European-American Evangelistic Crusades, Inc.

November 2003 Newsletter

TRAIL OF BLOOD AND MURDER - Part II

John S. Torell

We have so far looked at the murder of three prominent Swedes, and now we are going to look at another.

Folke Bernadotte

FOLKE BERNADOTTE
This Swedish man was born in Stockholm, Sweden on January 2, 1895. He was a member of the Swedish royal family, his father was the brother of the Swedish King Gustav V. As was the custom in European royal families, Folke entered the Swedish Army as a young man and in 1918 was commissioned at the age of 23 years as an officer. As a member of the royal family, he was given the title of "Greve" (Count). After having served in the Swedish Army for some time, he became interested in the Boy Scouts and served for a number of years as an official for the International Boy Scout’s organization. When World War II broke out, he was appointed head of the Swedish Red Cross. The American and British Governments used the good offices of the Swedish Red Cross to exchange prisoners of war, and to also check on the conditions of POW camps in Germany, including concentration camps toward the end of the war. Folke Bernadotte made a number of trips to Germany during the war, and was credited with saving the lives of some 20,000 inmates from German concentration camps. The Swedish Red Cross’ white trucks and buses, with the blazing red crosses on them, were used to bring these abused prisoners to Sweden, where they were nursed back to health.

Bernadotte and Raul Wallenberg who was 17 years his junior, were both working the last years of World War II to rescue people from the Nazi death machine. Wallenberg in Hungary and Bernadotte in Germany itself. On April 24, 1945, the German Nazi leader, Heinrich Himmler, contacted Folke Bernadotte and asked him to contact the British and American governments and offer a plan for Germany to unconditionally surrender to these two nations in return for the American and British forces to join the German army in its fight against the Soviet Union. The offer was turned down. The decision had already been made by the World Government that Germany was to be divided into a Western and an Eastern part, with the Eastern segment to be handed over to the communists. Also it had been agreed upon that all of the Eastern European nations were to be given over to the Soviet Union and turned into slave nations for the communist dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. (The grip of the Soviet Union was not going to be broken until 1989).

At the end of World War II, Bernadotte was 50 years old, and instead of being taken by the Soviet Union, he was able to go back to Sweden and assume his normal royal life. Bernadotte was now well known in Europe and the United States as a skilled negotiator and a hard working honest man who loved peace, not war. In 1948 he was recruited by the United Nations and assigned the job of mediator between the Jews and Arabs in the broiling conflict over Palestine.

On May 20, 1948 the United Nation’s Security Council appointed Folke Bernadotte as the official mediator for the UN, to travel to Jerusalem and work out a resolution between the newly declared state of Israel and the Arab states in the region. He was given an assistant, the French Air Force colonel Andre-Pierre Serot, and 100 unarmed French military personnel to be used as a UN truce observer team.

War had broken out before the Jews declared Israel an independent state on May 14, 1948. Prior to statehood the Zionist leadership had used para-military units to wage war on the Palestinians, like the Stern Gang, Irgun and the Haganah.

In order for the reader to understand the situation in Palestine some 60 years ago, we must look at the historical facts at that time. ¹

THE POWER STRUGGLE IN THE LATE 1930's - EARLY 1940's
At this time the Jews in Palestine were more organized than the Arab population. The Palestinian Arab population had exploded into a rebellion, that lasted from 1936 -1939. The Jews in Palestine had been able to create an unofficial Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine and its official political governing body was "THE JEWISH AGENCY."

Since the British military command was not able to fully protect the Jewish population from Palestinian uprisings, the Jews were allowed to develop their own defense forces. The political leadership of the Jewish defense forces came to a split in 1937, a short time after the Palestinian revolt had started. The moderates wanted to use the Jewish military force in defense only, while the radical Jewish movement, influenced by Vladimir Jabotinsky, insisted that Palestinian terror should be met with terror by armed Jewish forces. The Hagana became the largest of the Jewish military forces, which was run by the moderate Jews and subject to Zionist leadership. The British Government accepted the Hagana, and helped to train and equip this fighting force. In a short time it had been organized into a national army of some 20,000 Jewish soldiers with a central command in cooperation with the British Army. The splinter group that broke away from the Hagana was called Irgun Tzeva’i Le’umi (Etzel) and its leader was Abraham Tehomi (Silberg), also known as "Gideon."

