I don’t know who is correct — I’m not always willing to consider Wikipedia a reliable source on its own — but I’m not alone in asserting a consanguinity between the two famous Jew-haters.
Some sources say that Arafat was a nephew, and others that he was a cousin, of the Grand Mufti. According to Masada2000:
- - - - - - - - -
Eventually the leadership of the PLO was taken over by a man named Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Al-Husseini was a nephew and great admirer of Uncle Haj Amin al-Husseini. He was born in Cairo in 1929 and grew up in the Gaza strip. His mother, Hamida, was a cousin of the Grand Mufti. Due to internal Arab strife, his father Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa was forced to flee Gaza where the family took refuge in Egypt.
Al-Husseini’s cousin is Faisal al-Husseini who is the grandson of Haj Amin al-Husseini and the PLO representative in Jerusalem who has directed attacks on the Jews praying at the Western Wall. When Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini enrolled at the University of Cairo in 1951, he decided to conceal his true identity and registered under the name “Yasser Arafat.”
If I remember correctly from my undergraduate cultural anthropology courses, in a traditional patrilineal kinship structure all older male blood relatives who are not direct ancestors are referred to as “uncles”, while those in one’s cohort are called “brothers”. Hence both these assertions could be true — the Grand Mufti was a cousin and also an uncle.
It’s also possible that there was no consanguineal relationship whatsoever, but that hasn’t been settled yet to my satisfaction.
30 comments:
Eh, even without blood relations it's a fact that Arafat considered this man to be a mentor and inspiration for his own life and work. The continuity of the connection between Nazism and the PLO is far, far stronger than many people realise.
Haji Husseini was never elected as Mufti by the Palestinian people. In fact, when he ran for elections for Mufti of Jerusalem, he got the least number of Palestinian votes and came in fourth. The British than proceeded to appoint him as Mufti anyway despite the fact that the clerical establishment considered him a hooligan. Their reason-to balance the political aspirations of a competing clan.
Husseini was a British agent who turned against his masters by collaborating with the Nazis. He started out as a Turkish agent against the Arabs during the Ottoman era, than worked with the Brits against the turks during the famous Arab anti-ottoman rebellion, than he worked against the British empire by allying himself with the Germans during WWII.
All in all, an odious opportunist whose motto seems to be "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".
OT
Asian "Youths" (Pakistanis) attack London tourists commemorating Holocaust Day
Sodra,
read the article. I have one word, Krystelnacht. Love those PC apologies. Disgusting.
Zenobia, no one called the Arabs in the Mandate "Palestinians" in Husseini's time, that came much later as a propoganda tactic against Israel.
Sodra,
If you want to see something interesting as to how criminals were dealt with in the good old days of england check this out.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
Sorry for the OT and link but html is greek to me.
Interesting, first time on your blog.
While I can't comment much on the family relationship between the two, I can recommend this booklet on the subject:
Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism
David Horowitz has given his permission to translate and publish it in Danish, and I have the draft (with pictures :) on my desk. I'm sure he'd give anyone else permission for translation.
It's a killer. And it makes it scaringly clear that we should demand from our politicians one thing: No aid to the Palestinians, in any form, before they uproot all anti-Semitism from their schoolbooks, maps etc.
What we're dealing with is a genuine offspring of Nazi ideology. We stopped most of it in 1945, but we need to stop it again, now.
See also "The influence of Islam on the Third Reich"
Actually, I believe Rocky at Masada 2000 has the right of it.
As for the relationship between the Nazis and Arabs,there's a good solid philosophical reason for their affinity....
Henrick: What we're dealing with is a genuine offspring of Nazi ideology. We stopped most of it in 1945, but we need to stop it again, now.
Without adding much more well-deserved fuel to this bonfire, I am still obliged to applaud Henrick's timely appraisal.
Consider these not-so-odd similarities between Islam and Nazism:
1) The way Islamists seek to recreate Hitler’s “final solution” and routinely speak of “finishing the job” begun by the Nazis as reflected in connections between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini, Yasser Arafat and Adolph Hitler. This vile goal and its complement, Holocaust Denial, represent a central feature of these evil ideologies.
