A Death in Jerusalem

October 31, 1994
In September 1948, Swedish humanitarian activist Count Folke Bernadotte, a United Nations-appointed mediator attempting to facilitate peace between Israelis and Arabs, was assassinated by members of Lehi (better known as the Stern Gang), a militant Zionist underground group. Stern Gang commander Yitzhak Shamir, the future Israeli prime minister, dispatched the death squad. Alarmed by Bernadotte's plan to designate Jerusalem an international city, Lehi extremists wanted an Israel of biblical proportions on both sides of the Jordan River; they viewed more moderate politicians like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir as traitors to the Zionist cause. Marton (Wallenberg) has written a dramatic, vivid account of Bernadotte's assassination, a compelling cautionary tale for those working to break the cycle of retribution and terror in the Middle East. Drawing on interviews with Shamir's former comrades, she details his key role in the conspiracy and in other assassinations. The conspirators went unpunished; trigger man Yehoshua Cohen became a kibbutznik; another conspirator, Israel Eldad, is today a supranationalist demagogue. Photos.