Surveys consistently rank Scandinavian countries the happiest on earth. But now, even they are getting ticked off by the Palestinians.
The brouhaha began with the decision by Norway and the United Nations to help fund a women’s center in the Palestinian territories. What could go wrong with that?
Well, it turns out that after the center was constructed, in the West Bank town of Buraq, Palestinian officials decided to name it the “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Center” after a well-known, ahem, Palestinian activist. Problem is, Dalal Mughrabi was a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. She led a 1978 terrorist attack outside Tel Aviv that killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children. She was killed in a shootout with the Israeli soldiers who stopped the rampage.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise her name would go on a West Bank women’s center—hers is a go-to moniker for such things. Palestinians had already named a public square, two girls’ high schools, a computer center, a soccer championship, and two summer camps for Mughrabi. The New York Times in 2010 quoted a Palestinian official saying, “For us, she is not a terrorist, [but rather] a fighter who fought for the liberation of her own land.”
Norway, though, was shocked at the naming and asked last month that its association with the center be erased. In Nordic solidarity, Denmark pledged to freeze contributions to Palestinian organizations.
After some mealymouthed responses, the United Nations also issued an admirably stern statement: “The glorification of terrorism, or the perpetrators of heinous terrorist acts, is unacceptable.” Alas, the U.N.’s check had already been cashed, so the best they could do was to ask “for the logo of UN Women to be removed immediately” from the women’s center wall.
That’s all well and good—refreshing, even. But such concerns are perhaps best expressed before forking over money to groups with a history and habit of celebrating terrorism.
