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COURAGE FOR PEACE, NOT FOR WAR  
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Kathy Kelly
August 11, 2026
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_ What are the major threats we face? The list begins with the
possibility of nuclear annihilation. Next, possible ecological
collapse. Following this, we must prepare for new pandemics. And,
achingly, we must oppose genocide. War is not the answer. _

Swedish Red Cross outside their buses, Photo credit: Courtesy of the
Swedish Red Cross

 

_Can we escape the terrors of our time?_

In September of 2025, during a Saturday vigil in Stockholm’s
Odenplan Square, Isak Hernández, age nine, asked if he could recite a
poem he wrote. Deeply troubled by images he saw, day and night, from
Gaza, he resolved not to be silent. “Their lives are not numbers,”
Isak declared. “Their dreams are not ashes.” His refrain repeated:
“I won’t be silent,” and he begged the world, “Listen to
me.”

Isabella Lundgren, a Swedish jazz vocalist, heard Isak deliver his
poem. She felt his words had reverberated throughout Sweden. No one
could possibly turn away. Everyone, she said, bore the responsibility
of witnessing. She and Isak collaborated to turn his poem into a song
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are not ashes.”

Their witness is crucial for counteracting decisions on the part of
countries which have newly decided to enter NATO.

We should acknowledge that NATO has done nothing to stop the U.S.
provisioned Israeli genocide or to restrain Israel.

On the contrary, NATO seeks fuller integration of Israel’s
“security” into NATO strategies. What’s more, trade
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between Israel and European countries continues.

The Swedish government ought to argue that NATO must force Israel to
end their genocide of Palestinian people.

We should note that Israel possesses
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at least ninety-one thermonuclear weapons which it refuses to declare.
Each of these weapons would cause the death of at least six million
people - a Holocaust - in a can, waiting to be opened on human
civilization’s last day. A planetary omnicide comprising every
conceivable genocide, military analysts agree, is almost certain to
occur days, hours, or even minutes after any of these weapons are ever
again used.

Sadly, Sweden’s hurried entry into NATO in 2024, alongside the rise
of armaments industries and even support for nuclear weapons
acquisition, compromises Sweden’s historic capacity to resist the
rush into unimaginable genocides.

What are the major threats we all face? Surely, the list must begin
with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Next, we must reckon
with possible ecological collapse. Following this, we must prepare for
outbreaks of new pandemics. And, achingly, we must oppose genocide.
War is not the answer. Militarism exacerbates each of these threats.

Now, as corrupt political leaders extract the hard-earned resources of
people throughout Europe and pour those resources into bulging coffers
of, primarily, U.S. military contractors, it’s crucial to hear Isak
Hernández’s pledge not to be silent. We also can learn from the
legacy of Sweden’s heroic diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte.

 As Vice President of Sweden’s Red Cross, during World War II, he
witnessed
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first-hand how prisoners in concentration camps suffered. He resolved
to negotiate with SS leader Heinrich Himmler for the release of
prisoners. Bernadotte collaborated with Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian
relief groups to create the White Buses campaign
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Ultimately, they managed to free over 17,000 thousand prisoners from
concentration camps.

During World War II, Adolph Hitler, eager as current European leaders
for war with Russia, plainly aimed to eliminate the Jews in Europe. He
wanted to create “Grossedeutchland,” – “Greater Germany.”
The SS had turned into an immense bureaucracy under Himmler’s
control, systematically enacting Hitler’s hideous “final
solution.” Amid chaotic and extremely dangerous conditions
Bernadotte and his team steadily negotiated liberation and transport
of prisoners.

Sune Persson records, in _Escape from the Third Reich: Folke
Bernadotte and the White Buses, _the minutes from the May 13, 1945,
gathering of the Jewish Stockholm Community. The chairperson thanked
the Swedish Red Cross and Count Bernadotte:

“When the assembly now gathers here today, it is with a strong sense
of entering a new epoch. These recent times, darker than humanity has
ever known them, have reached a climax, so desperately coveted, and we
stand –yearning, inquiring, hopeful – on the threshold of a new
world…We would like to think at this moment of the admirable rescue
operation undertaken by the Swedish Red Cross, bringing thousands of
people – among them a considerable number of Jews – here to our
country, to liberation from the horrors of the concentration camps and
a terrible demise.”

But Bernadotte’s work on behalf of refugees and mediation wasn't
finished. After World War II, the United Nations Security Council
unanimously chose Bernadotte to be the UN Security Council mediator in
the Arab–Israeli conflict
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1947–1948.

Count Folke Bernadotte’s first report
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to the Secretary General outlined the desperate plight of Palestinian
refugees, nearly a quarter of whom, he wrote, “are simply camped out
and living under trees. In most places there was absolutely no
sanitary accommodation, and since water was drawn from surface
collections, and typhoid was endemic, grave possibilities in this
regard at this season of the year were likely.”

He surveyed destroyed Palestinian villages and witnessed long lines of
people waiting for food, scarce medical aid, and an ongoing
humanitarian disaster. He and U.S. diplomat Ralph Bunche wrote a
proposal to meet short-term and long-term needs of refugees. Their
plan would allow for fixed boundaries between the Israelis and the
Palestinians, with an economic union between the states and assurance
that Palestinian refugees could return.

“It would be an offence against the principles of elemental
justice,” Bernadotte wrote
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victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their
homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine.”

Boldly and truthfully, Bernadotte drew links between meeting
humanitarian needs and creating an environment in which peace could
take hold. He insisted the UN must respect the refugees’
“unconditional right to make a free choice.”

Bernadotte’s and Ralph Bunche’s report was submitted to the UN on
September 18, 1948, but Bernadotte did not live to present it in
person. On September 17, terrorists from an extremist Zionist group,
the Stern Gang, ambushed Bernadotte’s motorcade. They fired six
bullets into Bernadotte’s body. His colleague, the French Colonel
André Sérot was killed by seventeen bullets.

Count Bernadotte’s principled humanitarian work may have cost him
his life, but we can choose to continue his legacy.

It’s encouraging to know that the 2026 Stockholm Forum for Peace and
Development
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has recognized a fundamental reality: “many modern security risks,
from climate shocks to pandemics and cyber threats, do not have hard
security solutions and do not stop at borders. They are, however,
further exacerbated when geopolitical rivalries undermine cooperative
solutions.”

I hope Count Bernadotte’s inspiring life and Isak Hernández’s
compassionate insistence: “I won’t be silent,” will steer us as
we reckon with what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.”

_[KATHY KELLY ([email protected]__), Board President of World
BEYOND War, co-coordinated the November 2023 __Merchants of Death War
Crimes Tribunal_ [[link removed]]_. Since the Taliban
takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international
network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. With
Voices for Creative Nonviolence companions, she frequently visited war
zones in Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.]_

 

_Thanks to the authoer for submitting this to xxxxxx._

* Militarization
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* Holocaust
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* Gaza
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* Sweden
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* NATO
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* Count Folke Bernadotte
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* Stern Gang
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