Posted by Tina
In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability.
PM Benjamin Netanyahu was welcomed to Congress today with a three minute standing ovation. His speech, which included gracious acknowledgements for the President and for the United States as a great friend of Israel, received countless standing ovations. He praised America as the country fate designated to champion freedom in the world and thanked us for our support of Israel: “Support for Israel’s security is a wise investment in our common future. For an epic battle is now unfolding in the Middle East, between tyranny and freedom. A great convulsion is shaking the earth from the Khyber Pass to the Straits of Gibraltar. The tremors have shattered states and toppled governments. And we can all see that the ground is still shifting. Now this historic moment holds the promise of a new dawn of freedom and opportunity. Millions of young people are determined to change their future. We all look at them. They muster courage. They risk their lives. They demand dignity. They desire liberty.
A short history lesson asserted clearly that Israel is not an occupying force like the colonial “British in India” or the “Belgians in the Congo”. He firmly stated, “This is the land of our forefathers… no distortion of history will deny the 4000 year old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.”
Netanyahu remarked that the issue of contention with the Palestinians isn’t whether the Palestinians deserve a state of their own but whether Israel has the right to exist. He noted the irony that of all the 300 million Arabs living in the Middle East only those who are citizens of Israel are “truly free”. He expressed his strong desire that citizens of other Middle Eastern nations would one day live as freely.
The full transcript can be read here. I sincerely hope this speech will be posted online for those who missed it. Netanyahu is an incredible speaker and a statesman of infinite patience, wisdom, and strength.
I wish we had someone like Netanyahu in our country. One that speaks from the heart, knows what he is talking about, needs no, or few notes.
Does not back down from his beliefs.
Harriet I agree. I think we do have some who speak passionately from the heart but few have the experience, poise, confidence and statesmanlike quality that comes through when Netanyahu speaks. He’s an amazing human being.
How is my daily life affected by Israel’s existence.
I mean, if Israel got wiped out tomorrow, what happens to me and mine? Will my food suddenly cost more?
Yes, they are the only democracy–I get that. How does having ONE democracy in the Middle East make our lives better?
Actually we have two. The Palestinians democratically elected Hamas–OOPS!
We DON’T want democracy. So why do we want Israel there?
I just asked Lars, he dodged it as expected. Maybe you can.
We spend millions in foreign aid that are just subsidies to America’s military-industrial complex, what is America’s gain for this expense?
You guys have such short memories.
It was, unhappily, Israel’s “Belgians in the Congo” behavior that give rise to all the Intifatas, and the birth of Hammmas.
It is very, very sad and, apparently, irreparable.
It is strange that every sentence Netanyahu said was met with applause from members of Congress; apparently they are stupidly ignorant of the true meaning to the suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation.
Green Thumb I’d love to hear you wax eloquent on the “true meaning” of the suffering of the Palestinian people. You haven’t made clear exactly what you are talking about.
The Palestinian people suffer because of oppression, indoctrination, and acts of terror inflicted upon them by Hamas and other terror activists…or they participate in oppressive terrorist activities.
Do you know anything about the intention of the Palestinian aggressors? About their ongoing war on Israeli cities, buses, schools, or for instance, the recent murders of an entire Israeli family, including an intfant, as they slept in their beds? Do you honestly think that Israel should just take that without trying to protect and defend itself?
Israel is not the aggressor. The Palestinians (Arabs decended from Caananites) that are living in Israel live freely side by side with Jews, Christians and others and enjoy full priviledges and rights.
Palestinian “suffering” could end tomorrow if they would put down their swords and live in peace.
Libby that’s not accurate. Hamas was created out of the same religious/political zealotry and hatred that gave birth to other Islamist terror organizations. The belief that Islam is the righful ruler of the earth and hatred and contempt for “other” is the driver.
The Intifada was deadly for Jews and Palestinians alike:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/intifada.html
Quentin thankfully our foreign policy isn’t determined by how Quentins life is affected so I guess it doesn’t matter. But as long as you asked my immediate answer is in ways you may never relaize. Advances in medicine and certainly intelligence that might save your life are two possible examples. No man is an island…not even you.
“Actually we have two. The Palestinians democratically elected Hamas–OOPS!
We DON’T want democracy. So why do we want Israel there?”
So you believe that an election makes a democracy? Nothing else is required? Wow…you’re easy…the simplicity of your thinking blows me away!
“We spend millions in foreign aid that are just subsidies to America’s military-industrial complex, what is America’s gain for this expense?”
Defense of the nation…it’s in the Constitution. Ever heard of it?
Israel is an ally. A strong faithful ally. You remember what an ally is…a country that we can count on when things get dicey?
Our relationship with Israel is based on many things. Here are a few:
1.We share common values and both countries are committed to human rights and the principles of freedom, equality, and pluralism.
2.We share and collaborate in educational and technological innovation, opportunities, and advances.
3.Israel is a good trading partner ensuring a strong market for American goods & American workers.
4.Israel is a good strategic partner.
5.Israel has experience and expertise in combating terror and we can count on and trust them as allies in this fight.
