American Zionist and non-Zionist leaders today expressed grief, horror and indignation upon receipt of the news of the assassination of U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem.
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, declared: “Every right thinking person will be horrified by the news of the assassination of Count Bernadotte and Col. Serot in Jerusalem. This shameful and dastardly crime is aggravated by reason of the fact that the lives of the Count and the French observer, representative as they were of the authority of the United Nations, should have been inviolate. It comes as the culmination of a series of outraged directed against U.N. personnel, including the murder of Mr. Wasson the American consul in Jerusalem, and of the two French U.N. observers at the hands of Saudi Arabians as well as of two other U.N. officials. We await further details concerning the identity of the assassins of the Count and Col. Serot.”
Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, stated: “The American Jewish Committee has received with grief and horror the news of the brutal assassination of Count Bernadotte and his aide, Col. Serot. Count Bernadotte was struck down while trying to establish peace and avoid further bloodshed in Palestine. His murder is a crime vocative of all that decent men hold dear. If the assassins and their instigators are within the jurisdiction of the state of Israel we are confident that the Israeli Government will brine then speedily to justice. Whatever their nationality those murderers should be made to pay the penalty for their crimes without delay.”
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared in a statement that “the dastardly assassination of Count Bernadotte and his French observer Col. Serot is most shocking.” He emphasized that Zionist leaders be promptly apprehended and brought to justice.” (Other statements received too late to be included in this issue of the Bulletin will be published in the next.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
