Norway, Ireland and Spain recognized a Palestinian state on Wednesday in a historic move that drew condemnation from Israel and jubilation from the Palestinians. Israel ordered back its ambassadors from Norway and Ireland.
It was a lightning cascade of announcements. First was Norway, whose Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said “there cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition.”
Gahr Støre said the Scandinavian country will officially recognize a Palestinian state as of May 28. “By recognizing a Palestinian state, Norway supports the Arab peace plan,” he said.
The vikings got a bit of a bad reputation, probably in large part because they were not too popular amongst munks in England (who were avid writers). Sure, there was raping and plundering, but not necessarily so much worse than other peoples, and there was also trade and coexistence. We had particularly close relations to Scotland, and England is hardly in the position to accuse anyone else of plundering! ;)
Fun fact about the word viking: It literally means someone from a “vik”, which is contemporary Norwegian for a cove. More traditionally, it’s a dwelling by the coast, which explains the many -wich-towns in northern UK: The vikings would settle, usually for salt supplies, and name the place something ending with -vik.
So a Viking is not a job description as much as someone dwelling by the sea!
I’ll consider myself corrected.
It wouldn’t even be a problem if it wasn’t for all kind of neo-nazis trying to appropriate everything Nordic to fill up the hole where their “Aryanism” fantasies used to be. And they love those descriptions the monks left of the vikings… when it comes to the things neo-nazis admire it’s a question of the rape-ier the better - as long as the raping is being done by somebody white.