6.Israel provides the US with valuable intel, training, and innovative tools
In case you have forgotten there are people out there who wish to destroy America. Ignoring this fact, behaving as if isolation would change that sentiment, is nave and wont put a stop to it.
Libby, your post was too simplistic to be fair to Israel. Everyone by now knows Israel has been forced to fight for it’s survival and yes some of it’s actions can be called ruthless, then again they are fighting to live.
On the other side the Palestinian’s are not fighting for their survival. Nobody is trying to exterminate them. They are guaranteed survival and they have been offer to share in the good fortune along with Israel as equals and they have rejected that many times. They are pledged to kill the Jews and destroy Israel. There’s not much to negotiate with these terrorists.
Okay, so the Jews occupy land that was once theirs and then lost in the fortunes of war. Didn’t Palestinians side with the Nazis because they wanted the Jews dead? They were not the only country to get their borders realigned after a war. But, they don’t want to address that. They don’t want to acknowledge that under their Palestinian governance their land was a rock pile in the desert where people lived in poverty and filth. Now they see what great things Israel has done and they are angered and jealous. They hate this modern democratic state where the desert blooms and children thrive. They hate this – isn’t that sick?
They could share in this good fortune, they could live side by side with their Jewish relatives, but it’s an all or nothing thing for them and this makes them WRONG. They raise generations upon generations in bigotry…that is 100% WRONG. They raise vile hate filled assassins and suicide bombers who kill children on school buses and bomb tourists in coffee shops and that 100% WRONG. Their maniacal, merciless actions reflect that of a death cult and serial killers and the world owes them nothing until they change their behavior.
Libby, I raised an issue about Nazi’s and Arabs and I should have given you some evidence…my bad.
If you care, here is my evidence:
ARAB NAZI PARTY / PARTIES
Middle Eastern Myths The Myth of Yasser Arafat
During the war, Arab Nazi parties were founded throughout the Middle East. The most influential one was Young Egypt which was established in 1933.
http://www.rbooker.com/articles/TheMythofYasserArafat.PDF
Armies of the young: child soldiers in war and terrorism Page 106
David M. Rosen 2005 199 pages
Others argued that the Land is in need of a youth, healthy in body and soul like the Nazi paramilitary forces. Palestinian students educated in Germany returned to Palestine determined to found the Arab Nazi Party of Palestine.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zQYQ0tho6mAC&pg=PA106
Semites and anti-Semites: an inquiry into conflict and prejudice Page 147 Bernard Lewis 1999 295 pages
A first attempt to found an Arab Nazi movement seems to date from the summer of 1933, when the Jaffa correspondent of the The mood of the 1930s was vividly described by Syrian Saml al- Jundi, an early leader of the Bacth party,
http://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC&pg=PA147
The third Reich & the Palestine question Page 90
Francis R. Nicosia 2000 319 pages
Wolffs strong opposition to any sort of German encouragement or support for an Arab Nazi party in Palestine was conveyed in a note to the Foreign Office in Berlin in June, 1933, in which he argued: Because the strengthening of the
http://books.google.com/books?id=8X2G1G_jD-4C&pg=PA90
First things: Issues 154-158
Institute on Religion and Public Life 2005 [Page 14]
Several of the Arab political parties founded during the 1930s were modeled after the Nazi party, including the Syrian Popular Party and the Young Egypt Society, which were explicitly anti-Semitic in their ideology and programs.
http://books.google.com/books?id=4-gnAAAAYAAJ&q=modeled
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini By Chuck Morse Page 28 2003 186 pages
Al- Husseinis own Palestine Arab Party stood for the expulsion of all Jewish settlers and an independent Arab efforts to assist in the development of what would become distinctly Nazi-Arab style organizations and political parties
http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA28
The Demonic Comedy Page 12
Paul William Roberts, Jay Ed. Roberts 2004 308 pages
When the revolutionary Baath regime a kind of Arab Nazi Party came to power in July 1968, no Jew left in Iraq was safe. In the wake of the Arabs massive defeat by Israel during the Six Day War of 1967, a state of shocked disbelief
http://books.google.com/books?id=h4vv3m1bXV4C&pg=PA12
Chronology of Persecution: The Nazi/Arab plots to exterminate Jews
Oct 18, 2010 They embraced Nazi slogans and inspired other pro-Nazi parties in the Arab world . Hitlers first congratulatory telegrams came from Arab
http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/chronologies/nazi-arab.htm
Nazi propaganda for the Arab world –
Jeffrey Herf 2009 History 335 pages Page 90
While abroad, Ettel was active in the Nazi Partys foreign branches the Mufti assured Ettel that Arab and German interests were completely overlapping and that the Arab felt closely bound to the Germans in the struggle against world Jewry, England, and the United States
http://books.google.com/books?id=YzQNSTvHv-sC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90
The Nazi Background of Saddam Hussein.. Feb 21, 2003 Rashid Ali and the so-called golden square cabal of pro-Nazi The Mufti, after instigating a pogrom against Jews in Palestine in 1920, the first such pogrom against Jews in the Arab world in hundreds of years, went on to inspire the development of pro-Nazi parties throughout the Arab world including Young Egypt, led by Gamal Abdul Nasser, and the Social Nationalist Party of Syria led by Anton Saada.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/2/20/145726.shtml
Nazi War Criminals in Arab Countries David S. Wyman Institute May 10, 2006 several former German military and Nazi party officials were granted sanctuary in Arab countries, most notably Egypt.
http://www.wymaninstitute.org/letters/2006-05-10-nazi.php
Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism
By David Storobin
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.
