Monday, October 26, 2015

Hajj Amin al-Husseini inspired generations of terrorists and dictators

From Catholic Answers Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 1, by Matthew E. Bunsen:



Recent work by historians and apologists has revealed that an influential, international religious leader was also an ardent supporter of Adolf Hitler...Hajj Amin al-Husseini. This Grand Mufti of Jerusalem recruited whole divisions of fanatics to fight and kill in the name of extremism.
Revered in some circles today as one of the fathers of modern radical Islam, al-Husseini has been the subject of a number of modern studies. Scholars such as David Dalin, John Rothmann, Chuck Morse, and others have courageously brought al-Husseini’s actions to light. "Hitler’s Mufti," as many have called him, had a direct hand in some of the darkest moments of the Holocaust, the slaughter of tens of thousands of Christians, and the formation of some of the most hate-filled generations of modern history. Al-Husseini is a testament to the way that evil finds evil.
A Radical Shaped by War
Al-Husseini was born sometime in the late 1890s in Jerusalem when that city was in the hands of the dying Ottoman Empire. He belonged to an old family of nobles and was the son of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Tahir al-Husseini. Sent to Cairo for his education, he studied Islamic jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University and then at the Cairo school Dar al-Dawa wal-Ershad (The Institute for Propagation and Guidance) founded by a Syrian member of the Muslim Salafi sect (one of the most extreme in Islam). The school, a haven for radical thought, gave al-Husseini an early grounding in practical revolutionary planning. Al-Husseini went on to the College of Literature at Cairo University and then the Ottoman School for Administrators in Istanbul, which trained future leaders of the then far-flung Ottoman Empire.
After taking the mandatory pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hajj) in 1913, al-Husseini was drafted into the Ottoman Army. He was assigned to the College of Reserve Officers and subsequently named to an infantry regiment as a non-commissioned officer. With the onset of World War I in 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered into the bloody conflict as a member of the Central Powers with Germany and Austria. Al-Husseini found himself in an inefficient army that, compared to the highly mechanized forces of the West, was lacking in leadership and modern equipment. He soon heard of the genocide of the Armenian people—one of the most horrendous incidents in the terrible global conflict.
In 1916, al-Husseini departed the Ottoman Army on disability leave and spent the rest of the war in Jerusalem. Angered by the decision of the Allied victors to deny Arab participation in the discussions leading to the Treaty of Versailles, al-Husseini was even more infuriated by the sudden increase of Jewish immigrants into British-controlled Palestine. An ardent anti-Semite who hated Jews with a deep fervor, he first came to the attention of the British in 1920 when he organized riots against Jews. Charged with inciting violence that left five Jews dead and another 211 injured, he fled to Syria and was sentenced in absentia to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The Grand Mufti’s Ascent
In April 1921, however, British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel, seeking to achieve some semblance of peace in the Holy Land, granted amnesty to Arab nationalists. Al-Husseini was allowed to return to Jerusalem, and the British officials—disregarding his long record of anti-Semitism—named him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. This title was granted to a Sunni Muslim cleric, granting him oversight of the holy sites of Islam in Jerusalem, in particular the Al-Aqsa Mosque. For Sunni Muslims, the Grand Mufti is honored as the chief religious authority in Jerusalem. Notably, from the appointment of the first Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1860s, the position was customarily filled by the governing power in charge of Jerusalem.
After the death of the first Grand Mufti, Mohammed Tahir al-Husseini, in 1908, the position stayed in the family when the Turks awarded the title to his son Kamil al-Husseini. Although the British assumed control of Jerusalem during World War I, Kamil al-Husseini remained in his post until his death in 1921, when the British decided that Kamil’s brother Hajj Amin would be an acceptable choice—despite his criminal past and known extremist ties. Al-Husseini remained as Grand Mufti under the British in spite of his activities and was removed only in 1948, when King Abdullah I of Jordan banned him from Jerusalem and named Hussam Al-din Jarallah as Grand Mufti.
Once in power in Jerusalem, al-Husseini was appointed by the British to head the newly established Supreme Muslim Council, created to prepare the way for Arab self-governance in Palestine. Al-Husseini took the chance given to him by the appeasement-minded British to call for the deaths of Jews and set out on a campaign of terror against the Jews in Palestine. In subsequent years, al-Husseini was involved in plots to massacre Jews, among them 60 Jewish immigrants in Hebron and 45 more in Safad in 1929. In 1936, he helped lead a rebellion in Palestine against the British. The following year the British condemned al-Husseini (though permitting him to retain the title of Grand Mufti), and he fled to Syria once more. From there he continued to plot against the British control over Palestine.
