If we’re ever going to have peace between Israel and Palestine, I lay odds that it won’t be engineered by Benjamin Netanyahu. The man is rapidly proving himself the Donald Trump of Israel. First he unconscionably interferes with Congressional votes on the Iran nuclear deal, and now he’s done something equally stupid: blaming the Holocaust on Palestine. Well, not on present-day Palestine, but on the infamous old Grand Mufti of the British-created territory of “Mandatory Palestine”, Haj Amin al-Husseini (1897-1974). And yes, it’s true that al-Husseini opposed the creation of Israel, was friendly with Hitler and Mussolini, and probably wished that the Jews would go away—and certainly not settle in the Middle East. But there is still no credible evidence that al-Husseini played any role in bringing on the Holocaust. That was already determined by the laws of physics well before he met Hitler (read Mein Kampf). As you see in the videos below, Netanyahu argues that Hitler simply wanted to expel the Jews and not kill them, but changed his mind after consulting with al-Husseini. That’s simply not true.
As the New York Times reports:
Israeli historians and opposition politicians on Wednesday joined Palestinians in denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for saying it was a Palestinian, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who gave Hitler the idea of annihilating European Jews duringWorld War II.
Mr. Netanyahu said in a speech to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.” The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.
“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’
”As noted above, Netanyahu’s claims have been roundly trounced and refuted by scholars from everywhere, including Israel. Even Netanyahu’s own defense minister dismised them. Here is a video of what Netanyahu said and a CNN report on the claim:
The CNN report:
It’s clear what Israel’s Prime Minister is doing here: trying to tar present-day Palestinians with the actions of an extinct mufti, one who didn’t even do what Netanyahu claims. This kind of misstatement—let’s call it a lie—isn’t helpful, and of course has inflamed Palestinians, not to mention Jewish scholars It’s hard to do that to both groups at once!
Even Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestine and head of the PLO, has backtracked from his previous position on the Holocaust in April of last year, now saying that the Holocaust was “the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era”, and, according to the Times, expressing sympathy for the victim’s families.
That statement is conciliatory. But Netanyahu dismissed it, saying that Abbas was now trying to create another Holocaust in Israel.
I still despair of peace between these two warring lands, but if it is ever to come, it won’t come under Netanyahu. Already the history of the area is under argument, but there are some claims that are so bogus as to be beyond debate. One is Bibi’s specious insistence that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened without the Grand Mufti. Another is Hamas’s continuing reliance on the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its charter. History can be distorted only so far before it becomes just another flashpoint in a continuing war.
The laws of physics were responsible for the Holocaust? Perhaps you explain in more detail.
Determinism.
‘could explain’
I’m speaking as a determinist, and I am guessing that the seeds of it were inherent in both Hitler’s genes and environment before the mufti ever showed up. In other words, he wasn’t en environmental influence that made the Holocaust occur when it wouldn’t have without him, which is what Netanyahu implied.
Sorry Professor-but I must disagree with this determinism-quite remarkably useless – reminds me of a religious fatalism.
The suggestion by Bibi that the Grand Mufti not only invented the ‘final solution’, but also had enough influence on Hitler (pitu!) to convince such action is certainly ridiculous. However, there may be some truth in the idea that the Mufti supported the notion. Regardless, a deterministic view of history does little to help us analyze cause and effect.
Compare Bibi’s statements to those of Abbas and others and they seem downright reasonable…
You’re putting a lot of weight on a throwaway statement, as well as characterizing it as “useless”. Please read the Roolz.
I apologize for the characterization. I certainly respect the viewpoints of our esteemed host, and very much enjoy the content of this site(which is generously given free of charge). The last intention I have is to violate the roolz in any way.
Determinism is the most useful truth we can employ in any such situation. It takes the emotion out of it and allows us to look at what really happened going all the way back to the first single celled organism and beyond. Human nature is designed by natural selection and operates on environmental pressures that determine it’s course of action.
Determinism represents the end of hate for those who embrace it’s truth. Calling it useless may or may not be in violation of the roolz but it’s certainly in violation of reality.
“Determinism represents the end of hate for those who embrace it’s truth.”
Expressed that way it starts to sound rather religious!
Determinism ≠ Fatalism. But regardless, though factually correct, I suspect Jerry was using this sentence mostly in a rhetorical way.
