Muftism The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and The Nazification of the Arab World

Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini, appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by Sir Herbert Samuel the High Commissioner of British Mandatory Palestine in 1921, played a central role in introducing the ideology and tactics of the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler into the Arab World. In a career that spanned more than 5 decades, el-Husseini contributed to the development of Nazi style organizations in Arab capitals, acted as a conduit for money confiscated from Jews by the Nazi's during World War II to be used to finance anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activities, and lived in Berlin during the war years where he headed a Nazi-Muslim government in exile.

The infamous Grand Mufti, who began his public career in the immediate aftermath of World War I and worked tirelessly to advance his cause until his death in 1974, influenced Arab nations and movements toward an embrace of a uniquely Islamic version of National Socialism. My contention is that the Mufti's ideas and tactics are largely in ascendance in the Arab world today. This article attempts to examine those ideas and how they manifested themselves in the career of the Mufti as well as the Mufti's legacy for Arabs.

The Mufti's authoritarian pan-Arab and anti-Jewish beliefs were by no means pre-destined to take hold in the immediate post World War I Arab world. These were the halcyon years when Arabs were taking tentative steps toward sovereignty after over 400 years of occupation by the Ottoman Empire. There was a sense of exhilaration and much hope and expectation in the newly emerging Arab nations that they would join the modern world and enjoy all the benefits of fast developing technology, communication, free market economy, and democracy.

Many enlightened Arabs sought to affect a genuine progress for their people. A most exemplary figure of this mindset was the Emir Faisal Ibn Hussein, King of Hejaz, who was considered by Arabs to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and who was the most recognized and respected leader of the Arab world in his time. Prince Faisal was the formally recognized head of the Arab delegation at the Paris Peace Conference held in 1919 at the end of World War I. The Paris conference, which drew up the Treaty of Versailles thus ending the long and bloody European War, would also define the post war world by setting precedence in international law and custom and by establishing the League of Nations.

Emir Faisal, as the accredited head of the Arab delegation to the conference, sought recognition by the European powers of the national and political rights of the 22 emerging Arab nations. In exchange for this recognition, he formally recognized Palestine as a Jewish State in a signed agreement that carries the weight of international law but one that is rarely, if ever, discussed today.

Emir Faisal signed a formal agreement in London, 1919, with Chaim Weizmann, the recognized head of the Zionist delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. Additionally, in a correspondence with Harvard Professor Felix Frankfurter, Faisal refers to Jewish claims in Palestine as "modest and proper" and offers the Jewish people "a hearty welcome home."

Emir Faisal, like many Arab leaders of his era, believed that the newly emerging Arab nations would benefit from the economic know-how and modern European knowledge of a Jewish Palestine. He wanted his people to become full and sovereign partners in the modern world and he felt that a relationship with Jewish Palestine would be of great benefit in achieving this goal. In retrospect, It's hard to believe that after all the subsequent conflict and violence between the Jews of Israel and the Arabs that such an enlightened figure held sway in the Arab world at one time. The Grand Mufti el-Husseini would largely eclipse Emir Faisal ibn Hussein as the penultimate Arab leader.

Haj Amin el-Husseini, The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, made his grand debut on the world stage when after having served in Ottoman Turkey as an artillery officer during the War, he would return to his native Palestine and, in 1920, would play a significant role in instigating the first large-scale pogrom against Jews in the Arab world in hundreds of years. One year later, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, el-Husseini was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel in spite of vigorous protests by both Jewish settlers and Palestinian Arabs. The Mufti proceeded over the next several decades to instigate violence against Jews in Palestine, instill a hatred of Jews throughout the Arab world, and to brutally purge and assassinate Arabs who dared oppose him.

In 1937 the Mufti amazingly met with the high-level Nazi officials, Hauptschanfuehrer Adolf Eichmann and SS Oberscherfuehrer Herbert Hagen in Palestine and following this astonishing meeting the Mufti would become an agent of the Third Reich according to testimony both at the Nuremberg tribunal and at the Eichmann trial. The Mufti's career after this fateful meeting is truly fascinating and not widely known. As a result of his involvement in the failed pro-Nazi Rashid Ali coup against the British government in Iraq in 1940, at the height of the war between the Nazis and the British, the Mufti fled to Berlin where he led an amazing career in the service of the Third Reich. One of the pro-Nazi Iraqi coup plotters, all of whom accepted financial and military aid from the Mufti who was acting as Hitler's agent, was General Tufah Khariallah who was future Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's uncle, guardian, mentor and later father-in-law. Besides Saddam Hussein, the Mufti would both directly and indirectly mentor several subsequent Arab dictators. The Mufti was also a mentor to Yasir Arafat who has publicly praised him on many occasions, who shares his name and who is believed by many to be the Muftis nephew.

