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Bernadotte's Testament:
An Analysis of the Mediator's Recommendations
- Abstract
The first document from Palestine to reach the UN Assembly in Paris after Bernadotte’s Report—or testament—was a cable from Dr. Bunche, the acting Mediator, charging the government of Israel with responsibility for the Count’s assassination. The crime had been committed in territory explicitly assigned to Israeli jurisdiction. This cable was greatly resented in Israeli circles, but it is difficult to imagine what else Bernadotte’s temporary successor could have said. The fault did not lie with him—he had to do his duty by making a report—but in the outrage itself.
The Stem gang claimed the “merit” of the murder, and the Israeli government took vigorous action against it, but people in the UN still wondered whether the local authorities on the spot had not shown negligence in face of the open threats made against Bernadotte by the terrorists. And surprise was expressed that the government had not accompanied its condemnation of the crime with some immediate and drastic gesture such as the suspension—at least temporarily—of the officials responsible for public safety in the area affected, or an investigation of responsibility on higher levels. In some UN delegations it was even murmured after a while that the measures taken to seek out the assassins were perhaps inadequate.
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