with the Arctic Economic Council, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, the University of the Arctic. Among the priorities of the Russian Chairmanship – promoting international scientific cooperation, in particular, exploring the possibility to conduct an Arctic Council scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean."

His Excellency Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich   Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Sea ice in the Arctic  Roscongress

"The hopes for cooperation with Russia in the Arctic continue to cool. Days after a U.S. diplomat stated that cooperation with Russia in the Arctic was now virtually impossible, the Kremlin published amendments to its Arctic policy. President Putin signed the decree earlier this week on 21 February 2023. "

"The updated document places greater emphasis on Russian national interests in the region and removes specific mentions for cooperation within the Arctic Council."

"While the original policy, published in March 2020, called for the “strengthening of good neighborly relations with the Arctic states” in the fields of economic, scientific, cultural and cross-border cooperation the amended version removes the above section and instead calls for the “development of relations with foreign states on a bilateral basis, […] taking into account the national interests of the Russian Federation in the Arctic”."

High North News

President Putin discusses expansion of Russia’s territorial claims with the permanent members of the Security Council. (Source: Kremlin)

 

The eight Arctic states that comprise the Arctic Council are Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Canada and the United States. All these states in collaboration and agreement have produced binding agreements focused on preservation and environmental protection. The council represents a rare platform that gives a voice to the region's Indigenous peoples. Security interests are not part of the Council's agenda,

 

The Arctic Council for close on three decades has been an example of successful post-Cold War cooperation. Its members have seen common purpose in cooperating on climate-change research and social development in recognition that this is an ecologically sensitive region of the world and currently undergoing vast environmental transformation linked to Climate Change. 

 

All that has changed. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine other council members were estranged from Russia as a rebuke of its imposition of war on its neighbour, and stopped working with their Russian counterpart. Norway now prepares to assume the Council chairmanship from Moscow, on May 11. Leaving experts to ask whether the viability of the polar body itself is at risk reflecting its inability to cooperate with the very country that controls over half of the Arctic coastline.

 

There could be dire future implications for the region's environment and its four million inhabitants who face the effects of melting sea ice and the interest of non-Arctic countries in the region's untapped mineral resources in the face of an ineffective Arctic Council. With the end of cooperation with Moscow a third of the council's 130 projects cannot move forward, new projects cannot proceed, existing projects cannot be renewed.

 

Arctic Council Meeting

No longer do Western and Russian scientists share climate-change findings. Cooperation for possible search-and-rescue missions or oil spills has come to an end. "I am worried that this will really hobble the ability of the Arctic Council to work through these various issues", stated US. Senator Angus King. Polar waters are opening to shipping as sea ice vanishes. The Arctic is known to be warming four times faster than the rest of the world.

 

Industries are eager to exploit the region's endowment of natural resources that include oil, gas and metals like gold, iron and rare earths. An effective response to changes and the vital issues that loom are less likely given discord between Russia and the other members of the Arctic Council. "Norway has a big challenge. That's how to rescue as much as possible of the Arctic Council's good work in the absence of Russia", pointed out John Holdren, co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Arctic initiative.

 

For its part, Russia points out that the work cannot continue without its cooperation. Nikolay Korchunov, Russian Arctic Ambassador,  said he was not confident it "will be able to remain the main platform on Arctic issues, given that the council has become weak". There is the possibility that Russia may decide that issues affecting the region must be addressed with Russian interests only in mind. Or that it may establish a separate Russia-centric rival council.

 

China warmly welcomes Putin’s state visit in 2018. After the conversation between Xi Jinping and Putin, China and Russia reached a consensus on deepening bilateral cooperation and signed a series of cooperation agreements. Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office

Russia has recently taken steps to expand cooperation in the Arctic with non-Arctic states; signing a memorandum for example with China, establishing cooperation between the two countries' coast guards in the Arctic. China's interests in the Arctic revolve around shipping and investing in ore extraction, particularly rare earth minerals. Russian Arctic Ambassador Korchunov pointed out Moscow's welcome of non-Arctic states in the region. With the proviso they not arrive with a military agenda.