Former Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini in his post-World War II memoirs.
The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan He was one of Eichmanns best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.
Adolf Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny in his Nuremberg Trials testimony.
Within weeks of Adolf Hitler`s ascendance to power, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, contacted the German counsel-general in Palestine. With the exception of funding some anti-Semitic riots, Germans rejected the Arab`s overtures until 1937, when Adolf Eichmann and Herbert Hagen were sent to Palestine to establish a framework to provide Husseini with military and financial aid by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
By then, the Mufti had already proven his anti-Jewish credentials to the Germans by organizing a three-year-long series of riots and massacres.
On April 19, 1936, a crowd of Arabs stumbled upon Jews in the town of Jaffa. Having been incited by Mufti-spread rumors that Zionists were killing Muslims, the crowd decided to kill three of the Jews they met. Six days later, the Arab Higher Committee was created, with al-Husseini presiding over the new body. The committee openly endorsed past violence and began organizing future terror.
http://www.nyjtimes.com/cover/03-08-05/nazirootsofpalestiniannationalism.htm
Nazi Agents Infiltrated Mandatory Palestine Prior to World War II
By David Krusch
Smuggled photographs of documents from Nazi Germany prior to World War II offer insight into a secret alliance between Nazi agents and Palestinian leaders. These German documents, photographed by an American spy in 1937 and sent to British intelligence, are now housed in the British National Archives in London. The documents show, among other things, that the Nazis attempted to send a shipment of arms via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud, but really intended for the Palestinian insurgents.
According to British documents and photographed Nazi records, several Nazi agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine to meet with Palestinian leaders, and influence them into rejecting a proposed partition plan which would divide the Jewish and Arab populations. Adam Vollhardt, a Nazi agent, was sent to Palestine in July 1938, and held several meetings with Arab leaders. He told Palestinian leaders that Germany was interested in the settlement of the question on the basis of the Arabs obtaining their full demands, and the Germans could continue to support the Palestinian Arab cause by means of propaganda.
Germany believed that Palestine under Arab control would be one of the few countries that would give strong sympathy to the new Germany under Nazi rule. A report from German General Consulate in Palestine in 1937 stated, The formation of a Jewish stateis not in Germanys interest because a (Jewish) Palestinian state would create additional national power bases for international Jewry such as for example the Vatican State political Catholicism or Moscow for the Communists. The Nazis attempted to boost the power of Palestinian leaders in order to counter Jewish national aspirations for a state in Palestine.
In 1937, a Nazi official wrote a letter from Palestine to Berlin which said that Palestinian Arabs showed a great sympathy for new Germany and its Fuhrerbased on a purely ideological foundation. Another agent, Dr. Franz Reichart was working in conjunction with Palestinians to help coordinate Arab and German propaganda.
The documents also show that due to increased Nazi-Arab alliances, the British government cancelled a plan in 1938 to bring 20,000 German Jewish refugees to Palestine so it would not upset Arab opinion. A British Foreign Office report said that when British representatives in Arab countries were asked if Arab governments would support a proposal to bring 5,000 Jewish children to Palestine for adoption, they said the reaction would be so strongly negative that the Arabs would probably refuse to even send delegates to London to discuss such a proposal. Lord Chatfield, Minister for Coordination of Defence, was quoted as saying, If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion uscould weigh for the a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side. Therefore, 20,000 Jewish refugees, many of them children, were abandoned and left in Nazi Germany to face the horrors of the Holocaust.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/NaziPals.html
The Final Solution in Eretz Yisrael
Historians have long understood that a Nazi conquest of North Africa would likely have led to the murder of the Jews in Mandatory Palestine. This is evident from Nazi ideology, much circumstantial evidence, widespread Arab sympathy for Nazi Germany, and the outspoken identification of the mufti of Jerusalem (then living in Berlin) with the Nazis as allies against the Jews and the British. However, no specific Nazi plan for the murder of the Jews in the Yishuv and the Middle East had actually been uncovered until now.
