The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem-- A role in the Holocaust?

[UMachine]

UMachine -- You wrote:

I believe Bibi knows the real story concerning the Holocaust very nearly coming to the Holy Land.

If he does, he's not offering any proof.

For whatever reason the Israelis are keeping some events quiet..they cannot say how they know about Husseini.

"The guy with the big hat"

My firm belief is that OVRA met with Husseini before Mussolini ever did.

[uberjude]

Netanyahu was most definitely in Sayeret Matkal (as was his brother). That hardly qualifies him to know what happened in Berlin in 1941, as was evidenced by his ridiculous claim.

As for the Mufti's stature in Palestinian Arab society, he was pretty important--except for people for whom he wasn't. Palestinian Arab society was heavily built around clan loyalties and alliances, groupings led by "Notables," the leading members of the different families. The British, as was often the case, attempted to maintain a balance and keep natives divided. Thus, in the early 1920's, when the British appointed a member of the Nashashbi family as mayor of Jerusalem, they threw a bone to the Husseinis by giving the position of mufti to Haj Amin. By the same token, the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement was deeply divided by family, by goals (Pan-Arab vs. "Palestinian,") and so on. So within a certain segment of the Palestinian Arab population, Husseini was a major figure, but that very prominence rendered him anathematic to other segments of the population, and he had bad relations with many other leaders, including Fawzi-Al Qauqji, who had also spent the war in Berlin working for the Germans. So it's not that Husseini was unimportant, it's that his importance was of a somewhat limited nature.

As for that latest comment regarding Israel's alleged secret knowledge, the Israeli government would love nothing better than to be able to link Husseini to the final solution; if they had any actual evidence, they would come out with it. And at any rate, Bibi backed off.

[UMachine]

Husseini was valuable in Albania as well.

"As for that latest comment regarding Israel's alleged secret knowledge, the Israeli government would love nothing better than to be able to link Husseini to the final solution; if they had any actual evidence, they would come out with it. And at any rate, Bibi backed off."

Of course Bibi backed off.The available evidence...available...does not support this.This "secret"knowledge is held within a small circle.I think Bibi knows because of Avraham Arnan.Husseini is/was dirty.The inner circle knows this.How do they know?

They know because the Palmach most likely extracted this from the two Italian paras they tortured in Jerusalem.One para broke.The inner circle cannot admit to this event.

There would be further questions.

[michael mills]

I believe Husseini did request that a Holocaust take place...in Palestine.

You may well believe that, but there is no evidence for any such request. Al-Husseini had only one meeting with Hitler, on 28 November 1941, and the record of that meeting does not show him as requesting any action against the Jews settled in Palestine, the only mention of such action coming from Hitler, not from Al-Husseini.

Al-Husseini's main aim at the meeting, something that he kept coming back to, was to obtain from Hitler a public statement of support for Arab independence, which Hitler consistently evaded on the grounds that such a statement would cause trouble with the French.

It is quite likely that Hitler brought up the topic of action against the Jews of Palestine as a diversion from Al-Husseini's request for a declaration of German support for the Arabs, ie along the lines of "I cannot give you a declaration of support for you at the moment, but I promise that I will clear the Jews out of Palestine at some time in the future, but I cannot say exactly when".

It needs to be borne in mind that Hitler saw the Mediterranean area, including North Africa and the Middle East, as Italy's sphere of influence, in which Germany would only intervene if Italy got into trouble in asserting its claims. Such examples of German intervention were the bailing out of Italy in Greece in April 1941, and then in North Africa, both cases where Italy had initiated action but had been defeated.

However, in all those cases where Germany pulled Italy's chestnuts out of the fire, it limited itself to military action, leaving political administration entirely to the Italians. That was because Hitler regarded the commitment of German forces to the Mediterranean theatre as a diversion from the main task of defeating the Soviet Union, and he therefore wanted to keep that commitment to a minimum.

Thus, Hitler's vague suggestion that German forces would cross the Caucasus and invade the Middle East, including Palestine, was most probably not serious. In the case of an Axis victory in North Africa, it is most likely that Palestine would have been left to the Italians to administer, in line with existing practice, which would not have been congenial to the Arabs, since Italy was a colonial power that had a record of suppressing Arab independence in Libya.

It is noteworthy that the only Axis military action against Palestine, an air raid on Tel Aviv fairly early in the war, was mounted by the Italian air force, not the German.

As for Al-Husseini's intentions toward the Jewish colonists in Palestine, there exist letters from him to the German authorities asking them to return the colonist to their places of origin in Europe. The German response was of course negative; having facilitated Jewish emigration to Palestine before the outbreak of war, as a means of getting them out of Germany, the Germans were not going to agree to take them back.

