ARABS AND NAZIS - CAN IT BE TRUE?

Whitewashing the Arab historical record has long been the practice not only of Arab spokesmen but of the Arabs' Western and Communist sympathizers. Among the most persistent efforts to this end have been the denial and belittling of Arab involvement with the Nazis and the Holocaust.

In fact, many Arab nationalist leaders - from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east - not only sympathized with the Nazis but cooperated with German agents before and during World War 2. The most outstanding Arab Nazi collaborator, however, was the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Haj Muhammud Amin el-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem.

Husseini spent most of World War 2 in the Axis domain in Europe. He conferred officially with Mussolini and Hitler. In a petition he submitted together with other Arab leaders, Husseini urged the Fuehrer in the name of the Arab nation to recognize the Arab right to solve "the Jewish Question" in the Arab countries. Later he helped the Germans recruit an SS division among the Bosnian Muslims, exerting his influence over their imams, later on inspiring them during their service.

One researcher tells us, "The Mufti worked closely with the Nazi machinery responsible for exterminating Jews." (1)

This apparatus was part of the SS headed by his friend Himmler. Husseini made energetic efforts to further the mass murder process by preventing the emigration of Jews from the Axis domain. He petitioned the governments of Axis Croatia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, as well as their patrons in Germany and Italy, and neutral Turkey, (2) to prevent Jews from leaving the Axis zone.

Towards the end of the war, when the Axis satellite states of Eastern Europe could see the looming Nazi defeat, they made plans to release Jews, especially children, from their territory, in return for various considerations or perhaps in order to clear themselves with Allied public opinion. The Mufti, hearing of these plans, exerted his considerable diplomatic influence among the Germans and their satellites to stop these children and adults from escaping their fate under the Nazis. For instance, Husseini wrote to the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, an Axis partner, urging Bulgaria to send 4,000 Jewish children to Poland where they would be "under stringent control" in his words (letter of June 5, 1943). These children, he asserted, presented "a degree of danger to Bulgaria whether they be kept in Bulgaria or be permitted to depart from that country." (3)

Under "stringent control" in Poland, apparently, these children would no longer represent a danger to Bulgaria. He also delivered a note to the same end to the German Foreign Ministry which in turn instructed its ambassador in the Bulgarian capital to bring to the Bulgarians' attention the common German-Arab interest in preventing the departure of these children. Thus, the Mufti succeeded in blocking the further release of Jewish children from Bulgaria. That same summer of 1943, he sent a similar letter to the Rumanian foreign minister. He again urged sending Jewish children -- 1,800 this time -- to Poland where they would be under "active supervision." (4)

Husseini even intervened with the Germans against trading Jews under their control for fellow Germans (including the so-called Templars) who had been interned by the British in the Palestine mandate, perhaps thusly showing himself more resolute in finishing off the Jews than were the Germans themselves. Complaining to SS chief Himmler about this planned trade, the Mufti wrote, "It is to be feared that further Jewish groups may leave Germany and France." By "further" groups, he had in mind his earlier, unsuccessful attempt to prevent Egyptian Jews from leaving the Axis domain as part of a larger group of Egyptians. "In my letter to you of June 5, 1944, I referred back to our conversation in which I reported to you on the inclusion of [Egyptian] Jews in the exchange plan of some Egyptians living in Germany." He complained in this later letter (July 27, 1944) that despite his earlier protest and general German promises to the Arabs, "the Jews, nevertheless did leave." (5) This shows that he was not always successful in his efforts.

Interventions of this kind were widely reported after World War II. Bartley Crum, an American member of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (1946), was shown documentation to this effect by an investigator for the Nuremberg Tribunal. It was also reported at the time in the New York Post by Edgar Ansel Mowrer. Since then, however, this information has generally been omitted from both academic studies and popular-level accounts of Arab-Israeli relations and modern Arab politics. But research has gone on. Fairly recently, Professor Daniel Carpi of Tel Aviv University has published his research on the matter, based on Italian archives, whereas most earlier information had come from German archives. (6)

Yet the whitewashers customarily overlook this information which does not fit the innocuous, put upon image of the Arabs (particularly Palestinian Arabs) that they wish to project.

Husseini broadcast often to the Arab countries over Radio Berlin. Indeed he was in charge of Arabic broadcasting not only for Radio Berlin but for the Italian station at Bari. (7)

In one broadcast he urged Arabs, "Kill Jews wherever you find them for the love of God, history, and religion." (8)

If those who had heard such urgings yet acclaimed the Mufti as a leader after World War 2, would this reflect on their attitudes towards genocide and Jews? The thought might be inconvenient. Another broadcast presented what was the first public notice from an Axis source as to the scope of the Holocaust. In a broadcast of September 30, 1944, he asked the Arabs rhetorically, "Is it not in your power to repulse the Jews whose number is not more than eleven million?" (9)

Before the war, the world Jewish population had been estimated at around 17 and 18 million, which Husseini surely knew.

The Germans subsidized Haj Amin in the amount of 75,000 reichsmarks per month. He received other sums from them for expenses for his several residences, for maintaining his "Arabisches Büro," for maintaining other Arabs living in Axis Europe, etc. The Germans also subsidized a number of other prominent Arabs who had found refuge in Nazi Germany. (10) Husseini's subsidies came from both the Foreign Ministry and the SS. (11)

Husseini's Nazi collaboration did not begin with World War 2 itself. As early as March 1933, after the Nazis under Hitler had won the general elections in Germany, Husseini offered his congratulations through the German consul in Jerusalem. (12)

Hitler's fanatic Judeophobia was no secret even then, not even in far off Jerusalem.

