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. [1}
"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 Eichmann’s
best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the
extermination measures."
Adolf
Eichmann`s deputy Dieter Wisliceny in his Nuremberg Trials testimony.
[2]
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. [3]
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.
On
May 5, the British colonial authorities warned al-Husseini against
committing illegal acts but did not appear particularly decisive,
leading the Arab to conclude that he could organize mass violence
with impunity. By October 1936, nearly 300 people were killed
and another 1,100 wounded. [4]
Colonial
forces arrested a few pawns and one major leader, but took no
action against the Mufti. The New York Times reported on June
14, 1936 that al-Husseini had succeeded "in convincing experienced
high British civil servants that he is working for the government`s
interests [and that] it was in the interest of the government
that he should also be president of the new Arab High Committee,"
so that Haj Amin el-Husseini enjoys the government`s complete
confidence as its unofficial adviser on the Arab side of the situation….The
government believes that he and only he is in a position to appease
the Moslem masses; therefore it gives him every support while
at the same time playing into his hands." [5]
Continuing
its policy of siding with the Mufti, in June the Brits arrested
scores of members of the Defense Party sponsored by the rival
Nashashibi clan, despite lack of any evidence that the Nashashibis
were involved in the massacres. Ninety percent of Arabs in the
Sinai concentration camp belonged to the Defense Party, with another
10 percent coming from smaller political movements. None of the
Husseini-backed people were sent to the camp. [6]
The
UK was not the only power helping the Mufti in 1936. The USSR-sponsored
Communist Party of Palestine also did its part. After the 1929
massacres (including the slaughter of 68 Jews in Hebron), the
Communist Party issued a statement that "revolutionary movement
without pogroms [anti-Semitic riots] is impossible." The
Communists even considered the Mufti "too moderate"
in his fight against Jews. [7]
In
the run-up to the 1936-39 riots, the Palestinian leader began
coordinating the organization of anti-Jewish violence. In November
1935, Communists declared that Zionists were killing Arabs, helping
the Mufti`s propaganda campaign to spark Arab rage against the
Jews. On the eve of the first riots, Communists met al-Husseini
to work out the final terms of their roles in the upcoming violence.
Communist Party member Nimr Uda became the intelligence chief
for the Mufti`s military units. Another Communist representative,
Fuad Nasir, was named deputy to Abdul Qadir Husseini, commander
of Arab fighters in the southern West Bank. [8]
By
1937, Britain realized the Mufti was sponsoring the violence not
just against Jews, but against the English as well. Al-Husseini
fled Jerusalem and settled in Lebanon. So glad were the British
to see the Mufti leave that they did not even bother to ask the
French powers governing Lebanon to extradite him.
Meanwhile,
in an attempt to please the Arabs, the UK`s Peel Commission violated
the League of Nations Mandate by offering a proposal to divide
the land designated as the "Jewish National Home" by
the League of Nations Mandate of 1922. Instead, under the Peel
Commission proposal of 1937, only a small part of the land would
become the Jewish state.
A
year later, the Peel Commission issued another proposal, with
even less land offered to Jews. Some time after that, the British
issued the White Paper of 1939 rejecting the idea of a Jewish
National Home and severely restricting Jewish immigration. It
was hoped for in London that such concessions to Arab nationalists
would appease al-Husseini and his supporters. Yet, only two years
after the White Paper, the Mufti would come back to strike the
British again. [9]
*
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In
1940 it looked as if Hitler’s armada was unstoppable. Having already
conquered France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark,
Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, Hitler and his friends in Italy,
Spain and the occupied countries were clearly the rulers of continental
Europe. Hitler had also allied himself with the USSR under the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 which divided Eastern Europe by
giving the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania to the
USSR, while letting the Germans take over western Poland, Romania
and other European nations.
Meanwhile,
the Japanese were the dominant force of Asia, seemingly set to
impose their control on that continent. Britain`s Winston Churchill
stood virtually alone against the Fascist onslaught, with the
United States mired in radical isolationism, refusing to take
part in what many Americans saw as a European war.
