The 1929 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg. And why not? The year before, he had persuaded the great powers to outlaw war. Among those that ratified the historic Kellogg-Briand pact were the democratic countries, plus Germany, Japan, and Italy. High-minded people, deluded that signed agreements shaped history, were delirious with joy. Barely a decade later, of course, most of the world was plunged into war. Did the committee that chose the prize's recipients have any second thoughts? After all, the very complaisance that the Norwegians honored surely encouraged the Axis to believe that the democracies would stand by as threats mounted. I know of no record that the committee expressed any regrets.

I had a sinking feeling when the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasir Arafat in the immediate aftermath of the Oslo accords and the handshake on the White House lawn. After all, Arafat's sole vocation in life was that of a terrorist, and, even if there were some sparse signs that he was ready to give up the murder of innocents, the choice was still morally unconscionable. As for Rabin and Peres, toughminded men beguiled by both Arafat and their own lifelong yearning for peace, they immediately attended to their obligations under the agreement--even transferring weapons to the militias of what they knew would be an emergent Palestinian state. Arafat, of course, immediately set about blowing Oslo up, a mission he completed at Camp David and Taba in late 2000. And now, with the peace agreement for which they gave the awards in tatters, the Nobel trustees do have regrets. Not, amazingly, about Arafat--but about Peres. According to the BBC, "Members of the Norwegian committee that awards the annual Nobel Peace Prize have launched an unprecedented verbal assault on Israeli Foreign Minister and Nobel Peace Laureate Shimon Peres," saying "they regretted that Mr. Peres' prize could not be recalled.... One member said Mr. Peres had not lived up to the ideals expressed when he accepted the prize." Poor Peres. He still, to this day, retains all the Oslo illusions that Arafat has trashed. But that is not enough for anti-Israel, anti-Jewish Europe and not enough for the guardians of the prize, which will itself soon look like trash.

The headquarters of anti-Semitic Europe today, just as during the Third Republic, is Paris. Every day brings news of another violent crime against French Jews and Jewish institutions, a wave of violence that most of the French oppose, but which the government of Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin has tolerated, even indulged, for far too long. Paris is also the headquarters of anti-American Europe. The latest expression of French anti-Americanism--aside from books claiming that the United States blew up the World Trade Center itself --is concern for the life of Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen and, according to the Justice Department, the would-be twentieth September 11 skyjacker. The U.S. government has charged him with six counts of conspiracy and will request the death penalty, which France abolished in 1981. The prospect of citoyen Moussaoui's execution has driven official Paris apoplectic. Yet the French are not exactly evenhanded in their hostility to capital punishment. After all, what have they said about the execution of suspected "conspirators" by France's ally, the Palestinian Authority? Last week, with the complicity of Arafat's regime, eleven supposed collaborators with Israel were murdered, their bodies dragged through the streets. A few days ago, six other such "collaborators" were sentenced to death by a quickie P.A. tribunal. But not a word has been heard from the enlightened anti-death penalty French, who seem to think that only the United States and Israel kill.