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

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

#21

Post by FridayoLeary »

jedimind wrote: post #17
breppp wrote: 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…

I agree with lots of that actually! The altalena affair is a shameful stain on ben gurions legacy although he might have been justified in distrusting Begin considering how much the irgun had been relentlessly persecuted. But Begins decision not to descend into civil war over it speaks volumes about his moral fortitude and clarity. For Begin violence and terrorism was a means to an end not a way of life. When peace was an option he took that path. It was Begin who made peace with Israels mortal enemies - Egypt and he did the unthinkable, gave back the sinai peninsula.

Shamir too, saw no further use for violence after 1948 and eventually took to politics and only in that theater did he engage with his mortal enemies on the left.

I can't help but contrast that with the actions of Yasser Arafat who unleashed the second intifada on Israel after signing the Oslo Accords or hamas who used the de facto palestinian state of gaza as a base to launch attacks and missiles at Israel.

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

#22

Post by breppp »

inigoalonso wrote: post #19
breppp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians

In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way

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

#23

Post by jedimind »

breppp wrote: post #22
inigoalonso wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you subdued if you become the prime minister?

Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way

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".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708

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

#24

Post by breppp »

jedimind wrote: post #20
breppp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 id…

That's completely incorrect by the way, most of Israel of that time was socialist (or communist) and supported the left wing parties behind Haganah and the Palmach. You can easily see it in the size of the political parties and relevant militant organizations.

Regarding my comparison, I think it's very valid. The Palestinians had a huge leadership problem which led them here. Among many things such as rejecting peace offers, most stem from bowing down to extremists, lying to their own people and never being able to have their own version of Altalena

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

#25

Post by jedimind »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #21
jedimind wrote: post #17

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…

I agree with lots of that actually! The altalena affair is a shameful stain on ben gurions legacy although he might have been justified in distrusting Begin considering how much the irgun had been relentlessly persecuted. But Begins decision not to descend into civil war over it speaks volumes about his moral fortitude and clarity. For Begin violence and terrorism was a means to an end not a way of life. When peace w…

It is truly incredible to see those Zionist terrorist's pragmatic calculation rebranded as "moral fortitude." Begin avoided a civil war because he knew his extremist ideology would eventually conquer the state from within, and he was proven right.

The idea that violence for him and Shamir was just a "means to an end" that stopped in 1948 is a complete fantasy. They simply nationalized their terrorism. Begin didn't find peace. He swapped his Irgun uniform for a state uniform to launch the brutal 1982 invasion of Lebanon and to oversee a massive, violent expansion of illegal settlements. His "peace" with Egypt was a strategic masterstroke. It neutralized his biggest military threat, freeing him up to colonize Palestine with impunity.

This continuous, state-sanctioned violence was never just random. It was the implementation of an ideology that sees Palestinians as subhuman obstacles. And now, that project has reached its logical and horrifying conclusion. It has culminated in what leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and hundreds of the world's foremost genocide scholars explicitly call it: the crime of genocide.[1][2]

So your attempt to contrast this with Palestinian leaders is a disgusting exercise in victim-blaming. You are defending the architects of a political project that resulted in genocide, while slandering its victims for resisting their own extermination. It is a morally bankrupt position that rests on a complete inversion of reality.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...

[2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...

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

#26

Post by breppp »

jedimind wrote: post #23
breppp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way

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". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708

If in the 70 years that passed there was no longer Lehi or Etzel, then these organizations disappeared.

If they became part of a nation army, divided across the different units, and most of their men discharged after the war, then these organizations disappeared

Had the IDF adopted the Etzel tactics of bombing the British as you suggest that would probably cause immense issues in the next desert tank war fought in 1956

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

#27

Post by FridayoLeary »

jedimind wrote: post #20
breppp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 id…

I disagree. The palestinians refuse to take any responsibility for any of the acts that takes place in their name. On the other hand they never condemn or disown them either. The target of their violence is often their fellow Arabs but usually it's Jews. But always the people who suffer the most from their actions are their own. Yet their behaviour is rarely condemned and often implictly and explicitly encouraged. With such a mindset how can there be a reasonable prospect for peace?

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

#28

Post by bjourne »

willvarfar wrote: post #3

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…

Maybe my perspective is slanted, but it seems that nobility was way more badass back then. Nowadays they just hide out in Saint-Tropez, Monaco, or chill on their yachts and don't care much about the world.

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

#29

Post by Amezarak »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #11
GardenLetter27 wrote: post #10

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…

The USSR was one of the most authoritarian regimes in world history. They killed millions of people. They invaded Poland together with the Nazis, which was the start of WWII.

I have no idea what was bad about the fascists that wasn't equally true of the Soviets - the underlying systems of thought and actions were essentially the same. There is no sense in which I can see the Soviets were the "good guys." They were simply allies of convenience, and the net result of the war was that half of Europe was handed over to them and lived under this horrific regime.

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

#30

Post by jedimind »

breppp wrote: post #26
jedimind wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708

If in the 70 years that passed there was no longer Lehi or Etzel, then these organizations disappeared. If they became part of a nation army, divided across the different units, and most of their men discharged after the war, then these organizations disappeared Had the IDF adopted the Etzel tactics of bombing the British as you suggest that would probably cause immense issues in the next desert tank war fought in 19…

You are deliberately playing a semantic game with the word "disappear" because you know the truth is damning.

The Irgun didn't "vanish." Its violent, expansionist and terrorist ideology succeeded. It then took over the "state", making the old brand name redundant. Why would Menachem Begin need a private terrorist gang when he could one day command the entire military to achieve his goals?

And your argument about tactics is a pathetic diversion. The state adopted the Irgun's core ethos, a readiness to use extreme, disproportionate violence and terrorism for political ends. This is the "state" whose military ruthlessly attacked[0] its own "greatest Ally", an American naval intelligence ship, the USS Liberty including its crew, and later formalized its terrorist strategy of collective punishment into an explicit military policy, the Dahiya Doctrine[1]. The violence wasn't abandoned. It was industrialized. Instead of a terrorist bombing a hotel, Prime Minister Begin used the full force of the air force to carpet-bomb Lebanon and Gaza.

The Irgun didn't disappear. It just took over the "state" and evolved its terrorism by trading its primitive zionist bombs for high-tech fighter jets.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine

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