Bibi Netanyahu continues his (vain)glorious attempt to ride roughshod over Jewish history with his recent speech to the World Jewish Congress. By now, you’ve heard the Israeli leader’s false claim that it was Hajj Amin al-Hussein, not Hitler himself, who planted the idea of exterminating European Jewry. Bibi even manages to quote their entire conversation, which is quite a historical feat considering there is no historical record whatsoever of what they actually said.
Chemi Shalev tweeted that the false claim offered by Bibi that Hitler only wanted to expel, but not exterminate the Jews was advanced by none other than infamous Holocaust-denier, David Irving. Which puts Bibi in the dubious position of earning the respect and admiration of neo-Nazis everywhere, including this “panegyric” from Daily Stormer.
What have we come to when we find Israel’s prime minister in agreement with neo-Nazis? It’s so shocking the neo-Nazis themselves can’t believe it.
Others have written well refuting the false perversity of his account and linking it to the Israeli far-right’s obsession with turning Arabs into Jew haters. One point I want to mention that others have not is that Hitler’s will to exterminate Jews didn’t originate with a single meeting with a single individual. It is there in the pages of Mein Kampf, written in the late 1920s and he nurtured and developed the idea further as he came to power. He didn’t need anyone to persuade him to commit genocide. Nor was Husseini the sort of leader who would even have such a sweeping vision.
Husseini had a very particular and narrow focus. He wasn’t interested in exterminating Jews. He wanted to prevent Jews from populating Palestine. He sought leverage against them. He wanted an insurance policy in case Hitler won.
There is little difference between what he did, and what the Irgun did in negotiating with the Nazis; and the Haavara Agreement, negotiated by the Yishuv leadership with the Nazis. Each of them believed the enemy of my enemy might be my friend. Thus Britain, as occupying colonial power, was seen as the enemy. Britain’s enemy might be their friend.
In addition, the Zionists were desperate to fill their ranks with Jewish refugees from Europe. A bargain with the devil for a few thousands Jewish souls seemed a risk worth taking. But don’t forget that in doing so, the Yishuv broke the anti-Nazi boycott founded by American Jewry. Haavara gave the Nazis much needed cash and equipment that could fund the militarization drive Hitler ordered. It’s also little-known that the Yishuv transferred nearly $700-million (in today’s dollars) between Germany and Palestine, which gave the struggling German economy a huge shot in the arm.
The leader of the Irgun who approved negotiations with German representatives was none other than Yitzhak Shamir, a future Likud Israeli prime minister.
So, if we wish to review the real historical record, as opposed to a Likudist fantasy version, we must examine the culpability of both sides in collaborating with the Nazis.
But I want to move in a different direction and link Bibi’s mangling of this part of the historical record with other instances in which he’s trashed Jewish history. The Israeli prime minister actually wrote a book (who knew?). Not a good book, but a book. A bit of shameless hucksterism called, A Place Under the Sun, not to be confused with the Hollywood version of Theodore Dreiser’s, An American Tragedy, called A Place in the Sun.
Naturally, this portion of the book portrays alleged Arab collusion with the Nazis. A sharp Israeli, living in Germany no less, printed a page from the book on Facebook and noted that in just a single sentence Bibi made no less than three errors. Bibi’s sentence reads:
Egypt can boast of a worthy trove of war criminals, like the SS Gen. Oskar Derlewanger, who murdered thousands of Jews in Ukraine and was made Nasser’s chief of security.
Ron Leyser retorts that Derlewanger was a colonel, not a general. That the SS officer never stepped foot in Ukraine (though he did murder Jews and Poles elsewhere). And finally that Derlewanger died in 1945, well before Nasser ever came to power. If there ever was a politician who murdered truth, it has to be Bibi.
Not for no reason, Sara Hirschhorn titled her Haaretz op-ed on this episode, The Death of Historical Truth. Netanyahu is no stranger to such acts of negligent historical homicide. About the BDS movement, which he called the “delegitimization campaign, he likens it to the ancient anti-Semitic blood libel:
They accused us of being the source of the world’s evil, they said we poison the wells of humanity, that we drink the blood of little children.
…What’s involved in this international de-legitimization campaign against Israel is bound up in something much deeper that…seeks to negate our right to live here.
Today’s activists on behalf of Palestinian rights are no different from those who accused us of drinking the blood of Christian babies.
Bibi’s tangential relationship to historical truth is ironic in one major way. His father, Ben Zion Netanyahu, was once the personal secretary to Zeev Jabotinsky. Later he became a noted historian of medieval Spain, who taught for many years at Cornell. My inquiries about his work brought a response from a fellow academic that he was thought to be quite tendentious and not particularly well-respected. Regardless, when your father was a historian and you play fast and loose with Jewish history, it says something about who you are. That you are willing to betray everything for political benefit. That history is nothing more than a magician drawing a rabbit from his hat. You draw out of it whatever you need without regard to facts or truth.
This, sad to say, is what contemporary Zionism has become: a farce of epic proportions. An ideology that bowdlerizes history for partisan purposes. Which tramples on the memory of Jewish martyrs in order to gain and maintain political power. There will come a day when Jews and the world turn their backs on such a travesty. When Likudism is consigned to the dustbin of history. I don’t know if it will come in my time. But I hope to see it.
H/t to Ofer Neiman and Ronnnie Barkan for research assistance.
“Husseini had a very particular and narrow focus. He wasn’t interested in exterminating Jews.”
Mmmm…I’m not so sure.