Admiral Canaris of German intelligence, the Abwehr, provided support for the socalled Arab revolt in mandatory Palestine (1936-1939), the first intifada. Meanwhile, the Mufti sent emissaries to Berlin in 1937 and 1939 to discuss financial, diplomatic, and weapons assistance. He also received financial support for the Arab revolt from the wealthy American anti-semite and Hitler sympathizer, Charles R. Crane who was also the patron of Husseini's associate on the Palestine Arab Executive, George Antonius. (13)

Of course Husseini did not act alone. He had a large following and travelled with an entourage. When the British decided in 1937 to stop indulging the Arab revolt, he was allowed to leave mandatory Palestine for Lebanon where he was surrounded by his own retinue. He again had an entourage with him when he settled in Baghdad from 1939 to 1941, one of his close advisors being his kinsman `Abdul-Qadir al-Husayni (Husseini), Faisal Husseini's father. In Iraq he very successfully engaged in pro-Nazi, pan-Arab intrigue. He was in fact one of the major figures in Iraqi politics at that time, helping to instigate a coup d'etat which installed a pro-Nazi government that declared war on the British while Rommel was advancing in North Africa. British intelligence reports show that Husseini was one of the decision-makers of the Iraqi government in this period, while Rashid `Ali el-Kilani was prime minister. (14)

Part of the pro-Nazi work at the time of Husseini and his allies was propagating hatred of Jews among the Muslim Iraqis. This came to its most violent expression in an incident called the Farhud in June 1941, after British defeat of the Iraqi Arab army. The Mufti's pro-Nazi Iraqi associates incited a pogrom in Baghdad which killed an estimated 600 Jews while British troops stayed outside the city. Subsequent to the restoration of order in the country, an official Iraqi investigating commission reported that the Mufti of Jerusalem and his entourage were among the factors causing the pogrom. Husseini, after arriving in Iraq, "began disseminating Nazi propaganda with great cunning... His entourage also engaged in wide-scale anti-Jewish and anti-British propaganda activities among all classes." The report added, "The Palestinian and Syrian schoolteachers" in Iraq opposed "government... steps against Nazism." (15)

While operating in the Nazi-fascist domain during the war, the Mufti demonstrated complete identification with the Nazi policy of mass murdering Jews as outlined above. He also knew the scope of the Holocaust in terms of numbers killed before the fact of the mass murder was generally known. This knowledge showed up in a broadcast of 1944 quoted above and no doubt came from his close ties to Himmler.

On occasion he went farther than the Germans themselves. We see this for instance, in his opposition to the German plan to exchange Jews for German prisoners of the British. Husseini energetically protested against letting any Jews escape their fate under the Nazis.

His help for the Holocaust was considerable. Besides helping to recruit Bosnian Muslims for the SS - who later went out to hunt down partisans and slaughter Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies - he also recruited Soviet Muslims to collaborate with the Nazis. (16)

Some of them served in the Einsatzgruppen, the dread murder detachments that massacred Jews in Belarus and Ukraine.

In fact Husseini set up an Islamic Institute in Dresden for training Soviet Muslim imams. Meanwhile, he also set up an Arab Institute for Research into the Jewish Question (based on a German model). These projects were made possible by the generous German subsidies that he received. (17)

His ties were particularly close with SS commander Himmler. A photograph of the Mufti with Himmler bears a dedication to him from the Nazi leader, reading as follows: "Seiner Eminenz dem Grossmufti zur Erinnerung 4 VII. 1943" ("To his Eminence the Grand Mufti in remembrance, July 4, 1943"). This photo has been fairly widely published (18) as has the photo of his meeting with Hitler.

Members of his entourage in Germany, young men of various prominent Palestinian Arab families, Khalidis and others besides Husseinis, took SS training and visited the Sachsenhausen murder camp. All this was done with German money. Apparently the Germans considered his work worthwhile for them, since they gave Husseini's activities wide publicity. For instance, his review of Bosnian Muslim SS troops was featured on the front cover of the Wiener Illustrierte (January 12, 1944).

Busy as he was helping the Nazis in places as far apart as Bosnia, Belarus, and the northern Caucasus, Husseini did not forget the Jews in the Arab countries. While battles raged in Libya, the Mufti urged that Tripoli be "purged" of its Jews. As pointed out above, he and his associates had urged Hitler to extend the "Solution of the Jewish Question" to Arab lands. In their meeting, November 28, 1941, Hitler promised that this was part of his own plan. When the German troops crossed the Caucasus, the Fuehrer added, "then will strike the hour of Arab liberation." Hitler informed Husseini of his intent to "solve" the "Jewish problem," not only in Europe but in non-European countries as well. "The Grand Mufti replied that... He was fully reassured and satisfied by the words which he had heard from the Chief of the German State." (19)

Of course pro-Nazi sentiment among the Arabs did not stem from the Mufti's influence alone. While Iraq had the pro-Nazi Futuwwa and Youth Phalanxes youth groups, Egypt and Morocco had their "Green Shirts" in imitation of the Italian fascist blackshirts and the Nazi brownshirts. Nasser and his "Free Officers" circle were notoriously pro-Nazi.

The former Egyptian Army Chief of Staff, `Aziz `Ali el-Masri, was arrested on his way to Rommel's headquarters to aid the German war effort. One of the plotters in this affair was Anwar Sadat, then a young officer and comrade of Nasser. Sadat wrote of this at length in his early book of memoirs, Revolt on the Nile (London, 1957). (20)

He wrote: "We made contact with the German Headquarters in Libya and we acted in complete harmony with them." (21)

To show Sadat's identification at the time with the paranoid Judeophobia of the Germans, we may point to his explanation of the failure of a German intelligence mission. Certain Egyptian Jews, he claims, gave the British information on two German agents sent to Cairo to make contact with the pro-Nazi Egyptian officers. (23)

Through the Allied victories at El-Alamein and Stalingrad, he wrote, "both arms of the German pincer movement on Egypt were broken, and Egyptian hopes were broken too." (24)

At any rate, Sadat's later essay at autobiography, In Search of Identity (New York, 1978), softens the picture of his pro-German, anti-Jewish attitudes.

"Arab nationalists found Berlin a haven of hospitality and understanding in World War II," the International Herald Tribune tells us in an unusual show of candor on this issue. (25)

The hospitality extended not only to Husseinis but to certain of their Hashemite rivals, at that time the ruling family in both Iraq and Transjordan. Rashid `Ali el-Kilani, the Iraqi prime minister who had declared war on Britain in 1941 with the Mufti's encouragement, found asylum in Berlin too. Saudi Arabia, hostile to the Hashemites for its own reasons, was also pro-Nazi. (26)

It was one of the first states to recognize the Italian fascist conquest of Ethiopia. (27)

Arab-Nazi collaboration took place on the ideological plane as well as the political and military planes. On a visit to Berlin in 1937, Dr Sa`id `Abdel-Fattah Iman of the Damascus Arab Club proposed, inter alia, to promote National Socialist ideology among the Arabs and Muslims generally. (28)