[michael mills]

No chance that close relations arose at the end of 1937 when Adolf Eichmann traveled to Cairo, because he failed to meet the mufti in Palestine. So Husseini approached the Nazis in turn with a deal: For German help and weapons to prevent the rise of a national Jewish home, he would spread Nazi ideology and "keep up the terror in all Mandatory areas."

The above statement by Wolfgang Schwanitz is a blatant lie.

The truth about Eichmann's visit to Palestine in 1937 is well known. He and his superior, Hagen, were invited to visit Palestine by Feivel Polkes, an agent of the Zionist Organisation working in Germany on the facilitation of Jewish emigration to Palestine. The purpose of the suggested visit was to inspect Jewish colonies and assess their potential for absorbing all the Jews of Germany. An additional purpose was to hold negotiations with Zionist leaders on emigration of Germany Jews to Palestine.

Eichmann and Hagen sailed from Genoa to Haifa, where they went ashore and spent the day sightseeing. However, they were refused permission to stay by the British authorities, and were compelled to go back on board the ship and continue to Alexandria. Feivel Polkes came to Egypt and had discussions with them there.

There was no intention of any meeting with Al-Husseini, and no such meeting ever took place. It would have been contrary to German policy at the time, since that policy was to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine, not to hinder it in any way.

Eichmann met Al-Husseini only once, at a reception in Berlin, and that was together with other German dignitaries; there was no special relationship between the two of them, no series of meetings, no discussions, no planning.

It should be pointed out that Schwanitz is not an impartial historian but a propagandist, an activist for a pro-Israel and anti-Muslim outfit called the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the promoter of the idea that Al-Husseini was the person who influenced Hitler to commence the extermination of the Jews.

http://www.meforum.org/3827/nazis-islam ... iddle-east

http://www.meforum.org/5574/schwanitz-husaini

Schwanitz was originally a member of the East German Communist nomenklatura, his parents being East German diplomats in Cairo. After the collapse of East Germany, he followed the path of many Soviet Bloc careerists in making a new career by moving to the hard right and becoming a supporter of extreme pro-Israel and anti-Muslim positions.

[michael mills]

Hitler was also inspired by the Ottomans.




Hitler, August 22, 1939 wrote:
Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Hitler said no such thing.

That sentence is found in a falsified account of Hitler's speech to his military commanders on 22 August 1939 in relation to the forthcoming invasion of Poland. That account was distributed by the journalist Louis Lochner at the time of the Trial of the Major War Criminals, but was rejected as evidence by the IMT.

Two other records of Hitler's speech, which were accepted by the IMT, do not contain any mention of the Armenians. The falsified Lochner version is obviously based on those two records, since its contents are grossly exaggerated and sensationalised re-workings of actual items in the genuine records, eg the latter contain an imprecation by Hitler to destroy the Polish armed forces, which in the falsified version is changed into an order to kill without mercy all Polish men, women and children.

There are also other records of the speech, made by men who attended the meeting, but which were not taken into evidence by the IMT. None of those records contains any mention of Armenians.

The only reference documented as having been made by Hitler occurs in "Mein Kampf", where he names the Armenians as degenerate descendants of the Ancient Persians, having been brought to that sorry state allegedly through Jewish influence. Perhaps it was that reference that served as the basis for the invented reference contained in the falsified Lochner version of Hitler's 22 August 1939 speech.

[michael mills]

This letter was written in April 41 without any explicit commitments especially when we know that at the time Germany already controlled one Arab country and the situation of their Arab citizens (actually they were not even citizens in their own country) was just about as bad as it was before German presence.

Which one?

So far as I know, Germany did not control any Arab country during the war. The Arab countries in which German forces operated, Libya and Tunisia, were controlled by Italian and French administrations respectively.

[uberjude]

Umachine, if you have some evidence, please offer it. Right now, you have this:

the Mufti had a plan to push extermination into Palestine (no evidence except for Netanyahu's claim, and he didn't even claim that)
Bibi has secret knowledge (no evidence except your assertion that he heard it from Avraham Arnan, who, for some reason, confided this top secret info to a junior officer)
Avraham Arnan had secret knowledge of the plan (no evidence except you claim he allegedly got it from Italian paras the Palmach tortured)
The Palmach tortured some Italian paras (no evidence except your claim that they were tortured and had, for some reason, first hand knowledge about the Mufti's meeting with Hitler)
The Italian paras had knowledge about the Mufti's meeting with Hitler(no evidence except your claim to that effect)

Leaving aside the lack of evidence, there's the logic of it; do you honestly believe that if the Israeli government had evidence that the Mufti, the revered father of Palestinian Arab nationalism, had worked with Hitler on a plan to exterminate Palestinian Jewry, that they wouldn't spill it because they'd be worried how some people would react to news that back during the war, the Palmach had tortured a couple of Italian soldiers? What would the UN do, interrupt a condemnation of Zionist abuses of human rights today to issue a condemn of Zionist abuses of human rights 70 years ago? And why would Bibi have to say anything? Just let some credible historian see the text. Or even part of the text--leave out the alleged torture and just say "interrogation."