Fascist Bedfellows
Events outside the Middle East were presenting new opportunities for fanatics to find allies and possible patrons. The 1930s witnessed the rise of National Socialism in Italy under Benito Mussolini and in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Soon after the appointment of Hitler as German Chancellor in 1933, the German Consul-General in Palestine, Heinrich Wolff, expressed his belief that many Muslims in the Holy Land would be supportive of the new Nazi regime. This view was confirmed when Wolff met with al-Husseini and other radical local leaders. For al-Husseini, the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazis were appealing, and he hoped for German help in ousting the British from Palestine.
Al-Husseini deepened his outreach to the Nazis in 1937 when he met with two Nazi SS officers, including Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust in Damascus, Syria. The SS representatives had been sent at the express order of Reinhard Heydrich, the deputy head of the SS under Heinrich Himmler and chief of SS Intelligence and the Nazi security services, including the Gestapo. Heydrich recognized immediately that al-Husseini was a potentially valuable asset for Nazi interests in the Middle East and worked to cultivate him.
Four years later, al-Husseini threw his support to a pro-Nazi revolt in Iraq against the British-backed prime minister, Nuri Said Pasha. Going to Baghdad, al-Husseini issued a fatwa for a jihad against the British. Barely a month later, British troops ended the coup and occupied the country, whereupon al-Husseini fled to Iran. Although given sanctuary in the embassies of Japan and Italy, al-Husseini was again forced to be on the move when Iran was itself occupied by the British and Soviet armies. Al-Husseini made his way out of Iran with Italian diplomats who provided him with an Italian passport. He shaved his beard and dyed his hair to avoid being recognized by British agents and Iranian police.
Al-Husseini reached Rome in October 1941 and began serious discussions with the Mussolini regime. The result was twofold. First, he secured a meeting with Mussolini himself and then completed a practical agreement with the Italians. In return for Axis recognition of an Arab state of a fascist nature that would encompass Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and the Transjordan, he agreed to support the war against Britain. The Italian foreign ministry also urged Mussolini to grant al-Husseini one million lire.
The Mufti Meets the Führer
Over the next few days, al-Husseini drafted a proposed statement of an Arab-Axis cooperative effort by which the Axis powers would recognize the right of the Arabs to deal with Jewish elements in Palestine and in the other Arab countries according to their own interests. The declaration was approved by Mussolini and sent to the German embassy in Rome. Pleased with the declaration, al-Husseini was invited to Berlin as an honored and useful guest of the Nazi regime. He arrived in Berlin on November 6 and met with Ernst von Weizsäcker, German secretary of state under Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Two weeks later, he met with von Ribbentrop himself, a prelude to his triumphant reception on November 28, 1941, with Adolf Hitler.
At their meeting, al-Husseini requested German assistance with the Arab independence movement and Nazi support in the extermination of any Jewish homeland. For his part, Hitler promised to aid that liberation movement, but went still further, promising that the aim of Nazi Germany would be the elimination of all Jews living under British protection once such territories had been conquered. This was described by al-Husseini in his own 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 people 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." (Ami Isseroff and Peter FitzGerald-Morris, "The Iraq Coup Attempt of 1941, the Mufti, and the Farhud")
The Axis’ Kept Man
For the Nazis, al-Husseini was an ideal propaganda tool, a powerful spokesman among radical Arabs, and an excellent instrument for their anti-Jewish campaign in Europe and in the Holy Land. Portrayed by the Nazis as the spiritual leader of all Islam, al-Husseini was given a grand formal welcome in Berlin. The official Nazi newspaper,Volkischer Beobachter, proudly published a photo of Hitler and al-Husseini, and Radio Berlin proclaimed on January 8, 1942 that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had consented to take part in the effort against the British, the Communists, and the Jews.
Satisfied with his newly concretized relations with the Nazis, al-Husseini chose to remain in the service of the Axis and settled in Berlin in a lavish mansion that had been confiscated from a Jewish family. The Nazis paid him a monthly stipend of 62,500 Reichsmarks(approximately 20,000 dollars), payments that continued until April 1945, when only the fall of Berlin to the Red Army ended Hitler’s financial support. From his post, al-Husseini headed the Nazi-Arab Cooperation Section and helped build a network of German spies across the Middle East through his followers. Scheming for a desired dark future of Nazi-Islamic leadership, the Mufti founded an Islamic Institute in Dresden to provide training for young radical Muslims who would serve as chaplains for his field units and also head out across the Middle East and the world to sow the seeds of jihadism and anti-Semitism.