As time went on, Nazi ideological penetration of the Arab world took place in various ways and through several channels. Mein Kampf was published in Arabic, the translator later becoming a minister in the Kilani cabinet in Iraq. The Nazis supplied information bulletins to the Arab press. Nazi agents encouraged Arab nationalists to travel to Germany and to study there. (29)

Movie theaters in Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo received German films and newsreels. (30)

German and Italian radio broadcast Arab nationalist agitation in Arabic to the Middle East. In an expression of sympathy for Nazi ideology, Arab politicians showed their presence at Nuremberg rallies. (31)

It is admitted even by sympathizers of Arab nationalism that the Ba'ath Socialist Party, separate factions of which now hold power in Syria and Iraq [in Iraq until 2003], got its start in imitation of German National Socialism. (32)

Another instance of Arab imitation of the Nazis was the Palestinian Arab Party founded by Husseini family members. Jamal Husseini, its president, freely admitted this. The party's youth group, modelled on the Hitler Youth, was for a while called the "Nazi Scouts." (33)

On the other hand, some Arabs did object to Nazi anti-Jewish policy. Monsignor Arida, the Maronite Patriarch in Lebanon, issued a pastoral letter in 1933 "strongly condemning the Nazi persecution of Jews." (34)

Nevertheless, Arab-Nazi collaboration had serious implications for the future. Sami al-Jundi, a Syrian Arab nationalist, a founder of the Ba`ath Party, wrote in his memoirs, "We were racialists. We were fascinated by Nazism, reading its books and the sources of its thought..." (35)

From the 1930s till now, Mein Kampf, other Nazi writings, and earlier Judeophobic works like the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, have been commonly read in Arab countries. And Arab writers have made their own contributions to this literary genre. PLO publications have joined in the chorus of Holocaust denial. (36)

Arab leaders freely expressed pro-Nazi sentiments even years after the war. For example, Nasser told a German neoNazi editor in 1964: "Our sympathies in the Second World War were on the German side." (37)

Nazi war criminals were granted refuge in Syria and Egypt. Some of them, such as former Goebbels assistants, Johann von Leers, Franz Buensche, and Louis Heiden, helped those governments make anti-Jewish propaganda, while others helped Nasser to set up a security police. (38)

Moreover, Arab governments have carried out their own mass murders. Sudan is the worst example. There Arab Muslims have slaughtered tribal Black Africans. The New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975) estimated the tribal Black victims of the civil war at 1.5 million as of 1972; and it still goes on. In Iraq of course, the army has murdered tens of thousands of Kurds with poison gas and other means. The civil war in Lebanon saw scores of thousands of civilians massacred by their Arab brothers, with the Palestino-Progressiste forces (to use the label favored by the French press) as major culprits.

Arab nationalist spokesmen in the West have naturally tried to downplay or minimize - and where they could get away with it, to deny - the record of Arab-Nazi collaboration. For instance, Philip Mattar, executive director of the PLO-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Washington, distorts the Mufti's work to organize Bosnian Muslims to fight for the Germans. In Mattar's words, Husseini "recruited Muslims to fight the Communists in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia." Mattar carefully avoids informing his readers in the Washington-based Middle East Journal, (39) an anti-Israel publication since its founding, that the Mufti was recruiting an SS division, formally called the 13th Waffen-Gebirgsdivision der SS "Handschar" (kroat. Nr.1). (40)

The Handschar as the division was called for short after a Turkish sword (khanjar), was notorious for atrocities, (41) not only against the Yugoslav partisans, but against Serbian, Jewish, Gypsy and other civilians. The Yugoslav war criminal commission charged that the Handschar had handed Allied airmen over to the Germans, in addition to other crimes. (42)

This division of Bosnian Moslems, established with the help of Greater Germany, is an example for Moslems in all countries... Many common interests exist between the Islamic world and Greater Germany, and those make cooperation a matter of course... National-Socialist Germany is fighting against world Jewry. The Koran says: "You will find that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Moslems." There are also considerable similarities between Islamic principles and those of National Socialism... I am happy to see in this Division a visible and practical expression of both ideologies. (43) The reader can judge for himself whether, as Mattar implied, the goal that the Mufti urged on the Handschar was merely the fight against Communists.

Mattar does allow that Husseini helped the German war effort. However, he omits the Mufti's work for the genocide of the Jews. As a sign of our times, a New York publisher has commissioned Mattar to edit a reference work on the Middle East.

In view of the evidence, the efforts in the West and even in Israel to overlook or deny or whitewash the Arab historical record are simply outrageous. The Encyclopedia Britannica (EB) offends in this regard. The EB Micropedia (1985 ed.) tells us of the Mufti that in 1939, "Ceasing to play an active role in Palestinian politics, Husayni spent most of World War II (1939-45) in Germany. At the war's end he fled to Egypt." In the article entitled "Palestine," (44) Walid Khalidi asserts: "The Arabs [in Palestine] had remained quiescent throughout the war, and some 12,000 enlisted in the British forces." This may be true as far as it goes but it certainly gives an incomplete, misleading picture, especially since comparative figures for Jewish enlistment are not given. On the other hand, Kamal Salibi and William Polk in the article entitled "Israel" are slightly more forthcoming. (45)

They allow that "German propaganda was gaining wide support in Arab nationalist circles." The editor of a later edition of EB, Robert McHenry responded to criticism of the EB's soft approach to the Mufti by boasting of an "article in the Britannica, to which the Index will direct any curious reader," which describes the Mufti as "Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and admirer of the Nazis." (46)

The Britannica's approach is typical. The Dictionary of World History (London, 1973), a weighty tome of about 10 pounds for which A.J.P. Taylor served as advisory editor, writes of Husseini, "For a time (1937-46), he lived outside Palestine, during which period he negotiated with Germany. He resumed his leadership of the Palestinian Arabs (1946)..." By this account, he was not necessarily an admirer of the Nazis. He merely "negotiated" with them.

Now let us look closer to home. If it is only to be expected that Arab spokesmen will try to whitewash the Arab record in general and in respect of the Holocaust in particular, such efforts are bizarre when made by Israelis. Consider the writings of two members of Israel's "peace camp." Amos Elon, the journalist, recently penned a choleric tract for the habitually anti-Israel New York Review of Books (47) in which he deplores the propensity among some Israelis to see the Palestinian Arabs as continuing the work of the Nazis, or to even consider that they might.