Plus, insofar as Bibi's antecedents were in the Revisionists, you'd think he'd want to say "see, look what the Palmach did."

No evidence, no logic, no basis in anything. I think one can accept that the Mufti was "dirty" without making up stories about him. The real Mufti was bad enough.

[AJFFM]

This letter was written in April 41 without any explicit commitments especially when we know that at the time Germany already controlled one Arab country and the situation of their Arab citizens (actually they were not even citizens in their own country) was just about as bad as it was before German presence.

Which one?

So far as I know, Germany did not control any Arab country during the war. The Arab countries in which German forces operated, Libya and Tunisia, were controlled by Italian and French administrations respectively.

Libya. Tunisia was Vichy administered while Libya was effectively a military occupation zone for the Germans even though nominally it was under Italian control.

[AJFFM]

As for the Mufti's stature in Palestinian Arab society, he was pretty important--except for people for whom he wasn't. Palestinian Arab society was heavily built around clan loyalties and alliances, groupings led by "Notables," the leading members of the different families.

To a certain extent yes. However one should put in mind that clans themselves were very small compared with the larger population and especially during the Ottoman era it was not hard to see a man from no clan background being elected/chosen as mayor of a major city despite opposition.

The British, as was often the case, attempted to maintain a balance and keep natives divided. Thus, in the early 1920's, when the British appointed a member of the Nashashbi family as mayor of Jerusalem, they threw a bone to the Husseinis by giving the position of mufti to Haj Amin. By the same token, the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement was deeply divided by family, by goals (Pan-Arab vs. "Palestinian,") and so on. So within a certain segment of the Palestinian Arab population, Husseini was a major figure, but that very prominence rendered him anathematic to other segments of the population, and he had bad relations with many other leaders, including Fawzi-Al Qauqji, who had also spent the war in Berlin working for the Germans. So it's not that Husseini was unimportant, it's that his importance was of a somewhat limited nature.

Al-Hussaini family have been the muftis (and the gate keepers of Al-Aqsa) for nearly a hundred years before the British took over. Their position was basically a hereditary job which virtually non of them was qualified to do it (not a single one of the Hussaini muftis to my knowledge was an Al-Azhar alum). In religious positions the British did not take any chances and gave the position to a kid (he was in his mid 20s) without any formal religious education because he was so loyal to them.

Your description of them in terms of popularity is indeed correct to some extent but as I said it was localised to Jerusalem politics. Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Gaza and Nasrah (Nazareth) all had their own powerful leaderships who in later years would have full control over Palestinian politics and indeed during that time (1930s) were even more prominent than Al-Hussainis like the Ghussains, Alamis, Tamimis (still influential to this day). Al-Qudrah family (Yasser Arafat's) were from Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas is from Haifa, Ahmad Al-Shuqairi is from Acre, the communists and socialists leadership were from Jaffa and its surrounding areas (George Habash, Abu-Hasan Salamah etc.)

[michael mills]

Libya. Tunisia was Vichy administered while Libya was effectively a military occupation zone for the Germans even though nominally it was under Italian control.

I have to admit that I find that assertion surprising, since I was always under the impression that the German military presence in North Africa was purely as an ally of the Italians, to help them out when their own operations failed (as in Greece), and that Hitler sent the Afrika Korps very reluctantly, since he saw the commitment of German troops to an Italian sphere of responsibility as derogating from the main task of defeating the Soviet Union.

I would be very interested to see any information you have that shows that Rommel and the Afrika Korps were the real rulers of Libya, while the Italian civilian and military administrations had purely a nominal role, with their function having been taken over by Rommel.

For example, was there any official agreement between Germany and Italy that subordinated the Italian colonial authorities to Rommel and the Afrika Korps, that allowed Rommel to give orders to the civilian authorities as well as to the Italian military forces under his command? Were there German officials in Libya playing a role in the civilian administration of the country?

