Few people have had the opportunity to become as familiar with Israel, the Palestinians and also Syria and Lebanon as Svein Sevje, Norway’s ambassador to Israel since 2010. It is difficult to find diplomats as professional as Sevje, who has accompanied the Oslo process for many long years on both sides of the fence, from Gaza to Tel Aviv. Sevje has also closely observed Syrian and Lebanese societies from both sides of Israel’s northern border.

The tall Nordic diplomat’s familiarity with the region dates from as far back as the Israeli occupation that began in the Six-Day War. A few months after the 1967 war, the (non-Jewish) student volunteered to work in Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek in the Jezreel Valley. After three years, he returned there to join a Hebrew language school. In 1994, Sevje returned to Israel as deputy ambassador in Tel Aviv and was sent to establish a Norwegian representation in Gaza.

Sevje was privileged to break the good news to then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres when they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and sat in then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s office when Palestinian official Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) informed Arafat that Rabin had died of his wounds in 1995. Sevje well remembers the Palestinian president’s response: “Now, all red lines will be crossed.” From his perspective as head of the Middle East section of the Foreign Ministry in Oslo and as special Norwegian envoy for the peace process, Sevje sadly saw the materialization of Arafat’s gloomy prophecy.

Before residing in the spacious ambassador’s house in Herzliya Pituach (north of Tel Aviv), Sevje headed his country’s diplomatic representation to Syria and Lebanon. He kept close track of initial peace "feelers" between Israel and Syria, and took cover from the Israeli air force planes that bombed Beirut in the Second Lebanon War.