"Standing behind each Arab or Palestinian, Israelis tend to see SS men determined to push them once again into gas chambers and crematoria." (48)

Elon sees this as an obstacle to peace. Of course it would be foolish to see every Arab in this way and the typical Israeli that Elon presents seems to be a straw man of his own manufacture. Yet Elon's diatribe, which goes on for eight columns of rather small type, disregards the relevant history, to wit, the collaboration in the Holocaust of the Mufti of Jerusalem and others whose families are still prominent in the Palestinian Arab leadership. Nor does he mention the massacres carried out by Arabs in the past 40 years in Lebanon, the Sudan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Surely this information was relevant to his discussion. However, these omissions are apparently intentional since Elon goes on to argue that "a little forgetfulness [toward the Holocaust] might finally be in order." (49)

One might accept Elon as sincere if one knew that he had asked the Arabs too to forget their various grievances.

Making Elon's article all the more bizarre (and it happens to be the featured article of the issue), is that the same issue of New York Review contains a piece by George Soros describing contemporary Holocaust-like events in Bosnia. Now after all, if Serbs or other former Yugoslavs, exposed for years to Communist propaganda in favor of the brotherhood of nations, could commit numerous atrocities against other ethnic groups, then why could not the Arabs who have been subject for years to intense nationalist (indeed chauvinist) indoctrination (and more recently to Islamic jihad incitement) do the same?

Another Israeli, Zvi El-Peleg, a biographer of the Mufti, admits part of the Mufti's pro-Nazi activities, denies or casts doubt on other parts, and distorts the moral meaning of his pro-Nazi and pro-Holocaust exertions. In the Hebrew edition of his book, El-Peleg takes pains to cast doubt on one of the incriminating pieces of evidence against Husseini. He writes that "those who saw him [Husseini] as a partner to the Nazi crimes" reported "that he asked of the Germans that upon their arrival in the Middle East they allow the Arabs 'to solve the Jewish Question in Palestine and the other Arab countries in accord with the interests of the Arabs and in the same ways in which this problem was solved in the Axis states.'" (50)

El-Peleg writes as if to insinuate that Jewish writers hostile to the Mufti chose to believe without substantial proof that he had made such a request of the Germans. What El-Peleg fails to say is that a nearly identical request is reported in a book by Husseini's Arab admirer, the historian Majid Khadduri (Independent Iraq, 2nd ed.), (51) a book listed in El-Peleg's bibliography. Neither Khadduri nor his publisher, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), has been suspected in the past of pro-Zionist or pro-Jewish bias. By the way, an interesting discussion of different versions of this request appears in Bernard Lewis' Semites and Anti-Semites. (52)

Lewis considers the difference between versions submitted while Husseini was in Iraq and those drawn up after he arrived in Axis Europe.

Another tendentious interpretation by El-Peleg is his denial of Husseini's Arab nationalist, pan-Islamic political outlook, by making him into a "Palestinian" nationalist, a more suitable, politically correct creature for the 1990s. Ironically, the quotes from the Mufti that El-Peleg presents in his book show Husseini's pan-Arabist, pan-Islamist character.

Whereas the respected American journalist Edgar Ansel Mowrer said of Husseini, "As a murderer, this man ranks with the great killers of history," (53) El-Peleg chooses to glorify this war criminal. El-Peleg is a historical revisionist, but even more is he a moral revisionist.

Just what explains the compulsion of Elon, El-Peleg, and others to portray the Arabs as historical innocents or to explain away Arab guilt remains an open question. But it appears symptomatic of the political prejudices and Orwellian political morality of our times.

Irit Abramski-Bligh, "Husseini, Haj Amin al-" in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [Hebrew & English editions].

Daniel Carpi, "The Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, and His Diplomatic Activity during World War II (October 1941-July 1943)" Studies in Zionism, No. 7, Spring 1983.

Elias Cooper, "Forgotten Palestinian: The Nazi Mufti," American Zionist, March-April 1978.

Majid Khadduri. Independent Iraq. London (2nd ed. 1960). Bernard Lewis. Semites and Anti-Semites. New York, 1986.

Jennie Lebel. "Hitler v'haMufti." Meqor Rishon [article published about Spring 1998].

Jennie Lebel, Haj Amin uBerlin Tel Aviv 1996 [book on Mufti based inter alia on little used Serbian-Croatian sources].

Martin Kolinsky, "After the Arab Rebellion," Part I, Israel Affairs vol. 2, no. 2 (Winter 1995), Part II, vol. 5, no. 1 (Autumn 1998).

David Yisraeli. Ba`ayat Eretz Israel baM'diyniyut haGermanit 1889-1945, Ramat Gan 1974.

Rafael Medoff, "The Mufti's Nazi Years Reexamined," Journal of Israeli History 17, 3.

Monty Penkower. The Jews Were Expendable. Urbana & Chicago: U of Illinois Press, 1983.

On Pius XII, see Journal of Modern Italian Studies 6,1 (spring 2000)-review by A Long.

Peter Neville, Appeasing Hitler: the Diplomacy of Sir Neville Henderson -- see review in European History, 31,2 (4/2001).

2. The Mufti's appeals to all the countries mentioned, but for Turkey, were known from documents, and in large part published, not long after World War II. It appears that Husseini himself was the first to make known his appeal to the Turkish government not to permit the passage of escaping Jews through Turkish territory. This revelation came in his own memoirs issued in Arabic in 1970 in Falastin (Beirut, July 1970), pp. 4ff. These memoirs included other documents relating to his efforts to prevent Jewish escape which had been previously published. See Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites, New York, 1986; p. 268 n19. The major post-World War II collection of relevant documents was The Arab Higher Committee: Its Origin, Personnel, and Purposes. The Documentary Record. New York: The Nation Associates, 1947. This collection will be henceforth referred to as Arab Higher Committee.

4. Crum, 110-112; Hirszowicz, 262-63, 312-13; Daniel Carpi, "The Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, and His Diplomatic Activity during World War II (October 1941-July 1943)," Studies in Zionism, No. 7, Spring 1983; pp. 130-31. Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuehrer (New York, 1965); pp. 154-58. The sardonic use of euphemisms such as "active supervision" for the mass murder of Jews was not limited to the Mufti. Consider Count Ciano's record of a conference with Croatian officials in Venice on 16 December 1941, several weeks after Husseini's meeting with Hitler. The Croatian fascist leader Pavelitch explained to Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, that, in Ciano's words: "The most urgent problems [of the new Croatian state] were being faced, and in the front rank that of the Jews. The latter, who were 35,000 when the Ustashis took power, do not exceed 12,000 at present (Young Kvaternik [an aide to Pavelitch and nephew of the Croatian minister of war] explains this reduction by the word 'emigration,' accompanied by a smile that leaves no room for doubt)." Galeazzo Ciano, Les Archives secrètes du Comte Ciano (Paris: Plon, 1948), p. 487. The Mufti later collaborated with Pavelitch and other Croatians when helping recruit and motivate the Bosnian Muslim SS division.

