Count Folke Bernadotte: A reputation restored
Nigel Jones celebrates a great humanitarian who navigated the perilous paths between good and evil, a mission that was to cost him his life.
.jpg "Count Folke Bernadotte a few months before his death (Getty Images).")
On September 17th, 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte, the first of many United Nations mediators assigned the thankless task of attempting to find a peaceful solution to the seemingly intractable problem of hostility in the Middle East, was assassinated in Jerusalem. He had arrived in the city on a mission to establish a ceasefire between the Arabs and the newly proclaimed state of Israel. His killers were members of the extremist Jewish group Lehi – often called ‘the Stern Gang’ – who had already murdered several British officials and soldiers administering the mandated territory of Palestine before the birth of Israel.
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