2) To this day, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains among one of the best-selling books in the Middle East.
3) Restoration of lost glory with respect to the Caliphate or the reconstruction of post-WWI Germany’s Reich both represent similar goals whose attainment would mean death on a massive scale for the globe’s population.
4) Assigning blame to the Jews for lack of success is used as a misdirection and scapegoat with regard to the actual faults of poor leadership or failed military adventurism.
5) Cultural purity as a dominant theme of philosophical chauvinism to elevate existing ideology above any possible dissent or questioning as personified by German “übermensch” or Islamic jihadist mentality.
6) The tacit approval shown by both moderate Muslims and WWII Germans for absolutism and the atrocities committed in its name despite any infrequent outward condemnation made by either of them.
7) The impossibility of negotiating with Nazis or Islamists due to their ideological mandates and pursuit of global dominance.
8) An absolute prohibition of apostasy under penalty of death.
9) The use of atrocities and crimes against humanity as legitimate tools of war.
10) Commingling religious tenets and fascist doctrine with the intent of disguising political ideology as theistic creed.
11) The imperative aspect of totally eliminating such a dire threat to world peace.
12) The totally unacceptable nature of appeasing or coexisting with such a dangerous mindset.
Dude, you lost me with that last coulpe of posts. This is a dog that doesn't hunt.
What we're dealing with is a genuine offspring of Nazi ideology.
There is a agenda (Horowitz et al) to create some unified theory of the grand enemies but that doesn't make it so.
1) The way Islamists seek to recreate Hitler’s “final solution” and routinely speak of “finishing the job” begun by the Nazis as reflected in connections between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini, Yasser Arafat and Adolph Hitler. This vile goal and its complement, Holocaust Denial, represent a central feature of these evil ideologies.
The first may well be true, but post holocaust any anti-Jewish group will be tempted to appropriate Nazi attributes. But how is Holocaust denial a central element of Nazi ideology itself (as opposed to those sorry postwar neonazis and their excuses)?
2) To this day, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” remains among one of the best-selling books in the Middle East.
Because it is anti-Jewish, and many Arabs hate Jews? I wonder how Arabs interpret Hitlers racial hierarchy and supremacy of German blood - at a guess they only read the bits concerning perfidious Jews - but I grant the "aryan supremacist" nonsense would probably go down well in Iran.
3) Restoration of lost glory with respect to the Caliphate or the reconstruction of post-WWI Germany’s Reich both represent similar goals whose attainment would mean death on a massive scale for the globe’s population.
Similar how? Nazism was a radical ethnic movement that sought German empire qualitatively and quantitavely beyond anything previous, nor had the Kaiser ever attempted to conquer the world. Before the Kaiser there previous German irruptions into the outside world were .... the Crusades and Holy Roman Empire? Islamism on the other hand is an inherant and logical continuation of mainstream Islam.
As for massive death, I suggest the neocon project for universal democracy/peace for all would unintenionally have the same effect. After all Islam too has and end state of submission/peace for all.
4) Assigning blame to the Jews for lack of success is used as a misdirection and scapegoat with regard to the actual faults of poor leadership or failed military adventurism.
True enough, but the use of scapegoats is nothing new.
5) Cultural purity as a dominant theme of philosophical chauvinism to elevate existing ideology above any possible dissent or questioning as personified by German “übermensch” or Islamic jihadist mentality.
Or the New Soviet Man. Or the various Christian churches with their heresy charges further in the past.
6) The tacit approval shown by both moderate Muslims and WWII Germans for absolutism and the atrocities committed in its name despite any infrequent outward condemnation made by either of them.
Again, the number of Russians decrying the excesses of Stalin are a very small minority even now, let alone then. I have no idea how Germans in Nazi Germany were supposed to speak out, as opposed to the situation with Muslims in Europe today.
7) The impossibility of negotiating with Nazis or Islamists due to their ideological mandates and pursuit of global dominance.
