This has been discussed quite a bit in our comment threads for the past couple of days, but it deserves its own thread: Paris, Oslo, Helsinki. (Hat tips to all who emailed this one.)

The Norwegian diplomat Terje Roed-Larsen, who serves as the United Nation’s Middle East envoy, heaped praise on Arafat yesterday with an enthusiasm that would make a Gaullist blush. “He was like a surrealistic painting, full of contradictions, full of mystery, full of inconsistencies,” Mr. Roed-Larsen told Norwegian state radio NRK. “He was complex, deep, superficial, rational, irrational, cold, warm. He may be the most fascinating person I have ever met, and without comparison the most fascinating leader I have ever met.”

This came at the end of a week in which Norway managed to forbid Jews from marking the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a step the French haven’t yet taken. The local TV2 News reported that no Norwegian Jews participated in Oslo’s commemoration of Kristallnacht. “TV2 also reported that the authorities, saying they didn’t want trouble, forbade any Jewish symbols, including Stars of David and Israeli flags,” according to Israel’s Arutz-7 radio station. “On the TV2 evening news, a group of Jews and their friends who wanted to take part in the commemoration were shown being firmly told by a policeman to ‘please leave the area,’” according to a dispatch from an American journalist living in Norway, Bruce Bawer, on AndrewSullivan.com. “This in a city where Muslim demonstrations take place on a regular basis, and include signs and banners bearing hateful, barbaric slogans.” The ban prompted a protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the government of Norway.