Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, has issued a public call from his home in Poland for Palestinian fighters to lay down their arms and make peace with Israel.
Edelman, 76, a cardiologist and human rights activist, published his appeal August 1 as an open letter in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborca, with a French translation appearing days later in Le Monde, the Paris daily. The full text appears in this week's Forward in English for the first time.
One of the only prominent Jews to remain in Poland throughout the communist era, Edelman emerged as a leading voice for democracy and human rights in recent decades. In recent years he has joined in several international appeals for human rights in Kosovo and elsewhere.
The letter prompted an angry rebuke from the Warsaw office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which replied in Gazeta Wyborca that Edelman had unfairly saddled the Palestinians with the bulk of the blame for the continuing violence in the Middle East, ignoring Israel's role as an occupying power.
Shortly afterward, Edelman told the Forward, he was visited at his home in Lodz by the chairman of the Polish-Arab Friendship Society, Omar Faris, who praised him for his initiative and offered to help move it forward.
It was not clear whether Edelman plans any further action beyond publication of his views.
His letter speaks of plans to seek support in his appeal from former president Bill Clinton, former French health minister Bernard Kouchner and German political activist Daniel Cohn-Bendit, but he declined to say what steps, if any, he planned to take.
Edelman sought to have his letter published in English this week after Israeli and Palestinian leaders concluded a fragile, partial cease-fire agreement, which appeared to confirm his view, articulated in the letter, that the success or failure of politicians' efforts would be determined in large part by the actions of gunmen on the ground.
"I do not make any distinction between terrorist and partisan," Edelman told the Forward. "The terms are interchangeable. A partisan or terrorist can be either moral or immoral. Bolivian partisans, for example, are involved in drug trafficking. Palestinian partisans engage in the intentional killing of women and children. I have no respect for this. It is immoral. And since it is immoral, it is bound to fail. The Palestinians themselves are beginning to realize this."
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Marek Edelman`s Letter "Neither Can Your War Attain Resolution"
http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.08.23/news8a.html
