Haj Amin al-Husseini, aka Mohammad Amin al-Husayni -
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Husseini was a racist and Arab nationalist who wanted to exterminate the Jews in Palestine during WWII. He was born in Jerusalem in the late 1890s and died in 1974. In April 1920, riots broke out in Jerusalem and many Jews were attacked and much Jewish property destroyed and damaged. Husseini and Ze’ev Jabotinsky, organizer of Jewish paramilitary defenses, both received 15 year sentences from the British, who ruled the area at the time. Husseini fled to Transjordan, but was pardoned by the British and in 1921, he became the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem where he continued to oppose Jewish immigration to Palestine. In the 1930s, Husseini allied himself with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in hopes of getting enough assistance to eliminate the Jews from Palestine. In 1939, he developed a strategic alliance with Hitler to exchange Iraqi oil for Arab participation in the murder of Jews in the Mideast and Eastern Europe. Husseini demanded support for a pan-Arab state and Arab control over Palestine.
In February 1941, Husseini submitted a draft declaration of German-Arab cooperation, which read: “Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy.” [1]
In November 28, 1941, Husseini met with Hitler who assured him that Jews would be hunted down and destroyed beyond the German sphere.
In Husseini’s memoirs, recovered after the war, he wrote: “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours'."[2]
Throughout WW2, Husseini worked for the Axis powers broadcasting propaganda targeting Arab public opinion. He recruited an entire division of Bosnian Muslims that fought along side Nazi soldiers. These troops also participated in the genocide of Jews in Yugoslavia.
On March 1, 1944, while speaking on Radio Berlin, Husseini said: 'Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.'[3]
After the war, Husseini fled to Egypt as he was a convicted war criminal. He began losing his following and died in 1974 in Lebanon.
Notes:
[1] Lewis (p190)
[2] Ami Isseroff and Peter FitzGerald-Morris, 'The Iraq Coup Attempt of 1941, the Mufti, and the Farhud,' http://www.mideastweb.org/Iraqaxiscoup.htm.
[3] Sachar (1961), p.231
Sources:
Black, Edwin. Banking on Baghdad, Wiley 2006, ISBN 0471773498
Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1984, ISBN 0691008078
Sachar, Howard M. (1996). A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, 2nd ed., revised and updated. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0679765638