The Mufti’s Final Solution
Scholars have long studied how actively engaged al-Husseini was in the implementation of the Holocaust. There is no question that he supported the aims of the Nazis in perpetrating genocide and believed perversely that all Arabs should join that cause. He declared on German radio on March 1, 1944: 
"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you" (qtd. in Norman Stillman, "Jews of the Arab World between European Colonialism, Zionism, and Arab Nationalism" in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communications, and Interaction: Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner).
According to the testimony of Adolf Eichmann’s chief deputy Dieter Wisliceny (who was hanged for war crimes) the Mufti played a role in encouraging the Final Solution and was a close friend and advisor to Eichmann in the Holocaust’s implementation across Europe. Wisliceny testified further that al-Husseini had a close association with Heinrich Himmler and visited the gas chambers at Auschwitz, where he exhorted the staff to be even more dedicated in its important work.
To assist the practical slaughter of Jews and Christians, al-Husseini built an army of Muslim volunteer units for the Waffen-SS (the combat units of the dread SS) to operate for the Nazi cause in the Balkans. While the appeal for volunteers from among Muslims always struggled to meet the demands for new recruits, al-Husseini was able to organize three divisions of Bosnian Muslims who were then trained as elements of the Waffen-SS. The largest radical Muslim unit was the 13th Waffen-SS Handzar ("Dagger") division that boasted over 21,000 men. They were joined by the Bosnian 23rd Waffen-SS Kama Division and the Albanian Skanderbeg 21st Waffen-SS Division. The MuslimWaffen-SS forces fought across the Balkans against Communist partisans and then assisted in the genocide of Yugoslavian Jews and in the persecution and slaughter of Gypsies and Christian Serbs in 1944 and 1945. The brutality extended to Catholics as well, for the MuslimWaffen-SS cut a path of destruction across the Balkans that encompassed a large number of Catholic parishes, churches, and shrines and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Catholics. By the end of the war, al-Husseini’s fanatical soldiers had killed over 90 percent of the Jews in Bosnia...
The Untouchable Cleric
With the collapse of the Third Reich, al-Husseini fled from Germany to Switzerland and then to Paris. Incredibly, he was not a target of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. He was sentenced merely to house arrest in Paris on the basis of charges made by the Yugoslav Supreme Military Court, which sentenced him to three years of imprisonment and two years of deprivation of civil rights because of his involvement in the atrocities throughout the Balkans. As for Nuremberg, despite the testimony of Eichmann’s aide, there was scant interest in the mufti because of his assumed immense sway in the Middle East.
With little effort, al-Husseini escaped from his comfortable house arrest. From there he traveled to Cairo, where he considered himself safe thanks to the patronage of Egypt’s King Farouk. Even with the fall of Farouk and the rise of Gamal Abdel-Nasser as head of Egypt in 1952, al-Husseini remained safe. His influence was felt throughout the Arab world, most so in galvanizing opposition to Zionism and the birth of Israel. He supported the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was involved in the assassination of King Abdullah I of Jordan in 1951, and served as president of the World Islamic Congress. His last public appearance came in 1962 when he delivered a speech to that conference. He used his final opportunity to speak to the world to call for the ethnic cleansing of the Jews. He died in Lebanon in 1974, a beloved and revered figure among radical Muslims all over the world.
Hajj Amin al-Husseini’s legacy was to inspire generations of terrorists, Islamic jihadists, and such dictators as Saddam Hussein of Iraq. The foremost exemplar of his influence was a young terrorist and distant relative who became one of his most ardent students: Yasser Arafat, the future leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization....
Child Murderer
In late 1942, Heinrich Himmler gave his permission for 10,000 Jewish children to be transferred from Poland to Theresienstadt with the eventual aim of allowing them to go to Palestine in exchange for German civilian prisoners, through the International Red Cross. The plan was abandoned, however, because of the protests of the Grand Mufti.
The following year, al-Husseini blocked the emigration of 4,000 Jewish children and 500 accompanying adults to Palestine that was proposed by the governments of Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. The children were sent instead to the gas chambers.

