The Grand Mufti, Arafat and Abbas

“Of Course, the Palestinians are an ‘Invented ‘ People” [Jerome S. Kaufman – Think-Israel, February 2012]

When Newt Gingrich uttered these words, he was castigated, despite them being an indisputable truth while the media , Arabs and usual deniers made their presence felt. Speaker Gingrich correctly stated that  the Arab nations were created from the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, following its defeat by the Allies in WW1.

There was no Palestinian people or Arab Palestine then or at any other time in history. The PLO, Arafat’s terror organization invented the false notion of a Palestinian Arab nation in their charter of 1964. Further, as a matter of historical fact the term “Palestinian” had always referred to the Jews of that area. The Palestinian Post was a Jewish newspaper which later became the Jerusalem Post. The Palestinian Brigade in the British army was a Jewish entity that the British formed to assist them in an effort  to defeat  the Germans invading North Africa, who were  heading towards Palestine.

With the critics  finding fault with Gingrich’s ‘incendiary’ remarks, Kaufman remarked insight fully, “—-their lies the problem – this failure to tell the truth, to champion this absurd political correctness and thus give our enemies license to disperse their preposterous lies and propaganda.”

Gingrich also exposed the myth of a “moderate” Fatah faction with Mahmoud Abbas vs. a terrorist faction made up of Hamas. He advised the panel and the audience of the statement made by the Fatah ambassador to India the previous month, that there was no disagreement with Hamas. “They are on the same page acting upon the belief that the state of Israel has no right to exist.”

Yasser Arafat did not emerge as a product of immaculate conception. He had a mentor – the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Writing in The Tower Magazine of November 2015, Edy Cohen describes, ” How the Mufti of Jerusalem Created the Permanent Problem of Palestinian Violence.” Cohen considers al-Husseini one of the most important figures in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict..

Consider his attributes [a] the founding father of the Arab national movement in Palestine [b] the most important  Nazi collaborator in the Arab world [c] a political  activist who worked tirelessly  for the ethnic cleansing and physical destruction of the Jews in Palestine and in the Middle East as a whole and [d] a fervent anti-Semite.

al-Husseini absolutely denied the Jews any national rights and especially not in the historic Land of Israel. He was sufficiently astute to keep company with those British military officers who favored Palestine’s Arab inhabitants. Wonder upon wonder – who could imagine a specimen with the given credentials being appointed by a Jew to the position of Grand Mufti. In fact it was no other than the British High Commissioner Herbert Samuels who did so in 1921. Already he was the leader of the Nebi Musa riots in April 1920 during which 6 Jews were killed and 200  injured. For this the British arrested him, but one year later, Samuels pardoned him “eager to dampen down tensions ——-to ensure——–that the influences that ——–himself would be devoted to tranquility.”

Of course the opposite applied  and within 3 weeks al-Husseini orchestrated riots in Petach Tikvah and Jaffa, resulting in the murder of 43 Jews. In 1925 and 1926 Jewish immigration was the pretext for further anti- Jewish outbursts causing the British to re-consider stricter controls. May 1939 realized the Grand Mufti’s greatest victory with the passage of  MacDonald’s infamous White Paper, limiting  Jewish entry into Palestine to 75, 000 over the next 5 years.

This latest action on the eve of the Holocaust, while intended to appease the Arabs must be viewed in context. Had it not been for the 1936-39 Arab Revolt led by al-Husseini, the British may have been more benign in their policy  towards the Jews fleeing Nazi persecution with the saving of a great number of Jewish lives.

Time to pause and to focus on the irrational behavior of the Jewish Samuels. Perhaps it can best be explained through studies conducted by the well known psychiatrist, historian and author Kenneth Levin. He has observed how subject to persecution over many centuries, Jews have inevitably developed and displayed in their communal life stigmata of the chronically depressed. In simple terms, he describes it as the psyche of the abused.

Interpreting this phenomena in the case of Samuels’s reaction to al-Husseini’s appointment, taking to heart, the accusations of the Arab accusers. In other words, displaying a strong impulse to indulge in guilt, manifesting itself in embracing the anti-Jewish indictments of the Arabs. As indicated above and in what follows, the price paid for his misjudgment proved to be grossly costly in the loss of thousands of Jewish lives.

al-Husseini’s hardened anti-Semitic worldview over two decades, coupled with his determination to dispel any prospect of the Balfour Declaration being realized, made him a natural Middle East ally of Germany’s Nazi government co-incident with its launching a war of conquest and genocide in 1939.

While in Iraq during 1939, he was able to amass a group of followers in the military government and on June 1, 1941, during the holiday of Shavuot arranged a pogrom known as “Farhud”, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 200 Jews and injuries to in excess of 1,000 Jews. Clearly, the Grand Mufti faced exile, chose to take revenge on the defenseless Iraqi Jews.

Through his meeting with Hitler in November, 1941, al-Husseini, he was able to join Nazi leader in restating  their commitment to the “elimination” of any form of Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. He was regarded by the Nazis as their key Arab ally with potential to be a head of state in Palestine. He remained in Germany until the Nazi defeat in may, 1945. In the years between 1941 and 1945, he was able to:

[1] function as the head of the German Government’s Arabic-language propaganda network

[2] involved in espionage, sabotage and terrorism.

