Sent to you by Sean McBride via Google Reader: Killed 60 Years Ago, Folke Bernadotte Sought 'Ironclad' Guarantees Against Israeli Expansion via Mondoweiss by Philip Weiss on 9/16/08 Tomorrow, September 17, is the 60th anniversary of the murder of U.N. negotiator Folke Bernadotte, a hero of the Holocaust who was calling for an open Jerusalem among other things. The Stern gang got him in Jerusalem. Itzhak Shamir, who reportedly played a role in the murder, became Israeli P.M. 45 years later.
Here's the Washington Report's piece on Bernadotte, saying that the murder was a blow to the authority of the U.N.--a pattern in Israeli history. Here's a progressive Jewish writer's memorial to Bernadotte, where he notes that Bernadotte was a "righteous gentile" during the Holocaust in northern Europe, saving thousands of Jews--and that the Nakba, during which Bernadotte died, has become the Palestinian Shoah. And here's Time Magazine's eulogy to Bernadotte. The magazine was actually anti-Zionist back then, and allied with Sec'y of State George Marshall. Note that Zionist screenwriter Ben Hecht says, "[Bernadotte] was an ass not worthy of so fine a death." There's a great anecdote about the murder in the late Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger's memoir, A Long Row of Candles. Sulzberger was in Tel Aviv in summer '48 when two handsome khaki-clad members of the Stern gang knocked on his door and made a vow that they were going to kill Bernadotte--"just the way Sternists had murdered (my word, not theirs) Lord Moyne because it was necessary to frustrate the UN effort to confine Israel within artificially constricted borders. At first I couldn't believe them..... inclined to dismiss this as just another one of the absurdities that are so commonplace here." Then a few weeks later in August '48, Sulzberger learns that Bernadotte he has confided the following "ultimate solution for Palestine: There will be a Jewish state, no matter what else happens. Its boundaries will have to be radically altered [narrowed] to provide a more compact and workable state. Its Arab neighbors must be given an ironclad UN guarantee against any move to expand. But he personally does no think there is any danger of such a move. He believes immigration will never prove a source of overpopulation; within a few years emigration from Israel may exceed immigration. Meanwhile, he believes there will be no new outbreak of war." Three weeks later, Sulzberger was shocked to hear of Bernadotte's murder. Of course, the west has continually been shocked by Israeli extremism. And no, the expansion was not stopped, and the Arab neighbors have continually felt threatened, and so has Israel felt threatened. There have been several wars; and the Palestinians have never had a state. In November we will celebrate the 89th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which helped to create Israel and also said: "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." How we doing? No state. 60 years. Wednesday marks another anniversary: the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon was discovered on Sept. 18, 1982. Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Mondoweiss using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
