When cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper in the fall of 2005 and sparked a full-blown jihadist campaign against Denmark, then-Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen responded with a telling remark. "We Danes feel like we have been placed in a scene in the wrong movie," he told the German newsweekly Der Spiegel. Norwegians thunderstruck by yesterday's seemingly coordinated bombing and shooting attacks appear to feel the same way. "Of course I'm scared," one ferryboat worker told the New York Times, "because Norway is such a neutral country."

Norway...