Only a few months separated the 1941 Baghdad pogrom from the Mufti’s 90 minute meeting with Hitler.
The Mufti was heavily involved in the April 1941 failed coup d’etat in Iraq. That Nazi inspired coup attempt devolved into the Farhud, the Baghdad pogrom that claimed the lives of nearly 200 Jews.
If Hussein had a ‘very particular and narrow focus’, than why was he promoting instability and slaughter in faraway Iraq?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lyn-julius/demons-of-the-farhud-are-_b_7427494.html
@ Hopper: I have no reason to believe anything you say regarding Husseini, especially w/o any historical evidence or sources. Nor is Lyn Julius a credible source. She embraces an Islamophobic agenda.
“..the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, leader of the Arab community in Mandate Palestine, organized a blood-curdling massacre by Nazi-allied Arabs against Baghdad’s peaceful Jewish community on June 1-2, 1941. The ensuing mass rape, beheading, murder, burning, and looting spree was the first step in a process that throughout the Arab world effectively ended 2,600 years of Jewish existence in those lands.”–Edwin Black, author of,The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/opinion/fl-jjps-black-0624-20150626-story.html
http://www.amazon.com/The-Farhud-Arab-Nazi-Alliance-Holocaust/dp/0914153145
“The Mufti was heavily involved in the April 1941 failed coup d’etat in Iraq.”
I find that difficult to believe. Baghdad was outside his geographical range. In any case the coup wasn’t a failure; it succeeded. Only it attracted a British military invasion.
Did the Mufti tell the Nazis to exterminate the Jews? Very, very doubtful.
Still, Eichmann’s deputy, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny testified during the course of the Nurember trials. Heresay quotes (2) Wisliceny as having said that the Mufti was involved in the Holocaust.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=181493
Also;
“According to the report, on November 28, 1941, Adolf Hitler told Husseini that the Afrika Korps would “liberate” Arabs in the Middle East and that “Germany’s only objective there would be the destruction of the Jews.”– Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence and the Cold War, was prepared on the basis of thousands of documents declassified under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
You do not need to be Freud to see that this nonsence about al-Husseini fills a deep psychological need in the Israeli psyche. What a relief it would be if the Palestinians deserved to be robbed and expelled. It would make them feel all warm and fuzzy and very moral inside.
No one reputable attaches any credibility to Wisliceny’s testimony regarding Husseini, none of which could be independently verified.
@pea
Wisilceny didn’t testify at Nuremburg that Husseini was involved.
Two witnesses, a Nazi named Steiner, and the the Jewish emissary, Rudolf Kastner, both swore affidavits that said that Wisilceny told them that Husseini was involved. Hardly evidence, but still, it could be true.
Correction: Steiner was also a Jewish emissary.
I can only cite the Wikipedia entry on Husseini and Wisilceny:
“At the Nuremberg trials, one of Adolf Eichmann’s deputies, Dieter Wisliceny, stated that al-Husseini had actively encouraged the extermination of European Jews, and that he had had an elaborate meeting with Eichmann at his office, during which Eichmann gave him an intensive look at the current state of the “Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” by the Third Reich. The allegation is dismissed by most serious historians.[181] A single affidavit by Rudolf Kastner reported that Wisliceny told him that he had overheard Husseini say he had visited Auschwitz incognito in Eichmann’s company.[182] Eichmann denied this at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. He had been invited to Palestine in 1937 with his superior Hagen by a representative of the Haganah, Feival Polkes,[183] Polkes supported German foreign policy in the Near East and offered to work for them in intelligence. Eichmann and Hagen spent one night in Haifa but were refused a visa to stay any longer.[184] They met Polkes in Cairo instead.[184][185] Eichmann stated that he had only been introduced to al-Husseini during an official reception, along with all other department heads. The Jerusalem court accepted Wisliceny’s testimony about a key conversation between Eichmann and the mufti,[186] and found as proven that al-Husseini had aimed to implement the Final Solution.[187] Hannah Arendt, who was present at the trial, concluded in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, that the evidence for an Eichmann- al-Husseini connection was based on rumour and unfounded.[188][189]
Rafael Medoff concludes that ‘actually there is no evidence that the Mufti’s presence was a factor at all; the Wisliceny hearsay is not merely uncorroborated, but conflicts with everything else that is known about the origins of the Final Solution.'[190] Bernard Lewis also called Wisliceny’s testimony into doubt: ‘There is no independent documentary confirmation of Wisliceny’s statements, and it seems unlikely that the Nazis needed any such additional encouragement from the outside.'[191] Bettina Stangneth called Wisliceny’s claims “colourful stories” that “carry little weight”.[192]”
Husseini was still a Nazi collaborator par excellence but the notion that he had any important role in the final solution is laughable. That’s why there’s a pretty extensive meme campaign making fun of Netanyahu and his idiot “Netanyahu-can-do-no-wrong” supporters.
Thanks Pea.
And anyway Hopper, Husseini was not elected by the Palestinians but appointed by the British, so go blame the Brits for the Holocaust.
@pea: I think this may the first time I’ve ever agreed with a comment you’ve published here. Wonders never cease!
No Richard. I’m pretty sure you agree with me on other stuff. Off the top of my head I remember the whole Martin Buber / Edward Said house thing. You came around and corrected yourself. You also once stated that in Israel, people knock each other on the head with toy hammers on Purim. I corrected you and stated that this happens on Yom Haatzmaut and you didn’t argue back which I assumed meant you agreed. There’s also the recurring settlers-with-AK47s thing – I don’t know if you still believe settlers pack Russian hardware (they haven’t in decades) but yeah. Conclusion? Bibi is ridiculous. Oh man. Now my overlords at the Hasbarah Ministry are going to be SO pissed at me!