But wasn’t the Mufti part of Hitler’s environment? So the “laws of physics” could have operated through the Mufti.
I know of no evidence that the Mufti was indeed a crucial factor, but it’s not impossible. If we accept Mein Kampf at face value, then when he wrote it Hitler was only talking about expelling the Jews or (laughably) asking them to be celibate and not have children.
At some point that plan changed to killing them. Is it really known when that change came, and who influenced it?
Having said that, Netanyahu hasn’t presented evidence for his claim, and he should either do that or retract it.
“Is it really known when that change came, and who influenced it?”
That period of history is pretty well documented – just walk into any book store or library with a history section. The general consensus is that the mass murder of Jews by Nazis began in the summer of 1941, the violence and opression having begun in the early 30s and ramped up significantly with the invasion of Poland in 1939. The mufti didn’t meet the fuhrer until November 1941. At best he would have been just one of many who encouraged or failed to discourage Hitler’s genocidal plans.
Well, yes, this period is pretty well documented. And the documents show that Nazis decided on extermination on European Jewry during the Wannesee Conference, 20 January 1942. The mass murder of German and East European Jews until this time were not coordinated into one big plan. Simply, Germans got the information that it was allowed to kill Jews. And when any people get information “today you can kill” there are always plenty of volunteers. The Nazi leaders were thinking until Wannesee in terms of deportation and more spontaneous killings. I would recommend A book by professor Jeffrey Herf, “Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World” and a book by professors Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, “Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of Modern Middle East”. In these books both themes are analysed: the Nazis’ ideas what to do with European Jews and their allinace with the Islamic world.
One may certainly espouse determinism – events have causes which inexorably bring them about – without thinking that ‘determined because physics’ has any real explanatory value, which is why, I suspect, Sir Martin Gilbert in his great history of the Holocaust didn’t mention physics – at least I don’t remember his doing so. Netanyahu’s statement may in the long run have been determined by physics, too, but it was also determined by a desire on his part to make some sort of political appeal, to stir things up politically, whether he believed in what he said or not. That is to say, he had a reason for saying what he said, just as Hitler and his pals had what they were supposed were good reasons for trying to destroy European Jewry and for massacring the Roma people, homosexuals, Slavs et al.
The reasons why Netanyahu reminded about the role of Mufti was the fact that politicians (UN, EU, presidents and prime ministers) mainstream media, “human rights” organizations (AI, HRW etc.) are blaming Israel for the whole situation or, in the best case, writing about “cycles of violence”,”Israeli reprisals”, “Israeli retaliation”, “disproportional force” etc. Netanyahu wanted to remind that on the other side the ideas of Mufti and Hitler are very much alive and that the aim of Palestinian leadership all the way from 1964 when PLO was established with Mufti’s blessing and along the line of the same ideology, through the time of his protege, Jasser Arafat, and to this day, with Abbas at the helm, these ideas didn’t change: destroy Israel, annihilate the Jews. Check how many UNRWA teachers extoll Hitler to their pupils, how senior Palestinian officials support the sentence of one of them, Jabril: “If we had a nuke we would drop it on Israel today”, check the admiration surrounding the Mufti in Palestinian society. But the world public opinion blames Israel for the lack of peace, and now in many cases, for the murdering rage sweeping Palestinians.
And now, for stating (maybe badly) the historical facts and the real situation today, and defending the life of his citizens the State Department accused Netanyahu for “incitment”, while the same State Department was talking about the need for restrain on both sides when Abbas called the Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem to defence of Al-Aqsa, extolled the pure blood of martyrs and talked about defiling the Muslim holiness with Jewish “filthy feet”.
Well, surely he could have found a better way of reminding them. I certainly agree that it needs to be done. But Netanyahu has – as he too often has – has behaved in a silly and counter-productive way that does not help anything.
Please do not post as “Anonymous”.
As things either seem to be not getting through or getting through in an odd way, I shall simply say that I did not post as ‘Anonymous’ but under my own name ‘Tim Harris’. I don’t know what is happening.
I did not, so far as I know, post as Anonymous. I posted, as I always do, as Tim Harris.
The distortion of history is suppose to be what the losers do. It was done by the south after the civil war. It was done by Japan after WWII. In both cased they even rewrote the history books so their future generations would get the wrong history that leaves them with bad information for their own future. As time goes by the future generations who were feed this stuff look stupid and confused and will be mocked.