The Mufti's years in wartime Nazi Germany, where he lived in a confiscated Jewish mansion in Berlin as head of a Nazi-Muslim government in exile and where he spent confiscated Jewish monies on a lavish lifestyle and on the launching of an international anti-Jewish propaganda campaign, is an extraordinary story and would be unbelievable if there wasn't so much evidence. Upon arrival in Berlin, 1941, the Mufti met with Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbontrop and was then officially received by Adolf Hitler on November 28. Subsequently, and thorough the war years, the Gross mufti von Jerusalem would meet regularly with high Nazi officials and would play a leading role, perhaps more significant than is commonly known or may ever be known, in the "final solution" against the Jews of Europe. He was intimately involved in the training of Bosnian and other Muslim SS Hanshar divisions in Nazi occupied Yugoslavia and in other Nazi occupied areas with Muslim populations. His broadcasts from Nazi Germany, transmitted to the Arab world, are amongst the most blood-curdlingly anti-Jewish in history. The Mufti should be viewed as on par with any one of the top Nazi villains and was in many respects far worse. This shocking story begs to be told and retold.

After the War, and after his conviction as a war criminal at Nuremberg and the issuance of a warrant for his arrest from Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity, the Mufti fled to Cairo where, as a guest of Abdel Gamal Nasser, another of his many protégés, he remained in exile for the rest of his life. From Cairo, he devoted his considerable energies toward the destruction of the State of Israel and the poisoning of any vestiges of peace between Israel and the Arab states. He would help Nazi war criminals settle in the Arab world through what is known as operation Odessa. He would further encourage his followers to seize power in Arab capitals and to establish National Socialist style governments.

There were three important phases in the Grand Mufti's career. The first is the period from 1920 when he inspired the first pogrom against Jews in Palestine to 1937 when he meets with Adolf Eichmann in Palestine and assumes influence in the Arab world at large. The second is the period from the 1937 Eichmann meeting, through his involvement in the Nazi-inspired Iraq coup, and on to his activities in Nazi Germany until the end of the war in 1945. The third is his activities from the end of the war to his death in Cairo in 1974.

My contention is that Muftism, the poisonous and fanatic legacy of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, continues to maintain a firm grip in the Arab mind and the Arab world today much to the determent of both the Arab peoples who are forced to live under the regressive socialist jack-boot of Mufti inspired regimes and to the possibility of peace between the Israelis and the Arabs. After the defeat of the Mufti's Nazi sponsors in 1945, the Soviet Union and the international left largely filled the power vacuum and the left remains the primary booster of Muftism in the Arab and Islamic world today. Muftism bears a large responsibility for modern terrorism and fanatic Islamic movements. While Europe was largely de-Nazified after the war, Muftism, or Arab-Islamic Nazism remains a major political and philosophical force. Arab peoples continue to groan under Nazi-Arab oppressive regimes and Mufti influenced pan-Arabists continue to wage war against non-Islamic nations and peoples.

The Mufti's tireless and single-minded career contributed greatly to a regressive trend in the Arab world. Progressive forward-thinking Arabs who have sought freedom oriented sovereignty and the benefits of modern democracy were swept away by the thuggish and radical followers of the Mufti. His inheritance is a Fascist movement that continues to predominate. His philosophical offspring continue to be animated by a modern Islamic form of authoritarian Socialism that was advocated by the Mufti from his Nazi perch in Berlin. His influence, philosophical as well as literal, calls out for examination as a means of understanding the present crisis in the Arab world. If nothing else, the destructive career of the Mufti serves as a testament to the degree in which one individual can influence and change the course of history.

The relationship between Arabs and Jews, though by no means always harmonious, and while certainly unbalanced in that Jews as well as Christians in the Arab world were generally treated as dhimmis or second-class citizens, were nevertheless relatively peaceful over many centuries. In fact, Jews in the Arab world experienced far less persecution than did Christians who were forced to endure a sort of slow-motion low-tech Holocaust over many hundreds of years that would culminate in the Turkish Genocide of Armenian Christians in the early 20th century and the virtual annihilation of the ancient Greek Christian populations of Asia Minor by the Turks in the early 1920's.