5. Letter in Schechtman, p. 310. See a similar letter to Ribbentrop in Ibid., 155-56; A number of important letters in this vein are in Arab Higher Committee.

6. Carpi, op. cit., 130-31; and D. Carpi, "The Diplomatic Negotiations over the Transfer of Jewish Children from Croatia to Turkey and Palestine in 1943," Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XII (1977), pp. 109-124.

7. Elias Cooper, "Forgotten Palestinian: The Nazi Mufti," American Zionist, March-April 1978; p. 19.

12. Irit Abramski-Bligh, "Husseini, Haj Amin al-" in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust [Hebrew & English editions].

13. F.W. Brecher, "Charles R. Crane's Crusade for the Arabs, 1919-39," Middle Eastern Studies, XXIV, January 1988; pp 46-47. Also see Elliott A Green, "The Curious Careers of Two Advocates of Arab Nationalism," Crossroads [published in Jerusalem], no. 33 [1992].

15. Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia, 1991); 414-15.

18. Walter Z. Laqueur (ed.), The Israel-Arab Reader, New York: Bantam, 1969; pp. 80-84; also see Hirszowicz 204, 218-19; Schechtman, p. 306.

32. Eric Rouleau, "The Syrian Enigma: What Is the Ba'ath?" New Left Review, No. 45, September-October 1967.

36. For instance, El-Istiqlal, a PLO paper published on Cyprus, ran a two-part feature article denying the Holocaust, December 13 and 20, 1989. The Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles privately circulated photocopies and a partial translation of this material.

37. I.F. Stone's Weekly, June 1, 1964, quoted from Deutsche National Zeitung und Soldaten Zeitung, May 1, 1964. I.F. Stone was known as a leftist critic of Israel.

38. See, inter alia, Glenn Infield, Skorzeny: Hitler's Commando, New York, 1981; pp 205-219; and Robert St John, The Boss, New York, 1960; pp 152-53; Simon Wiesenthal provided a list of names of Nazi veterans who had obtained refuge in Arab countries, see Le Monde, June 9, 1967.

39. Philip Mattar, "The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Politics of Palestine," Middle East Journal (vol. 42, Spring 1988); p. 237.

41. For instance, see Parameters, Autumn 1993; p. 80. Parameters is the quarterly of the US Army War College.

47. Amos Elon, "The Politics of Memory," New York Review of Books, October 7, 1993; pp 3-5

50. Zvi El-Peleg, HaMufti HaGadol, Tel Aviv, 1989; 72. See the review of this book by Eliyahu Green, in Nativ [Tel Aviv, Hebrew], March 1990; pp 81-84.

Elliott A. Green is a writer, researcher, and translator living in Jerusalem. His work has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Nativ (Tel Aviv), Forum (Jerusalem), and the French Review (USA). His article on the Jewish underground in Algiers during World War II was published in Midstream in January 1989.

Even if ignoring the Arab-Nazi relationship during WW-II (not as if its possible), the Arab-Muslim attitudes toward Israel and the Jewish people, have been in a Nazi style hatred for decades (and sadly until today).

Arab/Muslim Attitudes Toward Israel / By Mitchell G. Bard

The desire for peaceful relations between Jews and Arabs sometimes leads people to overlook public comments by Arab officials and media publications that are often incendiary and sometimes outright anti-Semitic. Frequently, more moderate tones are adopted when speaking to Western audiences, but more accurate and heartfelt views are expressed in Arabic to the speaker's constituents. The following is just a tiny sample of some of the remarks that have been made regarding Israel and the Jews. They are included here because they demonstrate the level of hostility and true beliefs of many Arabs and Muslims. Of course, not all Arabs and Muslims subscribe to these views, but the examples are not random, they are beliefs held by important officials and disseminated by major media. They are also included because one of the lessons of the Holocaust was that people of good will are often unwilling to believe that people who threaten evil will in fact carry out their malevolent intentions.

Anti-Semitism

“They [the Jews] try to kill the principle of religions with the same mentality that they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Mohammed.”

— Syrian President Bashar Assad at May 5 welcoming ceremony for the Pope
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 6, 2001

“It is not a mistake that the Koran warns us of the hatred of the Jews and put them at the top of the list of the enemies of Islam. Today the Jews recruit the world against the Muslims and use all kinds of weapons. They are plundering the dearest place to the Muslims, after Mecca and Medina and threaten the place the Muslims have faced at first when they prayed and the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. They want to erect their temple on that place....The Muslims are ready to sacrifice their lives and blood to protect the Islamic nature of Jerusalem and al-Aksa!”

— Sheikh Hian Al-Adrisi,
Excerpt of address in the al-Aksa mosque, September 29, 2000

“The Jews are Jews, whether Labour or Likud, the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed. As Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them.' Allah will torture them by your hands and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers. ... Our people must unite in one trench, and receive armaments from the Palestinian leadership to confront the Jews. ... Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them — and those who stand with them — they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims — because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it in order that it be the outpost of their civilization — and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the Muslim monotheists, the Muslims in this land. They wanted the Jews to be the spearhead for them...”

— Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television.

“Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge on them was not enough.”

— Columnist Ahmad Ragab
Al-Akhbar (Egypt), April 18, 2001

“All weapons must be aimed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah...whom the Koran describes as monkeys and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers. Allah shall make the Moslem rule over the Jew, we will blow them up in Hadera, we will blow them up in Tel Aviv and in Netanya in the righteousness of Allah against this rif-raff.....We will enter Jerusalem as conquerors, and Jaffa as conquerors, and Haifa as conquerors and Ashkelon as conquerors...we bless all those who educate their children to jihad and to Martyrdom, blessing be he who shot a bullet into the head of a Jew.”

— Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, August 3, 2001

“All signs unequivocally prove that the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims is an eternal on-going conflict, even if it stops for short intervals.... This conflict resembles the conflict between man and Satan.... This is the fate of the Muslim nation, and beyond that the fate of all the nations of the world, to be tormented by this nation [the Jews]. The fate of the Palestinian people is to struggle against the Jews on behalf of the Arab peoples, the Islamic peoples and the peoples of the entire worlds.”

— Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda quoted in The New Republic Online, October 30, 2001

“O God, the Jews have transgressed all limits in their tyranny. O God, shake the ground under their feet, pour torture on them, and destroy all of them.”

— Sheikh Abd-al-Bari al-Thubayt, June 7, 2002, sermon at the Holy Mosque of Medina, broadcast on official Saudi television

“The Jewish nation, it is known, from the dawn of history, from the time Allah created them, lives by scheme and deceit.”

— PA Communications Minister, Imud Falouji
Palestinian television, August 8, 2002

“We know that the Jews have manipulated the Sept. 11 incidents and turned American public opinion against Arabs and Muslims....We still ask ourselves: Who has benefited from Sept. 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks.”

— Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef in Assyasah (Kuwait)
translation from Saudi magazine 'Ain-Al-Yaqin, November 29, 2002

“They succeeded in gaining control in most of the [world's] most powerful states, and they — a tiny community — became a world power. But 1.3 billion Muslims must not be defeated by a few million Jews. A way must be found....The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews are in control of the world via their proxies. They lead others to fight and die for them....If we are weak, no one will support us. The Israelis respect only the strong, and we must therefore all unite.”

— Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammad
at the opening of the Organization of Islamic States summit
October 16, 2003

“O God, strengthen Islam and Muslims, humiliate infidelity and infidels. O God, destroy your enemies, the Jewish and crusader enemies of Islam.”

— Shaykh Jamal Shakir
Sermon from King Abdallah mosque in Amman
Amman Jordan Television Channel 1 in Arabic
March 5, 2004

“Here are the Jews today taking revenge for their grandfathers and ancestors, the sons of apes and pigs. Here are the extremist Jews demanding their rights. Some extremists even demand their rights in Medina....This is the extremist tendency of Jews. They are extremists and terrorists who deserve death, while we deserve life, since we have a just cause.”

— Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris
Gaza Palestine Satellite TV (official PA station)
March 12, 2004

“The Prophet said: the Jews will hide behind the rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim this is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!. Why is there this malice? Because there are none who love the Jews on the face of the earth: not man, not rock, and not tree everything hates them. They destroy everything they destroy the trees and destroy the houses. Everything wants vengeance on the Jews, on these pigs on the face of the earth, and the day of our victory, Allah willing, will come..”

— Shaykh Ibrahim Mudayris
Palestine Authority TV
September 10, 2004

“We are waging this cruel war with the brothers of the monkeys and pigs, the Jews and the sons of Zion The Jews will fight you and you will subjugate them. Until the Jew will stand behind the tree and rock. And the tree and rock will say: oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

— Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Maadi
Palestine Authority TV
September 12, 2004

“The Zionist attempts to transmit dangerous diseases like AIDS through exports to Arab countries.”

— Al-Manar (Hizballah TV)
November 23, 2004

“The Jews are a cancer spreading in the body of the Arab nation and the Islamic nation, a cancer that has spread and reached the Arab institutions, the villages and the refugee camps.”

— Sermon by Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris
Palestine Authority TV
January 7, 2005

Blood Libel

“The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity.”

— Saudi Arabian delegate Marouf al-Dawalibi
before the UN Human Rights Commission
conference on religious tolerance
December 5, 1984

“During this holiday [Purim], the Jew must prepare very special pastries, the filling of which is not only costly and rare –– it cannot be found at all on the local and international markets....For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries....Before I go into the details, I would like to clarify that the Jews' spilling human blood to prepare pastry for their holidays is a well-established fact, historically and legally, all throughout history. This was one of the main reasons for the persecution and exile that were their lot in Europe and Asia at various times....during the holiday, the Jews wear carnival-style masks and costumes and overindulge in drinking alcohol, prostitution, and adultery.....”

— Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faysal University
Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh, March 10, 2002

“Christian Europe showed enmity toward the Jews when it transpired that their rabbis craftily hunt anyone walking alone, [tempting] him to enter their house of worship. Then they take his blood to use for baked goods for their holidays, as part of their ritual.”

— Columnist Dr. Muhammad bin S’ad Al-Shwey’ir, Al-Jazirah
(Saudi Arabia), September 6, 2002

Fabrications of Abuses

“[Israeli doctors] use Palestinian patients… for experimental medicines and training new doctors.”

— PA Health Minister, Riyadh Al-Za'anoon
Al-Ayam, July 25, 1998

"Israel carries out a clear policy of annihilating our people and destroying our national economy by smuggling spoiled foodstuff… not fit for human consumption, into PA territories…. Israel did not change its strategy, which aims to kill and destroy our people, rather it began counting on means other than bombs, missiles and planes. These measures are distributing and smuggling spoiled foodstuffs… into the PA territories."

— PA Deputy Minister of Supplies, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Qudsi
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 22, 1998

“Our people have been subjected to the daily and extensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.”

— Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat
November 11, 1999, during a Gaza appearance
with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton

Holocaust Denial

“...Lies surfaced about Jews being murdered here and there, and the Holocaust. And, of course, they are all lies and unfounded claims. No Chelmno, no Dachau, no Auschwitz! [They] were disinfection sites... They began to publicize in their propaganda that they were persecuted, murdered and exterminated... Committees acted here and there to establish this entity [Israel-Ed.], this foreign entity, implanted as a cancer in our country, where our fathers lived, where we live, and where our children after us will live. They always portrayed themselves as victims, and they made a Center for Heroism and Holocaust. Whose heroism? Whose Holocaust? Heroism is our nation's, the holocaust was against our people... We were the victims, but we shall not remain victims forever...” [emphasis added]

— Dr. Issam Sissalem, history lecturer, Islamic University Gaza,
PA TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“The issue of the holocaust rises again. It defies disappearing over its half-century because the Zionist propaganda has converted it into a means to produce political and economic benefit, besides exploiting it for the advancement of occupation and settlement...”

“A recently published book by an American researcher, discusses the holocaust. Employing scientific and chemical evidence, it proves that the figure of six million Jews cremated in the Nazi Auschwitz camps is a lie for propaganda, as the most spacious of the vaults in the camp could not have held even one percent of that number.”