Netanyahu should be pounced on by Israel for doing this. He is looking more republican every day. Maybe he would prefer to live in Alabama?
Bibi’s entire political strategy is based on aggravating Israeli-Palestinian relations (unfortunately, he gets lots of help from the other side of the Fence).
The US could bring him to heel by simply threatening to cut off aid, but this will not happen thanks to the Zionist (and here I mean Christian Zionist) lobby.
I see no way forward.
And where is the JDL in all of this!! They should be sticking their metatarsals in Bibi’s mouth. This is classic historical revisionism. It is like saying the secular authorities were responsible for carrying out the holy inquisition.
Please don’t post under “Anonymous”; as I’ve repeated asked, use a nym, for one can’t tell one “anonymous” from another.
Why would it be so based? To keep in power, like Putin? I would need more references and/or explanation to accept and learn of this.
Another issue with that is why people in democracies, even token ones like Russia today, elect such leaders. In Russia it seem nationalism has made people act against their long term best interests. Is it the same in Israel?
The electoral system in Israel is really complicated. Netanyahu received only 25% of the votes at the last election, which was considered a “crushing” victory.
He wasn’t expected to do so well. He made a speech shortly before the election that drummed up fear of how many seats Arab candidates would win and pressed other similar buttons. He also said there’d be no Palestine while he was in charge. This speech is considered to be what gave him the victory. It is said to have taken votes from the more moderate main opposition, which was a much better bet for peace.
With only 25% of the vote he obviously needed coalition partners. All the parties that support him are right wing, including extreme fundamentalist religious.
Yes, my friend in Israel commented that their system is broken (this in response to my moaning of FPTP in Canada).
Yeah – bad as FPTP is, I think you guys do better than them.
I don’t think cutting off military aid would do much good – Israel cares about freedom to act to defend its existence (call it “its selfish interests”) more than about a subsidy from the U.S..
Besides, did you know that Israel is getting this aid (along with Egypt) as a result of 1978 Camp David accords in which Egypt and Israel made peace and Israel gave the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt? It could be that stopping this type of aid might be trickier than we think.
That’s certainly the way it looks from here too.
Concur. He might be doing horrible things for incomprehensible reasons, but that doesn’t mean that he’s stupid or incompetent. If his plan calls for a trapped fearful population without choices, he seems to be getting there.
“The first casualty of war is truth.”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
Goebbels of course didn’t have the internet, which truly allows the lie to travel several times round the world before the truth has got out of the starting blocks. Nor did he realize that people with deep pockets and murky motives can be much more powerful than the state in propagating lies. Nor had the concept of confirmation bias yet emerged.
Very true, however this also requires ignorance and the lack of alternative information in general. The internet that allows for fast movement of bad information can also be refuted on the same internet. The methods of Goebbels should not work in truly open society but it sure does work in North Korea, Russia and many parts of globe today.
Climate change denial? Evolution rejection? Young earth creationism? Of course, people need a reason to accept these lies, i.e. confirmation bias, but sufficiently clever obfuscation (“no scientific consensus”, “micro vs. macro-evolution”, “inaccurate carbon dating methods/changing cosmological constants”), which uses sciency sounding language, is very effective, especially in a world so awash with conflicting information that there is no trusted source of authority and a widespread (and sometimes justified) belief in conspiracy.
Most of what you are covering here has it’s root cause in religion. These folks are in almost complete denial of science or reality anyway. The Power of the faith. The ignorance of people. However, even the Israeli people are not accepting Bebe’s history. In a free society you fool some of the people some of the time.
In an era of Lord Beaverbrook, and Randolph Hurst? That I find a bit implausible. (I have a vague memory that there were such “press barons” in contemporary Germany too, but I’m not very sure on that.
Hmmm, any people knowing of the history of shrinkology around?
Not I. But I do recall that the people of Germany were mostly in such sorry shape after WWI and the World depression that they were ripe for the lunatic they got. As is often the case in history…timing is everything. So the simple little corporal of WWI becomes the political leader of Germany by 1933 and it was off to the races. I did not see that Hitler needed any influence from the Mufti to do what was done. In the end, it was Hitler and the Nazis who did it and no one was putting a gun to their head.