Israel should cut all ties with Mahmoud Abbas

From JPost, 23 Oct 2015, by Martin Sherman:

...the present round of Arab Judeocidal incitement and Judeocidal violence is merely a symptom of an ongoing malaise, yet another manifestation of the enduring Arab refusal to countenance the expression of Jewish national independence within any territorial frontiers whatsoever.

The religious arrangements on the Temple Mount are merely the pretext du jour.

Indeed, incandescent Arab hatred for the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel pre-dates “occupation,” “settlements,” claims for Palestinian statehood, even the invention of the “Palestinians” themselves (circa 1964).

Thus, the pre-1967 rhetoric of leaders across the Arab world – from Iraq, through Syria, and from Jordan to Egypt – is replete with blood-curdling declarations, explicitly articulating the Arab objective as the “destruction”/“ eradication”/“annihilation” of Israel ...

A few representative examples illustrate the point: As early as 1965, Egyptian president Abdul Gamal Nasser proclaimed: “We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood,” reiterating a little later, “...we aim at the destruction of the State of Israel ...[Our] national aim: the eradication of Israel.”

Two years later, barely a week before the outbreak of the Six Day War, he blustered: “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.”

The Palestinian ‘perspective’
On the very same day (May 27, 1967) Ahmad Shukairy, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as chairman of the PLO, gloated: “D Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation”; and on June 1, in a premature flush of triumph, he crowed: “This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis... We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.”

Shukairy’s use of the words “liberation” and “homeland” are revealing.

Clearly they cannot refer to Judea-Samaria, now claimed as the “Palestinian homeland,” since at the time, Israel did not hold a single centimeter of that territory, then exclusively under Jordanian control, and whose inhabitants held Jordanian citizenship.

...before the “occupation” and the “settlements” existed; before Israel had any status on the Temple Mount, the Jews were marked for death and the Jewish state for annihilation.

For those, who naively believe (or hope) that this is no longer the underlying Palestinian perspective, sober reality awaits.

A clear line seamlessly connects the views of Arafat’s predecessor, Shukairy, and Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas. After all, in the preceding excerpt from 1967, Shukairy referred to the Arabs waiting 19 years for “liberation,” while three years earlier, at the first session of Palestinian National Council, he bemoaned that “Palestinians had experienced 16 years’ misery.”

Forty-seven years later, in his 2011 address at the UN General Assembly, Abbas declared: “... after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom...”

