Letter to Palestinian military organizations
Marek Edelman, leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 2002
As questions about antisemitism and the Palestinian question continues to inundate the Israeli propaganda channels, here is an open letter that Marek Edelman, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising wrote in 2002 addressed to the Palestinian armed organisations fighting against the Israeli occupation. Edelman, a son of the Bund, remained a staunch anti-zionist to his death.
He saw Israel as a morally bankrupt nationalists project in the image and likeness of Nazism and Fascism and consistency expressed sympathy and support for the Palestinian armed struggle, which he saw as consistent with his own fight in the days of German occupation. He also saw Zionism and its European agents as complicit in the mass murder of millions of Jews.
Marek Edelman, who died in Poland in 2009, was an almost unknown figure in Israel and partly because of his opposition to Zionism and his life in communist Poland, his name never reached the notoriety that his friend and commander, Mordechai Anielewicz, who was killed during the uprising. And yet, it is precisely the Bundist legacy of Edelman and his commitment to a universalist judaism which makes him perhaps one of the most important anti-Zionist Jews of the 20th century.
To all the leaders of Palestinian military, paramilitary and guerilla organizations
To all the soldiers of Palestinian militant groups:
My name is Marek Edelman, I am a former Deputy Commander of the Jewish Military Organization in Poland, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Insurrection. In the memorable year of the insurrection—1943—we were fighting for the survival of the Jewish community in Warsaw. We were fighting for mere life, not for territory, nor for a national identity. We were fighting with a hopeless determination, but our weapons were never directed against the defenseless civilian populations, we never killed women and children, In a world devoid of principles and values, despite a constant danger of death, we did remain faithful to these values and moral principles.
We were isolated in our fight, and yet the powerful opposing army was not able to destroy these barely armed boys and girls.
Our fight in Warsaw lasted several weeks, later we fought in the Underground and in the Warsaw insurrection of 1944.
Yet nowhere in the world can a guerilla force bring conclusive victory, [and] nowhere can it be defeated by [powerful] armies, Neither can your war attain any resolution. Blood will be spilled in vain and lives will be lost on both sides.
We have never been careless with life. We have never sent our soldiers to certain death. Life is one for eternity. Nobody has the right to mindlessly take it away. It is high time for everybody to understand just that.
Just look around you, Look at Ireland. After 50 years of bloody war, peace has arrived. Formerly deadly enemies have set down at a common table. Look at Poland... Without a shot being fired, the criminal communist system has been defeated. Both You and the State of Israel have to radically change your attitude. You have to want peace in order to save the lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people, and to create a better future for your loved ones, for your children. I know from my own experience that the current unfolding of events depends on you, the Military Leaders... You are wise and intelligent enough to understand that without peace there is no future for Palestine, and that peace can be attained only at the cost of both sides agreeing to some concessions.