This paramilitary group had been formed in 1931. On December 5, 1936, an agreement was signed in Paris between Vladimir Jabotinsky and Tehomi, where Tehomi was appointed the commander of the Irgun by the New Zionist Organization. In April 1937 Tehomi reached an agreement with the Hagana to merge the two paramilitary groups. But of the 3000 fighters in the Irgun, less than 50% followed Tehomi into the Hagana, the rest stayed on as Irgun fighters under the leadership of Robert Bitker. The Irgun fighters became an underground organization, using assassination, bombings and ambushes, both against the Palestinians and the British military forces in Palestine.

The Jewish Agency strongly denounced Irgun’s violent tacticts, while the British started making mass arrests to suppress this violent Jewish group. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Irgun leadership announced that it would stop attacking the British Army and instead offered its cooperation to fight the Nazis.

The cooperation between Irgun and the British Army ceased with the end of World War II, when the Irgun, on a broad front, attacked the British. On July 22, 1946, Irgun fighters blew up the British Army headquarters and the Secretariat of the Palestine government located at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety one persons died and forty five were injured. This was followed by a number of attacks on British installations.

Late in 1946 two young Irgun fighters were arrested by the British and flogged. Irgun retaliated by seizing some British officers and flogging them. On April 16, 1947 the British executed four members of the Irgun. The Irgun retaliated by seizing two British sergeants and held them as hostages to prevent the execution of another three members of the Irgun. The British put the three Irgun men to death, and the Irgun command hanged the two sergeants. It was the "Stern Gang" which was going to murder Bernadotte. Here is a short background:

The founder of the Stern Gang was Avraham Stern ². In 1915, when he was eight years old, his family was exiled to the Bashkir region in the Urals. During the six years the family lived in the Urals, he attended a Russian school and became a member of the Communist youth group. Stern returned to Suwalki in 1921 and studied at the Hebrew high school. In 1926, at the age of 19, Stern immigrated to Palestine and attended the Hebrew high school in Jerusalem for one year. He then enrolled at Hebrew University where he majored in literature and history. During the 1929 riots he joined the Hagana and fought in Galilee and Jerusalem. In 1932 he joined the Irgun underground and completed training to become an officer in the Irgun. One year later, Stern moved to Florence, Italy, to work on his doctoral dissertation in classical Greek literature, but he never completed this study; instead he moved back to Palestine to participate in the terrorist attacks on the British. Stern rose in rank and became the assistant to Avraham Tehomi, at that time the commander of the Irgun. When the Irgun split in 1937, Stern was appointed secretary of the command.

During the third World Convention of Betar ³ in Warsaw, Poland, 1938, there was a fierce debate taking place between the advocates of militant Zionism versus political Zionism. The future prime minister of Israel (1977-1983) Menachem Begin, who was to serve as commander of Irgun from 1943-1948, argued for a violent confrontation with the British, while Jabotinsky wanted more of a political approach to take over Palestine. Stern publicly supported Jabotinsky, but secretly was on Begin’s side. On May 17, 1939, just two and a half months before World War II broke out, Stern publicly broke with Jabotinsky.

On August 31, 1939, one day before World War II began, the British military command in Palestine in a sweep arrested Stern and all other Irgun high leaders. Jabotinsky urged the Irgun leadership to support the British against the Nazis, but Stern refused unless given guarantees that after the war Britain would turn over Palestine to the Jews.

