Haj Amin al-Husseini, founder of the Palestinian Arabs, and his alliance with the Nazis in WWII
Courtesy of Alan M. Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard, in Front Page Magazine (http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35708)
(bold emphases mine)
The official leader of the Palestinians, Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent the war years in Berlin with Hitler, serving as a consultant on the Jewish question. He was taken on a tour of Auschwitz and expressed support for the mass murder of European Jews.
I want you to just stop and wrap your mind around that. And keep in mind that Amin al-Husseini was one of the founders of the concept of "Palestinian" Arabs as a distinct ethnicity.
As Husseini wrote in his memoirs, “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’”
This is what Husseini was willing to put in his MEMOIRS -- not something ferreted out byh his enemies.
The mufti was apparently planning to return to Palestine in the event of a German victory and to construct a death camp, modeled after Auschwitz, near Nablus. Husseini incited his pro-Nazi followers with the words “Arise, o sons of Arabia. Fight for your sacred rights. Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor.”
In other words, the sort of supervillain-rant common from Muslims. What's notable is that he was saying tihs during World War II, so he was saying this when there was an actual chance of achieving that end.
Not only did Husseini exhort his followers to murder the Jews; he also took an active role in trying to bring about that result. For example, in 1944, a German-Arab commando unit, under Husseini’s command, parachuted into Palestine and with the intention of poisoning Tel Aviv’s wells.
Husseini also helped to inspire a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq ...
Which, btw, got a lot of Iraqis killed when the British (inevitably) put it down.
... and helped to organize thousands of Muslims in the Balkans into military units known as Handselar divisions, which carried out atrocities against Yugoslav Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies.
Atrocities famous even today among students of Balkan history.
The Mufti: “The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends…. They were therefore prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq….”
In other words, the Mufti was willing to actively lead forces fighting for an Axis victory.
Hitler assured Husseini about how he would be regarded following a Nazi victory and “the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere.” In that hour, the mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations that he had secretly prepared.
One of the few reasons to regret the Axis defeat is that the Mufti never got to scream in horror as he and his own were fed into the death machine. Hitler had no intentions of letting the Arabs gain their independence: he considered them untermenschen and the Mideast a zone for future colonization. As Semites, the Arabs would have been lucky to merely be allowed to be the slaves of the conquerors.
Husseini’s significant contributions to the Holocaust were multifold: first, he pleaded with Hitler to exterminate European Jewry and advised the Nazis on how to do so; second, he visited Auschwitz and urged Eichmann and Himmler to accelerate the pace of the mass murder; third, he personally stopped 4,000 children, accompanied by 500 adults, from leaving Europe and had them sent to Auschwitz and gassed; fourth, he prevented another two thousand Jews from leaving Romania for Palestine and one thousand from leaving Hungary for Palestine, who were subsequently sent to death camps; fifth, he organized the killing of 12,600 Bosnian Jews by Muslims, whom he recruited to the Waffen-SS Nazi-Bosnian division. He was also one of the few non-Germans who was made privy to the Nazi extermination while it was taking place. It was in his official capacity as the leader of the Palestinian people and its official representative that he made his pact with Hitler, spent the war years in Berlin, and worked actively with Eichmann, Himmler, von Ribbentrop, and Hitler himself to “accelerate” the final solution by exterminating the Jews of Europe and laying plans to exterminate the Jews of Palestine.
And yet he has never been treated by historians as the war criminal he was, nor have the Palestinian responsibility for his actions been widely enough grasped by history.
Not only did the Grand Mufti play a significant role in the murder of European Jewry, he sought to replicate the genocide against the Jews in Israel during the war that produced a so-called Nakba. The war started by the Palestinians against the Jews in 1947, and the war started by the Arab states in 1948 against the new state of Israel, were both genocidal wars. Their goal was not merely the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the area but their total annihilation. The leaders said so and the actions of their subordinates reflected this genocidal goal. They were aided in their efforts by Nazi soldiers-former SS and Gestapo members-who had been given asylum from war crime prosecution in Egypt and who had been recruited by the grand mufti to complete Hitler’s work.
This is often mentioned in the individual biographies of Nazis who survived the war, but the dots are rarely allowed to be connected. The Arab world, and in particular Egypt, played a large role in enabling the Nazi war criminals to escape justice. Their guilt in this regard is at least as great as that of Argentina -- and Argentina never permitted the Nazi refugees to continue their fight, as Egypt did.
Fortunately, Arab incompetence and Israeli competence prevented the Arab evil from having greater consequence.
It is also fair to say that Husseini’s pro-Nazi sympathies and support were widespread among his Palestinian followers, who regarded him as a hero even after the war and the disclosure of his role in Nazi atrocities. The notorious photograph of Husseini and Hitler, together in Berlin, was proudly displayed in many Palestinian homes, even after Husseini’s activities in the Holocaust became widely known and praised among Palestinians.
Husseini is still regarded by many as “the George Washington” of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored as is our founding father. He was their hero, despite - more likely, because of - his active role in the genocide against the Jewish people, which he openly supported and assisted.
Do we really want to see a state which honors the Nazis and active Nazi allies like Husseini be founded? Really? And is it really "liberal" to acknowledge such a desire?