— Hiri Manzour in the official Palestinian Authority daily,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2001

“One of the Jews' evil deeds is what has come to be called 'the Holocaust,' that is, the slaughter of the Jews by Nazism. However, revisionist [historians] have proven that this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was planned by the Jews' leaders, and was part of their policy...These are the Jews against whom we fight, oh beloved of Allah.”

— Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, September 21, 2001

Peace

“Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world.”

— Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri,
New York Times, February 19, 1947

“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”

— Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha,
September 16, 1947

“[A]ll our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Palestine problem have failed. The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine.”

— Transjordan's King Abdullah,
April 26, 1948

“The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”

— Jamal Husseini before the Security Council,
April 16, 1948

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

— Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League,
May 15, 1948

“I am not solely fighting against Israel itself. My task is to deliver the Arab world from destruction through Israel's intrigue, which has its roots abroad. Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There is not even the smallest place for negotiations.”

— Egyptian President Nasser,
October 14, 1956

“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

— Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad,
May 20, 1967

“Arab policy at this stage has but two objectives. The first, the elimination of the traces of the 1967 aggression through an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it occupied that year. The second objective is the elimination of the traces of the 1948 aggression, by the means of the elimination of the State of Israel itself. This is, however, as yet an abstract, undefined objective, and some of us have erred in commencing the latter step before the former.”

— Mohammed Heikal, a Sadat confidant and editor of the semi-official Al-Ahram,
February 25, 1971

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”

— PLO spokesman Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen"),
Falastin a-Thaura, March 1976

“Saddam, you hero, attack Israel with chemical weapons.”

— Palestinians marching in support of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait,
(Associated Press, August 12, 1990

“Let us work together until we achieve victory and regain liberated Jerusalem.”

— Yasser Arafat,
Baghdad Republic of Iraq Radio Network, November 16, 1991

“I have always rejected normalizing relations with (Israeli) women....They always invite me to their functions and I categorically refuse because I hate Israel.”

— Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat,
Saudi Arabian women's magazine, Sayidaty, quoted by AP, May 3, 2001

“We will not give up a single grain of soil in Palestine, from Haifa, and Jaffa, and Acre, and Mulabbas [Petah Tikvah] and Salamah, and Majdal [Ashkelon], and all the land, and Gaza, and the West Bank....”

— Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli
reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television

“We will not arrest the sons of our people in order to appease Israel. Let our people rest assured that this won't happen.”

— Chief of the PA Preventive Security in the West Bank, Jebril Rajoub,
Islamic Association for Palestine, June 9, 2001

“...Allah willing, this unjust state...Israel will be erased; this unjust state, the United States will be erased; this unjust state, Britain will be erased...Blessings to whoever waged Jihad for the sake of Allah...Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons' and plunged into the midst of the Jews...”

— Sermon by Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi
a few days after Yasser Arafat's cease-fire declaration
PA Television, June 8, 2001

“We said from the beginning that there is no ceasefire for the settlers.”

— Fatah leader, Ziad ibu-Aid,
International Herald Tribune, June 20, 2001

“Didn't we throw mud in the face of Bill Clinton, who dared to propose a state with some adjustments? Were we honest about what we did? Were we right in what we did? No, we were not. After two years of violence, we are now calling for what we rejected.”

— Nabil Amr, ex-minister in the PA cabinet,
Quoted in the Jerusalem Report, October 21, 2002

“Just as Ramallah, Gaza, Nablus, and Jenin are Palestinian cities, so are Haifa, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ramle, Lod, Beersheba, Safed, and others Palestinian cities....The Zionist Jews are foreigners in this land. They have no right to live or settle in it. They should go somewhere else in the world to establish their state and their false entity...They must leave their homes...We do not believe in so-called 'peace with Israel' because peace cannot be made with Satan. Israel is the greatest Satan.”

— Palestinian Christian cleric Father 'Atallah Hanna,
sermon in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Jerusalem, January 19, 2003

“Our position is clear: all of Palestine. Every inch of Palestine belongs to the Muslims.”

— Mahmoud Zahar, senior leader of Hamas
-Quoted in the Jerusalem Post, November 14, 2003

Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel

“The Palestinian people accepted the Oslo agreements as a first step and not as a permanent arrangement, based on the premise that the war and struggle on the ground [i.e., locally against Israeli territory] is more efficient than a struggle from a distant land... for the Palestinian people will continue the revolution until they achieve the goals of the '65 revolution...”

— PA Minister of Supply Abd El Aziz Shahian,
Al Ayaam, May 30, 2000.
[The "65 Revolution" is the founding of the PLO
and the publication of the Palestinian covenant that
calls for the destruction of Israel via an armed struggle.]

“Our people have hope for the future, that the Occupation State ceases to exist, and that it makes no difference [how great] its power and arrogance...”.

— PA Minister of Communications, Amad Alfalugi,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 18, 1999

“When we picked up the gun in '65 and the modern Palestinian Revolution began, it had a goal. This goal has not changed and it is the liberation of Palestine.”

— Salim Alwadia Abu Salem, Supervisor of Palestinian Political Affairs,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 20, 2000

“I want to say that this is our Palestine, from Metulla [Israel's northernmost city] to Rafiah [Southern border] and to Aqaba [Israel's southernmost point], from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea; whether they want it or not.”

— Dr. Jareer Al-Kidwah, advisor to President Arafat,
PA TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“If we agree to declare our state over what is now 22 percent of Palestine, meaning the West Bank and Gaza, our ultimate goal is the liberation of all historic Palestine from the River to the Sea...We distinguish the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased goals, which we are compelled to temporarily accept due to international pressure.”

— Faisal al-Husseini,
Al-Arabi, June 24, 2001

“Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack.”

— Former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani,
quoted in Jerusalem Report, March 11, 2002

“We defeated the Crusaders 800 years ago and we will defeat the enemies of Islam today.”

— Nazareth Deputy Mayor Salman Abu Ahmed,
quoted in Jerusalem Report, March 4, 2002

“...we shall return to the 1967 borders, but it does not mean that we have given up on Jerusalem and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramla, Nayanyah [Al-Zuhour] and Tel Aviv [Tel Al-Rabia]. Never. We shall return to every village we had been expelled from, by Allah's will....Our approval to return to the 1967 borders is not a concession for our other rights. No!..this generation might not achieve this stage, but generations will come, and the land of Palestine...will demand that the Palestinians return the way Muhammad returned there, as a conqueror.”