[3] worked tirelessly for the expulsion and slaughter of the Palestinian Jews and the Jews of the Arab nations.

[4] On November, 1943, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, he organized a protest rally in Berlin. His speech addressed the British betrayal of the Arabs and Islam for the sake of the Jews. The Jew being an enemy of Islam killed Muhammad. The Jews of Algiers helped the French to conquer Algeria. Arabs as a whole must expel the Jews from Arab lands; the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews, the Jew Disraeli bought the Suez Canal, thus paving the way for the British to conquer Egypt. He summarized by pointing out that time was working against the Jews, even if they were receiving assistance from the British.

Edy  Cohen’s essay goes well beyond this period. In 1942, while the Nazi regime held its Wannesee Conference to implement the Final Solution, al-Husseini was making plans to aid and abet the slaughter of the Jews that would accompany the German victory. At this time he established a close working arrangement with Adolph Eichmann.

On March 19, 1943, al-Husseini, spoke at a mosque in Berlin. The rhetoric hardly differed from the previous reported Berlin engagement. Despite the military defeats experienced by the Nazis, he secretly planned setting up death camps for all the Jews in Palestine and the Arab nations. Despite the fact that Rommel was unsuccessful in conquering the ME, al-Husseini’s plans remained undeterred. He envisaged crematoriums situated in the Dothan Valley close to Shechem similar to Auschwitz.

His influence and encouragement manifested itself in synagogues being burnt and dozens of Jews being killed on the streets of Cairo  on November 2, 1945, an anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. On the same day in Libya, hundreds of Jews were killed and wounded, nine synagogues were desecrated and burned, while hundreds of Jewish houses, stores and businesses were looted and torched.

In the western Balkans, he raised three SS divisions composed of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims  to kill Jews in Croatia and Hungary. Facing arrest in 1946 for war crimes, he escaped French detention and travelled to Beirut.

To this day, Palestinian leaders still revere the Mufti and embrace his policy of absolute rejectionist. When the Nazi’s were defeated, he found refuge with King Farouk in Egypt, his asylum being extended under the regimes of Maj. Gen. Mohammed Naguib and President Nasser. After WW2 his claims to leadership were wholly discredited and he was eventually sidelined by the PLO, losing most of his residual political influence. He died in Beirut, Lebanon in July 1974. [NY Times July 5, 1974]

A small sampling of the terrorist attacks which occurred during the tenor of Arafat and Abbas, inspired by al-Husseini follows:

September 05, 1972: Massacre in Munich, Black September Palestinian terrorists – 9 athletic hostages killed [+2 at commencement] 5 terrorists killed, 3 captured alive by 1992 –  Israel assassinated all live terrorists.

Mar. 04, 1975: Savoy Hotel, Tel Aviv 3 civilians and 2 soldiers killed, 7 terrorists killed and many hotel guests and staff held hostage until resolution.

Mar. 09, 1978: Coastal Road massacre – Fatah bus high jacking, 38 Israelis including 13 children killed and 71 wounded prior to Israeli-Egyptian peace  talks.

Sep. 1993 to Sep. 2000 following Oslo Accords, nearly 300 Israelis were killed.

Apr, 09 1995: Aliza Flatow and 7 Israeli soldiers killed on the way to Gaza when her Kfar Daron bus was detonated by a terrorist.

Nov, 20 2000: 3 children  of Rabbi Cohen had legs amputated as a result of a Gaza school  suicide attack.

Dec. 2000 : Al Aqsa Intifada 1,100 Israelis killed.

Aug, 09 2001: Sbarro pizzeria suicide bombing – 15 killed including 7 children and 130 injured, terrorist killed in blast.

Mar, 27 2002: Netanya Park Hotel Passover –  30 people killed and 140 injured [20 seriously] in Hamas suicide attack.

Sep, 09 2003: Cafe Hillel Jerusalem, famed  Dr. Applebaum and daughter Nava among 7 Israelis killed in suicide bombing.

Mar, 11 2011: Itamar suicide attack – 5 family members killed while in bed.

The introduction to this paper demonstrates how less than credible individuals have positioned the Jewish people into a nation under constant siege as described by Connor Cruise O’Brian in his book of the same name.

Yet another item, which has largely impacted how Israel finds itself occurred at the conclusion of the Six Day War. As explained by Joshua Muravchik in his “Making David into Goliath – How the World Turned Against Israel.” His explanation, “No longer was it Israel verses the Arabs. Now it was Israel verses Israel verses the homeless Palestinians.”

Clever, very clever. It most certainly has worked very well for the “invented people.” It’s all about the magic word “Palestine”. Unlike, Iraq, Syria, Egypt et al whose sovereignty was recognized by the British as were “—non existing non-Jewish communities” besides “the Jewish people—“. Even the Grand Mufti admitted that the Jews did not steal land from Arab Palestinians when speaking at the Peel Commission on January 12, 1937.