According to Wikipedia the concept of confirmation bias arose out of experiments done in the 1960s.
I’d be surprised if the philosophers and critics hadn’t noticed the phenomenon earlier. Centuries earlier.
Whether there was an agreed name for the phenomenon is a different question.
Doesn’t really have to be recognized at all; as long as it existed it would have had its effects whether or not anyone bothered to notice it.
You’re liking your double-posts today? The iPad needs a slapping.
Doesn’t really matter if it was recognized or not; it would still simply occur and have its usual effects.
If anyone gave Hitler the idea it was the Turks.
I don’t think Turks get the full credit, either. Jewish pogroms and genocides (and not of just Jews or Armenians) have been a staple of world culture for millennia.
I recently learned that Hitler’s goal of creating more lebensraum (living space) for Germans was in part inspired by the earlier European conquest of America, i.e. the annihilation of indigenous Americans and the enslavement of black people.
From Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth book:
“The Slavs would fight ‘like Indians,’ with the same result. Then in the East, ‘a similar process will repeat itself for the second time, as in the conquest of America.’ A second America could be created in Europe, after Germans learned to see other Europeans as they saw indigenous Americans or Africans, and learned to regard Europe’s largest state as a fragile Jewish colony.”
He also drew inspiration from Nietzsche’s Übermensch, of course misunderstanding it. Ricky Gervais does a funny stand up routine about it too.
It looks like Hitler’s knowledge of the Armenian genocide influenced his behavior as well after all, as it evidently emboldened him in his genocidal plans…
“When Adolf Hitler ordered the German army groups to attack Poland and explained his plans to his military commanders in his operation order of 22 August 1939, which urged them to ‘kill without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language’, he expected the reaction to be one of collective disinterest, which is why he concluded with the rhetorical question: ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’”
http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/EN/JoachimGauck/Reden/2015/150423-Gedenken-Armenier.html
Really not anymore preposterous than Jewish settlers justifying their illegal settlements (stealing Palestinian land) by claiming that their god gave them the land. A claim we don’t see the Israeli government straining all to much to reject either.
I have to disagree with a lot of statements in this post.
As Netanyahu explained, he never intended to whitewash Hitler and blame the Mufti, however Mufti did play a significant role in the development of Nazis’ plans toward European Jews. Many historians refuted Netanyahu’s statement but very many reputable historians supported him.
Without a definite proof it is widely believed that Mufti met Adolf Eichmann in September or October 1937, when Eichmann visited Palestine. Eichmann was investigating the possibility of deporting Jews to Palestine. Reportedly, Mufti persuaded him against this scheme.
In 1938, Adolf Eichmann prepared a report advocating an evacuation plan for 4 million Jews to be shipped to Madagascar.
At Nurenberg trials senior Nazi official Dieter Wisliczeny, said:
“In my opinion, the grand mufti, who has been in Berlin since 1941 played a role in the decision of the German government to exterminate the European Jews, the importance of which must not be disregarded. He had repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he had been in contact, above all before Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution to the Palestinian problem. In is messages broadcast from Berlin, he surpassed us in anti-Jewish attacks. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.”
From the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel: State Attorney Bach: ‘This is our document No. 281. Mr. Steiner first tells us that Wisliceny described his talks with Eichmann, why Palestine cannot be considered as the destination for emigration: “When I asked him why, he laughed and asked whether I had never heard of the Grand Mufti Husseini. He explained that the Mufti has very close contact and cooperation with Eichmann, and therefore Germany cannot agree to Palestine being the final destination, as this would be a blow to Germany’s prestige in the Mufti’s eyes”.’
One of many speeches of Mufti by radio from Berlin:
“According to the Muslim religion, the defense of your life is a duty which can only be fulfilled by annihilating the Jews. This is your best opportunity to get rid of this dirty race, which has usurped your rights and brought misfortune and destruction on your countries. Kill the Jews, burn their property, destroy their stores, annihilate these base supporters of British imperialism. Your sole hope of salvation lies in annihilating the Jews before they annihilate you.”
And, from Adolf Eichmann himself, 1956:
‘But you, you 360 million Mohammedans, to whom I have had a strong inner connection since the days of my association with your Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, you, who have a greater truth in the surahs of your Koran, I call upon you to pass judgment on me. You children of Allah have known the Jews longer and better than the West has. Your noble Muftis and scholars of law may sit in judgement upon me and, at least in a symbolic way, give me your verdict.’
