HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  CRIMES      PLUNDER  PLUNDER BRAINS
Staff Writer   London Times   27-Apr-1998   How the Middle East was won
Mr Rubovitz also played a crucial role in Lehi's assassination of the Swedish UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, gunned down in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948 only days after presenting a revised blueprint to solve the Jewish-Arab conflict.  In a chilling revelation not previously published, Mr Rubovitz handed me the photograph of the languid-looking Count that he showed to the killers a few days before the attack.  ...  "He was a British stooge who wanted to give Jerusalem to King Abdullah of Jordan," Mr Rubovitz said, looking at the old print without a hint of compassion.  "He had to be killed.  There was no alternative."
The relevance of the London Times article further below to Ukrainian affairs is twofold, and can be stated succinctly.

First, as Israel is a favorite destination of Ukrainian scientists and engineers, they should be informed of the nature of the nation for which they are bound.  If the longevity of a state depends in part on its moral foundations, then Israel may be expected to have a short life expectancy because it is built on immoral foundations.  Ukrainian scientists and engineers, therefore, might be worse off in Ukraine in the short term, but worse off in Israel in the long term.

Second, the government of Ukraine in its dealings with Israel needs to appreciate the moral character of the people it is dealing with.  The Ukrainian businessman needs to understand the ideology in which the Israeli businessman with whom he negotiates has been nurtured.  The following article helps shed some light on that moral character and on that ideology.

The London Times article further below closes with the words: "He had to be killed.  There was no alternative."  Concerning this justification for murder � and in fact for every imaginable atrocity and evil � Akiva Orr makes the following observation:

Many Israelis refuse to admit that their society � and politics � are the outcome of their decisions and choices.  Cornered in a political discussion, they will argue: "that decision" (to start a war, occupation, massacre, etc) "was imposed upon us, we simply had no choice."  This is a standard way to evade responsibility for the consequences of your choice; you could choose differently � say, not to annex half the territory the UN allocated to the Palestinians in the 1947 Partition, or not to attack Egypt on 29 October 1956, and again on 5 June 1967....

To refer to all these decisions in terms of "we had no choice" is [for Israelis] a mental necessity.  There is an inability to face a situation to which blame may be attached.  For most Israelis blame is always on the other side, whether that side is Arab, parent, child, spouse, friend, or the other driver.  Many Israelis blame the Palestinians for atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers; "I hate the Arabs for forcing our boys to behave like animals," is a common phrase.  Who forces a soldier to shoot an unarmed demonstrator in the head?  (Akiva Orr, Israel: Politics, Myths and Identity Crises, Pluto Press, London and Boulder Colorado, 1994, ISBN 0-7453-0766-3, p. 58)

One wonders whether flashing through Count Bernadotte's mind as he was being assassinated was the incongruity between the services he had rendered the Jews, and their readiness to dispose of him as soon as he offered any attempt to confine their ambitions � and particularly when this confinement was so reasonable that it was likely to win sympathy among world powers.  What services had Bernadotte rendered the Jews?  References to him are scattered throughout Holocaust writing, as for example the following two:

On April 14, a Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, negotiated the release of the 423 Danish Jews who had been held, unharmed, at Theresienstadt, and they were returned to Denmark.  (Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy, Fontana/Collins, Glasgow, 1986, p. 796)

The relative contributions of both Bernadotte and Kersten in these rescue activities caused considerable controversy after the war.  In "Kersten, Himmler and Count Bernadotte," Atlantic Monthly, February 1953, pp. 43-45, the English historian H. R. Trevor-Roper challenged Bernadotte's alleged role and emphasized Kersten's.  However, in 1956, a Swedish Foreign Office White Paper was published which was critical of Trevor-Roper's interpretation and assigned Bernadotte a more central role.  (Nora Levin, The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1968, p. 744)

Since Jews have begun coming forward to receive kudos for their role in the assassination of Count Bernadotte, one wonders why the assassin himself � the one who actually pulled the trigger � does not finally step forward to receive Israeli gratitude for having saved Israel from United Nations hampering of its imperialistic expansion.



