|
|
August 16, 2002/Elul 8 5762, Vol. 54, No. 48
Warsaw Ghetto leader urges Palestinians to halt attacks
RUTH E. GRUBER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
ROME - The last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has called on Palestinians to halt their attacks on Israeli civilians and start talks with Israeli leaders.
But Dr. Marek Edelman's appeal - published last week as an open letter in Poland's leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza - has drawn criticism from some Jews because Edelman never used the word "terrorism."
He also appears to evoke comparisons between today's Palestinian gunmen and the outnumbered Warsaw Ghetto fighters who made a brave but futile fight against the Nazis in 1943.
"There is no need for such a comparison," Pnina Frymer-Greenspan, who fought under Edelman in Warsaw, told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz.
Edelman, 81, addressed his letter not to Palestinian politicians, but "to all the commanders of Palestinian military, paramilitary and guerrilla organizations; to all the soldiers in Palestinian combatant organizations.
"My name is Marek Edelman; I am the former vice commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization; I am one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising," he went on, establishing his credentials both as a Jew and as a guerrilla fighter.
He recalled how in 1943, "we fought for the life of Jewish society in Warsaw. We fought solely for life, not for territory and not for national identity ... our weapons were never aimed at a defenseless civilian population. We did not kill women and children."
"The war you are fighting will also lead to nowhere," he wrote. "Once again, blood will be spilled needlessly and people on both sides will lose their lives."
Edelman obliquely criticized the Palestinian use of suicide bombers, saying that the ghetto fighters "never gambled with our lives. We never sent our soldiers to a certain death; after all, you only live once. A man must not take another's life."
Edelman is a prominent figure in Poland because of his World War II history and his more recent years as a political activist.
Despite his anti-Zionism, he has visited Israel several times.
|