— Sheikh Ibrahim Mudyris,
Friday sermon, February 4, 2005

Sanctioning Violence

“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aksa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”

— The fatwa (religious edict) issued by Osama bin Laden in 1998

"We decided to liberate our homeland step by step... this is the strategy... we say: 'should Israel continue – no problem. And so we honor the peace treaties and non-violence, so long as the agreements are fulfilled step-by-step. [But] if and when Israel says 'enough,' namely, 'we will not discuss Jerusalem, we will not return refugees, we will not dismantle settlements, we will not withdraw to the borders,' in that case it is saying that we will return to violence. But this time it will be with 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers and in a land with elements of freedom. I am the first to call for it. If we reach a dead end we will go back to our war and struggle like we did forty years ago."

— PA Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Sha'ath,
interview with ANN television (London), October 7, 2000

"Violence is around the corner, and the Palestinians are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties."

— PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, (PA) August 24, 2000

"The Intifada will continue until the achievement of our national goals."

— PA Finance Minister Muhammad Al-Nashashibi,
Al-Ayyam, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada is a means of popular struggle in which all parts of the people take part in order to realize the internationally recognized legitimate rights of the Palestinian people... This is the goal of the Intifada... The use of violence, the struggle and martyrdom... used by people to achieve their rights."

— PLO representative in Washington, Hassan Abd Al-Rahman,
TV MBC, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada should be continued and escalated."

— The head of the Fatah organization in the West Bank, Marwan Al-Barghuthi,
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), October 11, 2000

"The Palestinian people are in a state of emergency against the failure of the Camp David summit. If the situation explodes, the Palestinian people living in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority are ready for the next fierce battle against the Israeli occupation. ... The next Intifada will be more violent than the first one especially since the Palestinian people now possess weapons allowing them to defend themselves in a confrontation with the Israeli army. ... the Lebanese experience of wiping out the Israeli occupation from southern Lebanon gave the Palestinian people the needed moral strength and added to their spirit of armed struggle."

— A "senior security figure" in the Palestinian Authority,
Kul Al-Arab, July 14, 2000

“The issues of Jerusalem, the refugees and sovereignty are one and will be finalized on the ground and not in negotiations. At this point it is important to prepare Palestinian society for the challenge of the next step because we will inevitably find ourselves in a violent confrontation with Israel in order to create new facts on the ground. ... I believe that the situation in the future will be more violent than the Intifada.”

— Abu-Ali Mustafa of the Palestinian Authority, July 23, 2000

“Hamas has tens of martyrs who are willing to carry out attacks against Israeli targets. An operation of such martyrs exceeds that of the Arab armies who fought the Hebrew state. The importance of the weapons of such martyrs is no less than the importance of nuclear weapons.”

— Khaled Mash'al, head of the Hamas Politbureau,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001

“We are teaching the children that suicide bombs make Israeli people frightened and we are allowed to do it....We teach them that after a person becomes a suicide bomber he reaches the highest level of paradise.”

— Palestinian “Paradise Camp” counselor speaking to BBC interviewer,
quoted in Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2001

“I promise that the number of shootings at the occupation will increase to 500 to 1,000 shooting [incidents] per day....The Palestinians have trained themselves to attack the Israeli tanks and explode their bodies that will be loaded with a belt of explosives, as part of the preparations for a possible Israeli attack in the Palestinian territories....The current intifada differs from the previous one because it is armed and the Palestinians are fighting inside their territory and from it.”

— Deputy Commander of Force-17, Muhammad Dhamrah (a.k.a., Abu Awdh),
Al-Hayat, August 17, 2001

“The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble predecessors...the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]....These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history....They are the most honorable [people] among us.....”

— Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001

“I do not think that a Muslim would let an Islamic homeland like Palestine, and Jerusalem, remain in the hands of the Zionists, who plunder it and damage its holy sites, without the owners of the land having the right to defend themselves. All I said is that this oppressed people that was expelled from its home has the right to become a human bomb and blow himself up inside this military society.”

— Sheikh Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), September 16, 2001

“Our efforts to continue the Intifada and resistance will persist until we achieve our right of return, and our independence, with Jerusalem as the capital.”

— Ahmad Sa'adat speaking at a press conference after becoming leader of the PFLP,
Jerusalem Post, October 4, 2001

“Resistance is legitimate and those who give up their lives do not require permission from anyone....We must not stand in the way of the intifada and jihad [holy war]. Rather, we must stand at their side and encourage them.”

— Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Akrameh Sabri,
Al-Hayat, December 7, 2001

“With God´s help, next time we will meet in Jerusalem, because we are fighting to bring victory to our prophets, every baby, every kid, every man, every woman and every old person and all the young people, we will all sacrifice ourselves for our holy places and we will strengthen our hold of them and we are willing to give 70 of our martyrs for every one of theirs in this campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to fight for this blessed land and I call on you to stand strong..”

— Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat,
speech at a rally in Ramallah, December 18, 2001

“O God, destroy the tyrant Jews. O God, deal with the Jews and their supporters. O God destroy them for they are within your power.”

— Saudi Sheikh Usamah bin-Abdallah Khayyat
sermon from the Holy Mosque in Mecca broadcast on Saudi government television, July 12, 2002

“We have examined our options and our path, and we have chosen the path of slaughter, by acts of Jihad, Istshahad (suicide) and resistance of every form, side-by-side with our brothers in the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and all the other Palestinian resistance groups, until the liberation of Palestine and the return of the refugees.”

— Part of a warning posted on the web site of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,
the military arm of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, August 7, 2002

“If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”

— Hezbollah spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin
New Yorker, October 14, 2002

“If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

— Hezbollah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Lebanon Daily Star, October 23, 2002

“The Jewish-Crusader coalition will not be safe anywhere from the fighters' attacks. We will hit the most vital centers and we will strike against its strategic operations with all possible peaces.”

— Attributed on Al-Jazeera TV to al-Qaida spokesman SuleimanAbu Gheith
December 8, 2002

“The jihad and suicide bombings will continue — the Zionist entity will reach its end in the first quarter of the current century. It is therefoer up to you [Muslim holy fighters] to be patient — the Hamas takes upon itself the liberation of all Palestinian land from the sea to the river in the Rafah [in the south] and until Rosh Hanikra [in the north].”

— Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Al-Ayyam, December 28, 2002

“Find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God.”

— Speech by Yasser Arafat
VOA , May 15, 2004

Pretty similar to Nazis for me.

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