In the case of Tunisia, I would agree that there was a joint German-Italian military occupation of that country, with the French authorities subordinated to the German and Italian military commanders. But even in that case, it was the Italians who had political control, with the German forces having a purely military role. German police authorities in Tunisia, such as Rauff's Sonderkommando, were essentially under Italian command, and their actions had to conform to Italian policy, not German.

[Von Schadewald]

"The Mufti's mysterious escape

During the recent uproar over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks on the WWII-era grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the media failed to underline the important fact that although the mufti had collaborated with the Nazis, he was never brought to trial. The story of his detention in France and his subsequent escape is little known to the public, but has significant repercussions.

In May 1945, with the German surrender, the mufti chose to turn himself in to the French occupying troops in Konstanz, believing France to be the most convenient asylum. The French authorities granted him numerous VIP privileges: a comfortable villa in the Paris region, free correspondence, telephone calls, and special food from restaurants. He was allowed to receive visitors and money and keep his two faithful secretaries, and afforded some degree of freedom of movement.

The French police guarding the villa were apparently more preoccupied with securing the mufti's safety than with preventing his escape. The French authorities were also preoccupied with the demands of Great Britain, Yugoslavia, the Jewish Agency and Jewish American organizations to extradite the mufti in order to bring him to trial as a war criminal. The French realized that rejecting this demand could harm their relations with their allies. On the other hand, they were under massive pressure by the Arab states and feared that allowing the extradition might undermine their prestige in the Arab and Muslim world. Hence the mufti's detention in France became a "hot potato" for the French authorities.

In May 1946, the mufti escaped by taking a TWA flight to Cairo using a fake passport. It took 12 days for the seemingly relieved French authorities to report his disappearance from the loosely guarded villa. The local police chief was held responsible and punished. In their internal reports, however, the French concluded with satisfaction that the mufti affair had been successfully handled and that it had boosted French prestige in the Arab world.

In reality, this prestige was only temporary, as evidenced by the pressure the Arabs applied on France shortly thereafter to oppose the partition plan at the crucial U.N. vote in November 1947. They promised in return to stop the incitement against French rule in North Africa, a promise given previously and never fulfilled by the mufti.

The mufti's escape and return to the Middle East had some disastrous implications for the region. His total rejection of the U.N. partition plan increased the radicalization of the Arab position. In addition, later Palestinian leaders such as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who were inspired by the mufti's ideology, adopted his tactics of incitement, propagating the false allegation that the Jews wished to gain control of the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Currently, the mufti's legacy of using false allegations against Israel regarding Al-Aqsa is being resurrected by radical Muslims as incitement to commit terrorist attacks against the Jewish state."

Dr. Tsilla Hershco is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University.

[UMachine]

I believe Husseini did request that a Holocaust take place...in Palestine.

You may well believe that, but there is no evidence for any such request. Al-Husseini had only one meeting with Hitler, on 28 November 1941, and the record of that meeting does not show him as requesting any action against the Jews settled in Palestine, the only mention of such action coming from Hitler, not from Al-Husseini.

Al-Husseini's main aim at the meeting, something that he kept coming back to, was to obtain from Hitler a public statement of support for Arab independence, which Hitler consistently evaded on the grounds that such a statement would cause trouble with the French.

It is quite likely that Hitler brought up the topic of action against the Jews of Palestine as a diversion from Al-Husseini's request for a declaration of German support for the Arabs, ie along the lines of "I cannot give you a declaration of support for you at the moment, but I promise that I will clear the Jews out of Palestine at some time in the future, but I cannot say exactly when".

It needs to be borne in mind that Hitler saw the Mediterranean area, including North Africa and the Middle East, as Italy's sphere of influence, in which Germany would only intervene if Italy got into trouble in asserting its claims. Such examples of German intervention were the bailing out of Italy in Greece in April 1941, and then in North Africa, both cases where Italy had initiated action but had been defeated.

However, in all those cases where Germany pulled Italy's chestnuts out of the fire, it limited itself to military action, leaving political administration entirely to the Italians. That was because Hitler regarded the commitment of German forces to the Mediterranean theatre as a diversion from the main task of defeating the Soviet Union, and he therefore wanted to keep that commitment to a minimum.

Thus, Hitler's vague suggestion that German forces would cross the Caucasus and invade the Middle East, including Palestine, was most probably not serious. In the case of an Axis victory in North Africa, it is most likely that Palestine would have been left to the Italians to administer, in line with existing practice, which would not have been congenial to the Arabs, since Italy was a colonial power that had a record of suppressing Arab independence in Libya.

.