The
one region where the British still had significant influence was
the Middle East. Hitler set out to change that. Al-Husseini wanted
to get rid of the Hashemite-clan rulers in Iraq and Transjordan.
Both men wanted to get rid of the Jews and the Brits. It was a
marriage made in heaven.
Despite
boasting a powerful navy, the United Kingdom had an army that
was modest in size and spread too thin. The Middle East, especially
Iraq, seemed likely to be the next pawn to fall to the Third Reich.
In
1940, King Ghazi (son of King Faisal I) died, leaving only his
four-year-old son to govern. Emir Abdul-Illah, the regent for
the young Iraqi king, felt the need to bring Rashid Ali al-Kaylani
into the government as the prime minister, despite the latter`s
support for Nazi Germany and links with al-Husseini. The new head
of state immediately shifted the policies of Iraq in favor of
Nazi Germany, guaranteeing suply of natural resources to Hitler
and refusing to cut ties with Italy. The former Mufti of Jerusalem
and his surrogates frequently acted as the government`s representatives
with foreigners. Kaylani also asked from Hitler the right to "deal
with Jews" in Arab states – a request that was granted. [10]
Britain
responded with severe economic sanctions which, coupled with the
UK`s initial defeat of German forces in North Africa and pressure
from the Iraqi royal family, brought down the pro-German government
on January 31, 1941. Kaylani and other pro-Axis Iraqis, under
the influence of al-Husseini, conspired, unsuccessfully, to murder
Abdul-Illah. But thanks to widespread support for Kaylani among
government officials, he was back in power two months later. [11]
As
one of its first acts, the restored pro-German administration
sent its artillery to attack the British air base at Habbaniya,
causing the Brits to respond by invading Basra. The hoped-for
support from Nazi Germany never came and Kaylani eventually fled
to Saudi Arabia. [12]
Haj
Amin al-Husseini, who issued a fatwa (Islamic religious ruling)
calling on all Muslims to help the pro-Axis government in Iraq,
became one of England`s most wanted men. In May 1941, a group
of Jewish fighters, including David Raziel, leader of the right-wing
Irgun, set out for Iraq to assassinate the former Mufti on a mission
sponsored by the Churchill government. The mission ended prematurely
when Raziel was killed by a bomb dropped from a German plane.
Aware that his life was in danger, al-Husseini fled to Europe
dressed as a woman. [13]
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On
November 28, 1941 the former Mufti was officially received by
Hitler, who agreed to establish a bureau for al-Husseini which
was used to spread propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany, organize
spy rings in Europe and the Middle East, and, most importantly,
establish Muslim Nazi SS divisions and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia,
the Balkans, North Africa and Nazi-occupied parts of the Soviet
Union. After the meeting, the Mufti was also named SS gruppenfuehrer
by Heinrich Himmler and referred to as the "Fuhrer of the
Arab World" by Hitler himself. [14]
The
largest Muslim Nazi SS unit was the 13th division, known as Hanjar.
Husseini also encouraged the creation of smaller, less efficient
units, including the Waffen SS divisions known as Skanderbeg (made
up predominantly of Albanians) and Kama (made up mostly of Yugoslavian
Muslims). Thus, Hitler`s Mufti organized or encouraged three out
of 27 Waffen SS divisions formed before 1945 (eleven other SS
divisions were formed in 1945, but most of these were of questionable
caliber and accepted soldiers of questionable skill).
According
to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, al-Husseini "organized
in record time" Croatian units that went on to massacre hundreds
of thousands of Serbian Orthodox Christians. Jacenovac, the third
largest death camp, where more than 200,000 people met their death,
was run by Croatian Ante Pavelic with the aid of al-Husseini.
In all, at least 800,000 Yugoslavian civilians were murdered by
Pavelic’s pro-Axis Ustaschi regime. [15]
Despite
the relative inefficiency of the Hanjar division and the total
incompetence of the other two divisions, it can still be said
that the units established and encouraged by the "Fuhrer
of the Arab World" played a significant role in the genocide.
