Norway PM grilled on state-employed artist’s Oct. 7 praise

A Palestinian artist who’s helping to decorate Norway’s government building had previously expressed support for Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, according to a document submitted to the prime minister in Oslo on Friday.

Joel Ystebø, a lawmaker for the Christian Democratic Party, submitted the information to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a query he filed about Jumana Manna, an artist who self-identifies as a Palestinian living in Berlin.

“On October 7, 2023, the same day as Hamas’ terror against Israel, Manna went on Facebook and praised Hamas as creative, writing: ‘Long live the creativity of resistance’,” Ystebø wrote in the query. He sought Støre’s reaction to criticism that Manna was not an appropriate choice for curating art at a building damaged in a 2011 bombing by terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

The post in which Manna praised “resistance,” a common code word in anti-Israel circles for terrorism against Israelis or Jews, featured her posing next to a photo of gliders—such as Hamas terrorists used to raid border-adjacent towns, where they killed some 1,200 and abducted another 251 on Oct. 7.

Støre has not replied to Ystebø’s query and his office has not answered a request for comment on the matter from JNS. Manna, too, did not reply to a request for comment.

In 2023, she wrote on the website Hyperallergic that she regretted sharing the images online.

“At the time I shared my stories on Instagram, it had not become apparent that hundreds had been deliberately shot and kidnapped. I regretted my own comments after the news revealed the extent of the violence,” Manna wrote.

The story was exposed by Henrik Beckheim, a Norwegian-Jewish author and podcaster who was recently tipped off to it by an anonymous source who’s part of the Norwegian art scene, Beckheim told JNS.

“What’s particularly disturbing here is that this person was made in charge of curating art at a building that was severely damaged in a terrorist attack,” said Beckheim. “Beyond symbolism, this seems like a security oversight. People working in government buildings need to undergo strict security clearance. So this raised the question: How was this not flagged?” he added.

Støre was aware of Manna’s background, praising her in a Nov. 29 speech as the provider of a “solid Palestinian signature” to Oslo with her work on the renovated government building.

“The Palestinian artist creates an 800 square-meter stone floor, a patchwork of different stones, donated by municipalities from all over our country,” he said of Manna. “There is something very symbolic about this, in front of what was a bombed-out office building. A solid Palestinian signature, in the middle of Oslo. From the destruction, Jumana Manna is building a beautiful, new foundation,” Støre said during a speech his office said was the “Prime Minister’s speech on the U.N. International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

Manna has titled her work at the new government building “Sebastia,” the name of a Palestinian village today, and also the name of a Jewish village established in 1974, the first in Judea and Samaria after it came under Israel’s control seven years earlier. It was later abandoned and reconstituted elsewhere, but Sebastia remains a symbol of the movement to reestablish a Jewish population in Judea and Samaria.

The pro-Israel group With Israel for Peace (Med Israel for Fred—MIFF) said the scandal was part of a broader issue in Norway.  

“The most pressing issue in Norway is not individual Palestinian artists who cheer on military attacks on Israel, but strong political forces that support BDS and state-funded media that demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state,” Conrad Myrland, the CEO of MIFF, told JNS.

Beckheim, the author, said the revelation about Manna coincides with disappointment in Støre among some Norwegian Jews over what they perceive as his pro-Palestinian bias.

“It’s horrible what is going on with the prime minister and the foreign minister, and we saw this at this Kristallnacht event,” said Beckheim. He referred to Støre’s decision to attend an event organized by anti-Israel activists, which they said was a Holocaust commemoration. Jewish community representatives asked Støre to skip the event, arguing his attendance would lend legitimacy to an attempt to hijack the Holocaust to isolate Israel.

“He ended up going there anyway, knowing full well knowing what we told him,” said Beckheim. The controversy around Manna “is not an isolated incident, it reflects a very worrisome situation that’s much broader than this one case.”

The Jewish Community in Oslo had not replied to a request for comment at time of publication.

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