 

And this is yet another area where Russia has distinguished itself, long before its invasion of Ukraine occurred. It has rebuilt or refurbished old Soviet military bases on its Arctic shorelines and islands that form part of Russian territory. It is Russia under Vladimir Putin that has militarized the Arctic, a condition it wants no other country to emulate.

 

Islam Quite Smply Incompatible with Gay Rights

"Around 2015 we were worried about this person. We have followed him, to a degree."

"In more recent times, he was not one of the people we were the most worried about."

Roger Berg, acting head of PST (Norwegian Domestic Security agency)

 

"We are sorry that once again we have to say that a Pride event must be cancelled."

"It is wrong, as the police claim, that this was meant to be a small event. We understand that people are now frustrated and still want to gather."

Oslo Pride

 

"I know how many of you felt when it turned out that the perpetrator belonged to the Islamic community. Many of you [Norway's Muslim community] experienced fear and unrest " 

"You should know this: We stand together, we are one community and we are responsible for the community together."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere

People bring flowers and rainbow flags to pay tribute to the victims as they take part in a spontaneous Pride parade, following a shooting at the London Pub, a popular gay bar and nightclub, after the official event was cancelled, in Oslo, Norway, June 25, 2022. Haakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB/via REUTERS

Another shock in Norway. The country's right-wing (Anders Brevik) has already made it abundantly clear how much they fear and detest the entry to the Nordic country of people from the Middle East, people practising a different religion linked to a different history, culture and set of laws, not secular like that of most Western democracy, but theocratic, linked to and a mainstay of Islam which regulates every aspect of the Muslim faithful's lives.

Norway insists that it is open to immigration and migration from the Middle East, prepared to welcome and absorb people radically differently socialized than indigenous Norwegians. And the country's political elite make it a point of pride that their welcome is unconditional. Native Norwegians are not so sure. There has been a lashback of anti-Muslim sentiment, with a hefty third of Norwegians uncomfortable to say the least with the presence of Muslims among them.

The 42-year-old suspect in the attack that took place during an LGBTQ festival in Oslo, was no recent immigrant. He was brought by his family to Norway while still an infant, so he has lived in Norway all his life. He is considered to be a radicalized Islamist, and was recognized as such from 2015 onward by Norwegian police authorities, but not considered to be a high-value threat. As with most of these terrorist actions, he has been described as mentally ill.

 

2 dead, 21 wounded in Norway LGBT nightclub shooting  (photo credit: REUTERS)

 

Married, children, he has lived on the dole for years. Iranian by birth, he was arrested after a shooting in the nightlife district of the country's capital early on Saturday, held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism. It was actually people on the scene who followed him after the shooting and took him into initial custody until the arrival of police. Two people were killed and another 21 were injured in what has been named an "Islamist terror act".

Clearly, he was 'radicalized' while a long-time citizen of the country. Clerics established in mosques throughout the non-Islamic world are known to be involved in introducing impressionable young Muslims to the concept of jihad and violent missions in the glories of martyrdom. Police in Oslo have thus far had no luck in their attempts to question the man identified as Zaniar Matapour.

He has made his own demands, however, that he would make a statement to be recorded and videotaped only if it were to be released to the public "with no time delay so it won't be censored or manipulated", his defence lawyer explained. Clearly, a type of 'manifesto' that he believes will deliver a welcome message that Gay Pride and LGBTQ festivities are sinful and not permitted by Islam. Punishment is their due and he assigned himself to deliver that punishment; death to the unbeliever.

The killer opened fire at three locations; outside and inside the London Pub, a popular gay bar in Oslo. Despite which police investigators feel confident in stating it was yet too soon in their investigation to determine whether the man had specifically targeted the gay community. Police found two weapons at the scene, one a fully automatic gun. Despite which, police recommend that all further LGBTQ events be cancelled for the present, not ruling out further and ongoing threats.

 

 

Norway's Human Rights Justice System

"According to Norwegian law he has a right now to go before a judge." 

"He emphasizes that right. And his motivation for doing so is difficult for me to have an opinion on."

"According to the law there is no obligation that you have to be remorseful."

"So it is not a legal main point. Absolutely the legal problem is whether he is dangerous."