The emergence of modern Zionism as a political and organic movement, rooted in the Torah and integral to the Jewish faith, is traceable to Napoleon Bonaparte's promise to establish a Jewish State in Palestine and, backing his words with action, his setting up of a Jewish Sanhedrin in Paris in the early 1800's. In 1798 Napoleon, leading a French expeditionary force, invaded and occupied Egypt for a number of years. The French occupation of Egypt, although brief, looms large in Arab history as both representing a pivotal defeat of Ottoman Turkey and as a benchmark in the introduction of modernity and democratic ideas into the region.

Zionism was tolerated in Palestine and the Arab world in the 19th century during the waning years of Ottoman control and the introduction of European ideas starting with the French occupation of Egypt. The ancient Jewish community of Palestine, tracing its ancestry back to Roman times and regularly buttressed by Jewish immigration and pilgrimages over centuries, began to settle first outside of the walled city of Jerusalem and later outside the other Palestinian cities where the Jewish community predominantly presided. The infusion of European Jews starting in the early 18th century resulted in the first agricultural villages and Kibbutzim. In 1881, as a result of the Kishniev pogrom against the Jews in Russia, Jewish immigration increased dramatically in what is known as the second aliyah in Israel. Zionism would receive a significant international boost in 1897 with the convening of the World Zionist Congress chaired by Theodor Hertzl in Basil, Switzerland.

Palestine in the 19th century was a sparsely populated and forgotten corner of the Ottoman Turkish viliyat of Syria. To this day, Syria considers Palestine as an integral part of greater Syria and this claim springs, no doubt, from the fact that Syria did more or less control Palestine under Turkish auspices for over 400 years. The Mufti influenced pan-Arabists of today claim that the Palestinian Arabs were fully settled and indigenous to this region but this is contrary to evidence and makes no common sense. How could a massive immigration of peoples from Europe occur in a heavily populated land? The truth is that Arabs also began to immigrate to Palestine during the same period as the Jews in order to enjoy the economic and cultural benefits that the European Jews brought with them as they developed a modern democratic society.

A genuinely progressive Arab view of Zionism, a view that would recognize the legitimacy of Jewish Palestine within modest and secure borders and with clearly delineated Arab and Islamic rights guaranteed within, was held by the Emir Faisal Ibn Hussein, the recognized head of the emerging Arab world at the end of World War I and the officially accredited head of the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. On January 3rd, 1919, in London, the Emir Faisal, along with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the Zionist Organization and officially accredited head of the Zionist delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, signed an official treaty known as the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.

I would argue that this agreement constitutes a full recognition of Jewish Palestine by the Arab nations, renamed Israel at the time of full independence from Britain, and constitutes a firm and definable precedent in international law. The preamble to the agreement is a perfect illustration of the progressive and enlightened view of many Arabs at the time. The agreement makes reference to "the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people" and refers to "the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine (Israel)."

Article I constitutes an explicit recognition of Palestine (Israel) with a call for "Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents" to be "established and maintained in their respective territories." Article II calls for a commission to define permanent boundaries between the Arab state and Palestine (Israel). I would argue that this was accomplished in 1921 when, under the auspices of Winston Churchill, the British Mandate of Palestine was divided along the Jordan River into an eastern Arab sector, known as Transjordan and upon independence known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and a western Jewish sector, known as cis-Jordan and upon independence known as the State of Israel. Reasonable people of course differ with this interpretation and perhaps, in the right environment, another commission, in accord with this historic agreement, could be established to once again define permanent borders between the Arab nation and Palestine (Israel).

Article III formally recognizes the Balfour Declaration in which "His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The Balfour Declaration was the first step toward an international recognition of Jewish Palestine and this recognition was extended by the Faisal-Weizmann agreement to the Arab world. Article IV astonishingly in light of the subsequent conflict, encourages Jewish immigration to Palestine as long as "the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development."

Article V insures a freedom of religion in Palestine and, by inference, in the Arab nation as well. Article VI insists that "Mohammedan Holy Places shall be under Mohammedan control" which goes toward partially explaining why Israel has allowed the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to remain under the control of an Islamic authority.

Article VII is most interesting in that it calls for "the Zionist Organization" to send a commission to both Palestine and to the Arab State to scope out possibilities for economic development. Clearly the informed view at the time was that Jewish Palestine could play a major role in helping the Arabs develop economically and thus increase a trend toward self-determination and economic prosperity. In a sense, the fact that the Arabs have ignored this aspect of the agreement is saddest of all. The only caveat in the agreement is that Arab sovereignty must be achieved and recognized or the agreement would be rendered null and void. The idea embodied in the agreement was that the Arabs and the Jews would achieve sovereignty together, working in harmony toward the benefit of each respective nation.

