Why Zionists Turn the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem into a Comic Book Villain
Historically, Most Palestinians Rejected Amin al-Husseini
Cultists love simple stories of heroes and villains. Zionists are no exception to that rule. In their history of Israel, good Jews defeated evil Muslims — Amin al-Husseini, the second Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was motivated solely by his racist hatred of Jews, and the Palestinian people were his willing minions. The most extreme version, told by Israel’s current Prime Minister, turns al-Husseini into the Red Skull, a Hitler ally who inspired the Holocaust:
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.’ ”
In reality, al-Husseini influenced no Nazis and few Palestinians. The office of the Grand Mufti was a British creation — officially, al-Husseini was in charge of sacred Muslim sites in Palestine. He made anti-British and anti-Zionist speeches, but he did not start any riots or revolutions. He called for Muslims to help the Nazis during World War II, but hardly any did, while 12,000 Palestinians fought for the British. After the war, the Nuremberg Commission did not find any evidence that al-Husseini committed war crimes, and the Israelis, who hunted down the worst Nazis, were content to let him live out his life in exile.
The Holocaust Museum points out al-Husseini’s relative insignificance:
The Germans, and Hitler in particular, repeatedly denied al-Husayni’s request for legitimization. They were reluctant to initiate unnecessary disputes with Italy or Vichy France, harbored doubts about the extent of al-Husayni’s actual authority in the Arab world, and had reservations about making long-term statements regarding areas of the world beyond the reach of German arms. When he received al-Husayni on November 28, 1941, a meeting covered in the German press, Hitler was sympathetic, but declined to give al-Husayni the public declaration of support that he sought.
After the war, al-Husseini said, “No, the elimination of the Jews is not in our program. We have no idea of wiping them out. The Jews lived among us for 13 centuries as a minority, and we protected them.”
In an article for the Shoah Foundation, Wolf Gruner notes,
Polish Jewish survivor Martin Becker speaks about meeting the nephew of the great mufti al-Husseini while he studied in Egypt before World War II.
Becker says he was not aware of the great mufti’s hatred toward the Jews at the time, which shows that al-Husseini’s influence has become exaggerated in the years that followed.
So where did Zionists like Netanyahu get the idea that al-Husseini was so important? Gruner answers that:
After the war, Dieter Wisliceny, one of the SS men responsible for the execution of the Final Solution, reported during the Nuremberg trial that the al-Husseini had recommended the killing of the Jews to Hitler and other Nazi leaders. Few people tend to believe Wisliceny; many think that he was trying to deflect responsibility for the genocide from the Nazis.
The greatest problem with Wisleceny’s claim is that Hitler had begun the mass murder of Jews before he and al-Husseini met. In reality, al-Husseini has been far more useful to Zionists than he ever was to Nazis — his demonization helps Zionists rationalize the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