In their article originally published in Yad Vashem Studies (Vol. 35, no. 1), Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin C=FCppers tell the hitherto undocumented story of Nazi plans to murder the Jews of the Middle East. widespread Arab sympathy for Nazi Germany, and the outspoken identification of the Mufti of Jerusalem (then living in Berlin) with the Nazis as allies against the Jews and the British They had been receiving reports for years about the admiration of Arabs and other Muslims in the Middle East for Nazi. Germany and its ideals, and during the war, the
Libby and there is more….
http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/magazine/magazine_46/img/page_8.pdf
http://www.highbeam.com/Israel+Faxx/publications.aspx?date=201005
In 1942, Eisatzgruppen Commando head Walter Rauff was assigned to Rommels Panzer Army fighting in Africa. His task? To organise the elimination of the Jews. In their paper Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942, two scholars, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cuppers, have trawled the German archives and amassed more important evidence of Arab solidarity with Nazi Germany, and the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalems backing for the mass murder of the Jews. Heres a long extract, but read the whole thing if you can (With thanks: Eliyahu):
In 1928, the cleric Hassan al-Banna had established the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It formed the core cell of modern Islamic fundamentalism. In 1936, the Brotherhood was but a small organization with some 800 members. Yet its ranks soon swelled, and two years later it boasted a total of 200,000. The driving factor behind this upsurge was mobilization for the Arab uprising in Palestine, as passages of the Koran hostile to Jews were interwoven with antisemitic
formulations of struggle from the Third Reich, and the hatredof the Jews was transformed into jihad, holy war. The consequence was boycott campaigns and violent demonstrations under the slogan,Jews out of Egypt and Palestine!
In October 1938, a conference of Islamic parliamentarians for the defense of Palestine was held in Cairo; antisemitic tracts were distributed, including the Arabic versions of Hitlers Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
In contrast, the Syrian National Socialist Party, founded in Damascus by Antun Saadeh in 1932, was decidedly secular and totalitarian, as were the Phalanges Libanaises, founded in 1936, and based on the principle of the strong leader. They postulated a folk-ethnic superiority and, in their external forms, borrowed from the paradigm of the NSDAP, as manifest in their swastika flag and fascist salute with a raised hand.
In Trans-Jordan, under the Hashemite Emir Abdullah, the most moderate country in the region, there were also traces of antisemitism. The British representative in Amman noted in February 1941:There has been a certain amount of pro-Nazi talk.
In Saudi Arabia, in 1939, King Ibn Saud offered the use of Saudi Arabia as a waystation for German weaponry shipments to Palestine and openly expressed his sympathies for Nazi ideology: All Arabs and Muslims throughout the world have great respect for Germany, enhanced by the struggle Germany is waging against Judaism, the arch enemy of the Arab nation.
In March 1937, Walter Doehle, the German consul-general in Jerusalem, wrote a position statement on the future aims of German policy in Palestine in which he commented on the enthusiasm for Nazism among Palestinians:
Palestinian Arabs in all social strata have great sympathies for the new Germany and its Fuhrer. These are sympathies that should be deemed even more valuable since they are on a purely abstract level. If a person identified himself as a German when faced with threats from an Arab crowd, this alone generally allowed him to pass freely. But when some identified themselves by making the Heil Hitler salute, in most cases the Arabs attitude became expressions of open enthusiasm, and the German gave ovations, to which the Arabs responded loudly. Enthusiasm for our Fuhrer and the new Germany is probably so widespread because the Palestinian Arabs, in their struggle for existence, long for an Arab Fuhrer. And because in their fight against the Jews, they sense that they share a common single front with the Germans.
This glowing veneration for the Fuhrer was confined not only to Palestine. A situation report from the German legation in Teheran emphasized the almost grotesque degree of enthusiasm among Muslims there for Nazism:
In his press, a Teheran printer of pictures made pictures of the Fuhrer as well as of Ali, the first Imam. For months, these large pictures were hanging to the left and right of the front door to his shop. Anyone with the proper knowledge understood this juxtaposition. Its meaning: Ali is the first Imam, Adolf Hitler the last.
Among Arabs, in the summer of 1942, there was indeed a concrete expectation that the Germans would soon be on the march, advancing in force into the region. In mid-August, a liaison officer commented on the situation in Syria:
The friendly mood to the Germans among the Muslim Arabs continues unabated. In general, they express the wish that the Germans might soon arrive and liberate the country from the occupying forces and from its misery. To speak about Hitler publicly, the Arabs use a number of pseudonyms. The newest code name for Hitler is Hajj Numur, the tiger. Wishes for Hitlers victory often serve as a form of greeting.
Correspondingly, a military handbook on Syrian political life listed pro-German parties and groupings almost exclusively: if the Wehrmacht should appear on the scene, they would not resist but rather would collaborate with the conquering forces.
That same year, the British Secret Intelligence Service assessed the situation in Iraq, concluding
that 95 percent of the population there was also favorably disposed toward Germany.
In the same vein, a report by Schellenberg on Palestine noted:
The exceptionally positive attitude among Arabs toward Germans is largely connected with the hope that Hitler will come to drive out the Jews. Field Marshal Rommel has become a legendary personality. Thus it is that Arabs today long for a German invasion, and repeatedly ask when the Germans will arrive. And they are very unhappy that they have no weapons.
Schellenberg commented on the impact of German radio propaganda in Palestine:
The Arabs have an unshakeable faith that the Germans will be victorious. The German short wave broadcasts are listened to only by a small number. But their content soon makes the rounds of the Arab people. It is exaggerated and embellished in an Oriental manner to the point where the original text can barely be recognized.