There was a fascinating exchange of letters during this period between Emir Faisal and Felix Frankfurter, at the time the dean of Harvard Law School and an influential American Jewish leader who was later appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the so-called Faisal Frankfurter Correspondence. In his letter to Frankfurter, Faisal wrote "We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step toward the attainment of their national ideals together."

What an amazingly enlightened view, virtually alien in today's Arab world toward Jews and Israel. It is particularly striking that Emir Faisal viewed both peoples and nations advancing together and lending mutual assistance toward the realization of national, political and cultural rights. That he viewed such a partnership as beneficial to the Arab world. Emir Faisal spoke for many if not most Arabs when he asserted in the letter "we Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement."

Emir Faisal expressed his view regarding the proposals he received from Dr. Weizmann at the Paris Peace Conference when he stated in the letter that he was "fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference and we regard them as moderate and proper." And so they obviously were and remain so. Jewish claims in Palestine then and now, in accordance with the Torah and with the modern Zionist movement are indeed "moderate and proper." Astonishingly, Emir Faisal goes on to assert that "we will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through. We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home."

Zionism generally extended the hand of friendship and cooperation to the Arab nations and this is acknowledged in the letter by Emir Faisal when he asserts "Dr. Weizmann has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews welcome in return for their kindness. We are working together on a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another."

Faisal states the situation in plain and unvarnished terms in the letter when he states "the Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other." Indeed the Zionist movement, in spite of conspiracy theories disseminated by the Mufti influenced pan-Arabists, is not imperialist but seeks to live in peace within secure borders in Palestine.

Emir Faisal was of the mindset that the Arab movement would likewise be nationalist rather than imperialist as the Arab States achieved sovereignty and rightfully claimed their places alongside the nations of the rest of the world. The Mufti influence however has led to an imperialist element that seeks to subdue non-Muslim neighbors, whether they are Israel, Christian Lebanon, southern Sudan and elsewhere in Africa, India, and elsewhere. Bin Laden and al-Quada are examples of an imperialist movement.

People less informed and less reasonable than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need for co-operation of the Arabs and Zionists, have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movement. Some of them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry and our aims to the Jewish peasantry with the result, that interested parties have been able to make capital out of what they call our differences.

I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of civilized people of the world.

Haj Amin el-Husseini was born in Jerusalem in 1893 at a time when Palestine was still a sub-sector of the Ottoman Turkish controlled province of Syria. He came from a wealthy and prominent Jerusalem Arab family as his grandfather Mustapha and his half-brother Kemal had both been Muftis of Jerusalem around the time of his birth and early childhood. Husseini, a slight and bony child with an aesthetic face who would develop a paunch later in life, would as a young man attend the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo for about one year where he studied Islamic Law.

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Amin el-Husseini joined the Ottoman Turkish Army where he received a commission as an artillery officer and was stationed in the predominantly Greek Christian city of Smyrna. The Ottomans had joined the Central Powers along with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria shortly after the outbreak of World War I. While there is no documented evidence to prove that Amin el-Husseini had in any way participated directly in the Turkish genocide against the Armenian Christians, nevertheless the massive murder campaign was carried out during his years of duty and was widely known about especially in the Ottoman military. One and a half million Christians were slaughtered by the Ottoman army in those years. It is reasonable to assume that Amin el-Husseini had at least some knowledge if not a level of direct participation in this first Holocaust of the 20th century, especially in light of his intimate participation in the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews several decades later.

At the end of the war, 1917, and with the defeat of Turkey, Husseini returned to his native Palestine seemingly imbued with ideas of imperialistic pan-Arabism that he no doubt learned from his experiences in Turkey. Pan-Arabism seeks to achieve a united Arab nation called the "Ummah" or, loosely translated, the "Motherland." The Ummah, according to an aspect of Islamic tradition, would be ruled by one ruler known as a Caliph, who would theoretically inherit the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad in a manner not unlike the Roman Catholic Pontiff inheriting the ministry of Jesus. The difference is that the Caliph, besides being a spiritual and religious leader, is also viewed and a political and military ruler empowered to implement "Sharia" or Islamic Law by force who is commanded to engage in perpetual "Jihad" or Holy War against the portion of the world that refuses to submit to Islam which, in its literal translation means "Submission to Allah." This belief is the exact belief of bin-Laden, the hijackers who destroyed the twin towers in New York on September 11th, 2001, and the entire Islamic terrorist apparatus.