...Abbas continued Shukairy’s count, merging “misery”/“suffering” allegedly endured prior to the 1967 “occupation,” with that allegedly afflicted by the post-1967 “occupation.”

Clearly, for both Abbas and Shukairy the principal grievance is not the current post-1967 realities, but the birth of the Jewish state in 1948. Surely, then, if the birth of the Jewish state is the core Palestinian-Arab grievance, it can only be adequately addressed by the demise of the Jewish state.

...Unless the root causes of the conflict are clearly comprehended and elucidated, it will not be possible to explain its consequences adequately, or to contend with them effectively. Accordingly, such comprehension/elucidation is a necessary determinant of any operational response and its efficacy (or lack thereof).

‘The Palestinian [Arab]s, not terrorism, are the enemy...’
Until Israeli policy-makers come to terms with the unpalatable fact that Arabs’ animosity is rooted in what the Jews/Jewish state is, rather than in anything the Jews/ Jewish state does (or does not do), Israel will continue with ineffectual endeavors, doomed to failure.

For clearly, it is impossible to assuage one’s adversaries by offering something they do not want. And any offer, however concessionary, that entails continued existence of a sovereign Jewish state in any territorial configuration whatsoever, is something the Palestinians do not want.

Ergo, it is futile to make such offers in the hope of eliciting some accommodative response. It is even likely to be counterproductive, with such offers construed as weakness, providing the impetus to persist with, rather than desist from, violence.

In a recent article (Haaretz, October 10), Israel Harel writes: “As long as Israel refrains from unequivocally defining the enemy, even the four brigades sent as reinforcements to Judea and Samara and the thousands of exhausted soldiers” will be of little avail. He makes an apt diagnosis: “The Palestinians, not terrorism, are the enemy. Terrorism is the means of combat that the Palestinians are using. Their ultimate goal is to expel us from our land.” He is entirely correct. Unless this is understood, and this understanding incorporated into Israeli policy, violence will continue, round after incessant round.

... the Judeocidal instincts of the Palestinian Arabs far predate the “occupation,” tracing back beyond Shukairy to the days of Nazi collaborator, the suddenly newsworthy mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini.

So, if the “occupation” did not foment the Palestinian Arabs’ Judeophopic hatred, why would removing it do anything to extinguish it?...


What must – and must not – be done
The first prerequisite in formulating a prescription of what to do and what to avoid, is to grasp that Palestinian violence is not induced by despair, but driven by hope – the hope of annulling Jewish national sovereignty and dismantling the Jewish nation-state.

Accordingly, the only way to ensure the current round of violence is not followed by successive rounds of recurring violence is to extinguish the Arab hopes – on both sides of the pre-1967 Green Line. If the Arabs do not despair, the Jews might.

Thus, with regard to the Palestinian Arabs across the [1949 Armistice] lines, they must, as Harel urges, be declared an enemy collective – as they define themselves. As such, Israel has neither moral obligation nor practical interest to sustain Palestinian social fabric or economic well-being.

It should therefore let it collapse, and dispel any notion the Palestinian Arabs are capable of establishing a sustainable, autonomous self-governing entity west of the Jordan. Non-belligerent individuals should be afforded the resources to seek a more prosperous and secure life elsewhere. Belligerents must be dealt with coercively – and, if need be, “kinetically.”

Regarding the Arabs within the Green Line, it must be made indelibly and irrevocably clear that this is the nation-state of the Jews, which will express itself in Judeocentic symbols and ceremony in the conduct of public life in the country, its flag, anthem, calendar and so on. The equality of non-Jew’s civil rights will be ensured, as long they do not challenge the Jewish people as the exclusive source of sovereignty. If such challenge is mounted, it will be treated as sedition, and appropriate punitive measures bought to bear...


Friend of Palestinian Arabs: Being pro-peace means being pro-Israel

From Times of Israel, October 21, 2015, by Fred Maroun:

Fred Maroun
Fred Maroun is a Canadian of Arab origin who lived in Lebanon until 1984

As an Arab who supports Israel, I am accused of not standing in solidarity with my Palestinian brothers and sisters.  My answer is that I support the Palestinians, and I do so by supporting Israel.

