Haj Amin al-Husseini meeting with Hitler in 1941
Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has caused a huge controversy when he said that the Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini gave Hitler the idea of the Holocaust. He further said that Hitler initially wanted to exile the Jews from Germany not exterminate them. Historians and political leaders have chastised him for his statement as being inaccurate. Bibi’s father was a renowned historian who had similar views.
It is true that Hitler preferred to expel the Jews from Germany. Four months prior to Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938, President Roosevelt organized a conference in Evian, France to discuss the issue of Jewish immigration. Thirty-two countries sent delegates. Not one was willing to liberalize their immigration policies to accept Jewish refugees. Nazi leaders realized that since the nations would not accept the Jews, neither would they interfere with his recourse which was their extermination.
Of course Bibi was simply trying to show that Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Nazis collaborator who wanted to export the Nazi murder of Jews to the Middle East. Since most people don’t know this history and have never heard of Haj Amin al-Husseini, let’s put Bibi’s statement in the context of it time. The following is just a summary.
Who was Haj Amin al-Husseini and why should we care? Haj Amin al-Husseini (1893-1974) was born in Jerusalem to one of the leading Arab families in pre-Israel Palestine. Britain was given the oversight of Palestine and responsible for order and peace between the Arabs and Jews. (Lots of luck on that one.)
In their best efforts, Britain appointed Herbert Samuel (a British Jew) as the first high commissioner of Palestine. Samuel made a tragic mistake. In 1921, in an attempt to find someone of influence he thought he could control, Samuel appointed the young al-Husseini as the leader of the Palestinian Arabs and gave him an official title of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. This is spite of the fact that in 1920, the British sentenced al Husseini to ten years in prison for stirring up terrorism and riots against the Jews. Husseini fled to Transjordan to avoid the sentence. Samuel pardoned him and brought him back to Palestine.
In his newly created position, and with the support of Samuel, Haj Amin al-Husseini became the most powerful leader in pre-Israel Palestine. He had control over everyday life in Palestine. He convinced Samuel that he would help the British keep order and peace but he had no intention of doing this.
Al-Husseini was a violent, fanatical, nationalistic extremist who used his new position of power to begin a reign of terror and intimidation against anyone who opposed his rule and policy. He was not willing to negotiate or compromise in any way for the sake of peace. He wanted a “Jew free” Palestine and would use any form of terror to accomplish his goal. Sound familiar?
Many moderate Arabs fled Palestine out of fear of Husseini. He raised the stakes of the Arab-Jewish conflict and took control away from the more moderate Arabs who desired to live in peace with the Jews. He would simply murder them. Sound familiar?
He hated the British and he hated the Jews. When it suited his interest, he would keep order and peace. At other times he would stir up violent terrorism against the Jews. For example, he instigated the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929 by saying that the Jews were threatening the al-Aqsa Mosque. Sound familiar? The current “President” of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is following this same pattern.
Ironically, Al-Husseini was actually encouraged towards violence by certain British officers who wanted to abolish the Balfour Declaration and British support of a Jews state. He was told that terrorism and violence was the only way to get the British to change their policies and favor the Arabs.
Al-Husseini saw Hitler’s “final solution to the Jewish problem” as the answer to his own desire to eliminate the presence of Jews in Palestine. He imported Nazi influence into Palestine and used Nazi funds to finance his terrorist activities. He openly supported Hitler and Mussolini and lead a revolt against the British in 1936-1939.
Al-Husseini could have used his power and influence for good but he used it for hate. He is primarily responsible for the current culture of hate, terrorism and murder of Jews in Israel. This is why we should care.
When the British finally realized al-Husseini was causing them more harm than good, he fled to Iraq where he cooperated with the Nazis in a failed coup attempt against the British. He then fled to Germany in 1941 where he met Hitler and other Nazi leaders. He encouraged them to greater zeal in killing the Jews, asked Hitler’s help and blessing to extend the Nazi program of Jewish genocide to Palestine, recruited 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungry, broadcast anti-British and anti-Jewish hate propaganda from Germany and did everything he could to assist the Nazis in defeating the British and killing the Jews.
Known as the Arab Fuhrer,” al-Husseini used his broadcast from Berlin to exhort the Arabs in the Middle East to murder the Jews in a holy war that pleased A-l-la-h. Sound familiar? He is the God-father of Arab terrorism in Israel today.
When the war ended in 1945, the French arrested al-Husseini as a war criminal but he managed to escape. He fled to Egypt in 1946 where he continued to incite terrorism and rioting in pre-Israel Palestine and the new Jewish state of Israel. He helped export Nazi ideology, policies and practices to the leaders of Arab countries which dressed them in Arab culture. He died in Beirut in 1974.