To the pan-Arabist, the Ummah forms the center of the ever-expanding Islamic Empire, known as the "Dar el-Salaam" or the World of Peace and this empire is seen as operating under "Sharia" or Islamic Law. For the pan-Arabist, the concept of "Jihad" or Holy War is interpreted literally to mean War against what is called the "Dar es Harb" or the World of War. This is how the non-Islamic world is described. The very word "Islam" literally means "Submission" to Allah and Jihad is viewed as a method toward accomplishing this utopian goal. The pan-Arabist views as an ultimate utopian goal the "Submission" of the entire planet under Islam and Sharia which is called "Dar el-Islam" or the "World of Islam." This worldview parallels modern Socialist movements such as Nazism, which calls for the creation of the "Ubbermench" and Communism, which calls for world rule under the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

Amin el-Husseini imported his views on pan-Arabism into Palestine upon his return where he would immediately begin to agitate against both the Jewish settlers and Palestinian Arabs who opposed his views. In 1920-1921, Amin el-Husseini, using his considerable wealth and growing personal and political contacts as well as a developed quazi-military gang of thugs, organized and instigated rioting against the Jewish settlers in Palestine. El-Husseini was tried and convicted in absentia for incitement to riot and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. It should also be noted that at the same time, Amin el-Husseini launched a campaign of terror against Palestinian Arabs who opposed him, a campaign that rages on to this day.

The British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel appointed Amin el-Husseini as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1922 after having granted him a full pardon. His appointment was opposed not only by Jews who were victimized by his instigated pogroms and campaign of hate, but also by Arab leadership. The Palestinian Arabs had conducted a plebiscite regarding the appointment and Amin el-Husseini had come in a distant forth. One of the reasons the Arabs rejected Amin el-Husseini as Mufti was because he was not a Sheikh, which is to say that he had not obtained a sufficient religious education so as to receive the necessary accreditation traditionally required to govern in the Muslim world. In addition, el-Husseini had a violent reputation regarding his dealings with Arabs and as Mufti, he would launch a bloody wave of violence and assassination against Arab opponents.

After his appointment as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, el-Husseini was appointed to head the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem, a position he held until 1937. Supreme Muslim Councils are often set up to represent Muslim interests in non-Muslim controlled nations and Palestine was under British control. The Supreme Muslim Council was dissolved in 1948 when Muslim Jordan occupied Jerusalem and then reconstituted in Jerusalem after the June 1967 six-day-war. By all estimations, the Mufti used his authority to radicalize the council by issuing demands that Palestine be liberated from Britain.

He declared Jihad against Jews and all Muslims who maintained friendly relations with Jews as well as those who refused to cooperate with his pan-Arabism. The Mufti was known to foment trouble and hatred between Jews and Arabs in Palestine by such means as spreading false rumors and other methods of provocation. His actions in the 1920's and 1930's led to a cycle of terror and murder against the Jews that included the brutal slaughter of the Jews of Hebron in 1929, a Jewish community that was over 2,000 years old. The faith and methods of Muftism, terror and murder, continue unabated to this day.

As Grand Mufti, Amin el-Husseini improved the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem by gold plating of the Dome of the Rock and making major improvements to the Al Aqsa Mosque. This served the purpose of enhancing the importance of Jerusalem in the Islamic world which, up until that point had been an insignificant religious backwater for Muslims. Photos of Jerusalem before this time show a relatively colorless and non-descript dome on top of the Temple Mount. In fact, the Koran has passages that call for the establishment of a Jewish State with Jerusalem as it's capital. The Mufti chose to emphasize other sections of the Koran.

In 1928, Hassan el-Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, an organization in which the Mufti would play a significant role. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded on the principles of Wahhabi Islam, popular amongst the Saudis in Arabia then and now, which is a fanatical cult that emanates from the Arabian Peninsula. Wahabism is a pan-Arab movement that seeks a utopian world, or Dar el-Islam, living under a forceful hand holding the scimitar. The pan-Arabism of the Wahabi Muslim Brotherhood would neatly dovetail with the Muftis own Ottoman inspired pan-Arabism. The Muslim Brotherhood, later influenced by the philosophy and methodology of the Third Reich, remains very active today and is responsible today for such militant movements as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In 1931, the Mufti was one of the founders of an organization called the World Islamic Conference. This group launched the Mufti further onto the stage of Arab politics and ideas, as his reputation would now reach the Arab world at large. He subsequently used his new stature to organize pan-Arab groups in Arab capitals and develop further contacts with like-minded power brokers.