When Stern was released from prison by the British in June 1940, Stern wanted Jabotinsky to name him head of the Irgun, which Jabotinsky refused to do. On September 1, 1940, Stern formed his own organization, called "Irgun in Israel," but better known as the "Stern Gang." He then drew up a blueprint for an agreement with Mussolini ⁴ called "The Jerusalem Agreement," in which he proposed that once the Italians had conquered the Middle East, Mussolini would give Palestine to the Jews as an independent Jewish state. When the Italians were defeated in Greece and North Africa, Stern then drew up another agreement to be presented to Nazi Germany, which he at this time believed would win the war, and that Adolf Hitler would grant a Jewish state of Palestine. Stern was not concerned with the persecution of Jews by the Nazis, he wanted to make a deal with Hitler before he had won the war to guarantee his position.

When Stern’s deal with Adolf Hitler became known in Jewish circles in the late summer of 1941, the Stern Gang began to disintegrate. Hardcore killers took over the organization, intensifying their attacks on the British. Stern’s cooperation with the Nazis became known to the Hagana and the Irgun, but these two organizations still gave assistance to hide members of the Stern Gang from the British. In February 1942 when members of the Stern Gang assassinated the chief of police of Tel Aviv and two of his officers, the British put out a dragnet in search of Stern. He was caught and killed on February 12, 1942. But the Stern Gang was to live on and in 1948 murder Folke Bernadotte.

Yehoshua Zetler

THE MURDERERS OF FOLKE BERNADOTTE MAKE A PUBLIC CONFESSION
On September 11, 1988, 40 years after the murder of Bernadotte, the Israeli daily newspaper "Yediot Ahronot" came out with an article written by the paper’s political reporter, Ronni Shaked. For the first time since the murder, the men who did the killing came forward and told in detail how the murder took place. Yehoshua Zetler, the commander of the Jerusalem unit of the Stern Gang in 1948 proudly told how he plotted and had Bernadotte killed. When he was asked, "If you could relive your life, would you still have murdered the UN diplomat?" He stated, "There would be no hesitation; the UN diplomat had to be killed in order to safeguard the nation of Israel."

What is important for the reader in 2003 to know is that this murder was well thought out and that it was approved by two well known Jewish leaders, each of whom held the post of prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin (1983-1984) and Yizhak Shamir (1986-1990). At the time of the murder, Begin was the commander of the Irgun and Shamir the head of the Stern Gang.

Average Christians reading this material must understand that they do not have "criminal minds." The men behind the Zionist movement have no ethical or moral values, they have the mindset of a criminal. They were determined to create a Jewish state in Palestine at any cost, and they are just as determined to maintain it and if possible enlarge it at any cost. In order to be able to proceed, they cannot operate within biblical law, nor within internationally established laws. If a person or persons threaten their project, the decision will be made – death for the one who is standing in the way.

THE POLITICAL REASON TO MURDER BERNADOTTE
The United Nations had sent Bernadotte to Palestine to work out a peace agreement between the Jews and the Palestinians. On June 27, 1948, Bernadotte was able to broker a cease fire between the newly formed Israeli Army and the Arab coalition. He then proposed a peace plan for the region. The proposal included the call for an independent Palestinian state to be abandoned. The territories which, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations had voted to be used for an independent Palestinian state were to be given to Jordan. The city of Jerusalem was to be incorporated with Jordan and all Jewish immigration to the newly formed state of Israel would be regulated by the United Nations. No Jewish males capable of serving as soldiers would be allowed to come to Israel. The territory of Galilee would be given to the Jews, but the entire Negev desert area was to be given to Jordan.