Øystein Storrvik, Breivik’s defense lawyer

 

"The only thing I am afraid of is if he has the opportunity to talk freely and convey his extreme views to people who have the same mindset."

"I think personally it is absurd he has this possibility. I think he is ridiculous, but you have to remember that him having all this attention will be hard for the survivors and the parents and some people can be re-traumatized."

Lisbeth Kristine Røyneland, head, family and survivors support group

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik arrives in court on the first day of a hearing where he is seeking parole, in Skien, Norway, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. (Ole Berg-Rusten/NTB scanpix via AP)

It's questionable whether a man with expressed fascist views who set out to commit a mass atrocity, could be any more notorious than Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik. The world read in horror of his murderous exploit in 2011 after he had planned to execute a brutal plan of mass murder where he began by setting off a car bomb in Oslo outside government headquarters where the blast killed eight people outright, wounding dozens of innocent bystanders in the process. That bloody event was just the start, he went on to complete the major part of his plan.

 

Driving to a recreational island where a leftist political group, the Labour Party, was holding a youth event at a summer camp he opened fire, shooting at defenceless people, mostly teens desperate to escape the nightmare that had suddenly erupted on an idyllic day of togetherness in recreation and politics where the man known as Norway's mass killer, took the lives of sixty-nine fellow Norwegians. Because from the perspective of his fascist ideology they practised a deplorable political agenda.

He was arrested and stood trial for his unspeakably evil act of war against decency, law and order. Norway's social culture, reflected in its laws, saw this mass murderer imprisoned in conditions that few other countries' prisons reflected. An obvious belief in redemption that included an morally unscrupulous sadist. He had a nicely furnished 'cell' that might equal hotel accommodations elsewhere in the country; proffered respect for his 'human rights' denied to others by his terrorist act of obliteration of human life.

He had the audacity in 2016 to sue the government that was treating him with kid gloves of understanding and hope for time to correct his mode of thought and execution of fascist 'justice'. Claiming isolation from other prisoners and frequent strip searches violated his human rights, initially he won his case. Somehow good sense and justice prevailed and the verdict was subsequently overturned in 2017. In fact, had he not been kept in solitary confinement, his life might have been forfeit, with other prisoners conducting jungle justice on the conscienceless slaughterer of youth.

Terrified youngsters hid in the woods, with some jumping into the water to escape the hail of bullets   AFP

The psychiatrist who had followed Breivik since 2012, Randi Rosenqvist, expressed her professional opinion in saying she could "not detect great changes in Breivik's functioning" from his original criminal trial to his current presentation. He had been convicted of terrorist acts, having been found criminally sane when a court rejected the prosecution's claim that he had been psychotic.

Having served a decade in prison for his horrific, planned and executed murder spree, he presented himself in court at a parole hearing to decide whether he might be released from prison. His appearance was as deliberately provocative as his acts of bloody carnage. With shaved head, a black suit bearing fascist messages, he made a white supremacist sign, then raised his right arm in that abhorrent Nazi salute, entering court.

 

Signs he carried read "Nazi-Civil-War", among other slogans. He blamed the commission of  his crimes on online radicalization through a network of leaderless far-right extremists. It was those online contacts he attributed to having motivated his attacks. He said, incredibly, "I was brainwashed". He quite evidently knows his civil rights under Norway's laws.

 

He was given the maximum 21-year sentence in 2012, on his conviction. The sentence came complete with a rarely-used clause within the Norwegian justice system; he can be held indefinitely should he continue to be considered a danger to society. The clause, however, gives him the right under the law to demand a parole hearing after a decade of detention. Which offers  him the opportunity for annual parole hearings enabling him to publicly.air his murderously pernicious ideology. 

Locals gathered boats near the island to try and help those jumping into the water to escape  AFP

Terrorist Attack in Norway, But Don't Jump To Conclusions...

"My youngest daughter was a couple of meters in front of me when she suddenly stopped as there were lots of blue lights."

"We saw a police car with sirens on come, and it stopped at the top of the street. Two policemen jumped out of the car with weapons and ran into the shop here, and they were shouting, 'armed police, put down the weapon.'"