Think Soviet again, (or the Bush/neocon administration for that matter, the "do it our way or else" style they have used, including with natural allies like France ... ).
8) An absolute prohibition of apostasy under penalty of death.
Thats a pretty stretched definition of "apostasy", considering the nazi tolerance of churches and religions - unlike the COmmunists.
9) The use of atrocities and crimes against humanity as legitimate tools of war.
Along with the USSR, Russia to present day (Chechenya), British Empire, the USA to WWII (think Sherman's march, Moro uprising, and Dresden), the Ottoman empire, the former Yugoslavia pre 1999, and the whole rest of the planet prior to about 1899, excepting the bits still continuing every single day. Means little.
10) Commingling religious tenets and fascist doctrine with the intent of disguising political ideology as theistic creed.
What exactly is "Fascist doctrine"? One is a political party that developed theistic aspects and the other is a religion with a political agenda (and so did the Catholic Church not so long ago)
The last two are your conclusions and not features.
11) The imperative aspect of totally eliminating such a dire threat to world peace.
12) The totally unacceptable nature of appeasing or coexisting with such a dangerous mindset.
Showing that both Nazism and Islamism have totalitarian elements does not an argument make, and certainly not an argument for causation ("offspring"). Both are anti-semitic and totalitarian, and the Grand Mufti is a member of both subsets. And that is about all - isn't that enough?
Fellow Peacekeeper, while I won't go into the details of the 12 points listed (I think you're missing the point in most of them), let me just mention that the 'offspring' thing is very solid, historically.
The grand mufti was an anti-Semite before he was appointed to the post, which he held for decades, masterminding the German-funded Great Arab Revolt of 1936. His authority appears to have been instrumental in causing the Arab states to attack Israel in 1948, an event with, well, consequences.
Also, the anti-Semitic propaganda in the lands surrounding Israel is quite different from the general acceptance of Jews that existed during the times of the Ottoman Empire - who even invited Jews to settle in its areas.
Things have gotten worse since then.
Dr. Andrew Bostom discusses this issue very thoroughly on his blog.
In 1937 Hitler proposed omitting his "racial ladder" theory—which denigrated the Arabs"
Henrik,
I don't think I have missed the point. I see a very tenuous set of comparative propositions and weak links. While "Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism" (hereafter "NRoPN") details historical involvement of the Mufti with the Nazi regime, it remains just that : a link. Indeed, NRoPN also states that the Mufti was an anti-semite, indeed appointed Mufti specifically for that quality, before the rise of NSDAP.
As for the Muftis activities during WWII - This is very much the case of a dog that didn't bark. Where was the Muslim/Arab support to the Nazis in WWII?
- Germany sent no serious support to Iraq in 1941. Why, if this was (supposedly) German sponsored and potentially strategically invaluable?
- Where were German sponsored Arab uprisings against the British or French colonial authorities, or partisan activity? Even in late 41-autumn 42 when both Germany and Japan were on a roll and axis victory seemed terribly close? Didn't happen. Even after the "nazi sponsored" uprising in 36-39 the Muslim Brotherhood seemingly spent WWII in a coma.
- Where were the German raised Arab proxy units recruited in German controlled North Africa? Utterly minimal, even though proxy recruitment was absolutely characteristic of the German war effort everywhere else.
- The German raised Muslim SS divisions (Bosnian Handschar and Albanian Skanderbeg) were laughable bandit groupings and combat incapable despite the considerable resources wasted on them.
Conclusion : linkage between Nazi and Muslim causes during WWII were nigh irrelevant. This is certainly despite the Muftis efforts, and more importantly, despite apparent congruity of interest.
So despite the failure of Nazism and Islamism to align during WWII, the Islamists were nazified post WWII? Is that then the theory?
His authority appears to have been instrumental in causing the Arab states to attack Israel in 1948, an event with, well, consequences.
I understand this rather differently, but admit to not being widely read on the subject so feel free to cite sources. AS far as I understand the Mufti's bungled handling of the business significantly contributed to the Palestinians utter failure to secure their own state under UN resolution 181, and Arabs states failure to seriously prosecute the war. Sort of a forerunner to Arafat really, a curse to his own cause.