Kidding!!!!
So, Hopper. I suppose if we can trot out some “heresay quotes” from some leaders of the past (good and bad) who have stated how terrible Jews are and how Jews are the scourge of the Earth, we should “Still” consider them as evidence of fact?
I am curious, have you ever used such odious and tenuous threads against Israel, its behavior or its existence?
A “yes” would astonish me.
@Jaffar
I said that the affidavits were not evidence.
I also said, ‘Did the Mufti tell the Nazis to exterminate the Jews? Very, very doubtful.’
I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
Even if one was to consider seriously the supposed content of this exchange between Hitler and Husseini, and thus consider Bibi as a reliable source, one would then have to consider Husseini as quite illiterate in matters of Islamic theology and tradition.
My point is not to question the fact whether or not Husseini wanted the Jews to be mass-murdered (there is enough literature on this topic), but how – according to Bibi – he did envisage this genocide to be carried out : that is the supposed Mufti´s reply to an Hitler wondering about what to do with Jews : “Burn them”…
Most Muslims are familiar with the fact that Allah is referred as “the Lord of the Fire” and that using fire to kill or punish is a right – if not a “privilege” that belongs to Allah. That is why death by burning has always been rather rare in the Islamic world, while pretty common elsewhere. Many haddeeths supporting this -somewhat – prohibition – “No one may punish using fire other than the Lord of the Fire (Allah).”
That is why death by fire doesnt appear as possible punishment in the Hudud category (defining “crimes againt God” according to the Quran and the Hadiths…a remark : being Jew doesnt appear to be a “crime against God” according to Islamic theology, thus not a punishable crime)… Yet, there are divergences about the use of fire, but that usually relates to the Qisas subcategory in Islamic jurisprudence, that is to make it short retributive justice, and usually that does apply to Muslim-Muslim cases, not to cases involving non-Muslims.
Point is : the use of fire as a way to kill has never been a common practice in the Islamic world, nor a punishment supported by the Islamic tradition (even found some Muslim clerics considering electricity as a form of fire and thus forbidding even those electrical devices used to kill mosquitos and other bugs) . So to consider that the Mufti would have specified such specific way to exterminate the Jews, either just does prove even more that Bibi cant even come up with a lie somewhat consistent, or that the Mufti was quite an illiterate in matters of Islamic tradition and jurisprudence – if not an heretic. Thus the whole Bibi “demonstration” of Palestinian/Muslim historical guilt by instigation, after years of propagating the idea of a supposed Palestinian/Muslim guilt by association, falls apart…no eminent Sunni cleric would call for the death by fire of innocent people, whether Jews or not…even the psychos of Daesh had to twist all possible theological references they could find to justify their odious burning of the Jordanian pilot (that is their justification needed to refer to both the category of Qisas (retaliation in kind : bombing > burning) and the accusation of apostasy … )
Well, I did not expect my message to be so long, and I apologize for that. Thing is sometimes a tiny detail as this “Burn them” can be quite revealing…Death by fire might be a common image in the Christian and Jewish world, and thus in the psyche of Occidentals and Jewish people but in the Islamic world it is rather exceptional, thats why either that young Tunisian immolating himself or the Jordanian pilot killed by fire can be so disturbing/powerful for Muslim psyches…auto-da-de and heretics burned alive on stakes are not really part of the Islamic collective memory… but for sure, that speaks to either an Occidental or Jewish audience..I guess he whole point of Bibi was to make sure that now everybody knows about Husseini, as from my own experience, except for people really interested in this conflict and the historical background, Husseini is rather unknown…that points to some kind of despair, a lunatic form of despair, but yet despair…
That is interesting about the “burn them” claim when there’s been quite a bit of burning of Palestinians under Netanyahu’s watch.
The following must not be interpreted as my defense of Hitler’s policies towards Jews. It is merely one aspect of a complex history.
Hitler’s first biographer Konrad Heiden reports that Hitler’s and those of some of his cronies during the early days of the Nazi regime vacillated in their views towards Jews who had served in the Kaiser’s armies in WW1 like Hitler had himself especially if they had volunteered like my Jewish dad. This vacillation with regards to German military service continued to at least the spring of 1942 during which period all men with one or two Jewish grand parents were drafted into the Wehrmacht. Some were even generals such as Erhardt Milch. That policy was ended for most when the Wehrmacht was stopped at Moscow, a disaster which Hitler blamed on the so-called “halbjuden” in the armed forces. Many of these soldiers would have been considered full Jews by Netanyahu. Milch was allowed to stay on.
After the war I learned from Erich Wollenberg, an exile, who had returned and had begun to work for the West-German government that the last Nazi/SS order for persons with one or two Jewish grandparents and a non-Jewish mother was as follows. At age 21 we would become adults hence would no longer be under the protection of our mothers. We would be given the choice between sterilization or concentration camp.
Incidentally Himmler considered us to be more dangerous than full Jews because our genes held the cunning of the Jew and the courage of the Aryan! A very dangerous mix!
Lenni Brenner – Zionist collaboration with the Nazis – http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/12/23/51-documents/
Isn’t ironic that the German leader corrected Bibi Netanyahu about who was really responsible of the ‘Holocaust.
The leader of the same country that caused the Holocaust before and during 2nd.World War.
