by Kirill Zolotarev
[Regnum] On September 17, 1948, four months after the proclamation of the State of Israel, Count Folke Bernadotte, nephew of the then Swedish king, godfather of the current monarch and a high-ranking UN official, was shot dead in Jerusalem.
A few months earlier, the Swedish diplomat had brokered the first truce between Israel and the Arab states. Earlier, during World War II, he had participated in the rescue of European Jews imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps.
But for Israeli radicals, the peacemaker proved more dangerous than the British colonial officials against whom the underground had fought for years.
FROM THE WHITE BUSES TO PALESTINE
Folke Bernadotte might have been in line for the Swedish throne had his father, Prince Oscar, not married morganatically. The count's family, however, was extremely close to the court of "Uncle Gustav," King Gustav V. Young Count Folke received an excellent military education, but pursued a career in politics and diplomacy. From 1943, Bernadotte served as vice president of the Swedish Red Cross, but his role in the "shadow history" of World War II was far more important.
In 1943-44, members of the Third Reich leadership approached a relative of the royal family, secretly testing the waters for Adolf Hitler. First, about the possibility of transporting supplies through neutral Sweden, and then about unilateral surrender to the Anglo-Americans.
In the spring of 1945, Bernadotte proved to be a key figure in the story chronicled in "Seventeen Moments of Spring"—it was through him that Heinrich Himmler's men conveyed proposals for a speedy separate peace. Soon after, the Swedish diplomat secretly met with the Reichsführer—a contact arranged by Himmler's masseur.
Despite the dubious nature of these contacts (which modern Swedish historians cautiously call "delicate diplomatic missions"), Bernadotte tried to act for the greater good. He set a condition for the Germans: organize the release and transport of prisoners from Nazi concentration camps to neutral countries. This was a chance for salvation, since as the Red Army and the Allies approached, the Nazis destroyed the prisons along with the prisoners.
In March–April 1945, more than 7,000 citizens of occupied Norway and Denmark, including more than 400 Danish Jews, were liberated from the Theresienstadt camp. Simultaneously, several thousand Jewish women were liberated from the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Thus began Operation White Buses. Red Cross vehicles, painted white, transported people from the camps to Sweden. Among those rescued were not only Scandinavians, but also prisoners from Poland, France, and Czechoslovakia.
In total, thanks to Bernadotte's operation, 21 thousand people were transported across the front line, including more than 1,600 Jews.
| Out of six million Jews but it’s something. |
On May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence. The very next day, armies from neighboring Arab states entered Palestine.
| Five Arab armies, plus units and volunteers from elsewhere in the Moslem world, Pakistan is particularly proud of their small contingent. |
He achieved his first significant results quickly. With the participation of Bernadotte and his assistant, Ralph Bunche, a four-week ceasefire went into effect on June 11. A new round of fighting was followed by a second ceasefire on July 18.
But reaching an agreement on the future of Palestine was much more difficult than forcing the warring parties to a ceasefire.
| What future? In those days all the talk was of the pan-Arab nation. The local Arabs insisted repeatedly they were only a small part of the entire Arab nation, no different than the Arabs of the surrounding nations. And that their goal remained the eradication of the Jewish nation in rivers of blood. The whole point of a ceasefire is to continue the war later, and by gum the Arabs fully intended to take their war to victory. It was only after the KGB had trained Yasser Arafat that the tune suddenly changed, almost two decades later. |
Bernadotte was not an opponent of Israel itself. In his final report, he openly acknowledged that the Jewish state already exists and there is no reason to believe it will disappear.
The dispute began further - with the question of borders.
The mediator proposed securing Galilee for Israel and handing the Negev over to the Arab side. Haifa was to become a free port, and Lydda Airport, a free international airport.
| The Split The Difference philosophy of mediation, deliberately ignoring questions like what the original plan had been, and who had accepted the proposal who had rejected it, who had started the war, and what they claimed their goal was. An approach repeated by outside mediators after each war since, to the joy of the Arabs and the dismay of the Israelis. |
| Looking at history since, especially the tone of the UN, shall we guess what the outcome would have been, had that particular bit of nonsense become reality? |
| But did anyone insist on the same for the Jews when they were driven out a few years later with only what they could carry? At that time Jews owned about a third of Baghdad, for instance, for which they have never received compensation, nor any hint that they have a right to return to the place where their history goes back to a few decades after the Babylonian Exile in 586 BC. |
But for one political force, the problem wasn't that the plan was difficult to implement. They considered the mediator himself a threat.