Again, I must help current readers to understand the thinking that prevailed in 1948 by people in the different nations of the world. America in 1948 was humming with activity, its factories untouched by the war. The economy was expanding rapidly in the U.S. and the American people were in no mood for a new war in the Middle East. Production of automobiles had ceased from 1941 through 1945, as all automakers in the U.S. had been producing tanks, trucks and bombers like the B-17. The American people wanted new cars, the GI’s coming home wanted to marry and raise their children in their own newly built homes. England had won the war along with the U.S., but ended up bankrupt, its economy in shambles and sky high unemployment. It was not until the mid 1950's that England began to recover. The British had lost millions in war dead and wounded, and the British people were sick and tired of war and the British government knew this very well. So did the rest of the world. France was wasted, Germany was a wasteland, Eastern Europe had just been gobbled up by the Soviet Union which in turn was licking its own war wounds. China was in the middle of a terrible civil war and Japan had been bombed into shock. The political pressure was on the Jews, "negotiate for peace, accept what you have and don’t argue," was the message from the nations of the world. ⁵

The moderate Jewish leadership started to listen seriously to Bernadotte and their pragmatic approach was, "Half a loaf of bread is better than nothing at all." The Jewish people in general were worn out by the long conflict with the Palestinians, more than 15 years of a low intensity war. The Jews coming from the war zone in Europe had suffered enough war. The majority of the Jewish people wanted peace and they were willing to pay for it by giving up some land.

Begin, Shamir and other hardline Zionists knew that they were in trouble. The dream of a greater Israel and the city of Jerusalem were slipping out of their reach. Begin and Shamir publicly let it be known among the Jewish population that Bernadotte was "a secret agent" for the British Government. Once the political decision was made by the Jewish leadership to assassinate Bernadotte, the assignment was given to the Stern Gang.

HOW THE MURDER WAS CARRIED OUT
Yehoshua Zetler was the local commander of the Stern Gang in Jerusalem. Under his command he had several hundred fighters who the British had labeled "terrorists." They had ambushed British soldiers, planted bombs in cars and buildings and they had methodically terrorized the Palestinian population. Palestinian fighters (terrorists) fought back and the situation in Palestine was pretty much the same as it is today. No change.

Zetler had his secret headquarters in the Talbiye district of Jerusalem. He brought in Dr. Israel Eldad (a Polish Jew born in 1910) who was the intellectual leader of the Stern Gang. Eldad had been a teacher at the Tel Aviv high school and after 1948 he became a journalist and editor, ending up as a professor of humanities at the Haifa Technion. Eldad agreed with Zetler that Bernadotte had to die, and the two of them then made a trip to Haifa, where they met with Nathan Yellin-Mor, the military commander of the Stern Gang. Ten days before the killing of Bernadotte, the three of them were sitting in an apartment at Carmel in Haifa and discussed the killing. Nathan and Eldad gave the strong warning, that once the killing had taken place, no credit could be taken by the Stern Gang. Instead it was agreed to issue a declaration after the killing, and give the credit to a small obscure group called "The Homeland Front."

As soon as Zetler came back to Jerusalem, the planning for the murder got into high gear. Zetler called upon Yehoshua Cohen (died in 1986), the commando expert in the Stern Gang to lead the operation in the field. Zetler stated that it was not a hard assignment to kill a person who was not armed, the problem was to find four killers who, after the murder, would not talk. Zetler carefully selected four professional assassins who he knew would not talk. Meshulam Makover, who lived in Jerusalem, was his second selection since he knew Jerusalem in and out. The third member in the team was Yitzhak Ben Moshe (died in 1984), and the fourth one was only known as "The Red Head," since he refused to go public and acknowledge his involvement. Makover, Moshe and The Red Head had just come back from a British POW camp in Kenya, Africa, and Zetler decided that they needed to practice their shooting, so he took them out to a forest in Motza for the training. The assassins were given pictures of Bernadotte, so they would be able to identify him and shoot him. The order was given that anyone of the assassins who could first identify the UN diplomat, should without hesitation shoot him to death.