As for the Ottomans : Turkey is still more or less an Israeli ally now.
So where are we with the facts? Both Nazism and Islam have totalitarian tendencies. The eternally incompetent anti-semitic Mufti was tied up with the anti-semitic Nazis, his anti-semitic successors picked up a few Nazi ideas/slogans/attributes from him (or the history channel, whichever comes first). So?
I see this whole meme as an attempt to blacken the Palis with the unwashable smear of "Nazi", and to dissasociate Arab anti-semitism reations from the (Arab perceived) injury caused by the creation (and subsequent actions) of Israel. Instead, it attempts to put the Palis in the category of unalterably and irrationally evil instead of an aggrieved party that can concievably be negotiated with.
Surely the misdeeds of the Palestinians and Islamists are enough to stand on their own merit without irrelevant guilt-by-association with Nazism.
My objection is to the general muddying of the waters in pursuit of this end. The ridiculous term "islamofascism" is a newspeak style misnomer that attempts to put both opponents in one binding, but in the end obscures understanding of the movements involved.
I fully agree with Fellow peacekeeper. What seems to be attempted here with the Palestinians is similar to what Charles Johnson is doing with GoV and the VB. The attempt to smear with the Nazi brush those one is opposed to. There was and is a weak and tenuous link between the Nazi movement and Palestinian Nationalism.
We can be opposed to Palestinian nationalism without resorting to such "reasoning" by badly chosen comparisons. E.g. on the grounds that the Israelis need their land, are a western nation and can be an ally. While the Palestinians are mostly a part of Islam, which is an enemy of the West.
This "reductio ad hitlerium" is a scourge. The current conflict is NOT similar to the Second World War.
We got to understand that the West has interests. Survival being the first one that comes to mind. And that these interests must be pursued with prudence and common sense. There is therefore no need to reach back to a war that ended in another era and that is just not so relevant anymore.
The conflict is much more similar to the period of religious rivalry between Christendom and Islam between the rise of Islam and the 19th century. If we use elements from this period as a yardsticks we are much more likely to gain insight than by dragging in the period of 19th and 20th century rivalry of European nationalisms.
Regards,
Snouck
While I agree that "reduction ad hitlerum" is generally bad and I usually warn against it, I believe it has merit in this particular case. And it boils down to practical measures and concrete action that can be taken.
One of the five points of the Oslo Accords of confidence-building measures was that anti-Jewish sentiment should be uprooted from educational material in the Palestine territories. After 15 years, this has still not been done.
Teaching hate against the Jews lies at the root of the continuing distrust and battles there. Pointing it out and uprooting it should be a clear condition for us providing help to the PA etc.
If people *still* purchase and read Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they get all kind of sick ideas about what Jews do (as anti-Israel cartoons also show), justifying sending more Qassams into Israel. Stopping the hate is a relatively easy, non-bloody way to stop the war. Less spectacular than commando raids, but cheaper and more effective.
BTW, it's worth noting that Islam is a totalitarian system on its own accord. It always was, because it regulates the life and behaviour of Muslims in the silliest details. This has little to do with Nazism, it was always like this.
I think I agree that reducing everything objectionable to "Hitleresque" behavior is not an intellectually honest pursuit. It doesn't support healthy and honest debate. That said, there is a link between Palestinian views and Hitler's: namely rampant, rabid hatred of Jews. This is not just the standard anti-Semitism charge lobbed about ad nauseum today. This is hatred of the Jewish people that rises to the level of Nazi Germany.
However, I think the current conflict is more in line with historical interactions between Christian nations and Islamic ones than recent the relatively recent Nazi conflict. With respect to the Jews in Israel, those expressing the murderous rage are outside their nation, whose only power to fulfill their ambition would be external to the Jewish state.
I certainly think we should avoid playing "six degrees of separation" with Hitler. It is intellectually dishonest. Although you can easily see how short-term goals could coincide between Nazi and Islamist ideology.