Angela Merkel corrected Bibi’s allegation and claim by telling him that Germans are the ones who’re responsible for the Holocaust, and his story is pure fiction.
Bibi in his speech reduced Hitler to be just a deputy of Palestinians Mufti that he had to ask the Palestinian Mufti “What shall I do with Jews” ..? according to Bibi, then the Mufti told Hitler to’brun’ the ‘Jews”…!!!
It sounds ridiculous because Hitler started his campaign against Jews years before he met Palestinians Mufti in 1941.
First some basic historical facts,Bibi seems to leave out.
The Mufti was appointed by Herbert Samuel(A Jew),the British High Commisioner for Palestine.
Samuel worked very closely with Rothschild to convince the British Government and shape the Balfour Declaration before he went to Palestine.
The Mufti was out of office by 1937,long before his meeting with Hitler in 1941.
More important is the question why Bibi opens the sewer of WW2 Revisionism,and why now.
Anything coming out of this will only corner Jews outside Israel and the amount of articles in Israeli media about anti-Semitism in Europe and Jews running to Israel is flooding the Internet.
Is he just trying to whip up more anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe and the US,just like 1897 Zionists were doing before WW2,in order to force Jews to Israel?
Off topic: Yussi Elon Shahak?
1. Just read Norman Finkelstein’s “Beyond Chutzpah” a week ago. Here’s a pertinent quote:
“At an April 2004 meeting in Toronto, Hoenlein told the audience that it wasn’t Hitler but the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem who wanted to kill the jews and, reluctantly, “Hitler followed the wishes of the Mufti.” ”
so was this lie “made in Israel” or “made in the USA”? Cause to me it seems like the Bibi just followed the wishes of the Malcolm (or the Sheldon)
2. Small correction – Mein Kampf was written in the EARLY 20’s.
The good news is that it is now socially acceptable to ask what other whoppers Israel has been telling the world all along!
As a regular reader of your site ,I know where you stand,and I agree with most of your views on zionism.
I’m happy you haven’t take the bait on this one.
It’s a nasty one,multi-layered.
It’s good there are people representing the view of many Jews,like me,who are not allowed to speak.
We’re anti-Semites,you know.
Richard,
I might understand you spamming my comment to Michael,but in my first comment I’m copying what’s written in the Jewish Virtual Library.
Even you are forced to start adressing the unkosher connections and deals between pre-Israel Zionists and the Nazi’s.
So why is that comment gone?
Is this personal,or are you just angry I’ve been mentioning and warning about this stuff years ago?
@ shacalnur: Don’t get your knickers in a knot. If you publish comments here using an IP address my spam filter doesn’t recognize, then you’ll be moderated till I approve that comment, which I did.
I have written about the Mufti’s supposed role in the planning of the holocaust several times – here
(https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/12/30/שקרי-שואה/comment-page-1/) and at. Mondoweiss where i have repeated the comment today. So here I just want to draw attention to the amazing fact that Bibi’s lies are so checkable. Of the Mufti’s conversation with Hitler there is no transcript (no obstacle to Bibi who “quoted” him) but there is one of Wisliceny’s testimony (for the prosecution) at Nuremberg. It was given on 3 January 1946 and it didn’t refer to the Mufti at all as anyone can check up for him/herself because it is online.
Bibi is probably mendacious “by nature” (or does his stern father have something to do with it) but we should also take into account the fact that “lying for their country” has now become a widespread Israeli habit – there is so much to dissemble, so much to lie about.
Akenson, in a perceptive study I have mentioned before, compares in this regard apartheid South Affrica and Israel, a comparison in which the Afrikaners come off best. This is what he says:
“The cumulative impact of the Israeli government upon the lives of the Palestinian Arabs was substantially the same as was the impact of apartheid upon the lives of the nonwhites of South Africa: a dual labor market operated, restrictions on place of residence and work applied, homes and villages were destroyed and almost all the decent agricultural land of the country was seized, strict “pass” or “travel permit” laws were enforced, there was no access to the political process except as collaborators with the regime, civil rights were severely restricted, and access to state welfare programs was greatly reduced for the minority. Yet Israel’s system in one crucial aspect was different from South Africa’s. Unlike the South Africans who refused to dissemble, the Israelis decided “to stand up and lie like white men” (in P.j. O’Rourke’s corrosive phrase). The appropriation of Palestinian lands and the economic, social, and often residential segregation of the indigene was never labeled as such. Always “redemption,” or “security” or similar words were employed.”
(Donald Harman Akenson, “God’s Peoples – Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster”, Cornell University Press, 1992, p.242)
Bibi’s re-structuring of history should not surprise anyone, especially anyone who is even remotely familiar with the “laws” and “reasons” Israelis have employed to dispossess Palestinians. I see an unfortunate but rather successful campaign by the Blindly pro-Israel folks that has brought Bibi to this breath-taking placement of a non-entity (El-Husseini) as the puppet-master of Hitler himself.
The “Grand Mufti” has been bandied unashamedly by the pro-Israeli propagandists for a long time. They elevated El-Husseini from a much of a nobody who actually had no commanding following even in Jerusalem, to “The Grand Mufti” whose slightest signal could rally the entire Muslim body. This “Grand Mufti” has been made the embodiment of all the hate we Muslims are supposed to feel for Jews in general and his example has been used, over-used and abused, to prove to the world how deep runs the “Anti-Semitism” among Muslims. Of course, in order to demonstrate how demonic the “Islamic Hate” runs, the Blindly pro-Israelis had to elevate the fellow to stratospheric heights.