As for Al-Husseini's intentions toward the Jewish colonists in Palestine, there exist letters from him to the German authorities asking them to return the colonist to their places of origin in Europe. The German response was of course negative; having facilitated Jewish emigration to Palestine before the outbreak of war, as a means of getting them out of Germany, the Germans were not going to agree to take them back.

"It is noteworthy that the only Axis military action against Palestine, an air raid on Tel Aviv fairly early in the war, was mounted by the Italian air force, not the German"

And these bombing missions were largely ineffectual.Hitler planned to make use of Vichy oil supplies.In May 1941 Jewish commandos tried to blow up these oil installations.OVRA snuffed them with the aid of military intelligence.They then decided to go directly to the source to eliminate the Jews....with some help from Hitler.

[UMachine]

Umachine, if you have some evidence, please offer it. Right now, you have this:

the Mufti had a plan to push extermination into Palestine (no evidence except for Netanyahu's claim, and he didn't even claim that)
Bibi has secret knowledge (no evidence except your assertion that he heard it from Avraham Arnan, who, for some reason, confided this top secret info to a junior officer)
Avraham Arnan had secret knowledge of the plan (no evidence except you claim he allegedly got it from Italian paras the Palmach tortured)
The Palmach tortured some Italian paras (no evidence except your claim that they were tortured and had, for some reason, first hand knowledge about the Mufti's meeting with Hitler)
The Italian paras had knowledge about the Mufti's meeting with Hitler(no evidence except your claim to that effect)

Leaving aside the lack of evidence, there's the logic of it; do you honestly believe that if the Israeli government had evidence that the Mufti, the revered father of Palestinian Arab nationalism, had worked with Hitler on a plan to exterminate Palestinian Jewry, that they wouldn't spill it because they'd be worried how some people would react to news that back during the war, the Palmach had tortured a couple of Italian soldiers? What would the UN do, interrupt a condemnation of Zionist abuses of human rights today to issue a condemn of Zionist abuses of human rights 70 years ago? And why would Bibi have to say anything? Just let some credible historian see the text. Or even part of the text--leave out the alleged torture and just say "interrogation."


Plus, insofar as Bibi's antecedents were in the Revisionists, you'd think he'd want to say "see, look what the Palmach did."

No evidence, no logic, no basis in anything. I think one can accept that the Mufti was "dirty" without making up stories about him. The real Mufti was bad enough.

First hand source for some portions....and only told to one person,his first born with the promise that she would never tell any person...

I did not get the most important details casually over coffee...this took years of the right moments....and I never intended to talk about this...

OVRA,and this man,knew and communicated with the Mufti.He likely provided support in the form of intel and a safe house in Jerusalem.

Now,I have my information...and then I look at the echoes...they are and have been everywhere on the net.

When some Arab cop named Adrissi is quoted as saying I.G Farben was clearly inscribed on some metal containers containing a powerful poison,do you believe that Germans would be stupid enough to do this?These containers were handled at some point by the man.She does not read history books....

The man knew the name...Farben.The Palmach extracted this,and info about the Mufti.

As to why the Palmach would never speak publicly of this acquisition....I don't want to blow up this thread...

When I say torture that is what I meant,and that is the reason the commandos try to take two....one for an example to the other...in rounds.

He would not tell me what they did....

[michael mills]

During the recent uproar over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks on the WWII-era grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the media failed to underline the important fact that although the mufti had collaborated with the Nazis, he was never brought to trial.

Why should he have been brought to trial for collaboration with the Germans?

He was not a national of any state at war with Germany, therefore he was not committing treason.

the demands of Great Britain, Yugoslavia, the Jewish Agency and Jewish American organizations to extradite the mufti in order to bring him to trial as a war criminal.

In what way was Al-Husseini a war criminal? What actions of his could reasonably be classified as war crimes under international law?

The article by Hershco is blatant Israeli propaganda. For example, this paragraph:

The mufti's escape and return to the Middle East had some disastrous implications for the region. His total rejection of the U.N. partition plan increased the radicalization of the Arab position. In addition, later Palestinian leaders such as PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who were inspired by the mufti's ideology, adopted his tactics of incitement, propagating the false allegation that the Jews wished to gain control of the Al-Aqsa mosque.

That implies that it was only the Mufti's return that led to conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine., which is a falsehood. The conflict was caused by the Jewish attempt to take Palestine for themselves, something that the Arab inhabitants naturally resisted.

And it is a fact that some extremist Jewish groups do want to demolish the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in order to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. So far the Government of Israel has prevented that, but that may well change, given the increasing radicalisation of the Jewish population of Israel and the growing influence of extremist religious groups, particularly among the settlers.