Here's a thinker:
Forced to choose to live under one totalitarian ideology, Nazism or Islamism, which would you choose?
- Sodra
I'd choose Nazism. There I'd be killed faster for expressing dissenting views :)
bit of a hobson's choice, isn't it?
Nazism, though, since even at its height it was nowhere near as conformist as Islam. No requirement to prostrate yourself five times a day, very few group "bonding" rituals, although the nazis did come up with the rather grand wheeze of making television viewing a compulsory, communal event every evening... which means that the opportunity to work outside the system and initiate events that would bring it down would be much greater under Nazism than under Islam.
"I think the current conflict is more in line with historical interactions between Christian nations and Islamic ones than recent the relatively recent Nazi conflict."
Now, this is going to look weird, but I'll actually buy into the story that Jews were better off in the Ottoman Empire than in Europe during some periods of time, when Jew-hatred went out of control in Europe now and then, for instance during the Crusades.
Jews had an important role in the Ottoman Empire, despite their dhimmi status. And the Ottoman Empire, remember, covered most of the Islamic world, including Palestine. The Jews were invited probably because they were more skilled and productive than the Muslims, net contributors to society, and protected under the (humiliating, OK) dhimmi system.
The rabid, violent Jew-hatred we're witnessing today - including a genocidal Iranian president - appears to me to be an anomaly. Identifying the source, uprooting the malady, progress should be possible. The intention of looking at matters from this angle is not to smear the Palestinians for being neo-Nazis, but actually to identify a way it'd be possible to jettison the Jew-hatred and move on.
If the Palestinians really get their act together, throws out anti-Jewish propaganda, there should be no smear left behind.
The rabid, violent Jew-hatred we're witnessing today - including a genocidal Iranian president - appears to me to be an anomaly. Identifying the source, uprooting the malady, progress should be possible.
I don’t believe this is so. The root cause is not just their current attitude. Like it or not the Palis were disenfranchised something awful in 1948 and have been abused ever since – by the Israelis whose behaviour has been at times abominable, by the other Arab states using and abusing them as a catspaw, by their own dreadful leaders (starting with that Mufti).
The other root cause is plain Islam. As Robert Spencer writes, “Israel…has committed the unpardonable sin of rebuilding dar al-harb on land formerly a part of dar al-Islam”. If the west did the right thing now and established a homeland for the Christian Assyrians in Iraq, the reaction would be much the same – rabid and Jihadist – just as it was to the Crusader states in the Holy Land c 1300.
The intention of looking at matters from this angle is not to smear the Palestinians for being neo-Nazis, but actually to identify a way it'd be possible to jettison the Jew-hatred and move on. I trust in your good faith Henrik, but cannot say the same for David Horowitz, a reformed leftist who is in this case using familiar cultural marxist tools (newspeak semantic games and use of "fascism" as a generic smear).
The other root cause is plain Islam.
I know. It's a problem.
The Dar al-Hab reconquest is only part of this, the other is the Quranic attitude towards Jews - quotably quite sick.
As for David Horowitz, do I sense a bit of prejudice? He provides detailed references and works with Robert Spencer - that should be good enough. He's not perfect - noone is. We can deal with the 'fascist' slur (fascism is a leftist ideology), and we can focus on the good stuff instead of trying to discredit him on minor flaws.
In any case, which task would be easier:
- Tell the Palestinians that they inherited Nazi ideology and ask them to get rid of it.
- Tell the Palestinians that they inherited Islamic ideology and ask them to get rid of it?
The first of these is plenty tough enough. Still, with the leverage of the aid we provide them, progress on the ground should be possible.
Henrik,
Re Horowitz, nay, not prejudice. Let us say suspicion or wariness - the guy is a card carrying neoconservative, ex marxist 60's revolutionary. His Frontpage is an invaluable site, and while some articles are consistently excellent (Jamie Glazov's for instance), others are pretzels of twisted logic fitting facts to preconcieved ends. The neocons have been dreadful sophists at times, and outright deceitfull when it has suited them (Iraq). So I feel a dose of skepticism is in order.