I have denounced Arabs for rejecting the 1947 UN partition plan which Jews had accepted and which would have given the Palestinians a state as far back as 1948.  So-called “pro-Palestinian” activists find excuses for that indefensible Arab mistake, refusing to accept that it was driven by anti-Semitism.

I have denounced Arabs for not declaring a Palestinian state between 1948 and 1967 when Israel had no presence in the West Bank and Gaza.  So-called “pro-Palestinian” activists overlook that failure which was due to the Arab refusal to accept the defeat of 1948 while ignoring the need of Palestinians for a state of their own.

I have denounced the Arab aggression that caused the Six-Day War of 1967 and that allowed Israel to capture the West Bank and Gaza.  So-called “pro-Palestinian” activists condemn Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israel’s blockade of Gaza, but they irrationally refuse to denounce the Arab anti-Semitic frenzy that led to them.

I have denounced the Arab states for keeping Palestinians in camps with limited rights for almost seven decades so far.  Palestinians continue to be used as pawns by the Arab regimes, yet so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists encourage that abuse.

I have denounced terrorists such as Hamas who invite counter-attacks by Israel resulting in destruction and death for Palestinians, and who cause Israelis to be apprehensive of Palestinian statehood.  Terrorist violence, which is either supported or ignored by “pro-Palestinian” activists, is not only immoral but also ineffective and counter-productive.

I have denounced the Palestinian leader who routinely lies, stubbornly refuses to discuss peace with Israel, and even incites violence.  He stupidly demands a freeze in settlements as a pre-condition for negotiating when it is obvious that the lack of a peace deal results in more settlements.  So-called “pro-Palestinian” activists portray Abbas as a moderate who just wants peace.

The so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists claim to want an end to Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state, but they work tirelessly against these very goals, and their efforts are succeeding.  Every day, the possibility of a Palestinian state is more remote.  Their hate towards the Jewish state blinds them to the absurdity of their tactics.

I am expected to demonstrate my support of Palestinians by engaging in hateful rhetoric against Israel.  I am expected to denounce Israel as an apartheid state and to accuse Israel’s government of being opposed to peace and a Palestinian state.  I will do no such things because those claims are lies.  Israel is a thriving democracy for both Jews and Arabs, and she has been ready for peace since independence in 1948.  All that Israel has received in return is violence and hate.  She should be admired and supported, not demonized, and I will have no part in that demonization.

As an Arab, I proudly support Israel, and I believe that it is the duty of every fair-minded person to support Israel.  I have tremendous respect for the Jewish culture, and I believe in the right of Jews to be independent on a land where they have had continuous presence for longer than any other group.  I also proudly support the goal of a democratic and peaceful Palestinian state.

Not only is there no contradiction between these two goals, but just as I believe that Israel would benefit from the existence of a peaceful Palestinian state (see “The one-state delusion”), I know that the creation of such a state hinges on Palestinians fully accepting the existence of the Jewish state.

Some Arabs and even some Palestinians understand this.  Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid wrote, “Despite what we tell ourselves, Israel is here to stay. What’s more, it has a right to exist. It is the nation of the Jews but also a nation for Israeli Arabs who have better lives than Arabs anywhere in Arab countries. We must accept these facts and move on. The anti-Semitism promoted by Hamas, Fatah, and the BDS movement is not the answer for us Palestinians.”  Sadly Arabs such as Eid are few.

Palestinian thugs who are currently engaged in attacks against Jews in Israel are not building a Palestinian state.  They are the product of a Palestinian hate culture, and their actions entrench that hate culture even more, further pushing away the dream of Palestinian statehood.


To achieve peace and eventually dignity and statehood for the Palestinians, there is one path and one path only, and it is to denounce terrorism and unequivocally support Israel.