Although I had heard of the murder, I had never heard of the lead murderer.  Last week it was announced that the mastermind behind the 1948 murder of United Nations’ mediator Count Folke Bernadotte—Yehoshua Zettler—had died a natural death.

Count Folke Bernadotte was a near legendary Swedish diplomat responsible for negotiating the release of thousands of German-held prisoners, including Jews from concentration camps, during World War II.  He was later the lead mediator in the Arab/Israeli war that followed the independence of Israel in May 1948.  In September of 1948, he was assassinated by a hit team from a notorious Zionist terrorist outfit known as the LEHI (which stood for “Israel Freedom Fighters”), but more generally known as the “Stern Gang,” a right-wing split off from the already right-wing Zionist outfit known as the Irgun.  The LEHI objected to Bernadotte’s attempts at compromise, feeling that he was giving the Arabs too much.

Today, in the era of the so-called war against terrorism and terrorism allegedly being the main danger facing humanity (above global warming in some quarters), it is worth noting that Zettler died a natural death and was seen as a hero by many people, including some of the current Israeli leadership.  Zettler was not executed for this assassination; he was not jailed; his continued existence did not block diplomatic relations between Israel and much of the rest of the world.  He lived out his life running a gas station in Tel Aviv.

Reading of Zettler’s death reminds one of the hypocrisy that so often permeates international affairs, particularly those in which the USA and Israel engage.  While Zettler lived out his life servicing automobiles and ensuring that cars filled up at his pump, the USA has continued to insist that Palestinians that engage in military actions—regardless of their character—have no legitimacy.  While Zettler was looking under the hood of countless cars, his government was repeating ad nauseum that it would not negotiate with alleged terrorists (whether the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its affiliates, or later with Hamas) irrespective of whether such negotiations could bring a halt to the years of injustice, war and despair.

Zettler is not the only Zionist terrorist to become a hero.  Former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir are two of the more famous.  Whether engaged in assassinations, bombings (such as that which took place at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946), or ethnic cleansing (such as the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948), the Zionist terrorists who carried out these actions were not only not punished, but were rewarded, either with being treated as heroes and/or rising to prominence in the Israeli political establishment.  Not only that, they were able to achieve a respectability reminiscent of mobsters who, after laundering money into legitimate businesses, eventually are treated as legitimate entrepreneurs.

Zettler’s lesson is both troubling and sobering.  As atrocious as were Zettler’s various crimes, the bulk of the mainstream international community was prepared to forget them—if not forgive them—once Israel had become an established and recognize state; more importantly, after it became a firm ally of the USA and Western Europe.  At the same time the Zettler lesson should suggest to us that despite the rhetoric coming out of Israel or the USA, the situation on the ground is always subject to shifts.

Let us hope that as President Obama continues to speak to the Arab and Muslim Worlds he keeps all of this in mind and is not blinded by the “anti-terrorist” rhetoric of those in Israel who wish to close off all options to peace other than those that they wish to ensure prevail.

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

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