"Then we were told to move away, that we had to get to safety. So we ran to the corner there, and stood there on the corner. There, we met another man who said that it was he who had called the police, and that the perpetrator had shot after him, down here, and then we saw that there was an arrow down there in the road. There was no crossbow only a long arrow lying there."

Linda Ostergaard, attack witness, Kongsberg, Norway

 

"The man has been apprehended ... from the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone."

"Several people have been injured and several are dead." 

Oeyvind Aas, police chief, Kongsberg

 

"This is a gruesome incident, there is nothing else to say."

"Now we must try to take care of the inhabitants as best we can."

"[This town is] a completely ordinary community with completely ordinary people. [Everyone has been deeply shaken by] this very tragic situation."

Kari Anne Sand, mayor, Kongsberg

Police officers cordon off the scene in Kongsberg on October 13.

"We have during last night, this morning and this afternoon learned more about what atrocities have taken place, what cruel acts innocent people were exposed to, what unrest and fear hit the community in Kongsberg, and spread to the whole country."

"This shows that our society is vulnerable. It is not good for us to conclude what is the motive, what is behind this action. The police must be allowed to finish their work and clarify, but it emphasizes again that preparedness is a complex task for a society."

Labour leader, Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store

Despite having said which, police readily and early declared the longbow attack that killed four women and a man, injuring several others, was a terrorist attack. Committed, as it happens, by someone whom the police had previously interacted with, a Dane living in Norway who had converted to Islam and who was known to have been radicalized. Espen Andersen Bråthen, 37, is slated to appear in court Friday, charges levelled against him not yet revealed.

Obviously, no one is leaping to conclusions; the evidence seems fairly straightforward, yet the government itself walks on tippy-toes over declaring the obvious, not wanting its citizenry to draw from the shocking news any hint of caution required against the country's immigrant Muslim population. A situation which could easily get out of hand, after all, leading to suspicion from indigenous Norwegians about how trustworthy their relatively new demographic of immigrant Muslims can be in their loyalty to their welcoming country.

How many 'radicalized' Muslims could there be? How much of a threat do they pose to the general population? Norway has already dealt with a much more shocking terrorist event when one of its own conceived and acted on a plan to illustrate just how dangerous hatred of the other can be, when he murdered 8 innocent people in Oslo detonating a bomb, then stormed an island to slaughter 69 more in a gun rampage. All together Anders Behring Brevik, a right-wing idealogue, angry over immigration killed 77 people.

 

A bow and arrow cannot claim as many lives as a bomb and guns, but the damage to society through the 'gruesomeness' of the event is monumental. Although police consider the deadly attack to be an instance of terrorism, they are as yet without an explanation as to what motivated the convert to Islam, although commitment to jihad seems a reasonable enough conclusion; it is what 'radicalization' results in, responding to the call to jihad.

The first call to police by bystanders reporting a man with a bow and arrow came in at 6:15 pm, the rampage was over, the man arrested 35 minutes later. The municipality of Kongsberg, 68 km from Oslo, has a population of some 28,000 people. There were, said police,  "several crime scenes" that took place over "a large area" of the town. Resulting in large areas of the west side of the town cordoned off. 

 

The attacker first opened fire in a supermarket. At the supermarket an off-duty police officer was shot and wounded. With one of the lowest crime rates in the world, unarmed Norwegian police respond to few crimes. Last year there were only 28 occasions when police used or threatened to use firearms to apprehend a criminal situation. Not that there aren't occasions of violence erupting. When restaurants, bars and nightclubs were reopened following the loosening of pandemic restrictions dozens of mass brawls broke out.

Celebratory occasions marking the end of pandemic lockdowns in cities across Norway. Certainly not comparable to the sinister threat of stalking killers setting out on a mission of lethal violence in a country known for its tolerance and calm reaction to adverse events. A country notorious for criticism of Israel, a country which is constantly on guard for just such attacks. Norway practices a facade of public and social mores invested in quiet everyday civil diplomacy among people. Not much different than Israel but without the constant threats.

Residents have placed tributes for those killed in Kongsberg town centre   EPA