The focus has always been to establish the deeply-rooted “connection” between Islam (Muslims) and “Anti-Semitism” the plan is to make it such a deep issue that it becomes an existential one for Jews to try to destroy Arabs in particular and Muslims in general. It is in this single-minded warpath that the Blind allies of Israel have expanded the “reality” of Muslim hate of Jews to the new “fact” that it was actually a MUSLIM who conceived and launched the Shoah. It may be stupid, but it is brilliant because there are plenty of Jews…sincere Jews, who do not question the “facts” placed before them, as long as Israel’s “security” is guaranteed.
None of these Blindly pro-Israel groups have EVER, to my knowledge, brought up the fact that the Hindu General Subhas Chander Bose (“Netaji”), actually led an Army of Indians who overran Burma and parts of India in their efforts to dislodge the accursed British rule. Netaji was actually in close contact with the top leaderships of Germany (Hitler and his circle) and Japan and received active military and financial support from both. Today, Netaji is a revered figure of the great movement to oust the British, much respected in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. So, I suppose that now establishes the entrenched “hatred” of Jews by Muslims AND Hindus thus, the existential picture of The Embattled Jew is now complete; The whole world wants to destroy Jews!
@Jaffar
“They elevated El-Husseini from a much of a nobody who actually had no commanding following even in Jerusalem”
But El-Husseini did help to recruit a 20,000 man SS Division made up mostly of Bosnian Muslims.
And, the Mufti formed the ‘Arab Committee’, whose military leader would be Fawzi Al-Qawuqji. Al Qawuqji had followed the Mufti from Lebanon to Iraq in October, 1939. The other members of Hussein’s Iraq entourage, included Jamal al-Husayni, Rafiq al-Tamimi, and Sheikh Hasan Salama, all of whom would become leaders of the Palestinian resistance during the 1948 war.
I’d say that El-Husseini had considerable military influence.
Wow Hopper, the ‘Grand Mufti’ had no less than four (4!) Palestinian followers. Point taken!
By the way, are the Bosnian Muslims now the big culprits of the Holocaust?
Keep on trying….
Instead of relying on Hopper and Company’s BS about the Mufti, there is one book to read: Lebanese intellectual Gilbert Achkar (actually professor at SOAS) and his book “The Arabs and Holocaust” (translated from French)
Interview with Electronic Intifada:
“The first thing that must be said about Amin al-Husseini is that there is a lot more interest in him in the West and in Zionist literature than there is in the Arab world. It is amazing that in the Arab world, his name has almost disappeared into oblivion and almost no one refers to him, whereas in the West new books on him are coming out all the time. There is an entire industry dealing with the Mufti in the West from Zionist and pro-Zionist sources and the key aim of this industry is the Nazification of the Arabs. They are trying to Nazify the Arabs, if not the Muslims in this age of Islamophobia, through the figure of the Mufti.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/holocaust-palestine-and-arab-world-gilbert-achcar-interviewed/9173
There’re various conferences with Gilbert Achkar on the net too discussing this precise topic.
@Deir Yassin @Elizabeth @Jaffar
“..especially from 1936 on, the radical wing of the national movement led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseni, came to represent the Arab majority view in Palestine.” — Achcar, Gilbert, “The Arabs and Holocaust” Page 43.
Ouch!
In “The Arabs and Holocaust”, Achcar also refers to a “Zionist intelligence claim” of December 7, 1941, which he appears to regard as accurate. The study claimed that about 60 percent of Palestine’s Arab population supported the Nazis. Achcar writes that it was “remarkable that no more than 60 percent of Palestinian Arabs supported the Nazis at that point, when Germany was at the height of its military success.” –See, The Arabs and Holocaust”, page 12.
In other words, Achcar accepts that there was evidence that a majority of the Palestinian population supported Nazi Germany and that Husseini represented majority sentiment in Palestine.
I don’t think you’ve read the book, I think you’re just posting informations from an article by Jeffrey Herf in the New Republic, that’s maybe why page 12 in your second post is totally wrong, there is no such statements on page 12 (which is the introduction).
Concerning your first extract, if you read the book you totally missed the context:
Achkar mentions Qawwatli to whom “an agreement depended on whether the Zionists wanted to ‘make of Palestine a Jewish National Home or to make a Jewish National Home in Palestine. If the former, then we are categorically opposed to it and there is no way to come to an understanding. But if it means the latter then we are ready to find a solution to the mutual advantage of both parties”.
Achkar also quotes George Antonius as an representative of the Liberals (vs the Nationalists represented by Husseini among others), quote from Antonius: “There seem to be no valid reason why Palestine should not be constituted into an indepedent Arab state in which as many Jews as the country can hold without prejudice to its political and economic freedom would live in peace and dignity and enjoy full rights of citizenship”
The context has nothing to do with the Nazis but with the immigration of European Jews to Palestine and the attitude to the Zionist movement, and the part on the “Zionist intelligence claim” etc is after that (p 46, 2010 edition, how could you miss that if you really read the book ?): it’s just the ‘good old’ choice of “the ennemy of my ennemy” (even the Zionist intelligence stated so in Achkar’s quote….
https://books.google.fr/books?id=3q5dFD61V5oC&redir_esc=y
@Deir Yassin
I don’t know what your point is.
Husseini’s radical wing came to be accepted by a majority of Palestine’s Arabs. At the same time, about sixty percent of Palestine’s Arabs supported the Nazis.
It simply sounds to me as if around 60% of Palestine’s Arabs came to support Husseini and his Nazi cohorts.