Just how volatile the mood was in the summer of 1942, in heated anticipation of the arrival of the German forces, is reflected in the report of a liaison officer. He noted that part of the 9th British Army had remained in Palestine, despite the ever-more critical military situation, in order to defend the Jewish population there from Arab attacks. Such defensive measures also appear to have been urgently needed, because in the course of the German advance, thousands of Arab soldiers had deserted the British army. By 1943, some 8,000 Arabs, 7,000 of them from Palestine, had deserted with their weapons and disappeared into hiding, so as to join Rommels invasion later on.
Already in June 1941, Hitler was contemplating possible collaboration between the Arabs and the Third Reich. He spoke of utilizing the Arab liberation movement as an important trump card for the Germans against the existing British position and presence in the Near East. The decisive link between National Socialism and the Arab cause was antisemitism. A liaison officer reported in the summer of 1942: The English have managed to make themselves hated throughout the Near East, especially because of their alliance with the Jews.
Erwin Ettel, SS-Brigadefuhrer and expert on the Near East in the Foreign Office, noted that same year:
The Arab Question is bound up insolubly with the Jewish Question. The Jews are the mortal enemy of the Arabs, as they are the deadly enemy of the Germans. Anyone in Germany who deals with Arab politics must be a convinced and uncompromising adversary of the Jews.
Amin el-Husseini: Nazi Collaborator and Radical Jew-Hater
The most important collaborator with the Nazis on the Arab side, and,at the same time, a rabid antisemite, was Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In his person, we can see exemplified the decisive role played by hatred for the Jews within the project of German-Arab cooperation. There are countless statements made by him during his lifetime that clearly articulate his antisemitic attitudes. For example, el-Husseini gave a talk on the occasion of the opening of the Islamic Central Institute in Berlin in 1942, which prototypically reflects his recurrent patterns of interpretation.
On the one hand, he argued along fundamentalist Islamic lines, emphasizing: Among the most
bitter enemies of the Muslims, who for ages have professed their hostility and everywhere make use of spite and cunning in their encounter with Muslims, are the Jews and their accessories.
On the other hand, the Mufti was not only a religious fanatic. In order to disseminate hatred
of the Jews, he also resorted to the central antisemitic stereotypesof Nazi ideology, as another passage from this lecture shows:
In England and America, Jewish influence is dominant. It is the same Jewish influence that lurks behind godless communism, which is inimical to all religions and fundamental principles. That Jewish influence is what has incited the peoples, plunging them into this destructive war of attrition, whose tragic fate benefits the Jews and only them. The Jews are the inveterate enemies of the Muslims, along with their allies the British, the Americans and the Bolsheviks.
Such passages indicate that el-Husseini and his rhetoric should not be characterized solely along one-dimensional lines as an Arab nationalist. Especially when he was concerned with eliminating the Jewish presence in Palestine or elsewhere, the Grand Mufti was a National
Socialist and Islamic fundamentalist at one and the same time.
Who was Haj Amin El-Husseini? He was born between 1893 and 1897 to one of the two most influential families in Palestine. His grandfather, father, and brother before him had all occupied the religious office of Mufti (judge) of Jerusalem, but he had only a superficial religious education. He then embarked on a military career in the Ottoman army, where he also served during World War I.60 After that, he became even more opposed to the newly created British Mandate in Palestine, and an advocate of the Arab cause. El-Husseini was one of the instigators of the pro-Syrian riots in Jerusalem in April 1920, and also steered them in an anti-Jewish direction. The result was five Jews dead and 234 injured. El-Husseini fled to Syria and was sentenced in absentia by the British to ten years in prison.
But exile and condemnation did not spell the early political end of the demagogue. Rather, the British rewarded him with an important office, in a conciliatory move toward the Palestinian-Arab national movement. In a manipulated electoral procedure, he was named Mufti
of Jerusalem; the next year, he became President of the Supreme Muslim Council, which the British had created. Thus, in a very short time, he found himself exercising the greatest influence of any Arab in Palestine. In the meanwhile, Arab riots in 1921 led to the death of forty-seven Jews. In 1929, a renewed wave of disturbances took a total of 133 Jewish lives.
It was precisely the terror that raged in 1929 that indicates vividly the fact that those who were behind the disturbances were not simply seeking to prevent the mounting Zionist immigration; rather they were fighting the essence of Jewish life in Palestine as a whole. Responding to calls on August 16, 1929, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammed, 2,000 Muslims descended on the Western Wall in Jerusalem, shouting slogans such as Kill the Jews. In their frenzy, they beat up Jews praying at that holy site. A week later, on August 23, Arab rioting escalated in the city, and that same afternoon a rumor also reached Hebron that Jews were slaughtering Arabs in Jerusalem. Centuries of the small Jewish minoritys peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in Hebron could not halt the subsequent wave of anti-Jewish violence that erupted. On August 24, 1929, an all-out massacre took place in Hebron, and sixtyseven Jews were murdered.
Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, the Mufti immediately commanded great sympathy and admiration. In March 1933, he sent the new rulers in Berlin his best wishes, stressing in particular his unconditional support for the struggle against Jewish influence.
In 1937, el-Husseini intensified his contacts with Germany and tried to obtain financial aid. The Nazis increased interest in the region and search for potential allies there was manifest in the trip to the Near East taken by Herbert Hagen, the head of the Judenreferat in the SDHauptamt,
and by his associate Adolf Eichmann in the fall of 1937.