There is much, much more about the role of Mufti in the destruction of European Jewry. But this comment is already too long. Just one information: Mufti is seen as national hero by Palestinians, his virtues extolled by Mahmoud Abbas and all the other leaders of Palestinians.
What on Earth did he pick on Madagascar for? By then, the Germans had been booted out from Tanzania (Tanganyka). Some relations still remained, and obvious associations with South Africa. But why Madagascar, I wonder?
You can find the history of European (Polish among others) plans of getting rid of the Jews by settling them on Magadaskar in Wikipedia (if you don’t want to read rather thick history books): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
Hmmm, that’s a whole bit of European history I was unaware of. Of course I knew about the pogroms etc, and the Zionist movement. But the mass deportation plans are news.
The original solution to the “Jewish problem” was deportation. It was only after failing to find somewhere to deport them to that mass murder started to seem like a good idea.
One thing is certain, Hitler didn’t need any encouraging from Mufti to release an order to his military commanders to “kill without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.”
I was against Netanyahu since before he became PM. His policies have been bad for Israel since his first election.
Israel has not had a decent PM since Rabin and Peres. The right wing has screwed the country.
Boy does that sound familiar.
I agree with everything in this article, yet I still find it baffling, bordering on astonishing, that Abbas can be filmed on Palestinian state TV not only stoking up Islamic fears about Jews using the Al-Aqsa mosque(those fears – and let’s just recognise the inherent, default bigotry that’s involved in banning outsiders from setting foot in your poxy place of worship – are a large part of the reason behind the recent knife attacks) but doing so by vowing to stop any ‘filthy Jewish feet’ from entering, and receive not a breath of censure from any of the mainstream leftwing papers, blogs and websites.
Netanyahu’s comment was so cretinous and odious because it was flat-out wrong and it sought to wrest blame away from one of history’s most awful human beings and lay it on the shoulders of an, in this specific case, innocent man. It should be noted that the Mufti was an utterly appalling person; a vicious, intolerant, callous, intensely anti-Semitic fascist, but if Netanyahu wanted to highlight the Mufti’s much-downplayed compliance with the Nazis then he went about it like Mr Bean trying to fix a fence: the story has now become Netanyahu’s borderline Nazi apologism and his calumny against the Mufti rather than the Mufti himself.
Netanyahu’s actions are particularly frustrating because the Mufti’s and the Islamic Brotherhood’s links with the Nazis are extensive, and he might have been able to make a sensible point about the extent of anti-Semitism in Islam. One of the many large, grumpy elephants in the room for the left is the seething hatred of Jews in much of the Muslim world; the kind of default, mundane, day-to-day hatred that makes Abbas’s comments about filthy Jews so un-newsworthy. This hatred seems to be essentially irrelevant to the considerations of a certain kind of leftist.
Even when this hatred is recognised the almost behaviouralist way that many on the left see Muslims, as though they’re input-output systems with the same agency as Skinner’s pigeons, colours their view of this anti-Semitism. As a result hatred of Jews is just something natural and reflexive – ‘what d’you expect? Of course they hate Jews’.
Israel and the Jews are regarded as moral agents, capable of controlling themselves. Palestinians and Muslims on the other hand are regarded as like some kind of wild animal – incapable of anything besides furious, violent reaction. Any other, more positive kind of reaction is not welcomed either – it’s met with suspicion and mistrust, as can be seen by the Guardian’s/Nathan Lean’s charming smears against Majid Nawaz.
I deeply dislike Netanyahu – him and the rest of the Israeli right seem to be making things exponentially worse than they already are – but until the mainstream left accept how poisonously, hysterically anti-Semitic some Muslims are, how deeply ingrained and normalised hatred of Jews is, their often well-meaning naivety will never result in anything like a realistic solution, and moreover fuckwits like Netanyahu will be elected time and time again by an Israeli public who look around the world and see their natural allies on the left turning their backs on them.
Apologies for the length. I really only meant to write a short paragraph on Netanyahu’s odiousness.
No complaints from me about the length – I agree with all you’ve said.
