Live data from Hacker News

Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

historytoday.com

11–20 of 71 posts

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#11

Another notable Swede is Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who issued Swedish passports and sheltered thousands of Jews in Budapest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg . He disappeared and died in Russian captivity. (Random lighthearted fact: because his exact date of death is disputed, Google's AI summary in the search results tells me his age is 113.) On another scale, Carl Gustaf von Rosen was a Swed…

Crazy how awful the Russians were - same with Josef Bryks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Bryks And yet a lot of young people somehow think they were good guys.

> And yet a lot of young people somehow think they were good guys.

Reality is really context dependent, and with lots of nuance. Obviously being anti-fascist and helped out taking down the Nazis makes you more of a "good guy" than "bad guy" for that specific moment, but obviously that doesn't mean the USSR or Russia is exclusively the "good guys" always, which goes the same for every country out there.

Where are you finding these young people praising the USSR though? It always seems like a talking point from conservatives on the internet, as I'm never able to find these elusive USSR-praisers in real-life. There is a ton of people ironically saying they love USSR, but surely these are not the people you're talking about?

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#12
post #9

The Stern gang, who killed him, became the IDF (along with the Haganah and the Irgun). These groups performed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that allowed Israel to be built on Palestinian land (commonly known as the Nakba). > One of the chief organisers of the assassination was Yitzhak Shamir, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1984. Exactly.

This is the part that I never understood about US-Israeli relations, that they were going on doing terrible deeds from the beginning.

How exactly did they go from these constant attacks including on a close ally like the British to “Greatest Ally” status.

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#13
post #9

The Stern gang, who killed him, became the IDF (along with the Haganah and the Irgun). These groups performed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that allowed Israel to be built on Palestinian land (commonly known as the Nakba). > One of the chief organisers of the assassination was Yitzhak Shamir, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1984. Exactly.

The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF, claiming dead and almost triggering a civil war.

Something the Palestinians could never muster, and one of the reasons they are still in this position, stateless under the control of Hamas

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy how awful the Russians were - same with Josef Bryks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Bryks And yet a lot of young people somehow think they were good guys.

> And yet a lot of young people somehow think they were good guys. Reality is really context dependent, and with lots of nuance. Obviously being anti-fascist and helped out taking down the Nazis makes you more of a "good guy" than "bad guy" for that specific moment, but obviously that doesn't mean the USSR or Russia is exclusively the "good guys" always, which goes the same for every country out there. Where are you…

[dead]

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#16
post #9

The Stern gang, who killed him, became the IDF (along with the Haganah and the Irgun). These groups performed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that allowed Israel to be built on Palestinian land (commonly known as the Nakba). > One of the chief organisers of the assassination was Yitzhak Shamir, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1984. Exactly.

This is the part that I never understood about US-Israeli relations, that they were going on doing terrible deeds from the beginning. How exactly did they go from these constant attacks including on a close ally like the British to “Greatest Ally” status.

[deleted]

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#17
post #13
post #9

The Stern gang, who killed him, became the IDF (along with the Haganah and the Irgun). These groups performed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that allowed Israel to be built on Palestinian land (commonly known as the Nakba). > One of the chief organisers of the assassination was Yitzhak Shamir, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1984. Exactly.

The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF, claiming dead and almost triggering a civil war. Something the Palestinians could never muster, and one of the reasons they are still in this position, stateless under the control of Hamas

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened.

The Altalena incident was not a moral battle against terrorism, it was a cynical power struggle. Ben-Gurion needed to establish the state's monopoly on force and could not tolerate Menachem Begin's private terrorist gang. After the confrontation, Irgun fighters were not punished. They were absorbed into the IDF, where their terrorist skills became state assets.

This move whitewashes what the Irgun actually was. Long before "Israel" absorbed them, they were internationally recognized as terrorists (even by the US AND UK!) for terrorism e.g. like the King-David Hotel bombing. In a famous letter, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt called Begin's organization terrorists and "closely akin in its organization, methods, [and] political philosophy to the Nazi and Fascist parties." The ultimate proof that Israel never rejected its terrorist ideology is the career of the Irgun commander himself, Menachem Begin. He was never tried as a traitor or a terrorist. He founded the party that would become Likud and was later elected Prime Minister. Israel didn't purge its terrorist founders, it eventually put one in charge of Israel.

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF, claiming dead and almost triggering a civil war. Something the Palestinians could never muster, and one of the reasons they are still in this position, stateless under the control of Hamas

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened. The Al…

The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence.

When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened. The Al…

The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence. When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)

How are you subdued if you become the prime minister?

Re: Count Folke Bernadotte: Sweden's Servant of Peace (2010)

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened. The Al…

The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence. When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)

That's a complete misreading of history and a dishonest attempt to deflect from the point by invoking a false equivalence.

First you claim the Zionist extremists were an "absolute minority." The Revisionist Zionism of the Irgun was never a fringe belief, it was a powerful and central pillar of the Zionist movement. And in the end, their ideology won. They weren't just "integrated", they took over.

Furthermore, the idea that they were "subdued" is laughable. You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". Finally, your comparison to the Palestinians in the 1990s is a disgusting and intellectually bankrupt false equivalence. You are comparing an internal power struggle between factions of a ruthless colonizing power with the struggle of an occupied people living under a brutal military occupation. There is no parallel. It's a classic victim-blaming tactic designed to absolve the occupier of its responsibility and guilt https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...

Post reply on HN