After a new Arab revolt erupted in mandatory Palestine beginning in April 1936, and which, by October 15, 1936, cost some eighty Jewish lives the British Peel Commission published its report, on July 7, 1937, outlining a plan to partition Palestine and create a Jewish state on some 15 percent of the territory. Immediately thereafter a new Arab uprising flared, developing into an anti-Jewish and anti-British guerrilla war. In 1938, it cost 297 Jewish lives. The Mufti had managed to avoid arrest by the British by fleeing to safety in 1937, to the grounds of the Al-Aksa Mosque. From there, he continued to lead the uprising.
A report by German Vice-Consul Herbert Dittmann gives an indication of the atmosphere in the country at the time, even if it might reflect to a certain extent what a Nazi official hoped to find. He noted that there was anarchy for all practical purposes in Palestine. Then he spoke about the methods being employed by the terrorists:
The initially small number of Arabs active in the uprising have managed in the meantime to gain the support of the entire Arab people. Their methods are often quite cruel. The fanatical activists employed the most extreme personal terror, which does not hesitate to perpetrate targeted killings.
People accused of cooperating in any way with the British mandatory administration had been murdered; at times their bodies were mutilated, their hearts torn out, or throats cut and tongues
removed. Those murdered in this way were then buried with signs saying, This is how we treat those who betray the national cause.
Such massive terror within the society abruptly interrupted the development of a civil society in the Arab community in Palestine. The Arab sphere broke its link with the British legal system and any semblance of constitutional law, instead using unbridled violence to pass judgment as it saw fit. The insurgents forced their will on Palestinian society and replaced the rule of law by arbitrary force. The society was now based on surveillance and informing on ones neighbors. As
Dittmann described the situation, it hunted down the enemies of the revolution and un-Islamic deviants.
Not all Arabs in Palestine joined the faction led by the Mufti, becoming radical antisemites. But the consequence of this deluge of terror was that moderate voices were silenced; to advocate such views had now become a threat to ones very life.
Dittmann confirmed that the terrorists were ultimately successful. They now could seriously be considered to have become the agents of a popular movement. He illustrated this by noting a development he had recently observed in the streets:
Suddenly the word went out that all who supported the national cause of Palestine should wear the same headdress as the insurgents, a kaffiyeh and agal [headscarf and double cord]. This order was adhered to by the entire Arab population in Palestine, Muslim and Christian, effendis and fellahs, so that today the tarbush, the headdress of the urban Arabs over centuries, has completely vanished from view, and the towns in Palestine provide an external image that is completely changed.
The insurgents had requested the Germans in Palestine to use swastika flags for their own protection in order to identify themselves. On the whole, in Dittmanns view, the Palestinian Arabs felt that, it is possible for a united, fanatic people to force their will even on the English, who previously had been regarded as invulnerable.
While the uprising in Palestine raged on unabated, the Grand Mufti managed, in October 1937, to flee from Jerusalem to Lebanon, under the very eyes of the British. Two years later, he fled to Iraq. There he quickly established contact with an influential circle of military men well disposed toward the Germans, and politicians around Rashid Ali al-Gailani, who, in 1940, became the Iraqi prime minister, but was soon forced to step down in January 1941.
When it became clear that the British were successfully pressing his successor for a more
critical policy toward the Axis powers, al-Gailani and the Iraqi military staged a coup against the government on April 1, 1941, with the support of the Mufti. The insurgents sought military assistance in Germany and Italy, shifting immediately to a confrontation course with Great
Britain. A short time later, a British army corps landed near Basra.
In this case as well, the uprising against the British Empire coincided with a direct attack on the Jews. On June 1, 1941, a pogrom broke out in Baghdad against the Jewish community there. The violence raged for two days and took 110 Jewish lives. Some 240 Jews were injured, 86 Jewish shops and workshops were plundered, and 911 houses and apartments destroyed. On June 9, the Italian legation there reported that Jews were continuing to be attacked and looted in Baghdad.
Once again, el-Husseini and the Iraqis in revolt sought and found the help of the Nazis. But since Hitler was busy organizing airborne troop drops against Crete and preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union, German weapons shipments via Syria and the support of the German air force turned out to be far too modest in scope. As a consequence, the Iraqi army was quickly defeated by the British, and el-Husseini fled to Iran with al-Gailani. After a few weeks there, he proceeded via Turkey to Italy, where he arrived in early October 1941, and consulted with Mussolini. On November 6, 1941, he relocated to Berlin, and al-Gailani followed him there on November 21.
On November 28, el-Husseini had an audience with Hitler, during which Hitler raised the topic that especially interested his guest: Germany supports an uncompromising struggle against the Jews.
He then spoke about the current military situation, emphasizing that the real German aim
in the Orient was to destroy the Jews living in the Arab area under the aegis of British might.
The Mufti thanked Hitler for these assurances, stating that, for his part, he had full confidence in the German initiative. This Arab solidarity with the Third Reich, primarily motivated by
antisemitism, and with the common basis of the struggle against Jewish life in the Near East, was later repeatedly stressed and underwent further concrete elaboration. In a letter to the Reich foreign minister, the Grand Mufti and al-Gailani officially sought German support, in April 1942, for the elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine.