The advent of Adolf Hitler in Germany, 1933, had a major impact on the Mufti and his growing influence. Around that time, the Mufti played a major role in establishing Arab-Nazi style organizations such as Young Egypt, headed by Abdul Gamal Nasser, one of his protégés and later President of Egypt. Young Egypt adopted the Nazi style slogan "One Folk, One Party, One Leader." The Social Nationalist Party would be established in Damascus around this time as well and would be headed by Anton Saada, known as the Syrian Fuhrer.

The first known direct contact between the Nazis and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was in 1936 when Francois Genoud, later known as the Swiss Banker of the Third Reich, went to Palestine where he met with the Mufti. A relationship was established between them at that time which stretched well into the 1960's. Banker Francois Genoud, from Lausanne, Switzerland, met Hitler in 1932 and soon after he joined the pro-Nazi Swiss National Front in 1934. During the war, Genoud visited the Mufti in Berlin where he lent assistance to the Muftis Nazi-Muslim government in exile and he visited the Mufti after the war with continued support. Genoud, an honorary member of the Nazi SS and awarded a Gold Badge by Hitler, was charged as well with the handling of the Muftis considerable personal fortune.

1936 was also the year of the launching of riots against the Jews of Palestine, riots that would last several years. The Mufti, perhaps benefiting from an infusion of cash after meeting with the Nazi banker, was directly involved in planning and organizing the murderous riots. These riots were the first in which suicide bombers were used against local, primarily Arab authorities. The Mufti embraced the Nazi principle of "systematic extermination" of any Arab suspected of dis-loyalty to him and his increasingly Nazi style agenda. Muslim and Christian leaders and clerics who were assassinated by the Muftis death squads at the time include Sheikh Daoud Ansari, Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ali Nur el-Khattib, Sheikh Nusbi Abdal Rahim, Council of Muslim Religious Court, Sheikh Abdul el-Badoui from Acre, Sheikh el-Namouri from Hebron, Nasr el-Din Nassr, Mayor of Hebron, and 11Mukhtars, or community leaders who were murdered along with their entire families by the Muftis roving killers.

In 1937, the infamous Nazi SS Hauptschanfuehrer Adolf Eichmann and his assistant Nazi SS Oberscherfuehrer H. Hagen visited the Mufti in Palestine. Discussions were most likely held regarding "the Jewish question" given the fact that this was the primary obsession at this point of both the Mufti and Eichmann. This meeting marked another critical turning point for the Mufti and his now vast web of contacts in the Arab world regarding direct dealings with and an embrace of the ideas and political faith of the Nazis. It is reported that as a result of this meeting, the Mufti would be placed on the payroll of the Nazi secret police and would begin serving as a direct conduit for Nazi financial and military assistance to friendly Arab sources.

Nazi intrigue in the Arab world, with the Mufti playing the pivotal role, would go full throttle in Iraq in 1941 with the Nazi backed coup of Rashid Ali el-Gailani against the pro-British Mandatory government. That year was also the climactic year of the Battle of Britain between Great Britain and Nazi Germany. The Mufti arranged with the Nazis for financial assistance and in May 1941, German planes landed in Syria, with permission from the Vichy French, and then went on to Iraq to help coup plotters known as the Golden Square. One of the plotters and right hand man to the Mufti was General Kharaillah Tulfah who was also Saddam Hussein's uncle, guardian, mentor and later father in law. Clearly Saddam Hussein was tutored in Muftism from an early age and would become one of its most devout practitioners. The pro-Nazi coup failed after a couple of months and the Mufti escaped to Nazi Germany. En route to Berlin, the Mufti stopped in Rome where he met with Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini and issued a Fatwa for Jihad against Great Britain.

The Mufti requested of the Nazis and the Fascists the right "to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy."

The Mufti spent the war years in Berlin living in a luxurious mansion confiscated from a Jew. The Nazis set him up as Prime Minister of a Muslim-Nazi government in exile. Hitler personally promised the Mufti that he would be installed as Fuhrer over the entire Arab world once the Nazis crossed over the Caucasus Mountains and extended the Third Rich into the Middle East. In his first meeting the Mufti had with Hitler, the Fuhrer was reported to have expressed interest in solving "the Jewish question" by deporting the Jews of Europe to Palestine. The Mufti was reported to have discouraged this and instead pushed for what came to be known as "the final solution."

There is a particular incident worth recounting as an insight into the scope of the Mufti's involvement in the Holocaust against the Jews. In 1942, the Red Cross offered to mediate an exchange of 10,000-orphaned Polish Jewish children in exchange for Nazi prisoners of war. Eichmann expressed interest in the exchange but was contravened by the Mufti who put a stop to it. He was reported to have said something to the effect that little Jews will grow up to be big Jews. The 10,000 children were sent to the gas chamber.

