Warsaw hero backed Palestinian resistance

Ma'an
Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of World War II's Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, died on Friday. He was 86.

Obituaries in the Hebrew press have celebrated Edelman's role in anti-SS resistance organizations, as well as his leadership during the 1944 uprising in Poland's Warsaw Ghetto.

...Edelman's forces took control of the Warsaw Ghetto for 63 days, during which time militants built dozens of military barriers...

An expert and author on wartime resistance and occupation, Edelman gained further notoriety locally through his limited but vocal support for Palestine's resistance movement. In 2002, during Fatah leader Marwan Bargouthi's trial, the Warsaw freedom fighter addressed a letter to "commanders of the Palestinian military, paramilitary and partisan operations – to all the soldiers of the Palestinian fighting organizations."

Penned in the tone of one partisan to another, his message sent shock waves through the Israeli press and infuriated its government...

...Edelman predicted that Palestinian military commanders would never be defeated by unarmed political leaders...

"I know from my own experience that the current unfolding of events depends on you, the military leaders. The influence of political and civilian actors is much smaller," he offered.

... "Edelman had always resented Israel's claim on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as a symbol of Jewish liberation," wrote the London-based newspaper The Independent in its Wednesday obituary. "Now he said this belonged to the Palestinians... The old Jewish anti-Nazi Ghetto fighter had placed his immense moral authority at the disposal of the only side he deemed worthy of it." Full story