Given such a formula for alliance, Ribbentrop did not find it difficult to agree. Shortly afterward, the Mufti stressed that, Arab interests are completely identical in thrust with those of the Germans.
Along with unity in the struggle against England and communism, there was agreement most especially with regard to fighting against the Jews.
Germany was the only country in the world that did not limit itself to struggling against the Jews solely on its own soil, but had also declared an uncompromising war on world Jewry. In this
struggle of Germany against international Jewry, the Arabs felt a very close bond of solidarity with Germany.
As had been evident earlier in his efforts to organize anti-British uprisings and anti-Jewish pogroms in the Near East, the Grand Mufti in exile in Germany was not satisfied with mere rhetoric and antisemitic tirades. Rather, he continued to pursue the vision of the destruction of
the Jews and the simultaneous creation of a pan-Arab empire under his leadership. This was to culminate in a new Caliphate, yet to be established.
Among other things, he declared his readiness to help set up armed units of Arab volunteers for the struggle. Trained by Germans, they were to take part side by side with them in the fight against the British in the Middle East. Subsequently, in the framework of the Special Staff F, under General Hellmuth Felmy, who had participated in the abortive German intervention in Iraq in 1941, the German-Arab Training Department (Deutsch-Arabische Lehrabteilung) was established.
Like the Einsatzkommando Egypt, it was marking time, in the summer of 1942, in mainland Greece at Cape Sunion, awaiting imminent deployment. Along with his diverse contacts with the Italians, the German Foreign Office, and the Wehrmacht, it can be proven that the Mufti also
had direct communication with the Judenreferat in the RSHA. A short time after his first meeting with Himmler, el-Husseini paid a visit to the Section Head IV B 4, Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
On this occasion (the visit must have been the end of 1941, or the beginning of 1942), Eichmann provided his much-impressed guest with an intensive look at the current state of the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe by the Third Reich, and illustrated this with numerous statistics and maps. For his part, the Grand Mufti informed Eichmann that he had already received approval from Himmler that, after the Axis victory, one of the advisors on Jewish affairs from Eichmanns section would go with him to Jerusalem in order to come to practical grips with the virulent questions still remaining there. Eichmann, who was very impressed by the Mufti, subsequently met with him a number of times.
However, the basic questions pertaining to the Jewish Questionin Palestine appeared to have been clarified already during their first meeting. This can be safely assumed, since el-Husseini later turned directly to Eichmanns competent associate to discuss practical matters in more precise detail. There is evidence that the Grand Mufti met at least on one occasion with Sturmbannfuhrer Friedrich Suhr, head of IV B 4 b (Jewish Affairs) during the first half of 1942, as Suhrs secretary later confirmed.85 During this period the Mufti was, as mentioned, directly assisted by Obersturmfuhrer Hans-Joachim Weise, who later was assigned to Rauffs Einsatzkommando.
The capture of Tobruk, at the end of June 1942, was the starting signal both for the RSHA and el-Husseini to render the plan for the destruction of the Jews in Palestine into more concrete terms. While the Einsatzkommando for the Panzer Army Africa was put together in Berlin and sent on to Athens to await further orders, the Mufti also intensified his activities to liberate Palestine. He offered to travel to Egypt and become active in propaganda work there in order to spur Arab collaboration. In this connection, he also called for dispatching the German-Arab Training Department to Egypt. His tactic to destabilize the British position in the Middle East and prepare it for a German invasion was summed up by el-Husseini in the following words:
Set up bands of Arabs as a fighting force and equip them. They will march to Egypt and other Arab countries in order to disturb and harass the enemy by destroying roads, bridges and possibilities for contact more generally, and to promote uprisings inside the country. Set up regular Arab military units that will operate side by side together with troops of the Axis powers. These units will have a morally favorable impact in the Arab countries and will draw the volunteers in the British army to their side. Dispatch weapons and munitions to Egypt behind enemy lines, and then to Palestine, Syria and Iraq in order to lay the groundwork for uprisings and to harass the enemy.
The Overlooked Project for Mass Murder
It is well known that the Germans did not reach Palestine and the Rauff Commando did not embark upon its envisioned agenda of operations there. The halt at El Alamein, which Rommel expected would be a short stay-over, ultimately became a turning point for the advance of the Axis powers. After it had proved impossible to successfully resume German-Italian operations, the Panzer Army Africa was forced into a final withdrawal and retreat from Egypt and Libya by the power of the British counter-offensive that commenced in early November 1942.
As a result of the unfavorable course for the German forces of the second battle at El Alamein as the conclusion, on September 3, made it evident that a conquest of Egypt would be deferred to a more distant future the Rauff Commando was given orders to leave Athens in September 1942. It returned to Berlin and remained there, apparently still intact, because precisely two months later the unit was deployed, at the very same strength of 7:17, in Tunis. In Tunis, the Commando unit was assigned at least three more SS officers, and the personnel was strengthened from the original twenty-four men to 100.