It needs to be noted that even Angela Merkel has come out against Netanyahu on this, saying the Holocaust was Germany’s fault and blaming the Mufti is to diminish their role and responsibility.
It’s true that the Mufti advocated for all these things, but the decision rested with the Nazi leadership and they thus bear final responsibility for the horror.
There’s a recent interview Fareed Zakaria vs Netanyahu where Zakaria calls him out on his fear mongering re the Iran deal, and Netanyahu doesn’t have an answer for him.
Stephen Sackur BBC’s ‘Hardtalk’ has just done an excellent interview with Israeli opposition MP Yair Lapid too that mentioned Netanyahu’s comment, but the whole interview is worth the 24 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SydiNPg4TSQ
Thanks – I’ll definitely have a look at that.
Angela Merkel’s response was excellent I think. I look at the rest of the world, and how venomously defensive many countries become when their ugly pasts are brought up, and it makes me appreciate the direction Germany have taken over the last seventy years so much more. I can’t remember who said it, but ‘no other country has a monument to their own shame in the heart of their capital’. I really admire that open-wound honesty. It’s so vanishingly rare. And maybe I’m wrong but I don’t see it happening in anything but a liberal democracy.
Thanks – I’ll definitely have a look at that.
Re. Merkel’s excellent response – I’m reminded of that quote about Germany, that ‘no other country erects a monument to its own shame at the heart of its capital’. It’s really worth admiring the German’s open-wound honesty on this subject.
Tim Harris here, in case this again comes out as sent by ‘Anonymous’. I sent a response to Saul Sorrell-Till yesterday, saying ‘Very well said’ but for some reason it didn’t get through. So I shall say it again in the hope that it does get through: your original comment was very well said.
*”the Germans'” not “the German’s”. Yeech. Every grammatical error is a scar on my very soul.
Doen’t be to hared on yorself. I wus wunce much werse. Beesides, soul’s are for dumys and moroonses.
part of the leftist ingrained racism of lowered expectations. Jews have to be perfectly moral and be perfect victims. Muslims are understood to be anti-semetic and deranged by religion by default, so it doesnt make it to the news cycle.
Yes and sadly I’m starting not to be astonished at this behaviour anymore.
Excellent post! Thank you very much, Saul.
As an Israeli, I find this whole thing very embarrassing. It trivializes the Holocaust and makes it a political issue.
Al-Husseini was a murderous antisemitic bastard in his own right, there is evidence that he knew about the Holocaust and expressed support of the final solution. All that doesn’t make him the Holocaust mastermind, as Netanyahu’s suggested.
I always had the impression that Netanyahu was fairly smart. But how on earth could he be so ignorant of history?
The impression I got from my (albeit paltry) reading of the history was that the Nazis saw the Mufti as a bit of a nuisance and at best a useful idiot. The idea that he would, with a few deft words, convince the Nazis to undertake a crime of such massive scale is beyond absurd.
Bibi is a graduate of the Sloan School of Management at MIT so he ain’t stupid. IMHO, he is much like American politician Ted Cruz, who is also a smart guy. Both of them are sociopathic demagogues, think Huey Long with brains.
Former French President Sarkozy was right on the money, IMHO: I can’t stand him (Bibi), he’s such a liar.
Which bit of history do you think he is so ignorant of?
They idea that he could have persuaded them to change their plan from deportation to Muslim-inhabited countries to extermination — which is what Netanyahu is claiming — doesn’t strike me as “beyond absurd”. Though it may well be wrong.
To support Netanyahu’s accusation, one would have to somehow demonstrate that without the Mufti’s input, the holocaust would not have occurred. I think that is a dreadful re-writing of history.
I can only assume he wanted to highlight the fact that the Palestinian leadership did throw their lot in with Hitler, despite the mufti having been granted power by the British with the promise that he would promote peace.
Maybe this will make extremists think twice before they use all this idiotic rhetoric about the Arabs finding their “own final solution”.
I didn’t mean to imply the Mufti’s connection with the Nazis was of no consequence.
There’s a very good account of the historical overlap between C20 fascism and nascent Islamism in Paul Berman’s The Flight Of The Intellectuals. A large section of it details the Mufti’s interactions with Nazi high command and their propaganda machine. Worth reading.
I’m curious if you got the impression from the book that the Mufti had as direct an influence on the Nazis as Be Be said.
