A MENCH DIES

Kaare Kristiansen, Friend of Israel, Passes Away 

Kaare Kristiansen, who resigned from the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in 1994 to protest the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize that year to Yasser Arafat, has passed away.

Kristiansen, 85, who died Saturday morning, was Norway’s Minister of Oil and Energy from 1983 to 1986, and served twice as the leader of the Christian People’s Party, for a total of six years. He was a Member of Parliament for 12 years, finally resigning on the grounds that his party had distanced itself from its original purpose and course. ...

He more than once called upon the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to “publicly deplore” its 1994 decision to grant arch-terrorist Arafat the respected prize. In 1997, four years after the signing of the Oslo Agreement, he said that his “forebodings” about the diplomatic process had come true, citing Palestinian Authority corruption, its continued terrorism, and the Arab killings of compatriot land-dealers who sold land to Jews.

Aryeh Gallin, founder and President of Root & Branch Association, Ltd., said, “In a place where there were few if any men, Kaare Kristiansen was a man.”