Out of consideration for Germanys close ally in Tunisia, which the Germans accepted as an Italian sphere of interest, the Rauff Commando did not organize a mass murder of the Jewish population there. Instead, Rauff and his men were put to work registering the Jews and deploying them at forced labor for the construction of fortifications.
Rauffs previous record makes it more than likely that if there had been less requisite consideration for the Italian ally and its wishes, Rauff would doubtlessly have been prepared to press ahead with the mass murder of the Jewish population in Tunisia, too. In addition, an assessment by Rudolf Rahn, the German ambassador in Italy, who expressly praised the exceptionally energetic and successful activity of Obersturmbannfuhrer Rauff, suggests that Rauff was probably only allowed to a very restricted extent to pursue his true calling in Tunisia.
Shortly before the Axis troops surrendered in Africa on May 13, 1943, the Rauff Commando was withdrawn, on May 9, from Tunis and sent to Naples. It was then transferred for Security Police duties to the island of Corsica. At the beginning of September, Rauff was placed under the commander of the SIPO and SD Italy, where he was responsible among other things for combating partisans in his new capacity as commander of the Group Upper Italy-West.
The end of the Africa campaign of the Axis powers should not obscure a central fact: in the special strategic situation that developed during the summer of 1942, Rommels Panzer Army Africa stood on the verge of a breakthrough into Palestine. The Germans had prepared for this scenario: with the Einsatzkommando under Rauff and certain support that could be expected from the Arab side in Palestine, the mass murder of the Jewish population in mandatory Palestine could also have been put into high gear once that breakthrough occurred.
Down to the present, this plan has not become part of public historical awareness. There were some German state prosecutors who did at least hear certain intimations about these designs in the interrogations they conducted of the potential perpetrators after the war. However, the lawyers did not interest themselves in the murderous intention that emerged in these statements, since destruction of human life not carried out was not a criminal offense that could be prosecuted in a court of law.
It is obvious that the history of the Middle East would have taken a far different course, and it probably would never have been possible to establish a Jewish state if the project described here had been made a concrete reality by the joint action of the Germans and Arabs. It was only thanks to El Alamein and the second Allied front that opened up in November 1942 in North Africa that the Yishuv at the time nearly half a million Jews in Palestine were spared and survived.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Mallmann-Cuppers2.pdf
(Yad Vashem studies, Volume 37, Part 1 By Yad a-shem, rashut ha-zikaron la-Shoah ela-gevurah Wallstein Verlag, 2009
[ISSN 0084-3296] Page 111)
http://books.google.com/books?id=JcDXaeukt4sC&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111
https://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-13402341/The-Nazis-Final-Solution-for.html
http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2010/05/german-scholars-produce-more-proof-of.html
http://www.jewpi.com/scholars-produce-more-proof-of-nazi-arab-axis-2/
The Nazi-Islamist Connection Herbert EiteneierPalestinian maps, including in textbooks, do not show Israel at all; Palestinian sources omit the Muftis role in Nazism and deny the Holocaust,
http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-eiteneier-s06.htm
Admiration of Hitler and Nazism | PMWThe name Hitler does not have the stigma in Palestinian society that it has in the This is the source of the names Rommel [Nazi General]
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=655
Arab Nazism: Then and Now FPM Article Feb 24, 2003 Similarities between German and Arab nationalist extremes are not The Nazi party and the Baath party express concepts of destiny with a
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=19606
Eyewitness to Evil Palestinian Nazism The anti-Jewish Nazi legacy continues today in Arab towns within Israels borders. Heil Palestine!! shout the graduates of the Palestinian Police Academy
http://www.gsmcgregor.net/Palestinian-Nazism.html
Despite Hitler and Nazis contempt for the inferior Arab and all Middle-Easterners race, who have been considered half-apes. (http://books.google.com/books?id=GteStbiDEjAC&pg=PA140) Nazi Arabs managed to rise above humiliation for the sake of the greater common evil AKA: anti-Semitism [anti-Jew-ism].
Contemporary:
Stop The ISM Jul 3, 2006 MORE ON SFSUS NAZI-ARAB ANTI-JEW HATEFEST . fact that Al Awda also links up with the American Nazi Partys website is beside the point.
http://www.stoptheism.com/content/index.php?pid=149&cid=191http://www.stoptheism.com/content/index.php?pid=149&cid=191
“Libby that’s not accurate. Hamas was created out of the same religious/political zealotry and hatred that gave birth to other Islamist terror organizations.”
… and in response to savage persecution of the Palestinians by the Israelis through two generations. Really dumb, and very sad.
Libby: “…in response to savage persecution…”
I want specific instances. If you’re going to make accusations of “savage” persecution you shoiuld at least have an example in mind that demonstrates “savage” persecution.
I know what the Israeli’s don’t do…they don’t teach their children to hate Palestinians (Arabs) and they don’t teach them that the Palestinians (Arabs) don’t have a right to exist. They also don’t teach them to strap bombs to themselves and sacrifice their lives for the cause of eliminating the Palestinians (Arabs). If anyone “savagely” persecutes Palestinians it’s Hamas.