SHOTS FIRED IN KATAMON
This was the organization "Lohamei Herut Yisrael" (LEHI)—"Fighters for the Freedom of Israel." During the British occupation of Palestine, the group was one of the most radical fighters for a Jewish state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.
Many of the activists subsequently received high positions in the Israeli army, and one of the leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, became prime minister.
During World War II (when other Zionist groups “paused” their fight against Britain, and many activists even joined its army), LEHI made contact with the Germans – according to the principle “the enemy of my enemy…”.
To be fair, the group only knew about state anti-Semitism in Germany (which would allegedly encourage Jews to repatriate to Palestine), but did not know about the “final solution to the Jewish question.”
Unlike more widespread Jewish armed groups, such as the Haganah (which became the core of the Israeli army), Lehi relied for years on individual assassinations and high-profile assassination attempts. This group was not alone in engaging in such "actions." In 1946, the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) carried out the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people.
In September 1948, LEHI militants openly attacked Bernadotte in their leaflets. A UN report later noted that, several days before his assassination, the underground activists effectively called for the expulsion of the mediator and his observers.
On September 16, Bernadotte signed the final report to the UN. The next day, he arrived in Jerusalem.
Around 5:00 PM local time, a convoy of three vehicles was driving through the Katamon neighborhood, which was under IDF control. An army jeep blocked the road. Its occupants were wearing uniforms similar to those of the Israeli army.
One of the attackers approached the UN vehicle and opened fire at point-blank range. Bernadotte was fatally wounded. A French UN military observer sitting nearby was also killed.
An organization calling itself the "Fatherland Front" publicly claimed responsibility. An Israeli investigation soon concluded that the organization behind this name belonged to Lehi or members of the underground organization closely associated with it. Lehi's involvement in the assassination was subsequently no longer disputed.
The radicals rushed to eliminate Bernadotte, fearing the acceptance of his plan, although the Israeli leadership itself was no longer prepared to agree to the abandonment of the Negev.
EVERYONE COME OUT OF HIDING
The murder of the mediator sparked the first political crisis in the newly formed Israel and at the same time accelerated the construction of the Jewish state – precisely as a state where only the authorities have a monopoly on violence.
In 1948, a significant portion of the former underground fighters and militants from the Haganah, Palmach, Etzel, and Lehi groups had already joined the army, but individual cells operated without regard for the authorities, especially in Jerusalem.
The first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, himself a recent prominent figure in the Hgana, used the Bernadotte incident to put an end to the unrest.
He ordered the arrest of Lehi members, the confiscation of weapons, and the dismantling of the organization's bases. Within the first 24 hours, dozens of underground members were detained in Tel Aviv and over a hundred in Jerusalem. Soon, the authorities took extreme measures against terrorist organizations, and Lehi was effectively crushed.
But the case never reached a full trial of Bernadotte's killers.
The deed was done—in place of the various "liberation fronts" and "combat groups," a proper army and special services emerged. Therefore, the commanders and militants—recent comrades in the common struggle—could be spared harsh punishment.
The underground leaders were tried for belonging to an armed organization, but the authorities did not officially present evidence to indict the specific perpetrators of the murder.
One of Lehi's leaders, Natan Yellin-Mor, received an eight-year prison sentence, but was soon amnestied. Even during his trial, he was elected to the first Knesset. Yitzhak Shamir escaped arrest entirely.
This circumstance gave the story of Bernadotte's assassination a particularly inconvenient tint for Israeli politics.
The calculation of the radical part of the Zionist movement that the externally imposed settlement would disappear along with Bernadotte did not come true.
American diplomat Ralph Bunche continued his work as a mediator. In 1949, through his mediation, Israel concluded armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. For this work, Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.
Bernadotte's plan was not fully realized either.
| And thank goodness for that. |
| He meant well. But that was only the first time the world protected the Arabs from the consequences of attacking the Jews of Israel with genocidal intent. |