What’s the big deal?
Like you said, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.
It’s common knowledge that Husseini and the Nazis were using every means of propaganda to foster the ‘enemy of my enemy’ notion and win the hearts and minds of the Arabs.
Truth be told, in his Radio Berlin speeches, Husseini would frequently stray beyond the borders of Palestine and rail against ‘world Jewry’ and the ‘Jewish conspiracy’.
But again. What’s the big deal?
@Hopper: Husseini held sway in Palestine for a brief period. By the end of the war, if not earlier he was a nobody. That’s quite a big deal.
@ Hopper
“I don’t know what your point is”
That you didn’t read the book (confusing page 12 which is the introduction with page 46 is just one example) and that your first quote is within a totally different context that has nothing to do with Nazi Germany.
PS. And I wonder: what was your former pen name on this blog because people like you are always recycled hasbaradim.
@Hopper That’s ridiculous. How would “Zionist intelligence” (whatever that means) know what 60% of Palestinians believed on any subject? Did they take a poll? Go door to door? Not to mention that he states this may have been true when the Nazis were in the ascendancy, which would be from 1939-1944, a paltry 5 yrs. The Irish & Indian nationalists & many other British colonies also favored the Nazis for a time. All in all, I think you’re full of shit.
“All in all, I think you’re full of shit. ”
Well. This really isn’t about what I think. I’m quoting Professor Achcar, who seemingly concurs with the findings of Zionist Intelligence unit. The Zionist Intelligence unit, I’m assuming, used Arab sources to gather information. See, Cohen, Hillel. Army of Shadows.
http://www.amazon.com/Army-Shadows-Palestinian-Collaboration-1917-1948/dp/0520259890/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445666055&sr=8-1&keywords=army+of+hillel+cohen
Husseini began to accumulate power in the mid-twenties, when he was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
Even from World War II Berlin, the Grand Mufti could still have his political opponents assassinated in places as far away as Baghdad. See, Cohen, above.
Yes. After the war he became a nobody, which is hardly a surprise.
‘The leadership of al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Arab Higher Committee, which had dominated Palestinian Arab political scene since the 1920s, was devastated by the disaster of 1948 and discredited by its failure to prevent it. The socio-economic base underlying the political power of traditional Palestinian Arab notables was severely disrupted.’
–Brynen, Rex (1990). Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon. Brynen, Rex. 1990, p. 20.
@ Hopper: I don’t know it means that Achar “seemingly concurs” with anything. Nor do I know what a “Zionist intelligence unit” is or why it should know the views of the Palestinian population of that era. And you haven’t offered any evidence that this is based on anything substantive or reliable. Nor have you explained why the alleged views of Palestinians toward the Nazis were any different than those of a substantial portion of the Irish & Indian populations. I wonder why you don’t waste any of your precious energy exploring these sympathies.
Actually I was wrong. The Mufti was removed from power in 1936. So he became a nobody in Palestine at that date, not “after the war.” In all, he held the position the British appointed him to for fifteen years from 1921-1936. He went into exile after that and exercised no substantive role in anything concerning Palestine after that.
Whatever acts he did after that point, including his actions during WWII were a desperate attempt to maintain his political relevance. Attempts which failed miserably.
You are now officially done in this thread. Do not post here again, though you may post in other threads.
As you appear to be the latest interim hasbara apparatchik posting at this blog, I’ve reviewed your IP addresses and you post here with multiple ones. This is an indication that you’re either using IP proxies or shielding your identity in some similar manner. THis immediately raises my suspicions about who you are & why you are doing this. I will be closely monitoring your commenting here. Be sure you know the rules, read them, and respect them.
@Hopper :: Shaul Meirov (or Meyerhoff) founded the SHA’I (Sherut ha’Yediot ha’Artzit or National Information Service) of the Haganah, and the counter intelligence service (Resh Nun – Rigul Negdi).
Aliyah Bet – Illegal immigration, also called Ha’apalah, conducted at the initiative of immigrant groups in Europe, the Jewish Agency and in some cases with the help of the United States and even the Nazis. In Palestine, Aliya Bet was organized beginning in 1939 by the “Mossad l’Aliya Bet ” to bring immigrants to mandatory Palestine after immigration was restricted by the British White Paper of 1939.
Intelligence services are NEVER a source of evidence, just deception.
@Oui: Not to mention that being an influence agency tasked with smuggling Jews into Palestine has nothing good to do with knowing the views of Palestinians toward the Nazis.
@ And that lasted precisely until he left Palestine a few yrs later & subsequently became an insignificant nobody.
Thanks! The fixation on the Holocaust overlooks the fact that Christians have been the prominent Jew-killers long before Adolf Hitler was born.
The list of politicians who betrayed the Arabs in modern history, beginning with Sykes-Picot, is a long one. I have hard time finding one Zionist among them. Zionists, beginning with Herzl, were pretty clear and consistent in what they wanted: the half-loaf from the Balfour Declaration now (1947) and the rest later (today).
I call this the end of times, when everyone has to choose a side between the truth and falsehood before the ultimate showdown between them. And quite expectedly, nazis and Nit-yahoos belong to the same coalition.
The analysis of Hitler vs. the “Grand Mufti” must take into account the monomaniacal personality of Hitler. He would not team with France and Great Britain to invade and defeat the Soviet Union because he wanted to be the savior of Europe all by himself (1). He also wanted to be the savior of the Aryan race all by himself hence would certainly not ally himself with the Semitic Grand Mufti or even need his prodding for the Holocaust.