Tens of thousands of Jews outside Yugoslavia also perished when
the Mufti argued against trading them for German POWs held by
the Allies.
Al-Husseini
opened a North African Bureau in Germany with the goal of recruiting
500,000 Arab soldiers from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. The plan
failed when German forces were forced to withdraw from much of
North Africa after a successful British operation. [16]
But
an Arab Legion was founded, and it fought under the German flag.
Arab soldiers had hoped to fight in the Middle East but were instead
sent to the Russian front, where they were completely wiped out
while fighting in the Caucasus region. Some time later, in responseto
the British decision to create a Jewish Brigade made up of some
of the 26,000 Palestinian Jews who had fought under the United
Kingdom’s flag, the Mufti convinced the Germans to create an Arab
Brigade. The unit, however, either did not fight or was not very
efficient because very little is known about it. [17]
The
Mufti also made a particularly strong effort to recruit Soviet
Muslims. "It was largely due to Haj Amin’s propaganda that
on the arrival of German armies in the northern Caucasus in 1942,
five indigene tribes – the Chechens, the Ingushes, the Balkars,
the Karachais, and the Kabardines – welcomed them with bread and
salt," wrote Joseph Schechtman in The Mufti and the Fuhrer.[18]
Stalin’s response was deadly. Caucasian Muslims, including nearly
all Chechens and Ingush, were exiled from their land, with up
to a third dying as a result of inhumane treatment by Soviet authorities.
The
Mufti was similarly instrumental in the recruitment of the Azerbaijani
battalion, which "proved their valor, were included in German
Storm Troops and decorated by the German Army," according
to a November 1943 broadcast by DNB, the German News Agency. The
Mufti`s representatives in Central Asia recruited some Muslim
fighters for Nazi Germany there as well, despite widespread sympathy
among the majority of Central Asian Muslims for the plight of
the Jews during the Holocaust. [19]
The
Mufti`s hatred of the West was matched only by his hatred of the
Jews. It is not a coincidence that Germany suddenly abandoned
the policy of expelling Jews and adopted far harsher methods a
short time after the Mufti arrived in Germany. When Haj Amin came
to Germany again, the Nazis decided to execute the Final Solution
to the Jewish Problem.
"The
Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination
of European Jewry," reported Eichmann`s deputy, Dieter Wisliceny.
"[He had] played a role in the decision to exterminate the
European Jews. The importance of this role must not be disregarded….
The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination
of European Jewry." [20]
We
do not know if al-Husseini played a major role in shaping the
Final Solution. "There is, however," wrote Joseph Schechtman,
"abundant first-hand evidence of the part the Mufti played
in making foolproof the ban on emigration (of Jews out of Germany)."
[21]
When
the war ended, al-Husseini returned to the Middle East as a hero.
On October 1, 1948, he was proclaimed the president of the government
of All-Palestine. The government was fictional, however, because
it did not control any land and was recognized by only a handful
of Arab nations. In 1959 it was dispersed by its sponsor, Egypt.
[22]
By
that time, however, another member of the al-Husseini clan was
planning terror. Around the same time that the All-Palestine government
was disbanded, a man by the name of Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ar-Rauf
al-Qudwah al-Husaini – better known as Yasir Arafat – was busy
organizing Fatah, which would go on to become the main faction
of the PLO.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Support
for Nazism was not limited to the former Mufti. "We admired
the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books
. . . . We were the first who thought of a translation of Mein
Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to
the Arab inclination toward Nazism," recalled Sami al-Joundi,
one of the founders of Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party. [23] Indeed,
a popular WWII song was heard in the Middle East featuring words:
Bissama Allah, oria alard Hitler – in heaven Allah, on earth Hitler.