As for the content of the Koran, you are quite right that is one tall order. But attacking other sources of Pali hate while that one remains inviolate is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
The question is why this story of grand mufti of Jerusalem has gained so much importance. I believe that the Zionists need to justify their brutality against Palestinians and what is a better propaganda than saying that Palestinians were responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews? Yes these evil Palestinians deserve to be shot and bombed, even their children. They are the children of that evil grand mufti anyways. Your moral bankruptcy is amazing and saddening.
An excellent reference on this subject is The Third Reich and the Arab East by a Polish historian, Lukasz Hirszowicz.
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/top3mset/398286
Long out of print and hard to find, the book is worth tracking down with an inter-library loan.
Both the then Grand Mufti Of Jerusalem and Rashid, Ali, the quisling-like founder of the Iraqi Baath party, finished the war in Germany, supporting the Nazi war effort.
Archonix: even without blood relations it's a fact that Arafat considered this man to be a mentor and inspiration for his own life and work. The continuity of the connection between Nazism and the PLO is far, far stronger than many people realise.
End of story. All further disputes can only be over minutia.
KahaneLoyalist: no one called the Arabs in the Mandate "Palestinians" in Husseini's time, that came much later as a propaganda tactic against Israel.
For anyone who doubts this crucial distinction, I ask you to examine, The communist roots of Palestinian terror:
Even Yassir Arafat, from his earliest terrorist days until 1967, used the term 'Palestinians' only to refer to the Arabs who lived under, or had fled from, Israeli sovereignty; and the term 'Palestine' only to refer to Israel in its pre-1967 borders.
In the PLO's original founding Charter (or Covenant), Article 24 states: "this Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the west Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area."
For Arafat, 'Palestine' was not the west Bank or the Gaza Strip, which after 1948 belonged to other Arab states. The only 'homeland' for the PLO in 1964 was the State of Israel.
However, in response to the Six-Day War and Arafat's mentoring by the Soviets and their allies, the PLO revised its Charter on July 17, 1968, to remove the language of Article 24, thereby newly asserting a 'Palestinian' claim of sovereignty to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Part of the reframing of the conflict, along with adopting the identity of an 'oppressed people' and 'victim of colonialism', then, was the creation, ex nihilo, of 'historic Palestine' and the ancient 'Palestinian people' who had lived in their 'homeland' from 'time immemorial', who could trace their 'heritage' back to the Canaanites, who were forced from their homeland by the Zionists, and who had the inalienable right granted by international law and universal justice to use terror to reclaim their national identity and political self-determination.
That this was a political confection was, perhaps inadvertently, revealed to the West by Zahir Muhse'in, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, in a 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." [Emphasis added.]
Arafat himself asserted the same principle on many occasions. In his authorized biography he says, "The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasir Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel."
Henrik, thank you so much for taking up the standard in my absence.
Fellow Peacekeeper: As for the content of the Koran, you are quite right that is one tall order. But attacking other sources of Pali hate while that one remains inviolate is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
So—ignoring whatever disagreement about the details of any correspondence between Nazism and Islam—how is it that you appropriately view Koranic doctrine as the root cause of Muslim anti-Semitism yet deny its seemingly irrefutable congruence with Nazi propaganda?
The two share such a profound degree of kindred philosophical intersection that differentiating between them is an academic excercise at best.
There is one thing to consider, of course; the usual muslim response to being caught out is to blame someone else and cast themselves as a victim. Whilst the equation between the koran and Nazi ideology is valid it has to be made clear that both systems arose independently, and that Islam and Muslims came to their conclusions within their own scriptures, in order to prevent them simply saying "It was the nazis that made us do it" at some point in the future.
This should be all you need to know. Tell the children the truth
Note that there was an hour show on the History Channel a little over a year ago on the Hitler / Sadaam connection.
Where were you when the Nazi officers in Nuremberg needed you to tell the court that it was all a Muslim conspiracy to kill the Jews. The Europeans kill the Jews and then blame it on innocent Palestinians and then unleash the Zionists to murder them. What a shame!
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