(1) there were plenty of billboards, advertisements, and prints during WW2 which hammered on that theme. Some showed a picture of AH.
Some comments here are missing the crux of the issue, and went far away from the heart of the issue in this article.
The issue remains whether Mufti Haj Husseini did instruct Hitler to ‘burn Jews’ or not according to what Bibi said in his speech as the final solution.
I don’t care here much about the Mufti’s position, his personality, or what some here made claims of what he did in Iraq without solid proof or evidence…The issue remains did the Mufti or did not he order Hitler to ‘burn Jews’?!!!, and was Hitler really waiting for the Mufti’s instructions or orders as Bibi claimed to burn Jews…?!!
The answer is simply “No”.
Hitler did not need the Mufti to run his business…
Historians know what Hitler and Nazis did and what Nazism was made of, and Husseini did not fit anywhere in the causing the ‘Holocaust’.
Had Husseini did not exist, or never made his trip to Germany, the outcome would have been the same..
But Bibi who mastered propaganda well and who put Israel in the midst of turmoil because of his anti-Arabs and extreme policies was sadly looking for a Hasbara theme in his speech and he found Husseini to be his answer in the midst of a possible new Palestinians ‘Intifada’.
How can Bibi accuse Abbas with ‘incitement’ when he says something like that himself…? !!!
could you find out what happened to Amnon Levy from “Haharetz” newspaper’ suddenly it stopped apearing articules from him?
@”Andy: Ammon Levy? Are you speaking of Gideon Levy?
In his concern over what the Mufti may or may not have suggested, Netanyahu conveniently overlooks the Nazi-Zionist collaboration of 1933 –
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0062443.html
From your twitter feed on JCPA and Dore Gold …
Joseph Spoerl | Saint Anselm College [a Catholic, Benedictine liberal arts college] | Philosophy, Faculty Member | Jihadism and Radical Islamism |
10 Followers | 10 Following | 280 Total Views
@ Oui: THere is also a Maariv article from 2014 which predates the Spoerl article. It was written by Yossi Dagan and spouts essentially the same nonsense (in Hebrew): http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/574/941.html
Bibi or his flunkies could’ve accessed either article for his speech. Though given Dore Gold is now director general of the foreign ministry & his JCPA journal published Spoerl’s article, my money is on him being the source they used. I’ve tweeted an MFA flunky and the MFA Twitter feed asking for an answer. But I won’t get one, for sure.
Publications by Joseph Spoerl:
○ Palestinians, Arabs, and the Holocaust [March 1, 2015]
○ Blaming Bibi, Ignoring Abbas [April 2015]
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs – Israeli think tank with GOP ties at center of Iran deal opposition
One Israeli think tank at the center of the campaign is the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, whose largest donor [$1m] is U.S. casino magnate and Republican benefactor Sheldon Adelson.
Well now many European nations, which have Holocaust denial laws, have now a reason to demolish those rather unbelievable laws, because Israeli Jewish leadership now say Germans were not guilty for Holocaust. They were only working for the Palestinian leadership as subcontractors like those Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians etc who were working for Germans – sorry after the latest Israeli knowledge – for Palestinians. Germany should also demand all the compensations and donations given to state of Israel payed back to it. It would help to finance the recent VW catastrophe. At once Israel should give back the German subs which Israel managed to get from Germany using the former falsified history interpretations. A fact of previous which Israeli PM Netanyahu now finally publicly admitted.
Seriously speaking the Holocaust chapter of modern history is rather totally locked for all non-Jews, historians, scholars, politicians etc. Jews especially Israeli can say whatever they want of the topic or invent new “facts” of the events and use it in their own interests. For them Holocaust is a flexible and advantageous propaganda weapon, which brings sympathy plus political and financial benefits. Of course Israeli Jews need more convincing “excuses” for the ethnic cleansing and land robbery in Israel/Palestine than A) God gave this land to us, B) “we” used to live here 2000 years ago C) Europeans created the Holocaust which forced us to move D) we won these lands in a fair war so the lands belong now to us. By managing to link Palestinians during their uprising and increased international influence to the responsibility of Holocaust is a genius propagandist trick. Most Israeli Jews want to believe that “found evidence and interpretation”, without in reality believing it, Americans who in general have a very poor knowledge of history and geography will believe it after it is repeated to them a couple of times in MSM. Europeans who have a better knowledge of their own history have difficulties to believe what Netanyahu announced, but are reluctant to say anything because of the fears to named anti-Semitic, Holocaust denier etc. If they say anything they can be accused of minimizing the genocide, for example. Best strategy on individual level for politicians and scholars in today’s Europe is to keep the mouth shut about Israel and Jews.
@Hopper :: quoting Professor Achcar
○ Blame the Grand Mufti | Le Monde Diplomatique | by Gilbert Achcar
○ The Holocaust & the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives :: Critical Dialogues with Gilbert Achcar [pdf]
of course you may prefer the critique leveled by Campus Watch 😉
In his speech Bibi absolved Hitler of any ill intent toward Jews by claiming that the decision Hitler made was left to the Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin Hussaini to decide on regarding the fate of Jews in Germany and all occupied German territories during the 2nd.World War, by stating that Hitler asked the Mufti :
” What shall I do with the Jews..?” as if Mufti Hussaini was holding the final word..
Was Bibi a ‘ Holocaust denier ‘ when he said that the German leader got nothing to do with killing Jews and it was all the idea of Palestinian Mufti Hussaini instead…? because Hitler only wanted to expel Jews, Bibi claimed…!!!!