London Times
April 27 1998

MIDDLE EAST
�

How I helped to blow up the King David Hotel


THE murderous terror attacks that eroded Britain's resolve to continue its Mandate over Palestine and hastened the creation of Israel, were assisted by a Jewish spy operating inside British military headquarters in Jerusalem.

Now 81, but possessing an uncanny recall of those turbulent years, David Shalom Rubovitz told The Times in an exclusive interview that he felt no remorse, and that he had advised leaders of the Stern Gang, the most bloodthirsty of the Jewish terror groups, to step up their campaign against British targets.

"I knew the mentality of the British.  You had to strike at them physically," said the former mole who was in charge of the transport section at British headquarters in the King David Hotel from 1945 until discharged in 1948, as his papers show, "due to the closing down of this HQ".

Mr Rubovitz, whose undercover role has been confirmed by senior Jewish underground sources, spoke in impeccable English in his cramped flat in the religious Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak.  "I knew that the British would not want to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their men for either the Arabs or the Jews."

His claims about Britain's declining will to continue the Mandate for Palestine begun in 1922 � in which the territory was placed under British administration by the League of Nations � is confirmed by many historians.

Mr Rubovitz, a mild-mannered man with an infectious laugh, makes an unlikely spy.  He was recruited to Lehi, the Hebrew acronym for the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel � one of whose most ruthless leaders was Yitzhak Shamir, the future right-wing Prime Minister, � by a 16-year-old girl, Yael Ben-Dov.

"She arrived at my house early one morning and persuaded me to use my place on the vital seventh floor of the King David to bring about the humiliation and departure of the British imperial power," recalled Mr Rubovitz.  He had the codename "Yigal" and in 1981 was presented with the Defence Ministry medal awarded by Menachem Begin, then Prime Minister and formerly leader of the rival IZL (Irgun) terrorist group.

Mr Rubovitz disclosed how he operated without ever attracting British suspicion.  "Whenever I came across an interesting statement � particularly in the classified fortnightly intelligence reports to which I had easy access � I used to copy it on the spot ...  I would later meet Yael at various places away from the eyes of the British and give her the information."

The spy, who still carries discharge papers describing his conduct as exemplary and his work for the British forces as "very satisfactory", remains bitter about Britain's conduct and the alleged bias of many Mandate officials against the Jews.  "I am happy you British went," he said.  "You never did anything good here."

He said that by far the most important document which he copied was a fortnightly report which appeared in September 1946, two months after the horrific IZL bomb attack on the King David using booby-trapped milk churns, which killed 91 people, 28 of them Britons.  It contained an assessment which he can still quote verbatim: "(a) The constant murderous attacks of Stern may, if increased, cause His Majesty's Government to reconsider their position in the country; (b) There is no doubt that this gang is the most dangerous element in the Middle East that our forces have to face."

Mr Rubovitz said that the circulation of this intelligence assessment did much to boost the morale of the Stern fighters.  "When I gave it to Yael to be passed on to the Stern commanders, then living under cover in Tel Aviv, I made the point to them that he who tired first would be the loser."  A year later the British were on their way home.

Asked why he had chosen to discuss his role, Mr Rubovitz � who knew in advance about the King David attack, which also killed 41 Arabs and 17 Jews � said: "I think people in Britain and Israel are entitled to know, once and forever, one of the main reasons why the British Government quit Palestine when it did and the Jewish state was established."

Mr Rubovitz also played a crucial role in Lehi's assassination of the Swedish UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, gunned down in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948 only days after presenting a revised blueprint to solve the Jewish-Arab conflict.  In a chilling revelation not previously published, Mr Rubovitz handed me the photograph of the languid-looking Count that he showed to the killers a few days before the attack.

The plan would have partitioned Palestine, giving Jerusalem and the Negev to Jordan, and allowed Israel to keep western Galilee.  "He was a British stooge who wanted to give Jerusalem to King Abdullah of Jordan," Mr Rubovitz said, looking at the old print without a hint of compassion.  "He had to be killed.  There was no alternative."

[End]

HOME  DISINFORMATION  PEOPLE  CRIMES      PLUNDER  PLUNDER BRAINS