I got the opposite impression. Berman’s argument certainly didn’t suggest anything along the lines of Netanyahu’s reading of history.
It did outline the close ideological ties between The Mufti and the Nazis though. Its main point was that Nazism helped fuel anti-Semitism and Islamist fascism. The Nazi propaganda machine really had to inveigle its doctrine into the Islamic world and they did that by getting prominent Islamic conservative figures on-side. It was a pragmatic approach that subtly shifted the emphases of Nazism, tailoring it for a Muslim audience. It downplayed the universalism of its racism and emphasised the evil of Jews.
The results of this push by Nazi propagandists are still evident today in the Muslim world, and they’ve been influential in the rise of political Islam and the ubiquity of Islamic anti-Semitism. That’s basically what Berman argues.
His argument is pretty much the reverse of Netanyahu’s, as far as I can remember.
“getting prominent Islamic conservative figures on-side”
It does sound like Bibi got it backwards.
Yes – I think it’s fair to say Bibi done a boo-boo.
There is a superb graphic novel accessible to young children by pioneering graphic novelist Will Eisner called
“The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. It should be distributed in junior high schools.
http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/d/l200/m/m6u9LrdZ3_pnjH9WOmGnZZQ.jpg
I won’t have Fox News on my cable but I am curious as to how that ridiculous organization is handling this.
They said he was wrong. It was a one day wonder, replaced yesterday by more wall-to-wall anti-Clinton coverage. Although several commentators admitted she was doing a good job of her testimony.
Well, when it is plainly obvious to 100% of the people, even Faux Noise can’t be a denier.
Thanks for watching FOX so we don’t have to! 🙂
It will be consistent and expected when Hillary gets a bump in the polls from the hearings and the republicans on the committee drop into low single digits, Faux fails to notice.
Then there’s always the possibility that the Mufti *did* suggest the final solution, and the Nazis pounced on it because it was really what they wanted to do anyway. “Well, even our best buddy over in Jerusalem thinks this is a good idea…”
I doubt that al-Husseini made a difference in Hitler’s decision making, but it wouldn’t have been beneath him to lend a helping hand at Auschwitz if he were asked.
The wikipedia article, “Eugenics in America”, suggests that “eugenics was practised in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany[4] and U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter.[5][6][7].”
Further, “A 1911 Carnegie Institute report mentioned euthanasia as one of its recommended “solutions” to the problem of cleansing society of unfit genetic attributes. The most commonly suggested method was to set up local gas chambers.”
The article goes on to say that Americans weren’t ready for mass euthanasia programs and instead used segregation and forced sterilization to prevent the “unfit” from breeding. But the foundation for the Holocaust had already been laid well before the Mufti met Hitler.
Netanyahu is partially right in that the Mufti al Husseini tried to engineer a Final Solution to the Jews of Palestine.
Mr.Coyne, he didnt wish the Jews would go away, he setup an entire army to massacre them. Please stop soft peddling this little fact. Hitler may have had ideas of Holocaust before meeting Husseini, but they were ideological allies and collaborated on the main plot to kill Jews.
“In 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini fled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders. He wanted to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.
In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped from French detention in 1946, however, and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut. He died in 1974.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/muftihit.html
The reason Netanyahu brought him up is because the same blood lust and rage thats driving Palestinians to slaughter civilians with knives and fire bombs has been used in the past, for decades.
Liberals like NY Times love to caricature Netanyahu as some clown who makes the situation worse, completely ignoring the absolute racist filth coming out Palestinian mosques and out of the PA head himself, Abbas. Watch his speech on PA television 2 weeks ago, full of blood libels, incitement and calls to ‘defend’ the al Aqsa mosque agaisnt the ‘filthy’ feet of the Jews.
This somehow never gets mentioned, the brutal massacres of Jews in cold blood on daily basis is somehow a by product of netanyahu’s words, not the deranged state of Palestinians and their leaders and their religious lunacy.
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It is remarkable that in the 1940s the Nazis, the British, and the Arabs all agreed that no more Jews should be allowed into Palestine. Would they have been in such perfect agreement about anything else?
It is remarkable that in the 1940s the Nazis, the British and the Arabs all agreed that no more Jews should be allowed into Palestine. Would have have been in such perfect agreement about anything else?