Picking up the theme of the book, posters were put up in Arab
markets and elsewhere proclaiming, "In heaven Allah is thy
ruler; on earth Adolph Hitler." John Gunther of Inside Asia
reported: "The greatest contemporary Arab hero is probably
Hitler." [24]
In
October 1933, pro-Axis Young Egypt Party was founded. Styling
itself of its German ideal, the new party built a storm-trooper
unit, marching with torches under the slogan "One folk, One
party, One Leader." Among the members of the violently anti-Semitic
party was the young Gamal Abdel Nasser. [25] Nasser’s brother,
Nassiri, was the translator of Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Arabic,
describing the Fascist despot in glowing terms. After the "Free
Officers" came to power in the 1950’s, President Nasser used
Joachim Daumling, the former Gestapo chief in Dusseldorf, to build
the Egyptian secret service. The Gestapo chief of Warsaw organized
the Egyptian security police. [26]
Another
future Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, was imprisoned during
World War II for cooperating with Adolf Hitler’s regime. Towards
the end of World War II, Sadat wrote to the Fuhrer: "My dear
Hitler, I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. Even if
you appear to have been defeated, in reality you are the victor.
You succeeded in creating dissensions between Churchill, the old
man, and his allies, the Sons of Satan. Germany will win because
her existence is necessary to preserve the world balance. Germany
will be reborn in spite of the Western and Eastern powers. There
will be no peace unless Germany once again becomes what she was."
[27]
A
few years prior to writing this letter, Anwar Sadat contacted
Muslim Brotherhood’s leader Hassan al-Banna, an ardent supporter
of Nazi Germany. The meeting put Sadat in contact with Abd al-Munim
Adb al-Rauf, who went on to become a leading member of the Free
Officers and a chief propagandist and protagonist of the Brotherhood.
[28] Both men tried to join the pro-Axis fighters in Iraq, but
failed. Sadat also met with Dr. Ibrahim Hasan, the second deputy
of Ikhwan. The two gentlemen agreed that "salvation of the
country could be assured only by a coup at the hands of the military"
because of the King’s support for the Allies. [29] On February
24, 1945, the Prime Minister of Egypt was assassinated by a member
of the National Party as he was reading the declaration of war
against Germany. [30] The Brotherhood and the military were not
involved in the murder, but clearly did not object to the act.
The assassination would become a sign of the things to come in
the decades after the World War.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sources
1.
Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Cited online on June 22, 2004 Here
2. Ibid.
3. Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuehrer." p. 44-46
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 46
7. Ibid., 38-39
8. Ibid., 46
9. Ibid.
10. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Cited online on June 22, 2004
Here
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Cited online on June 22, 2004
Here
14. Ibid.
15. Sean Mac Mathuna, Flame Magazine, "The Role of the SS
Handschar division in Yugoslavia’s Holocaust". Cited online
on June 24, 2004 Here
16. Schechtman, 131
17. Schechtman, 135-137
18. Schechtman, 46
19. Schechtman, 141
20. Schechtman, 141-42
21. Schechtman, 159-60
22. Schechtman, 153
23. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Cited online on June 22, 2004
Here
24. Christian Action for Israel Web Site. "The Arab/Muslim
Nazi Connection". Cited online on June 25, 2004 Here
25. Schechtman, 84-85
26. Christian Action for Israel Web Site. "The Arab/Muslim
Nazi Connection". Cited online on June 25, 2004 Here
27. Sean Mac Mathuna, Flame Magazine, "Postwar Arab links
to the ODESSA network". Cited online on June 24, 2004 Here
28.
Sadat’s letter, Al Musawwar, No. 1510, September 18,1953, cited
in D.F. Green, ed., Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (Geneva,
1976 ed.), p. 87. Cited on August 3, 2004 on the Eretz Yisroel
Web site Here
28. Mitchell, 96-97
29. Mitchell, 25
30. Mitchell, 33
David
Storobin, Esq., is a New York attorney who is currently writing
a book titled "The Root Cause: The Rise of Fundamentalist
Islam and its Threat to the World."