The Mufti and the Fuehrer

by Joseph B. Schechtman

published by Thomas Yoseloff 1965
Reviewed by Linda Dangoor-Khalastchi

The Mufti is, of course, Haj Amin el-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Fuehrer, Adolph Hitler.

Between 1920 and 1948, Palestine was governed by Britain under an international mandate stipulating that that country was to become a Jewish national home. During these years , the most dominant and influential figure in Palestine was that of Haj Amin el-Husseini, an ardent Arab nationalist fiercely opposed to the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine.

From his early days as a teacher and a writer in a local arab paper, he displayed a passionate hatred of both Britain and the Jews, rousing his audiences to ardent anti-British and anti-Jewish animosity.

In 1920, he instigated the Jerusalem pogrom for which he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the British. However, he fled to escape punishment, and it would be true to say that the British turned a blind eye to his anti-Jewish leanings as long as he was not challenging their rule in Palestine.

Curious strokes of good fortune always accompanied him throughout his life, not least when the first British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel (a British Jew who did not want to appear too pro-Jewish), rescued him from oblivion by first pardoning him and later appointing him Mufti of Jerusalem. Elated by his unexpected sucssess, el-Husseini promptly bestowed on himself the even higher title of “Grand” Mufti of Jerusalem.

The Appointment took place in March 1921 and the rigid rule adopted by Haj Amin in his new capacity as the religious head of the Palestine Moslems was never to mix with Jews. The second Jewish Pogrom occured soon after, in May of the same year. The Arab press was full of anti-Jewish propaganda and the publication “Protocols of Zion” appeared frequently rousing the masses to a new pitch of violence. (It is worth noting at this point that these very same hate-generating tactics and propaganda are still being used by the Arab press today , brainwashing the Moslem world, and, unfortunately this has also spread to the Western press who have globalised the anti-semitic message.)

Back to the Book.

Joseph Sechtman recounts the different stages in the Muftis charmed and lucky career.

In 1937, in addition to conducting and provoking violent anti-Jewish riots , the Mufti becomes a menace to the British Mandatory regime and has to flee to Lebanon first and later to Baghdad where he holds high-level negotiations with Axis leaders and where he orchestrates the pogrom against the Babylonian Jews through his abortive Iraqi pro-Axis coup of 1941. Over 400 Jews were killed and countless others were injured or raped whilst his mob controlled the streets of Baghdad in the first two days of June. With the collapse of the coup, the Mufti escapes to Berlin where Hitler set up a special office for him.

Living amongst his European masters, he continues his Arab propaganda with zeal. An Arab brigade and a Moslem Legion were formed to fight along side the Nazis. In Croatia, he drew on the moslem population to recruit the “Jihad Warriors” into the Waffen SS.

Sechtman writes “There is direct evidence as to the Mufti’s influence in the implementation of the physical destruction of European Jewry.” He quotes Dieter Wisliceny: “The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichman and Himmler in the execution of this plan....He was one of Eichman’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.....I heard him say that, accompanied by Eichman, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz......”

Sechtman goes on to say that the Mufti repeatedly suggested to the various authorities he was in contact with, above all to Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of the European Jews. This, he considered, a comfortable solution to the Palestine problem. In a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1944, the Mufti calls the attention of the German Minister to the constant attempts of the Jews to emigrate from Europe in order to reach Palestine and he, point blank, asks him to take the “necessary steps to stop the Jews from emigrating...and in this way, your Excellency would give a new practical example of the policy of the naturally allied and friendly Germany towards the Arab Nation.”

It is hardly accidental that the systematic physical destruction of European Jewry by Hitler roughly coincided with the arrival of the Mufti to Germany. Up to mid-1941 the official German policy vis-a-vis the Jews was that of forced mass emigration. The scheme of wholesale physical extermination began only after the Mufti’s arrival . The formal decision to annihilate the Jews who had survived the ghettos, forced labour, starvation and disease, was taken in January 1942, two months after the Mufti’s arrival in Berlin. There is no doubt that his indefatigable campaigning against the emigration of Jews to Palestine instigated the Reich’s ban on emigration and helped shape the “final solution of the Jewish problem.”

Up to 1945, he built up a world-wide propaganda network of anti-Allied activities which included espionnage. Luck was on his side again when , with the fall of Germany, not only did he manage to escape standing trial by the victorious Allies, but spent eight months in a charming villa in Paris under French “protective custody” before fleeing again, this time to Cairo where King Farouk gave him asylum. Britain had asked the Jewish Agency not to touch him. From these comfortable surroundings, he was able to continue his hate propaganda and renewed preparations to liquidate Jewish Palestine.

The ambivalent attitude of the British government towards the Mufti raises many questions. The French authorities were to hand him over, in1945, to the British authorities to be tried as a war criminal. Yet, the British government proved to be surprisingly unenthusiastic about any action to secure his extradition.

When asked as to what steps had been taken to bring the Mufti to trial, Foreign secretary Ernest Bevin told the Commons that the French government had “ not so far agreed to the request of the British government to hand over Amin Al-Husseini” This, of course, was an outright lie. The request had never been officially formulated. I say of course because, firstly, it would be in keeping with Bevin’s pro-Arab (or should I say anti-Jewish) leanings, but, secondly, and most importantly, because the British were protecting him as they had “somehing” to hide. And this “something” could very well have been that the Mufti was a British agent, working with their Governors in Palestine, since both parties shared the same views with regards to the emigration of European Jews to Palestine.

This proposition is not as outrageous as it seems. For reasons best known to itself, the British government chose to ignore the abundant evidence against the Mufti, and as if this was not enough, it later officially absolved him of the charge of being a war criminal on a point of law. An American writer, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, wrote of him: “... As a murderer, this man ranks with the great killers of history. As an enemy of the United Nations, he was surpassed only by Hitler. In the evil of his intentions, the Mufti equalled Hitler.”

Sechtman’s book is a serious and thoroughly documented biography of a man who was in the forefront of most major political events in the Arab and Moslem world. Unfortunately, his vitriolic hate and xenophobic legacy have now been taken over by the PLO, Hamas , Hizballah and others.

Scribe:

Up to the point that the Holocaust was organised and managed by British agents and that the delay in D Day by nearly two years was to give Hitler the opportunity to liquidate Europe’s Jewry more completely.

See : Mufti Asks Ban on Jewish Emigration as Gesture to Arabs