At four o’clock in the morning of September 17, 1948, the assassination team drove to and parked their jeep along Palmach Street. The four of them pretended that they were sleeping in the vehicle. On a hill not far away lay Zetler watching the scene. Early in the morning Berndotte left East Jerusalem and the UN headquarters to travel to a meeting with Dov Josef, one of the Zionist leaders who had his office in central Jerusalem. When the UN convoy of several automobiles came close to the jeep on Palmach street, the driver of the jeep drove out in front of the convoy and stopped them. Major Moshe Hillman, Bernadotte’s Israeli Army liaison officer, thought that it was an Israeli army check point, and identified himself. But the assassination team had already jumped off the jeep, and started checking the UN vehicles. When Yeoshua Coen came to the last car and opened the door, he cried out, "Here he is!" At that time, Hillman was coming down and demanded, "What are you doing?" Cohen had already fired into the back seat of the sedan, and instantly killed the French Colonel Andre Sareau. Then Cohen leaned into the back seat and fired off several rounds with his automatic weapon hitting Bernadotte in the chest. As Cohen was killing Bernadotte, he heard shots from the other side of the car. He believed that his squad was getting resistance, but it was his own people who were shooting the tires of the UN vehicles. The assassination team quickly made a getaway. Hillman opened up the rear door and saw the dead French Colonel, but Bernadotte was still alive. Bernadotte, white as a sheet in the face and in a cold sweat, told the Israeli army officer, "They have shot me!" Hillman ordered the Israeli army driver to drive the car as fast as he could to an English hospital. A few minutes later the shot up car arrived at the emergency entrance of the hospital and Bernadotte was taken inside for emergency treatment. After a few minutes, Dr. Neumann came out and told Hillman that Bernadotte was dead.

The murder created a political upheaval and the Israeli government had to defend itself, that it had nothing to do with the murder. A hunt for the murderers was ordered, but by that time the four assassins had been concealed in Jerusalem. Four days later they were taken in a moving van to Tel Aviv where they melted into the general population. They were never caught and brought to justice. Forty years later they felt safe to come out into the open and confess what they had done. They felt that they had saved the State of Israel and showed no remorse at all.

Yehoshua Cohen, in later years, became a good friend with David Ben Gurion (a Polish Jew born in 1886 and the first Prime Minister of Israel from 1948-53), as he lived as a neighbor with David Ben Gurion. Before Cohen died, he made the following statement: "With the Bernadotte action, Ben Gurion was able to kill two flies with one swat, he got rid of Bernadotte and us (the Stern Gang)."

WHAT WE MUST LEARN FROM THIS
The political leaders that ruled the world in 1948 are either dead or very old and out of power. No one is going to be prosecuted for the murder now. But the political organizations from that time are still operating in 2003 and the conflict over Palestine is still not settled. In 1988, when Zetler went public with his confession, he made the statement that the prime minister of that time in Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, had betrayed the Zionist movement when he worked on a peace plan with the Palestinians. Zetler gave a grim warning in 1988, "We killed in 1948 and we will kill again if we see that portions of Israel might be given away to the Palestinians in return for peace."

Seven years later, this threat was carried out, when the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot and killed at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995. A young Jewish man was caught in the act and labeled as a Jewish extremist. What the Israeli leadership does not want the world and its own population to know is that the man was selected and trained by the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, for this specific assignment.

Nothing is sacred to the Zionist leadership. Anyone opposing the state of Israel, or who is a threat to the land of Israel, will be killed, it is just a matter of time. This has put a great fear into the leadership of Israel, since not all of them are hawkish Zionists. If they go too far in the peace process, they will be assassinated. Thus we will never see peace between Israel and the Arab nations until the return of Jesus and His destruction of all worldly governments, including Zionism.

THE BLOOD BATH IN IRAQ
In several newsletters in 2002 and 2003 I predicted the outcome after Saddam Hussein had been taken out of power. Saddam knew in advance, that he could never defeat the United States on the battlefield. For some 15 years he played cat and mouse with the United States, working the public opinion in Europe and in the U.S.. His intelligence agents residing in Europe and in the U.S. watched the news on television, read the newspapers and looked at the polls. Saddam worked a fine line to frustrate both George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton. When the attack came on the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon, Saddam made a miscalculation. He did not understand that when America was attacked, the situation with the willingness of the American people to fight had changed and the game of cat and mouse was over.