In testimony at the Nuremburg Trials, Dieter Wisliceny, Adolf Eichmann's deputy stated "The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this planHe was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz."

The Mufti conducted his operations both within the Third Reich and in the Middle East with monies derived from the "sonderfund" which was made up of capital and property confiscated from Jews before they were transferred to the death camps. The Mufti used some of these funds to establish the Islamishe Zentralinstitut, the Islamic Institute, in Dresden, which served as a training ground for future Muslim-Nazi leaders.

On April 25th, 1941, the Hitler placed the Mufti in charge of the Bosnian Muslims who had recently fallen under Nazi control as part of the blitzkrieg occupation of Yugoslavia. In Bosnia, the Mufti assumes the title "Protector of Islam." Over 100,000 Bosnian Muslims signed on with the new Nazi regime after the Nazis promised the Muslims control over all of Bosnia as a Nazi autonomous protectorate.

The Mufti was a big promoter of "the Pejani Plan" which called for the annihilation of the Serbs; the Nazis would eventually reject this plan. While under the control of the Mufti, the Muslim-Nazi government in Bosnia liquidated an estimated 200,000 Serbs, 40,000 Gypsies, and 22,000 Bosnian Jews. Certainly the Mufti legacy in Bosnia must be considered when examining the present Bosnian crisis and the hatred by the Bosnian Muslims toward the Serbs.

The Mufti was charged with creating the Hanzar divisions of Muslim SS soldiers in Bosnia, soldiers he referred to as the "cream of Islam." The Hanzars, named for a dagger carried by Ottoman Turkish officers, would grow to about 22,000 men and make up the largest single unit in the Nazi army, entirely responsible for carrying out, per orders of the Mufti, genocide against Bosnian Serbs, Gypsies, and Jews. The Hanzars swore an oath to the Third Reich specifically written by Heinrich Himmler.

Himmler had this to say about Islam: "I have nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this division for me and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action. A very practical and attractive religion for soldiers." No doubt, Himmler's attitudes were shared by the Nazi elite and express an intimate understanding regarding the aspect of Islam that resonates with Nazism.

On March 1, 1944, the Mufti delivered a speech from Berlin where he exhorts the Muslim Hanzar SS troops to "Kill the Jews wherever you find them" which, of course, is literally extracted form the Koran. He also asserts that "This pleases God, History, and Religion, God is with you."

Toward the end of the war, the Mufti played a significant role in founding the Arab League, which is based on the principle of pan-Arabism. Amazingly, after the war, the British allow the Mufti to return to Palestine from Berlin and grant him full amnesty. In 1946, the Mufti is appointed head of the Wahabi Muslim Brotherhood, which is an example of a merge between Wahabi fanaticism and modern socialistic Nazism. The Mufti is wanted by Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity but he is granted protection in Egypt, which refuses to turn him over to the Yugoslavs for trial.

In 1946, the Egyptian 17-year-old Mohammed Abder Rauf Arafat Al-Kudwa Al-Husseini, otherwise known as Yasir Arafat, said to be the Mufti's nephew, met the Mufti in Cairo and began to work for him. The Mufti placed Arafat in charge of arms procurement for his fledgling irregular militia known as "The Holy Strugglers."

In 1948, Israel declared independence from the British and was invaded on all fronts by the combined forces of the Arab league including contingents from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Hanzar irregulars were discovered fighting on the fronts. The Mufti arranged for the assassination of Jordanian King Abdullah, brother of Emir Faisal and one of the few moderates left on the scene, as revenge fro his appointing someone else as Mufti of Jerusalem. During the combined Arab invasion of Israel, The Mufti declared a radio broadcast, "I declare a Holy War, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!"

The Mufti, continuing to receive financing from Swiss-Nazi Banker Francois Genoud, helped finance the Odessa Project that helped in the settlement of Nazi war criminals into the Arab world. Genoud drew from Jewish funds left in Swiss bank accounts. Thousands of Nazis would make it to Egypt and Syria where they were welcomed into the Army, intelligence, and propaganda services. Genoud visited the Mufti in Beirut numerous times after the war and was involved in the financing of many activities in the Arab world using confiscated Jewish money.

In 1962, the Mufti is appointed head of the World Islamic Congress and resolutions are drawn up to make the Arab world Judenrein or free of all Jews. Immediately, persecution is launched against what was left of ancient Jewish communities in North Africa and the Middle East. Thousands of Arab Jews are killed or forced to leave their ancestral homes. Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, died in Syria in 1974 leaving a legacy of genocide and hate that continues to thunder across the firmament of the Middle East.