Or Bibi was tearing up all documented historians work of decades on this issue from stories, to books, to statements that has been written and said about Hitler’s responsibility in Killing Jews, when he made his speech, in order for him to simply demonise Palestinians..? !!!
The answer is clear…Bibi was lying and fabricating his own historical versions of history of 2nd. World War events , and what he said didn’t only anger Palestinians but also Jews as well, and many people who know something about Nazis history around the world.
>”Bibi even manages to quote their entire conversation, which is quite a historical feat considering
there is no historical record whatsoever of what they actually said.”<
Maybe Bibi ALSO has that 'missing' copy of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
Netanyahu’s acolytes are trying to defend his distortion of history by adding their own distortions. One such scribbler in the service of power is Caroline Glick. She wrote in the Jerusalem Post of today (10/26):
“No, the Holocaust was not Husseini’s idea.
But he was a partner in perpetrating and promoting it. He also made it inevitable. As I detailed in my book The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, during the course of Husseini’s meeting with Hitler in Berlin in November 1941, Hitler told the Arab leader of his plan to eradicate European Jewry.
Husseini told Hitler that he would support the Nazis, and rally the Arab world to their side, if Hitler agreed to two conditions: that Hitler support his bid to rule over a postwar Arab state comprised of present-day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel; and that Hitler support the genocide of Middle Eastern Jewry.
As both the official Nazi record and Husseini’s summary of the meeting in his diary report, Hitler accepted Husseini’s demands.”
The mendacity of this account is only equalled by its risibility. Husseini wasn’t in a position to put conditions to Hitler – he went there as a humble and respectful petitioner.
What he asked for was the reinforcement of a letter from the German side – which had assured him that Germany recognised Arab aspirations for independence and supported the elimination of the Jewish National Home – in the form of a public statement. There was no talk of a genocide of Middle Eastern Jewry. The words were “elimination of the Jewish National Home”. This “elimination” of the National Home could be seen as the removal of such institutions as the Jews had built up in this regard. (In fact the word “elimination”, though a possible translation of the German word used (“Beseitigung”), is a rather forceful rendering of it. The literal translation of the word “Beseitigung” is “putting aside” or “removal”). That in Hitler’s mind it might have stood for much more than the dissolving of institutions is neither here nor there. We are talking here of the Mufti.
I provide here some crucial passages of the official Nazi protocol of the talk between Hitler and Husseini in the translation provided by the Jewish Virtual Library. As far as Husseini’s diary account of the meeting is concerned (also provided by the JVL) Glick’s lie is there even more egregious. H. tried merely there to render the statements by Hitler as he remembered them (and gave, taking the protocol as criterion, a pretty faithful account). There is no talk of any question or demand on his side, let alone of “conditions” put to Hitler.
The protocol of the meeting between Hitler and Husserini on 11/28/41:
“The Mufti then mentioned the letter he had received from Germany, which stated that Germany was holding no Arab territories and understood and recognized the aspirations to independence and freedom of the Arabs, just as she supported the elimination of the Jewish national home.
A public declaration in this sense would be very useful for its propagandistic effect on the Arab peoples at this moment. It would rouse the Arabs from their momentary lethargy and give them new courage. It would also ease the Mufti’s work of secretly organizing the Arabs against the moment when they could strike. At the same time, he could give the assurance that the Arabs would in strict discipline patiently wait for the right moment and only strike upon an order from Berlin.”
This is the crucial passage in the answer of Hitler:
“The situation is as follows: We are conducting the great struggle to open the way to the North of the Caucasus. The difficulties involved are more than transportation because of the demolished railways and roads and because of winter weather. And if I venture in these circumstances to issue a declaration with regard to Syria, then the pro-de Gaulle elements in France will be strengthened and this might cause a revolt in France. These men (the French) will be convinced then that joining Britain is more advantageous and the detachment of Syria is a pattern to be followed in the remainder of the French Empire. This will strengthen de Gaulle’s stand in the colonies. If the declaration is issued now, difficulties will arise in Western Europe which will cause the diversion of some (German-Ed.) forces for defensive purposes, thus preventing us from sending all our forces to the East.
Now I am going to tell you something I would like you to keep secret. First, I will keep up my fight until the complete destruction of the Judeo-Bolshevik rule has been accomplished.
Second, during the struggle (and we don’t know when victory will come, but probably not in the far future) we will reach the Southern Caucasus.
Third, then I would like to issue a declaration; for then the hour of the liberation of the Arabs will have arrived. Germany has no ambitions in this area but cares only to annihilate the power which produces the Jews.”
….
The moment that Germany’s tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of the Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world.”
The Mufti did not repeat his request but humbly thanked Hitler for his words:
“The Grand Mufti replied that it was his view that everything would come to pass just as the Fiihrer had indicated. He was fully reassured and satisfied by the words which he had heard from the Chief of the German State. He asked, however, whether it would not be possible. secretly at least, to enter into an agreement with Germany of the kind he had just outlined for the Fuhrer.
The Fuhrer replied that he had just now given the Grand Mufti precisely that confidential declaration.
The Grand Mufti thanked him for it and stated in conclusion that he was taking his leave from the Fuhrer in full confidence and with reiterated thanks for the interest shown in the Arab cause.”
I wrote in my first comment on this thread that there was no transcript, that is a literal and precise account, of the conversation between Hitler and Husseini. This is correct. But there is a “protocol”, i.e. a more or less accurate report of what was said.