Saddam had made preparation that if Iraq was invaded, he would make sure that no weapons of mass destruction would be found. This would help him to work the world opinion against the United States. It has been verified that Saddam had used poison gases both against the Iranian army and the Kurds in the north. He had also developed biological weapons, which had been tested on humans. All of this disappeared. Saddam is as ruthless as the Zionist leaders, Joseph Stalin, Mau Tse Tung or Adolf Hitler. He does not care how many people are killed as long as his goals are met.

Saddam believes that he can get Iraq back again. To do that, he must make sure that the American forces do not stabilize the country and rebuild it. The only way to stop this is through terror, more terror and creating such fear and frustration that the American people will demand that President Bush bring home the troops. Then Saddam can unleash his forces once again on the Kurds and Shiites and resume power. His forces have gone after the United Nations diplomat in Baghdad, who was murdered not too long ago by bombing the UN offices. The result – the UN is pulling out of Iraq. Next he has gone after the Red Cross – they are pulling out. This is hurting the Iraqi people who have been greatly helped by these two organizations with food, education and medical help. Saddam could care less, "Kill and kill again, until my plans come true," is his slogan. The low tech guerilla war against the American soldiers is taking a toll as more and more body bags come back to the U.S.. Saddam’s agents in the U.S. are monitoring the situation, and when the Democrats and others scold the president, they are laughing and congratulating themselves. It is working well for them; the American opinion polls of President Bush’s handling of the war is going down. The less support the president has from the American people, the more American soldiers will be killed to force a political retreat. In November, Saddam’s forces struck the Italians in southern Iraq and now all of Italy is up in arms. "Bring our soldiers home." Next will come bombings against the British and all others, as Saddam increases his efforts. After all, he is winning in the opinion polls both in Europe and in the U.S.. The question is, who will blink first, Saddam or President Bush?

Civilized people will have a hard time to fight barbarians. Barbarians do not care who gets killed, men, women, or children, even their own people. Barbarians have a goal, conquer and rule with terror. Civilized nations do not use suicide bombers or kamikaze pilots. The Communist leadership in the Soviet Union struck down any protests with great violence. In Hungary, in 1956, the tanks crushed the people on the streets, as the Communists struck back and put down the revolt of the Hungarian people. When people in East Germany tried to rise up, they were killed by the thousands. Remember the Tiananmen Square in Peking in June 1989, when thousands of young men and women were crushed under the tanks, as the Communists crushed the uprising.

During the Nazi occupation of Europe from 1939-1945, when a German soldier was killed by local resistance fighters, they would round up 100 men and women, and shoot them publicly, telling the people that for every German soldier killed, 100 civilians would die. Thus the resistance movement held back; they did not want the civilians to be punished. Communists, Nazis and Zionists do not care about opinion polls. They will work the polls to their advantage, but if they have to kill, they will kill without hesitation.

The Japanese army was ruthless in its behavior in China, the Philippines, Korea and in other places they occupied during World War II; to kill 10,000 civilians in one mass slaughter was nothing to the Japanese leadership. Anything to further Japan and the Emperor was fair game.

The spirit of the Antichrist is now working in the world and we are told that Satan will make war with the Church of Jesus Christ and his disciples.

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:9-17

If there ever was a time for prayer and fasting, now is the time. This is a time for all Christians to rise and proclaim the riches of Christ: salvation, healing, deliverance and eternal life in heaven for those whose sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus. May God give us strength, boldness and the anointing to stand, and having stood, to stand.

To be continued ...

1. Much of this is being dealt with in the 2003 issue of The Dove.

2. Stern was a Polish Jew born in 1907 at Suwalki, Poland, then under Russian occupation.

3. A militant Jewish youth organization founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1923 and at the third World convention had some 100,000 members spread out in 26 countries.

4. Mussolini was the fascist dictator of Italy allied with Adolf Hitler.

5. The irony in history is that when a peace agreement was reached, Jerusalem was divided into an Arab sector and a Jewish sector. It was not until the 1967 war that Israel took all of Jerusalem.