Every nation has its lunatic

The dark shadow of Baruch Goldstein, the U.S.-born Jewish Israeli physician who murdered 29 Muslims and wounded 125 more during prayers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994, hangs over Israel.

One year later, Timothy McVeigh cast a similar shadow over the United States. McVeigh, a security guard and U.S. army veteran, detonated a truck bomb in front of a federal office building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people and injuring 450.

Now, with Anders Behring Breivik, who allegedly massacred at least 92 people in a shooting spree on the Utoya Island, 30 kilometers from Oslo, on Friday, Norway has joined this unfortunate list.

All of these men were vile murderers -- every nation has one. Their motivations are incomprehensible, even to themselves.

Breivik is an extreme right-wing activist with zero tolerance for minorities and foreigners. On Friday, he placed a bomb near the office of the prime minister, a member of Norway's Labor party, then proceeded to gun down 90 Labor party youth.

Norway, established in 1905, is a country with a small population and large oil reserves. Norwegians are descendents of the brave-hearted Vikings, who once ruled the seas. For hundreds of years, the Norse lived on Swedish territory, until they demanded their own land and Stockholm, to their surprise, agreed. According to Nissan Oren, professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University, Sweden's decision was a show of restraint and one of the most intelligent choices of the 20th century.

But Norway's history also reveals a dark and disturbing tradition. When tested during World War II, a majority of Norwegians chose to side with Adolf Hitler. Vidkun Quisling, who was then prime minister, was the greatest Hitler sympathizer of them all, and his name has since become synonymous with betrayal.

Following the dark period of the Holocaust, Norway tried to save its reputation. It glorified the story of its indigenous underground fighters, even though their numbers were few and they had little impact on the war's eventual outcome.

In a unique crime novel called "The Red Breast," writer and former Nazi sympathizer Jo Nesbo was asked to reconstruct the operations of the Norwegians during the war. His story, part of his popular Harry Hole series, contributed to the exaggeration of the Norwegian underground's worth. In the book, the police officer, who sought justice, is hounded by his own people.

In 1948, the first Secretary General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie, came to Israel's aid during her hour of need. Lie's brother helped transfer heavy water to the Jewish state, which could have been used in the construction of nuclear weapons. But once Norway turned its back on Israel, then-Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Yossi Beilin was forced to return the water.

Norway never completely abandoned Israel, though, and in June 1972, I accompanied the Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban to Norway on a diplomatic mission. It was there that Israel's complicated relationship with Norway became clear. A reception was held in Eban's honor, and in the reception hall, while they toasted Eban, the Norwegians pointed out a large and stunning carpet. The carpet was given to Norway's former prime minister Vidkun Quisling by Hitler himself, they said, without any sense of embarrassment or shame.

Over the past decade, Norway has done everything in its power to make life difficult for Israel. Its professional unions severed their ties with Elbit, a well-known Israeli high-tech company manufacturing military systems, and the government in Oslo has taken an exceptionally anti-Israel stance at every opportunity.

Friday's massacre at Utoya Island was in no way connected to Israel or the Middle East. A radical rightist attacked the youth movement of the ruling socialist party. There was no way to prevent this tragedy from occuring, especially in a country with minimal experience in day-to-day security measures. Everything seems pastoral when you are near the North Pole. There's no need to check personal bags at the entrance to the leisure camp. Perhaps this is the reason the killer was able to murder 90 youths rather than being stopped at the gate first by security officials. It's not that Israelis are braver, it's that other countries are not as security-minded as we are here.

Perhaps next time it will end differently -- less tragic, but tragic nonetheless, because it's not possible anywhere in the world to stop an individual who decides to get up one day and kill people.

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