(bold emphases mine)
The official leader of the Palestinians, Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent the war years in Berlin with Hitler, serving as a consultant on the Jewish question. He was taken on a tour of Auschwitz and expressed support for the mass murder of European Jews.
I want you to just stop and wrap your mind around that. And keep in mind that Amin al-Husseini was one of the founders of the concept of "Palestinian" Arabs as a distinct ethnicity.
As Husseini wrote in his memoirs, “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’”
This is what Husseini was willing to put in his MEMOIRS -- not something ferreted out byh his enemies.
The mufti was apparently planning to return to Palestine in the event of a German victory and to construct a death camp, modeled after Auschwitz, near Nablus. Husseini incited his pro-Nazi followers with the words “Arise, o sons of Arabia. Fight for your sacred rights. Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor.”
In other words, the sort of supervillain-rant common from Muslims. What's notable is that he was saying tihs during World War II, so he was saying this when there was an actual chance of achieving that end.
Not only did Husseini exhort his followers to murder the Jews; he also took an active role in trying to bring about that result. For example, in 1944, a German-Arab commando unit, under Husseini’s command, parachuted into Palestine and with the intention of poisoning Tel Aviv’s wells.
Husseini also helped to inspire a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq ...
Which, btw, got a lot of Iraqis killed when the British (inevitably) put it down.
... and helped to organize thousands of Muslims in the Balkans into military units known as Handselar divisions, which carried out atrocities against Yugoslav Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies.
Atrocities famous even today among students of Balkan history.
The Mufti: “The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends…. They were therefore prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq….”
In other words, the Mufti was willing to actively lead forces fighting for an Axis victory.
Hitler assured Husseini about how he would be regarded following a Nazi victory and “the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere.” In that hour, the mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations that he had secretly prepared.
One of the few reasons to regret the Axis defeat is that the Mufti never got to scream in horror as he and his own were fed into the death machine. Hitler had no intentions of letting the Arabs gain their independence: he considered them untermenschen and the Mideast a zone for future colonization. As Semites, the Arabs would have been lucky to merely be allowed to be the slaves of the conquerors.
Husseini’s significant contributions to the Holocaust were multifold: first, he pleaded with Hitler to exterminate European Jewry and advised the Nazis on how to do so; second, he visited Auschwitz and urged Eichmann and Himmler to accelerate the pace of the mass murder; third, he personally stopped 4,000 children, accompanied by 500 adults, from leaving Europe and had them sent to Auschwitz and gassed; fourth, he prevented another two thousand Jews from leaving Romania for Palestine and one thousand from leaving Hungary for Palestine, who were subsequently sent to death camps; fifth, he organized the killing of 12,600 Bosnian Jews by Muslims, whom he recruited to the Waffen-SS Nazi-Bosnian division. He was also one of the few non-Germans who was made privy to the Nazi extermination while it was taking place. It was in his official capacity as the leader of the Palestinian people and its official representative that he made his pact with Hitler, spent the war years in Berlin, and worked actively with Eichmann, Himmler, von Ribbentrop, and Hitler himself to “accelerate” the final solution by exterminating the Jews of Europe and laying plans to exterminate the Jews of Palestine.
And yet he has never been treated by historians as the war criminal he was, nor have the Palestinian responsibility for his actions been widely enough grasped by history.
Not only did the Grand Mufti play a significant role in the murder of European Jewry, he sought to replicate the genocide against the Jews in Israel during the war that produced a so-called Nakba. The war started by the Palestinians against the Jews in 1947, and the war started by the Arab states in 1948 against the new state of Israel, were both genocidal wars. Their goal was not merely the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the area but their total annihilation. The leaders said so and the actions of their subordinates reflected this genocidal goal. They were aided in their efforts by Nazi soldiers-former SS and Gestapo members-who had been given asylum from war crime prosecution in Egypt and who had been recruited by the grand mufti to complete Hitler’s work.
This is often mentioned in the individual biographies of Nazis who survived the war, but the dots are rarely allowed to be connected. The Arab world, and in particular Egypt, played a large role in enabling the Nazi war criminals to escape justice. Their guilt in this regard is at least as great as that of Argentina -- and Argentina never permitted the Nazi refugees to continue their fight, as Egypt did.
Fortunately, Arab incompetence and Israeli competence prevented the Arab evil from having greater consequence.
It is also fair to say that Husseini’s pro-Nazi sympathies and support were widespread among his Palestinian followers, who regarded him as a hero even after the war and the disclosure of his role in Nazi atrocities. The notorious photograph of Husseini and Hitler, together in Berlin, was proudly displayed in many Palestinian homes, even after Husseini’s activities in the Holocaust became widely known and praised among Palestinians.
Husseini is still regarded by many as “the George Washington” of the Palestinian people, and if the Palestinians were to get a state of their own, he would be honored as is our founding father. He was their hero, despite - more likely, because of - his active role in the genocide against the Jewish people, which he openly supported and assisted.
Do we really want to see a state which honors the Nazis and active Nazi allies like Husseini be founded? Really? And is it really "liberal" to acknowledge such a desire?