The ghost of Quisling returns to haunt Norway as Israel boycott movement gets major new boost in Europe
Given that Norway’s most notable contribution to 20th century history was to give the world a new word for cowardice and treachery, reports that the country’s massive $400 billion sovereign wealth fund — the second largest such fund in the world — has been banned by the Norwegian government from owning shares in an Israeli arms company would not usually raise eyebrows.
But at a time of increasing hysteria against the Jewish state the move from the country that gave us “Quisling cowardice” — after wartime collaborationist leader Vidkun Quisling — may set an important precedent for the wider boycott movement across Europe. According to the international wire services, the fund was instructed to divest from Israel’s Elbit Systems because it provides surveillance equipment for the security barrier which has prevented countless suicide bombings emanating from the West Bank.
“We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law,” Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Decisions of this kind are apparently made by Norway’s “Council on Ethics”. I’m glad that Norway feels it is in a position to make ethical judgements about companies that participate in attempts to stop fanatics from slaughtering innocent Jews. The country certainly has plenty of experience to draw upon.
According to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, Quisling “is a term used to describe traitors and collaborators. It was most commonly used for fascist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.
“The term was coined by the British newspaper The Times on 15 April, 1940, entitled “Quislings everywhere.” The editorial asserted: “To writers, the word Quisling is a gift from the gods. If they had been ordered to invent a new word for traitor… they could hardly have hit upon a more brilliant combination of letters. Actually it contrives to suggest something at once slippery and tortuous.”‘
Enough said, I think.
Tags: Israel
September 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Row grows over Norway honor for pro-Nazi Nobel laureate [Knut Hamsun]
‘In March [2009], Norway assumed chairmanship of the 26-nation Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education in the midst of celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Knut Hamsun, the country’s once celebrated author who was shunned for supporting Norway’s Nazi occupation regime during World War II.
The government has honored the novelist with celebrations, a commemorative coin and is allocating millions of dollars toward building a cultural center in the Nobel Prize laureate’s hometown, which is to open in August.’
http://tinyurl.com/l24xs3
A little something on Hamsun the Nazi:
‘Hamsun supported Norwegian traitor Vidkun Quisling and his collaborator government, gave his Nobel medal to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels in 1943, and wrote an obituary praising Adolf Hitler in 1945.’
http://tinyurl.com/kqbppg
September 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
This year the official and unofficial Norway is happily commemorating the 150th anniversary of well known Norwegian nazi - Knut Hamsun’s birth.
http://www.raoulwallenberg.net/?en/holocaust/hamsun/new-critics-against-hamsun-s.5893.htm
True, he was a Nobel prize winner Norwegian writer, but the same time a big fan of Quisling (the Norwegian nazi leader) and Hitler. In according to his Wikipedia bigraphy ” His image as a supporter of both Norwegian and German Nazi ideology was further confirmed when following a 1943 meeting with Germany’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, he sent Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift and token of his admiration.”
After Hitler’s death, Hamsun wrote an obituary in the leading Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, describing him as a “warrior for mankind”.
But they are preaching ethics naturally.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
For the love of god…what the hell goes on inside these peoples heads?
How can their hatred for Israel so blind them to what is really going on out there?
Mailman
September 4th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I’m afraid the British aren’t much better as regards their stance on boycotting Elbit goes, Robin. Elbit also make unmanned aircraft -drones -which I believe the British MoD buys. Elbit had an R&D/testing centre at an airfield in the south Golan very near my home. The British demanded a while ago that Elbit relocate the establishment within the ‘green line’ or they would stop doing business with them. No qualms of course as regards the local people whose livelihood depended in part or whole on that industry being located where it was -i.e. in a very remote area with severely limited job opportunities.