The Grand Mufti spent the World War II years in Nazi Germany as head of a Muslim-Nazi government in exile. His mission was to promote Nazism in the Arab world and unity between the Nazi social order in Europe and what he viewed as the equivalent in the Arab world. He helped form and train Muslim-Nazi SS Hanzar Brigades that directly participated in genocide against Christian Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies in the Balkans. The influence of the Hanzars, estimated at 22,000 troops, after the war and on the Bosnian Muslim conflict today remains largely unexamined.

The Grand Mufti encouraged the Nazi's to conduct the Holocaust against the Jews of Europe, he was a first-hand witness, and he planned to do the same in the Arab world if Hitler had been successful in his military designs. Before the war and up until the time of his death, the Mufti funneled Nazi money, largely money confiscated from Jews, to promote anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activities in the Arab world. His protégés include Abdel Gamal Nasser, Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat and many others.

The philosophy of the Mufti was imperialistic rather than nationalistic. He believed in a Greater Arab Caliphate as the center of an even greater Islamic Empire. He merged these beliefs, held by certain segments of the Arab and Islamic world, with the modern scientific National Socialism of Hitler resulting in belief in racial purity and genocide.

Muftism was not inevitable and can be changed by supporting courageous and enlightened Arabs. Christianity, Imperial European powers, Imperial Japan, Communism and Nazism were all imperial movements in their day. Some of these world order faiths were defeated on the field of battle and some withered away over centuries. Muftism has been left to run rampant since the end of World War II and the result has been Arab and Islamic peoples living with virtually no individual freedom and often in abject poverty. The part of the non-Muslim world unfortunate enough to live in close proximity to the Arab and Islamic world has often felt the sharp and imperialistic edge of the Mufti inspired scimitar. That border now extends to the United States as evidenced by the Islamic attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which had been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet: "His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. Yours sincerely, Arthur James Balfour

We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step toward the attainment of their national ideals together. We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through. We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.

Dr. Weizmann has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews welcome in return for their kindness. We are working together on a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist; our movement is national and not imperialist; and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

His Royal Highness the Emir FAISAL, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of HEJAZ, and Dr. Chiam Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations, is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following articles:

The Arab State and Palestine in their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in their respective territories.

Immediately following the completion of deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be determined by a commission to be agreed upon by the parties hereto.

In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government's Declaration of the 2nd of November, 1917 (Balfour Declaration)

All necessary measures will be taken to encourage and stimulate the immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasants and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.

No regulation or law shall be made prohibiting or interfering in any way with the free exercise of religion; and further the free exercise and expression of religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall ever be required for the exercise of civil or religious rights.

The Zionist Organization proposes to send to Palestine a commission of experts to make a survey of the economic possibilities of the country, and to report upon the best means for its development. The Zionist Organization will use its best efforts to assist the Arab in providing the means for developing the natural resources and economic possibilities thereof.

The parties hereto agree to act in complete accord and harmony in all matters embraced herein before the Peace Conference.

Any matters of dispute, which may arise between the contracting parties, shall be referred to the British Government for arbitration.

Given under our hand at LONDON, ENGLAND, the Third DAY OF January, one thousand Nine Hundred and Nineteen.

Provided the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded in my memorandum dated the 4th of January, 1919, to the Foreign Office of the Government of Great Britain, I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest departure or modification were to be made, I shall not then be bound by a single word of the present Agreement which shall be deemed void and of no account or validity, and I shall not be answerable in any way whatsoever.

In this bit of historical fact, Mr. Morse tells it like it is. I'm still waiting for the History channel to cover the historical facts that, indeed, Muslims have a very close commonality to Hitler's Socialist party, the Nazi party.

It is a long read but worth it. God Bless our troops and God Bless America.

I'm still waiting for the History channel to cover the historical facts that, indeed, Muslims have a very close commonality to Hitler's Socialist party, the Nazi party.

I know you posted this article more than two years ago, but I looked it up in the archives because it seems you finally got your wish. I just watched a fascinating 2-hour documentary on the History Channel about the connections between the Third Reich and Saddam Hussein, the entire first hour of which focused on the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his direct ties to the Nazis. I had never heard a word of this before--it should be more widely covered.

Tonight, I watched the last part of the documentary that aired on the History Channel and it is excellent. I hope to catch the rest on a replay. Unfortunately, they don't have one scheduled yet.

The first part I actually found more interesting than the second, but much of the material in it was covered in the article above. It should be taught in every history class in the U.S. today (especially on college campuses), but of course that's highly unlikely.

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